2020-05-21 - The Survivor

The visiting of his father's grave on the anniversary of his death had been a ritual for Byron Thorne since he moved back to Gray Harbor several years ago. It was a good and proper thing to be seen mourning the loss of one's parent, especially a respectable man such as Stephen Thorne. It's almost noon and while there is no rain to be seen, how dark the clouds are at this moment may hint that rain might be on the agenda this day.

Dressed in dark business attire, a heavy grey overcoat thrown over the ensemble in the case of rain, Byron has a bouquet of white lilies in one gloved hand, while a black umbrella is tucked in under his left arm. Just as with last year, his mother is oddly absent from his side, though the few years prior, she had accompanied him on this visit. Many actually see her at the cemetery more often, throughout the years, leaving behind flowers or a bottle of whiskey. Instead, Lilith Winslow is his mourning companion, the young woman's first time here since they were children. Even as a kid, Byron and his mother would ritually pay the graveside a visit ever since Stephen Thorne's death up until Byron left for college.

As they near the grave, they a couple of people in the distance. One of them is an old-timer GHPD police detective. The other, retired from the force. They are here to pay their own respects to Byron's father. Small chit-chat occurs when he reaches them and one of them sets a heavy hand on the young Thorne's shoulder in a way to console the man for the loss of his father. Words like 'He was a good man' are tossed around by the police detectives and questions about how Mary was doing is also brought up. Eventually, the two move on with their lives, leaving Byron and Lilith alone at the grave of this 'Good Man'.

Like always, Byron simply stands there, reading the words etched onto Stephen Thorne's headstone, the flowers still in hand.

It's not Alexander's habit to visit graves, for many reasons. Last year, though, he happened to meet Byron here, speaking for the first time in many years, and today? Well, today he has several reasons to be here, but it'd be a lie to say that he doesn't move in the direction of the grave. He stops when he sees the detectives, and Byron and Lilith with them. He doesn't approach, a huddled figure in his over-large jacket and disheveled hair, not until the cops have moved on (and not without a couple of frowning looks from them as they notice him).

His approach is cautious, and he comes to another halt, just inside conversational distance. He glances at Lilith. "Good afternoon." But it's the only thing he says, his own attention turning to the headstone, studying it in his own contemplative silence.

Lilith is wearing the appropriate black sheath dress with a thigh-length light charcoal belted wrap jacket in case of rain or wind. Her shiny black heels sink in a little on the grounds and she's wearing thigh high hosiery to truly formalize the attire, as visibly suits. No flashy red shoes or anything of the ilk today, hair twisted up and clipped and pinned with arranging up and out of the way. Though most of her makeup is subdued, with her hair back and a pale flushed rose hue on her lips, her eyes are smoked with eyeliner and shadowing, intensifying the blue of her gaze to stand out.

And right now, standing next to Byron, she has quite a bit of intense thought behind her eyes until the men come up to greet and talk to Byron. She does the appropriate girlfriends things, smiles with 'hello' when introduced, then goes quiet again while looking at the actual stone. She seems about to say or ask the man next to her something, now that they're left without the old detective, etc. around, but her eyes bat twice when she notices Alexander's approach and the distance he keeps to degrees. After a glance up and aside at Byron, she flashes a slight smile of familiarity at Alexander with greeting.

Something/someone else to focus on is good, honestly. The longer Lilith stands there in silence and contemplating, the more she wants to tell the dirt and headstone many, many things that will fall on no ears at all. It's irrational and petty feeling, the way she wants to tell the dead man that made Byron just the kind of amazing he turned out as a man, despite it all. But it's not her father, it's been so many years, and like she has so many times even when the man was living... she bites her tongue.

"Keep Fighting For That Noble Cause." Byron recites the words etched into his father's headstone., his head half-turning to face Lilith. Just like with her, Byron has a lot of things that he could tell his father right now. In fact, he does finally say something as he crouches down to lay the white lilies atop the man's grave, "Look at me now, dad." There's this intensity within his eyes when he says this, staring directly at his then name etched into the stone. He not only owned the luxury building in town, but was now a co-investor of the town's new casino. Stephen Thorne's son had come a long way.

Distracted, he rises to stand when he notices Alexander in the distance. This is where they'd first met. The second time around.

"Came to pay your respects again as well?" This is a joke, he knows that Alexander isn't here for his father.

It's right at that moment a few seconds after Byron straightens to stand that harsh cracking sounds can be heard coming from Stephen Thorne's gravestone. It trembles as if under a lot of pressure by.... something,, some of stone being chipped off, while the Thorne name has a huge crack running through it. This continues until the gravestone actually topples over to smash the laid out lilies, just where Byron had been kneeling at prior.

