2019-07-22 - Showdown: The Hanging Bridge

Some things don't have words, they don't have time or space.

Lilith wasn't being lured to put on the ring or touch it like the first time the same way, no, but you see, it was hers. Lilith has wanted to do this the whole time. It was her right. She crowned herself the queen after days and days and days of nursing the box and maneuvering, she made smoke and mirrors, she ran and hid to kept it safe.

And once she was alone with it in the forest with no distractions, no people, no noise, nothing but the Ring to focus on... the seams of delusion, once so flawlessly overlapped to let her operate with reality... they snap. Those seams split and unfurl until only the madness remains.

Some things don't have words and they don't have time or space. Lilith doesn't have those things at all while wearing the ring. She floats into the night and she's happy to see Jack again, of all people. He had nice teeth. She smiles at him. He brought her destiny. And Hank? Lilith isn't spurred with all the bitterness or resentment or frustration she usually is while looking at him like that with the noose around his neck. She doesn't remember the years of neglect as a child or what he did that anchored her here all over again.

He's her father, he's her blood, somehow he passed on the power she needed to embrace this, he made her strong with his failings. She's proud of him. She's proud of him for needing her so badly. No one else ever needed her like that, did they? He made sure she was right where she needed to be. It's all a part of what she was made to do, what she was made to be.

The world would end if she didn't touch it. What would have happened if that box and ring had gotten into the wrong hands?

She is the keeper.

She is the one that brings it full circle. There's power in threes. There's power in the stone. There's power in her.

She's not in a hurry, but she's ready. She didn't understand before. She does now. Everything is so beautiful and perfect and made for right now. She drifts from the pond's edge toward the bridge and the noose. She feels as if gliding, she's transcended, she was made for this.

The campsite where Lilith put on the ring has the box that someone is seeking right there on a sleeping bag by the fire, pulled out in front of the familiar tent setup for Byron to find. He knows it's close to the pond because they used to go swimming at night there too to test their daring, despite the tales of dead bodies sunk to the bottom. They didn't always go deep in the waters because of that, of course, but...

It's odd. All that work to find Lilith. Her phone is lowly playing music. Judas. That dance music she's so fond of, phone right there. Why is this song feeling so poignant on the backburner? It's just noise. That fire she's bulked with wood is still going. The box is still there. Her clothes are partially stripped away and left in a pile to the side. Did she... go swimming?

Music. No Lilith. But she's close.

...I’ve learned love is like a brick, you can build a house or sink a dead body...

Driving like a madman down the darkened streets, Byron will stop at nothing to get to that ring. A minor distraction on his phone has him tapping out message after message of words with a concerning tone. Dutiful words as would be befitting coming from a good and protective landlord and friend. His eyes that look dismissively down at the screen are as cold as ice. No one gives a shit about you or the other Addingtons, Erin! Can't you see that there's something bigger and far greater than your pathetic little lives?

Thorne knows exactly where he's headed, so he parks as close to the site that he can get. Still dressed in his full dark suit and tie ensemble, the expensive shoes on his feet, he steps out of his car to stare out in the darkness of the forest, being reminded of his time here as a child. He was here to meet with his childhood friend, after all. He was going to help her protect that ring, since she couldn't do it alone.

Using the glow of his phone light to illuminate the way, he knows where he's going. He's been there many times before.

The campfire is what his senses take in first, followed by the sound of the music playing on her phone. But it's the fire that he sees in the distance, taking a direct course to follow it like a moth to a flame. When he comes across the campsite, there's no sign of Lilith, but what he does see sitting right there before his very eyes, is that box. Immediately, he springs into action. The only thing on his mind is for him to get that ring, but when he realizes that it's gone as well, the box discarded, there's this inner rage brewing inside of him, having this need to crush the damn thing within his grasp. There's an urge to scream out in his frustration, but instead, the box is slammed to the ground, bringing notice to the various bits of clothing left behind.

Of course, she was heading to that pond. That's when he remembers and whispers in a quiet tone, "The bridge." He should have checked there first. Should've waited for her there. The revolver that was once holstered beneath his suit jacket is removed, the jacket now hung open. Through the darkness, he takes quiet steps towards that bridge.

It's almost touching. It really is. Once Lilith is in view from a distance, coming off of the pond up onto the bridge when Byron hits the water's edge with his quick, ring-hunting (Lilith hunting?) desperation, she's putting her hand over into Hank's and watching Jack. The hand that wears the ring holds the noose and she bows her head to lay it on while father adjusts the noose for her, dressing his little girl. She looks at him with light and pride before the fixation turns to Jack in anticipation of his swing.