"That's... definitely a sign. But for what?" He murmurs nervously, one hand outstretched as if to keep Lilith back and away from whatever was going on.

Alexander offers Lilith a smile, and sidles his way closer to her. "I was looking for ghosts," he tells Byron, quite seriously, at the question. He tenses when there's that cracking noise, and takes a step forward, ready to grab the younger man by the shoulder - although he doesn't quite go through with it as the headstone falls over. The hand just hovers there, outstretched and awkward, until he lets it drop, and steps around to get a better look at the stone. "It could just be someone's terrible idea of a prank," he mutters, but not like he believes it. "Stay back, both of you."

He moves to crouch down by the stone and look for signs of tampering. And, of course, brush his fingertips over the break, and see if he can read anything from it.

"Well. If you see my father kicking around here complaining I didn't bring him flowers or put on a fancy stone he thinks is due, tell him..." Lilith starts to talk to Alexander after spending a moment side-eyeing between Byron and the headstone, still visibly contemplating one thing or another despite the dry comment. Her eyes then start to wander across the cemetary, looking in the direction of where the Winslow graves are. There's actually a small plot of them, her grandfather, her grandmother, her father, a couple of aunts, but she's the last of the line as far as she knows.

She doesn't really get to finish the comment and instead trails off when the commotion breaks out right there at Stephen Thorne's grave. Her eyes widen and for just a moment, she can't help but think this is the beginning of a zombie outbreak. Figures it'd start with this guy right here. Backing up behind Byron's held out arm, she stares at what's just happened with the stone and breathes a little fast before looking around the whole area with paranoid scoping. She keeps quiet watch to make sure this is an isolated event, which doesn't make it BETTER by any stretch, but...

"... be careful."

She's having images not of zombies, now, but of the men present being dragged into the ground with the corpse now. But Lilith is being very good about holding back her morbid (and valid) imagination. At least for now. There's a moment where she looks at the smashed lilies and even backs up another step in case something wants to smash this Lily too.

Feeling his heart rapidly pounding in his chest, this near sense of panic coming over him, Byron not only attempts to shield Lilith from the grave, but he grabs onto her arm, slowly leading them to what he hopes is safety as he slowly backs away from the disaster area. "Some prank.." He murmurs to what Alexander says. But this was no prank. Or that's not the feeling Byron gets. "I wouldn't--" He starts, watching as Alexander crouches down to read the gravestone.

Then there's this pang of... pain? in his head that makes Byron turn to peer out across the way at the treeline in the distance to see the pair of masked figures there, before the two turn around to make their departure. Perhaps it's recognition that keeps him from uttering anything. This outrage that quietly consumes him on realizing who one of those figures might be.

There's a sudden hitch in Alexander's breath, and his head and shoulders bow under the weight of grief that isn't his. He fights back the urge to break down into sobs; he's getting better at it, trauma by trauma. This time, only a few tears trickle unheeded down his cheeks, and he's able to draw himself back out of the grief, and feel that prickle along the skin. He looks, in eerie synchronicity, in the same direction as Byron, and he stands up, slowly. His hand goes to the small of his back, under the jacket. He takes a step towards the figures, then halts.

He looks to Byron and Lilith. "You want me to go and chase them off?" It's a serious offer, of course.

Lilith probably has an idea what the pair of them are doing, at least to a degree, because she's watching Byron and Alexander so hard in turns, she doesn't really notice the figures until they're departing and she looks backwards where the other two looked. Her eyes narrow a bit as if she's not quite trusting what she sees as actual or real, then she looks back at the headstone with pensive thought. She lets Byron answer as to Alexander's question, though she suspects she knows what the answer will be since the man here isn't quite moving himself in that direction.

Holding her breath, Lilith takes to slipping her arm around and behind to rub hand against the center of Byron's suited back with small steadying pressure and doting presence once he's back and level with where she stands too. And because she promised today was Byron's directive no matter what happens, she doesn't lash out to disable one or both of them at the legs to see if they're real as the figures leave. She's tempted to, sure, but after a moment, she wonders, "... do you want me to fix the stone and see what happens? It should be fixed, regardless."

Byron is far too distracted by the destruction of the gravestone, the overwhelming dread that's coming over him and now the mysterious figures in the distance to notice Alexander's slightly wilting shoulders due to the pain which the man feels. "Chase them off?" He asks, blinking as he turns to Alexander, "I think we need to find out what they want." Despite the recognition, he doesn't bring that part up just yet. Only then does he see the streaks of tears on the other man's cheek. "Are... you alright?" There's even a lift of his brow as he asks this.