(It's very not-Hank. She had to dress herself at three.)

She really was going to swim before everything turned. She's stripped down to underwear and she's incandescent with madness and a certain amount of awe-stricken happiness... for Jack. He's first. He murmurs those words over and over and when he blows the kiss and lends the apology, Lilith (not Lilith) just keeps that smile of weightless delight for him. It is over. Take your rest, Jack. Go full circle Jack.

She's standing on the edge and she watches him swing and crack his neck with the drop, all the way down, blowing a kiss after him, whispered words, "Thank you, Jack." Turning then, oblivious to spectators, she looks at Hank because she knows he's next. She kisses his cheek and she's so proud of him for making her strong, "I love you, Daddy."

(Lilith has never told Hank that, he's never told her that. But why else would she do all the things she does? Love is inexplicable, sometimes. It's the lifebeat through blood.)

Lilith was just too far into the distance and Byron needed to stop her before-- Before what? He knows that she has the ring. She must. The only thing that he can do now is reach out to her, mentally. A distraction. There's this sense of panic racing through him fueled by his desperation to stop this. At this moment, he's not even sure what's going on. He'd not had the pleasure to come into contact with the ring, to feel the dreadful delight that it brings Lilith now. But he's envious of this. That blissfulness on her face, he wanted that for himself. This idea of sacrifice...

When Jack is the first to go, the man's body dangling from off the bridge, his neck in a noose, Byron has this feeling that time is running out. By why? And for whom? Once Lilith is dead, then the ring would be his right? But all of this, everything going on now. Everything that Byron was missing out on-- No, he needed to get his hands on it. But Lilith was there and... he knew deep within his heart that something was going to happen to her. Something bad.

His hand trembles, the revolver pointed in her direction and yet he wants to reach out to her and scream at her to stop at the same time. Distract her enough, using this cursed gift of his mind, to make her take pause. Maybe he'll do both.

Lilith was his first love. Even after she shut him out of his life when they were both 14, Byron still carried a torch for her. An obsessive torch. There was anger mixed with that hurt and confusion. Then they grew up, being distanced even more from one another. There was a part of him that wondered if she was still living in Gray Harbor before he decided to come home and for the first few years back, he was left disappointed.

Then she returned and it brought back some of those bitter feelings, but oddly, despite it all, there was also this feeling of hope.

That's why today, even when this ring urges him to follow through, telling him that he needed to steal it away from Lilith, claim what is rightfully his, he hesitates. He didn't want to shoot her. He didn't want her to hang herself off from the notorious hanging bridge. If she'd only given up the ring, then he wouldn't need to hurt her.

He tries to reach out to her first, pleading her to stop, his own mind reaching out in haste and urgency. His body trembles at the thought of anything happening to her and there's nothing that he could do. At that same time, the ring urges him to pull the trigger. Follow through and he will be rewarded. And even as he tries so desparately to keep her safe, make her stop, he finger moves, pulling in that trigger.

For a moment, it looks as if Lilith is about to pitch Hank off to hurry things along when she hears gunfire crack, but it's a balance check more than anything in the end when her hand reaches. Because that gunshot was for her and it wounds her three times. It wounds her once as blood blossoms from where the bullet rips through the outer meat of her side with skimming, marring all that madness in incandescent form into violence to suit the actual horror of the moment. It doesn't matter how beautiful Lilith is seeing it all right now.

She's threatened. The ring is threatened. The moment is threatened and immediately she thrums with defensive power and flare to lash out.

The gunfire wounds her the second time when she sees who fired the gun.

And the shot and what it brings... it wounds her the third time when a tiny piece of Lilith inside realizes who she's suddenly trying to disable and snap at the wrist where the trembling gun is held. Why is he trying to take this from her? Why is he making her live her nightmare of ripping into him, ripping him apart? It's what drove them apart the first time, the nightmare, the constant fear of hurting him, she had to hurt him the safe way to avoid this. Now... now...

Why?! Can't he see it's hers? She's saving everything!

Byron.

If Alexander has to do a nighttime search to try and find people before something terrible happens, at least he can do it in style? A grey Aston Martin Vantage cruises along the roads near the Firefly Forest, the headlights sweeping along, hoping to find something to narrow down the chase.