"What broke the headstone... is it similar to what you can do, Lil?" Byron asks this when Lilith offers to fix the stone. Still, he begins walking in the direction of the masked pair, picking up speed as they do, but he doesn't move any faster than a quick walk. He then brings himself to a stop, "I'm thinking we follow them, but I have a feeling I know where they are going."

Alexander grimaces. "I bet we know what they want, Thorne. You." He looks back, startled, at Byron's question. One hand comes up to touch his cheek, and he wipes the tracks away. "I'm okay," he reassures him, with a faint flickering smile. He looks torn as Lilith suggests staying to fix the stone, and Byron starts to walk after the two. "We can fix it later?" he suggests to the woman, and starts walking after Byron. "Following is fine. We probably do know where they're going, but it can't hurt to confirm."

"Yes. Assuming it's someone with abilities that did it and not..." Something else. A ghost. The town of GH and whatever spook things they haven't encounter. Lilith doesn't say those parts, she just trails off and nods instead of finishing that sentence. Then, casting a glance back at the stone, she doesn't tarry to fix the thing, but... she doesn't like looking at the crushed lily flowers for some reason, it makes her knit a frown.

"If we're going to follow them, I suppose we should do it post haste. No time to hang around fixing a stone I can fix later."

Granted, it wouldn't take her that long at all, but unless Byron tells her to do it, for now, she refrains. However, instead of following immdiately after Byron, she steps around the grave, not over it, using a few hasty steps to pull the lilies out from under the crush of the stone. They lose a few petals and leaves of course, but after a beat of touching them with her hands, she tosses them central grave so the whole thing doesn't look defiled, just broken, in case Mary Thorne comes later before she fixes it. Then after a few trotting steps after Byron in her heels, she catches up quickly to the two men and looks off into the distance.

Slowly, behind her, the flowers prick up and bounce back to lovely instead of smashed. Lilith doesn't even quite realize what she's done. She's no August. She just hates dead lilies.

"The question is what do they want from me." Byron says, swerving to face Alexander with this look of annoyance on his features as if the man said something offensive or insulting. His features then soften, but just a tad. Or he's no longer glaring at Alexander anymore. "All I can think of is that they want to punish me for something."

When Lilith confirms that, yes, someone with her powers could have destroyed the stone, Byron nods. That makes him feel even more uneasy. He knew such a person. "I'll have it fixed later. I don't want you using your abilities to do so. Who knows if there's any negative.. anything attached to it." He then makes sure to add, "And, there's no need to get Their attention over my father's headstone." When Lilith steps forward to rescue the crushed lilies, he can only watch.

"Come on, I'm parked over there." He gestures to where the Wraith is clearly seen in the distance. All the while, however, as he fishes for his keys in his pocket, he'll turn to look over his shoulder in the direction that the mysterious masked pair took. Maybe he was wrong and they weren't going There. They'll find out soon enough.

During the course of the trio leaving the cemetery and then arriving on Oak street, the darkened skies begin to pour down rain. Scenes from his father's graveside play in Byron's mind as he watches the wet road ahead to the sound of windshield wipers ushering away heavy droplets of rain. He sees the way that the gravestone trembled and fractured before their very eyes. And then there was the name 'Thorne' with the long crack cutting right through it. Then the masked figures in the distance that, in his mind, pieced everything together too perfectly.

Once they reach Oak, he slows down, creeping his vehicle forward as he scans not only the windows of the house and its surroundings, but he does a sweep of the entire street on their slow journey. Were the masked figures anywhere to be seen? Could the pair really have arrived here before they did?

There were no cars parked outside of the old Victorian home and yet Byron is hesitant to simply drive straight up to the place and park right there. It's almost as if that parking spot was reserved for the. For him. The others in the car can see his leather gloved hands tapping at the steering wheel as he inches the Wraith forward to show his nervousness. He didn't need this in his life right now. The grand opening of the Casino was coming up. On top of that, he had other problems to deal with, namely Grant Turner. Or Grant Turner's goons.

Eventually, he comes to a stop outside of a house three doors down from the Thorne House. Reaching for his umbrella, he looks towards the rest before he swings his door open to exit, "I hope you both don't mind a bit of rain." Obviously, he rounds the vehicle once parked to open Lilith's door, allowing her dry access beneath his umbrella.... more than likely Alexander won't be able to fit beneath it comfortably.

Alexander doesn't try. He just shakes his head at the question, and steps out of the way of the umbrella. He barely even seems to notice the rain that plasters his hair to his skull, and slides down beneath his bulky clothes. Alexander walks everywhere, rain or shine, and has never been seen carrying an umbrella. He takes up a protective angle on Byron and Lilith, his gaze sweeping the street, before coming to settle on the old Thorne home. "This is probably a trap," he points out, just in case someone had missed the obvious clues. "I don't suppose you're armed, Thorne?"

He doesn't ask Lilith, because he knows Lilith is always better armed than either of the men.

Lilith actually has a gun in her handbag, along with a pair of black dress ballet style flats that she planned to put on instead of heels, but in the end, she leaves her purse and all that in the car. She's a human weapon and she decides she doesn't want baggage and she's not taking off her heels (she might need them), she's going in there perfectly together, trap or not. She assumes Byron is carrying and that Alexander has a knife at least, because she's seen him carry that before. And she's quiet on the ride, partially thoughtful and solemn, the other part of her occasionally side-eyeing or looking at the dark haired man behind the wheel for the drive.

Stepping out under the umbrella, though, Lilith can't help herself. Looking up at Byron and stepping aside to let Alexander out once she's underneath, the woman reaches up to touch the canopy from beneath to see if it's warm from being in the Wraith warming storage, "Mm, you and your umbrella incubator." There's a slip of fond smile for the Thorne man then, despite the serious cast of her actual gaze. The next bit has a bit of 'here we go' in the tone of her voice, despite what she says, "I suppose sliding on the banister is still ill=advised."

And while she's speaking, her eyes turn to take in the house in full, hands slipping into her coat pockets.

At the question on whether Byron is armed, the dark-haired entrepreneur nods. He has his revolver holstered, but he doesn't flash it so that everyone else can see it. This isn't TV. While one gloved hand holds onto the handle of the umbrella, he unvelcros the other glove, before lifting it to his lips to bite down on the finger portion with his teeth to peel it off from his hand. He might need his hands freed to conjure up electricity at some point, so he's preparing. He then tucks the glove away into his a pocket of his overcoat. He'll remove the second one later.

He doesn't quite notice when Lilith reaches up to touch at the umbrella to see how warm it was due to being kept in that special compartment in his car that dries off umbrellas, but to her comment, that a least breaks out a side smile from him, even if he had just been eyeing the house with careful wariness a few seconds earlier.

"Maybe for you, touching the banister won't be terribly traumatic, but.." He turns slowly to Lilith, "Doing anything in that place is ill-advised."

Looking over at Alexander and seeing the man get drenched in this downpour, he would offer space beneath the umbrella, but you know... Anyway, rain builds character.

If any of them had been looking at the large house while in the car, if they weren't distracted by the far too suspiciously empty parking space right in front of the house, they would've noticed that the door was closed. The nearer they get, as they swing open the little gate to the white picket fence leading up to the house, they'll notice that the door is partially ajar. They were expected.

With Alexander in the lead, he reaches the gate first, but Byron and Lilith quickly follow. Byron then pipes up, "I just want to say that you both can turn back now, though I know that you won't. I just need answers and to put this to bed once and for all."He even looks as if he'd relinquish the umbrella to Lilith if she wanted to wait for him in the car, but whatever they decide, he'll proceed forward to the open door.

"Don't be an idiot, Thorne," is all Alexander says, as he's reaching for the gate. There's no real pause to think things over; it's clear that walking away isn't something Alexander even puts on the range of available responses. He also doesn't seem to mind the rain, except for the way it drips into his eyes and blurs his vision a little. He pauses long enough to swipe at it, and glance back at Lilith, although he clearly has no expectation she'll want to sit this one out, either.

"I understand." Lilith says to Byron and nods her head a little at the offer, but she doesn't turn or look apt to be taking him up on it. Especially when they get through the gate and the door is ajar. After a small squint, the woman tries to remember if it was like that to begin with, but gives up, because either way, it's not a great sign. Also, it would have been mildly satisfying to blow the door handle off if they were being denied access, but Byron has a key and... okay, she really just wanted to enter by blowing the door apart like The Reckoning.

She doesn't do that, though. After pulling in a shallow breath while tailing along next to Byron as he goes for the open door, she murmurs, "... is there anything I should be forewarned about now that we're here? Since I wasn't... you know. Last time." Lilith's eyes cut aside to Alexander to include him in the question, assuming his interest in this means knowledge or details about the time Byron was taken and kept here.

But as soon as she's murmured the quiet inquiry, her gaze sweeps warily back forward, unsure what to actually expect.