Like what is almost certainly the town's only Rolls Royce. He pulls to a halt beside it, and hastily shuts off the car, scrambling out. He grabs a small bag from the seat, one holding two syringes filled with sedatives. He closes the door quietly, locks it, shoves the keys in his back pocket. He moves to lay his hand on the hood of the Rolls - still warm. Maybe there's ti--the gunshot in the distance. He doesn't think. He runs, flat out and without hesitation, towards the sound.

The tableau, lit by the moon, brings him to a halt for a moment. A moment in which Alexander Clayton has a horrifying realization: he may well be the most sane person in the local vicinity. And that's terrifying. Byron is closest, so that's who he turns to first, attempting to sneak up behind him, reaching into the bag to pull out one of the syringes. Hopefully the one actually dosed for a man of his weight.

You play the PI game long enough, you pick up on the patterns. In fact, that's what half solving a case is, is poking at the patterns. So, when you get the call in from one of your contacts in the Police Department that they spotted Thorne's Rolls over by Gray Pond, your mind points out the patterns. "The bridge! It's the fucking bridge!"

So, here comes Magnolia without any cares for stealth or caution. She's running full tilt despite the fact that she feels like shit warmed over-- and looks it. Her pallor is waging war between sickly pale and flushed, and her eyes are dark, ringed in shadows. She's in Spider-Man PJ shorts and a softened, weathered t-shirt from Gray Harbor PD; she's not wearing any socks with her sneakers. Oh, and she's going to seriously puke at some point, but not yet. She's gotta do this one thing first!

When Magnolia goes full-on Glimmer, she looks like her entire aura has been lit by fierce golden light. She halos! She throws both hands forward, bringing them together in what might seriously be her best Iron Man pose. She doesn't go for the ring-- she goes for the rope. She grabs it by the hanged-man's knot and uses the full strength of the Veil to throw-- literally throw-- Lilith onto the bridge and off the ledge.

This isn't the way it was supposed to be. Lilith was supposed to be next. She takes a couple of distracted heartbeat to bask in the moment with Hank before he goes the way of Jack with his time to shine in the spotlight. She watches him go down without a hint of heartache. She looks so proud. She was ready to be next and take the Ring and everything inside it with her. He swings with violent snap jerk, then drifts like a tick tock, just like Jack dangling there dead and still with his neck at a strange angle.

Everything in her wants to lash out at Magnolia for DARING to ruin this moment, the woman is shining like a beacon and as she's yanked the opposite way, suddenly, from where she was supposed to follow, the noose tightens with the force of it regardless of which way she's going. It doesn't snap her neck like the men, no, but she's suddenly struggling for air and... goddamnit, is she trying to crawl for the bridge edge again while choking? Luckily, the other woman or anyone standing nearby doesn't get their clothing lit up, self-preservation and a sudden desperate drive to get the job done takes over.

Do it. Get there. Do it. They'll take it. Do it.

She's not getting far, her air is cut off, she's gasping and choking and clawing with sudden reflex struggle to try and get back to do it the RIGHT way. She has to hurry.

She could just... break the rope herself, if she were thinking clearly. But she's not.

If firing off that shot filled him with emotional anguish, what Byron experiences next fills him with an incredibly intense physical pain. Just like that, his wrist suddenly snaps. No warning. The revolver clatters to the ground as he lets out a strained cry. Automatically, his good hand reaches to nurse that wrist, his gait staggering before he leans heavily against the bridge rail. Beads of sweat begin to trickle down his brow and at the side of his face. There's almost a sense of deja vu attached to the injury, just that spark of dark memory from his childhood.

It's a fleeting reminder, however, and though his body trembles in pain and this struggle to combat the influence of the ring, he sees Lilith there through clouded eyes. Looking all pretty as a picture with that noose around her neck. No... No... Don't. He starts to whisper hoarsely, but his voice rings out louder, "LILITH, NO!" He had to stop her. A new panic takes over him now.

From there, he's not exactly sure what just happened. He was about to reach out to her, try his darndest to compel her to stop, but something else did the deed for her. Shaking off the pain, he pushes himself off from against the bridge, his pace picking up. He needed to reach her. For all anyone else knows, he's still going after that damn ring.

It wasn't expected. The snap of the wrist, the sudden commotion at the bridge. And not Byron suddenly dropping the gun and taking off towards the bridge, either. Alexander's hand swipes through the air, missing his grab on the man as he lunges forward and nearly falls to the grass. Giving Byron a bit of a lead. "Goddamnit," he just about screams. He takes off after him, and yells towards the bridge. "Incoming! Stop them from going over!"

He's not entirely sure what's going on any more, but he does know he'd rather not see any more bodies tonight. So he rallies and will soon lunge again.

"Byron!" Magnolia is almost screaming his name as the tussle ensues on the bridge. The blonde screams something else very unladylike, and then she's running-- full throttle and probably bringing herself a step closer to hurling-- at the group. Again, Magnolia flares with golden light that would be far more marvelous if she wasn't looking like she bailed on a sleepover to go running through the park.

Two things happen at once: the noose loosens from Lilith's neck to let the woman breathe, and another force of power yanked at the ring, but instead of threatening to dislocate or break Lilith's finger, the ring is instead slammed into the concrete of the bridge's deck.

"Get! Byron!" Those words are yelled at Alexander while Magnolia works on basically keeping Lilith pinned by the force applied to the ring itself.

Maybe Magnolia should have left Lilith choking. Once she figures out her hand with the ring on it is pinned in place to the bridge and she can't lift it to keep crawling, she starts to scream with frustration, a ragged and choked up thing that's horrible sounding given how much she's likewise sucking air with inward desperate whines. She's still trying to crawl, though and her body starts to turn into tug and pull while she sends off a defensive power flare, unaware of Byron's yell, his approach, she feels the power thrown and is drawn to Magnolia's beacon, knowing where it must be coming from.

She tries to light Magnolia's PJ's right the hell up, but she can't quite manage it, which is little surprise. But given how much she flares with shine in that moment, she's clearly trying to do something defensive to get to her objective and defend the ring from the others.

With that ring on, she's full flipped to sheer delusion and madness, writhing and fever flushed with it.

Perhaps it's The Forces That Be who really want Byron to get that ring. He continues to stumble unsteadily forward, his erratic, pained motions are enough to throw Alexander off his game. He needed to-- He needed... Whatever he needs, there was no stopping him. Despite the fact that his limp, broken wrist continues to throb within the grasp of his nursing hand, he pushes stubbornly forward.

Lilith was hurt, he could tell. And it wasn't an image that he could clear from his mind no matter what the Ring compelled him to do. He just needed to get to her and only then would he have the power to make things right. It's almost as if he doesn't notice Magnolia's presence nor Alexander's as he trudges onward.

"I'm TRYING," Alexander snarls, and throws himself forward again. "Get the fucking ring!" It's shouted as he finally, FINALLY, gets an arm looped around the man's neck and pulls him sharply backwards. He doesn't waste words, uncertain his grip will hold if Byron fights back. So he brings the syringe down with a surprising amount of skill to find a good place to give the sedative the best chance to work, and work quickly. And then he tries to hold on to keep Byron from...whatever the hell he wants to do, whether it's get the ring, take a dive off a bridge, or apologize.

Nathanial Jones always said, 'Glimmer only when you have to, because, baby girl, you light up the night.' She thought it was cute, affectionate. The kind of thing a father would tell a daughter to make her smile. Get a little older, a little wiser, you figure out the warning there. Glimmer only when you have to.

_Get the fucking ring!' Alexander yells, and so... Magnolia has collapsed several yards away, her sneakers sliding under her weight and she dropping low. She's staring down the slight curve of the deck toward Lilith, seeing the rage and madness in her eyes. Magnolia's jaw tightens, grimacing with a flash of teeth in a tight, grim grin. "Forgive me, Lil," she gasps. Then she brightens once more, reaching for Lilith's hand with her own, stretching her fingers toward that ring. She almost screams as she puts her all into it, pulling on that ring with all her strength.

It snags and drags; its edges get under the skin of the woman's slender digit as the ring tries so very badly to stay with Lilith. But blood is slick, and it's almost like putting soap under the band. Magnolia tears the ring down the woman's finger, taking with it full sheafs of skin and cuticle. She at least has enough sense not to take the ring into her own hand, but instead sends it ricocheting across the pavement with bloody streaks.

It's horrible the way it all happens. It's one of those things that works in slow motion no matter how quick it really is. Lilith is on the ground twisting and tugging and trying to pull and will that ring to move with a noose around her neck, mad and writing and SCREAMING as much as she hoarsely can. Byron is jumped on his way to her and stuck by Alexander. But when Maggie takes that moment to compose and aim shot straight for her finger to yank the ring away from her... with so much skin and meat and blood and pain the way she's force gripping the thing...