No one was leaving and Alexander just called him an idiot. All of this is sort of what Byron had expected to happen. His own tension was rising as they crossed the lawn as a group, walking up those few steps to the porch. It's here that Byron places a careful hand on door, turning to Lilith at her question. Every time Byron was here from what he can remember, things weren't... well, besides bringing back old memories and giving him the creeps, things had been mostly tame. Alexander may have other stories. It's Alexander Clayton who he looks to next, before he shakes his head, "I don't think so, but from what I've seen, the place will be very familiar to you. Probably." From all those years ago.

"It might try to invade you," Alexander says, in a tone that suggests he has no reason to think he should have mentioned that earlier. "The other two women, I think they were...possessed by the house in some fashion. Or by the emotions of the house. You've got a strong connection with Byron, so it might try to use that to get into your brain. Make you come in on its side, think he needs to stay her. I advise not listening to it, and giving us a head's up if you feel...odd. Last time...the house." A long pause as he weighs talking about it over the unpleasantness that might ensue from an ambush. "Last time I believe it created something that attacked Ruiz. If that happens again, let me handle it. I'm the least vulnerable."

Lilith listens to Alexander before they move inside, nodding to Byron's explanation too, though her eyes stay forward. And the man did say that she'd recognize it as familiar, much like it was when he was a child, but... she blinks immediately once inside, a few times in fact the longer she keeps looking. Because the tiny details being the same are somehow more creepy to her than the scene she hasn't yet come up to yet with the blood. She notices that in time, of course, but it makes her more wary than anything.

The kitchen towels, however, kind of spook her when she wanders a little to where she can see in the kitchen, because she remembers Mrs. Thorne standing with one of them in hand drying a dish, somehow-- it's funny what the mind fixates on. She does a bit of a double take, though, sure to look at Byron and ensure that he still looks the same, then down at herself to ensure she still looks the same, because stepping into such a throwback suddenly makes her paranoid they've been Dream snared into a children's dream again. But that's...

Lilith focuses on the blood. Her head tilts as she watches it drip, like she's trying to make sure the viscosity seems real, or like she's trying to see how fresh and human it is. But really, it's just blood and she's not a forensics anything, as much as she streams those shows from time to time while working on her laptop.

"... who would that blood belong to?"

Alexander sees the blood, his nostrils flaring. "I...don't know," he says, quietly, "but now is the time when both of you should stay behind me." Or, at least, he tries to say that last, but then the PAIN hits him, and even at one remove, it's still enough to stagger him, the words cutting off mid-sentence into a groan. "Out," he mutters at the house, "get out of my fucking head." He tries to push back on it, one hand going to the small of his back and pulling out a wicked looking, bone-handled knife. He wants to stab something so much he can feel it, the instinctive survival rage welling up in him, wanting to eliminate the threat. But there's nothing right in front of him to attack, so he looks down at the blade. The same one he pulled at his birthday party. He looks at Byron. "Are you gonna be okay?" A glance back at Lilith. "You all right?"

Byron and Alexander are immediately not reacting well, which both unnerves Lilith and snaps her into action. In part, she was expecting their heads to be sensitive to a haunted house or the emotions in it, and she knew one of them definitely would need steadying at some point or another. She just wasn't expecting it to happen so quickly, nor to see the Thorne man so very overwhelmed by it.

Quickly, she nods at Alexander once he's able to speak, confirming solidly that she's still very Lilith and totally okay, which is maybe a good thing for what's to come. She's not as sensitive to whatever is hitting at the two men on some other level, "Yes. I am okay. Are you okay?" She asks this of Alexander and doesn't really argue about getting behind his lead, but at the same time, she's not moving to do it quite yet because Byron is suffering or triggered by memories or... whatever other kind of haunted mindbanger cacaphony there is going on in this house.

Lilith packed her gun, she packed her flats, she left them in the car. But she packed something else too, something she didn't dare leave in the car. It's on her person, and after opening her coat, she digs down into the front of her dress to pull a silken blue pocket square handkerchief from within. It seems to have been stashed in her bra under attire and she's taking it out to put one hand at Byron's back as he leans, the other with the fragrant blue pocket square up to his hand held over his mouth, "Hey baby. Stay with us. It's Lily and you're right now, not then. Take this. Hold it over your nose and mouth. Breathe in and smell it and know what's real and try to smash everything else back."

Clever. It smells like Lilith, this thing she's gifted him and brought as a small crutch for navigating through the possessed Thorne house with. It's soft and smells like her skin and wash and perfume and their laundry detergent, her lotion, her shampoo, everything mingled in unique signature to try and jar him into clarity or focus.

Byron doesn't hear Alexander or Lilith. All that he can hear is the angry voice of his father yelling at him, blaming him for driving him crazy and all that Byron can feel are those sudden sharp pains to his head. To his skull. That's where the hand to his mouth goes next. Gripping at his skull with the one hand, he continues to keep himself steady with the other. It was as if he were reliving that day all over again. "I didn't..." He stammers out in frightened desperation, "I didn't mean to." He's struck by another blow. Rather than cry out in pain, he utters a groan, ever fearful of his father hearing him in any capacity.

In his pain, dulled eyes stare up the stairs at one particular step. The one that bleeds. He remembers.

The gentle waft of Lilith's handkerchief distracts him from his nightmare. With how quickly his pulse was racing and how hard he was breathing to near hyperventilation, the reminder of where he is and who he's with starts to pull him back from what the House wanted him to see.

"I'm okay," Alexander tells Lilith. Ignore the fact that he can't exactly muster up a strong voice while doing it, and he's gone greenish around the gills. He reaches out with his mind to Byron. Not, for once, to try and invade the other man's mind, but to try and shield it from the House's influence. He brings the knife up, defensively, when Marchand arrives. "You can just fuck right off, Olivia," he says, gruffly. "He doesn't have to do shit. Not for this house or anyone who lived there."

Lilith almost turns and goes right for Olivia after the door slams and the other woman speaks, but she has some pretty steep concern for Byron right now. That and her promise to let him do this on his own and figure things out for himself is very strongly ingrained within her. Sometimes Lilith talks a lot, sometimes she doesn't talk at all, but when she says something real and true and meaningful with promise to Byron, there aren't a lot of other options-- it becomes the magic anchor that keeps her flash temper and protective tendency to lash out in check. He has to fight his own battles here, he has to, and she has no real clue what's fully going on or who this woman even really is, beyond mentions.

The woman keeps her hand against Byron's back and the other holding the handkerchief to effect for him, at least until he starts to steady enough to take it to hold and breathe in on his own when it starts giving him some sense of bearing. However, she has turned and readied her stance automatically in part while there in her heels touching Byron, like some kind of alpha female ready to out-alpha whoever has made herself lady of this house. After a moment, noticing the dark hair and standout blue eyes, though, she clicks her tongue and thinks about what Isabella said once a long while ago.

She's tempted to say a lot of vile things and threaten lots of things she intends to follow through with, but in the end, she lets Alexander do the talking and sets her teeth on edge while looking between Byron and Olivia with that shovel.

Alexander catches the shovel when it's tossed at him in an easy, one handed grip, the knife in the other hand not wavering. He spins it on reflex, until the blade is facing the floor, and the grip on the shaft is strong. He glances towards Lilith and Byron as the woman speaks. "He is a very good liar," he agrees, without much emotion to it. It's just an observation of fact, and it's not why he's looking at the other two. He's weighing their response. His own curiosity is a hungry, gnawing thing. Rarely sated. But he's also well aware of Byron's need for privacy and to protect his past - so he doesn't move until Byron does. Then he steps ahead of the younger man, just to make sure he's going through any doors first. "We don't have to," he points out to both of them, quietly.

Lilith's breathing is accelerated, it's coming fast and shallow while she stares at Olivia with open suspicion that only grows once the greeting and compliment is paid. She knows how people being backhanded or nasty works, they say something like that when they know whatever is about to follow will entirely suck. She's convinced it's a rub-in of some kind, and for the barest moment, she tilts her head to study the other woman, as if really trying to place her. She mostly comes up with what's probably her younger sister, but close enough, and honestly, she doesn't care if this woman knows her or vice versa, she's not here for her.

Not quite. Not unless Olivia actually tries to take and keep Byron. But it's getting harder and harder to remember what she promised, this is his demon and his bloody battle. She knows he's suffering in this house with imagery, she never sees him react so physically and strongly to something that she can remember, even when doing a reading on an object or so on. However, his ability to buck back up and listen once she's passed the fragrant handkerchief square over, at least enough to look like he's trying to remember and is curious enough to see things through, as intended...

It helps. He's moving. She's moving now too, practically attached in his personal bubble of space without actually touching, a bit to the side and back. When Alexander gives the other non-option as an option, her eyes cut over solemnly and briefly, as if to give that idea some wistful credit, but she knows what's not happening. Byron is walking and following and she is too, starting to murmur, "The only way out is th--"

She stops suddenly, remembering the Dark voices taunting her and two others with that phrase so many of them use to bolster when things get strange and dangerous. Gritting her teeth, she decides not to say it and sets her posture to chin up and striding, ready for the unknown.

If this were any other place and any other time, Byron's patience would have run out and he would've said something snarky to get her to hurry up. But this was his father's castle and long after Stephen Thorne's death, this place still leaves him completely shaken and traumatized.