The sound that comes out of her is animal and shouldn't be humanly possible. It's awful and shrill with pain, twisted with gutteral rage, breaking with loss. It echoes and might, unfortunately, be one of the last things Byron hears. Because it keeps on as much as she can manage it and power flashes out of her with that emotional and pained split second tipping her like a powder keg.

As the ring skids away with blood and skin and gore, leaving her hand limp with shock after the finger degloving... Lilith screams and thrums with high charged retaliation at Magnolia, shining like the sun. There's a sickening snap that follows.

Byron could still feel the call of the ring, especially with each approaching step he takes. His vision was blurred either by droplets of sweat that trickle into his eyes or the feeling of pain mixed with other powerful emotions. And yet, he kept soldiering on. Just a little further. That's all it will take.

Then he's gripped tightly from behind, making him shift and contort his body in an effort to just break free and get away. A FEW MORE STEPS! Both hands reach for Alexander's arm, even if he seems to have little control over the one on the right, the movement causing further agitation and pain to his wrist. Then there is that prick at his neck... followed by the most excruciating scream that he's ever heard. Excruciating because it's coming from Lilith. His eyes widen that panic and adrenaline forcing its way through him. "LILITH!" He can barely make out the gruesome state of her hand and yet he can feel the ring, freed from her, somewhere close.

The sedative was starting to dull his senses, but he needed to get to her. He needed to protect Lilith! In an effort to break free, he musters up all of the energy that he can, gathering the electricity in the air to send a sharp jolt through Alexander's arm. It takes a lot out of him and he's already starting to lose consciousness. Lilith's screams continue to pierce the darkness before Byron blacks out completely.

"Oh, you UNGRATEFUL SON OF A BITCH," in a vicious growl is one of the last things, aside from Lilith's screaming, that Byron is going to hear as he goes out, because Alexander hangs on enough to lower him gently, gently to the ground even as his arm muscles spasm and jerk from that jolt of shock, sending pain and numbness all the way up to his heart. Once Byron is down, Alexander staggers away, the shocked arm going numb and heavy. He reaches for the second syringe at the small of his back, shaking it free as he closes in on Lilith. The sudden shining glint of the ring that HE has never seen is flinched away from, his head yanking to one side as he stalks towards the bridge. The damned thing can fall and fall and never be seen again, as far as he's concerned. He's not looking at it. Assuming that Lilith doesn't rend him limb from limb when he gets close, he's going to try and reach and stab her.

Pain does weird things to the senses-- particularly sudden, spiking pain that causes the nervous system to basically shutdown-- blocking the receptors and short-circuiting the brain. Magnolia's vision explodes into fractals of colors and lights, and her ears distantly detect an ear-piercing scream of pain that she will realize soon enough was hers.

One moment, her lower left leg is all lovely and nicely shaped. The next, her thick tibia bone is snapped clean, its sharp edge stabbing out through her skin to look like a wicked ivory blade. She's clawing her fingers into the deck, trying to not just curl in on herself before she retches, releasing sweet bile and chewed up saltines. Laying on her side, tears and colors in her vision, she sees the ring as this haunting little circle of doom hovering there on the edge, gleaming.

"Fuck. You." Then, with one last flare of golden light-- luminous and reflecting on bile and blood-- Magnolia flicks her fingers. It's a kind of shooing gesture, and the ring topples over the edge, pivoting end over end toward the deep, dark pond beneath. She rotates her hand over, and flips the empty place where the ring had been the bird.

Lilith really does rend Alexander open when he comes, she's trying to crawl and get on her knees and clutch with her good hand, still howling with... oh god, Byron. She's starting to notice other things with the ring off and as it goes sailing, he goes crashing down. She doesn't really register that it's Alexander, though, she just feels threatened because the ring and... what happened to Byron?!

She's not much of a physical struggle to pin down and capture like that, noisy mess that she is when the ring goes sailing and he's at desperate charge to sedate her. That's not the tricky part. It was done at risk. And cost. Her partially nude body is suddenly lashed with all the spilling blood that gushes from Alexander's calf where she tried to disable his approach with desperation. He's flayed open to and through the meat to the bone like she's literally ripped him from the inside out.

That last lash of power, though, the last keen of seeing and feeling the ring go, knowing Byron is falling (fallen? dead?)... the needle. Alexander's blood is warm. She goes limp with all the rage and fight sapped out of her and the tranquilizer takes effect, knocking her out cold. She's so delicate and harmless looking like that, bleeding and pale instead of feverishly flushed and writhing.

The ropes of the men that jumped from the bridge creak eerily after her noise is gone.