As they are led through the hallway, there are several pictures of the Thorne family displayed on the walls. Most of them are either of Stephen Thorne or both Stephen and Mary together in their younger years. They made such a happy and loving couple. There's two, at most, that included a young Byron. One of them when he was still a babe with his father holding him proudly in his arms. The other has him in GHPD softball gear with his father looking to be instructing him on how to better swing his bat. Byron looked to be around nine.

Byron, himself, pays no attention to the photographs on the walls. Nor does he look to Alexander when the offer to turn back is given. No, he continues on, remaining tensely quiet. Something tells him that he isn't going to like what they find.

Alexander does look at the pictures; he's inherently nosy and really can't help himself. He also peeks into any rooms they pass with open doors, although that's wary, as if looking for more enemies. He steps out on the back porch first, looks from left to right. "I don't take orders from you," he tells Olivia, mildly, even as he steps down. Instead, he looks to Byron, his expression tense. One eyebrow lifts. Is he gonna do this? Apparently not without Thorne giving it the okay.

Lilith watches Byron's posture as much as she watches Olivia in turns while they're moving through the house, barely paying mind to the creepily intact setting of the household. It seeps in more than she needs to focus on it, but the woman is holding a shovel and leading them who knows where for what in this forsaken damned Thorne house.

Then Olivia says to dig when they arrive and Lilith looks at the woman like she's lost her goddamn mind with a fair chunk of 'no you dig' but... suddenly she closes her eyes to take a much needed couple of heartbeats for composure before she steps forward one pace to look at the indicated area, then back at Byron with the same principle as Alexander, "Byron?"

Lilith isn't doing anything either (save for looking) until he gives the okay.

Despite this morbid curiosity, Byron knows that he should just turn away. Run away. The House had gotten to him and the memories which they had shown had seeped into his mind. Even with Alexander's blocking, he still remembers. For some reason, all of this was terribly familiar now, though there's evident confusion on his features. As the four of them stand around this one plot of land right beside the back porch, nervous, yet intense eyes stare down at the dig spot, almost as if willing his gaze to dig up the earth for him.

With Olivia and the others waiting, Byron's eyes finally lift turning to both Alexander and that shovel and then to Lilith. He knows that he shouldn't do this, to utter these words, but he does, "Yes. I need to know if... I need to know what buried down there." In fact, he looks like he'd reach out and take the shovel from Alexander. Marchand doesn't seem to care either way. As long as it's done.

"Don't," Alexander barks at Byron when he reaches out. He shakes his head, sharply. "Just watch her." That's as much to Lilith as it is to Byron, and it's her that he fixes with his eyes for a moment longer. Before turning away and going to the spot indicated for digging. He digs without fanfare or hesitation. Although, if someone is versed in such things, it's clear that he also digs like someone who suspects he's going to find something soft and organic down there, and doesn't want to put a shovel through a decomposing skull. Instead, each stroke of the shovel is careful and deliberate, clearing a layer, then going down, clearing another layer, and so forth.

Lilith is tempted to kill the grass and roots and churn some ground with force to make it a little easier for Alexander, but like he said, they need to watch Olivia. And Lilith needs to also watch Byron. Even though his behavior is setting her on worried edge, there's something about it that also makes it easier for her to be a steady, solid pillar while stepping back to his side as the other man prepares to dig. While half-staring at Olivia with her breathing is measured and force controlled with tactic (she told Byron she counted in foreign languages once, and he noticed it when she did it aloud during a concussion).

So standing there, she doesn't opt to distract herself or trigger some situation unwittingly by helping Alexander with the ground. If anyone knows how to canvas digging for something morbid and terrible, it's this guy anyway. Reaching her hand over she hooks two of her fingers with hard latch and curl with Byron's hand hanging at his side. It's just a mere moment of pulsing contact and prolonged hold, but she needs it, she needs to keep him right now too, however she can.

Lilith is also curious, of course, but it's not so much her concern. She's here for Byron like a little guard dog, waiting to leap into action when he's threatened or gives the bidden command.

Just as Alexander doesn't want Byron to go digging up the ghosts from his past, Byron doesn't want Alexander doing the same. Who knows what they'll find down there, but due to his recent memories, if he can call it that, he has a feeling that he knows, even if he doesn't want to believe it. As he waits and watches, he holds in his breath, being unable to breathe during the course of all of this.

He pays little attention to Olivia. In fact, at this moment, she seems to be the only denizen of the house present. There are no other masked figures. Not the ones they saw at the cemetery nor the ones who brought him here during the Masquerade. From here on in, Byron doesn't take his eyes off of the ditch that Alexander starts to dig, expecting something to be uncovered eventually. That's what he's afraid of.

He only mildly registers Lilith's touch at first, feeling her hand grasping onto his which feels cold and clammy to the touch. So involved is he in this digging project, that it takes him a few moments to squeeze her hand in return once he realizes that she's there, turning to her slowly for this briefest of moments before returning to watch the ditch digging to see it all the way through.

If Byron felt sick just moments ago, he's feeling wretched now. His blood goes cold when first signs of the body are seen. He already knows what's down there, but that means... Panic and confusion enters his mind and he watches with deep rooted intensity as Alexander uncovers the rest of...

Odd memories flash within his mind, bringing him back to that day. The one where he stayed in sick from school and Tobin and Lilith had to bring his classwork. But he...

His head starts to shake slowly, looking on in disbelief, before each turn quickens and he finally lets out a thick, trembling breath. "I didn't want to die... but..." There's a deep crease in his brow, his eyes glistening. "I remember now."

Alexander stops when he first reaches something which might be a body. With the air of a man who's done this before, he reaches into his big jacket pockets and draws out some black leather gloves, pulling them on. Instead of just digging, he steps into the hole, carefully, and uses the shovel blade to carefully clear the dirt from the exposed corpse. His expression is studiously blank, even as he clears enough to reveal the fractured skull and broken ribs. He studies the corpse, quietly, then runs his fingers along the decomposing clothes, looking for name tags or other identifying features that might exist.

It's not that he hasn't drawn the parallels, but where it comes to bodies, Alexander is thorough, and doesn't jump to conclusions. He does ask, quietly, without looking around at Byron. "What do you remember?"

It takes Lilith a moment to really see and recognize what's in the dirt the further Alexander gets down with the shovel. Her attention is largely on Byron and Olivia in fairly equal turns. And though she should be more rattled to see the bones of a long decayed body there, instead her eyes narrow like she doesn't trust it. She doesn't trust that it's real, she doesn't trust that Olivia isn't full of shit or real herself, she doesn't trust anything making Byron this upset because it feels devised, wicked, and calculated and she just...

It's not her place to try and make sense of it, even though she's noting what she's hearing and seeing. Lilith largely stays perfectly still save for her hand moving onto the small of Byron's back with steady pressure right under his suit jacket with slipping, a little closer to skin with the thinner shirt beneath. She pulls in a breath, as if to speak to Olivia but opts not to, instead she keeps her standing guard with her chin a bit high, simply containing what's probably violence and bidden time inside.

Instead, she looks at Byron, blue eyes intense and carefully calculating his current state with such a discovery (is it even real?).

Alexander looks down at the corpse. He steps back, leans the shovel on the side of the hole, and hops out. His expression is tightly controlled, even as his hands curl in their gloves to fists. He walks towards Marchand. His feet, no doubt by coincidence, time their solid hits on the earth with those two terrible stomps. "This is bullshit," he tells her, voice flat. "You've been trying to fuck with his head for months, and I admit, trying to convince him that he's fucking dead? That's a pretty good one. But it's bullshit." If she lets him get close enough, his hand flashes out for her throat. "So you're going to stop it."

He also lashes out with his mind, like a dozen invisible knives, trying to cut away at what he believes MUST BE an illusion that has been carefully crafted to ensnare them.

With Alexander going toward Olivia and threatening with hand and lash out of power, Lilith does it too, but she controls herself entirely. She just cracks the windows with her own emitting of fury that's been so constrained and tested, using it as leverage for a threat because she has to remind herself, it's this damn house, not the woman, it's the house. Isn't it? Isn't it? This isn't real, it can't be real, he's right here. Something is being twisted to have an effect on him, truth is tricky, just like lies, and it works better when you go in from the honest angle to screw with perceptions when it's time.

"He doesn't belong here. You don't even belong here. No one belongs here. And you're lucky I'm not ripping this all down wall by wall, stone by stone, because believe me, I can and I will if you keep it up. I will churn up the soil and set the ruins on fire after I smash them to dust. Even the memories will die with nothing to stick to, I'll make it a void and keep destroying, over and over if I have to."

Lilith's words are hissed with venom and threat and warning toward Olivia... no, at the house. She's turned herself with Olivia occupied to stand between Byron and the grave, looking at the cracking windows with her eyes narrowed before she looks up at Byron and puts her hands flat on his chest, one grabbing hold at his shirt collar to try and make him look at her, "Look at me. You're alive. I remind you how alive you are. Look at me. I'm real. You're real. You fucking won and got out and made everything you deserve."

Then she looses her hold to whisper at him, "Win. You're the fucking king."

"Make it stop," Alexander tells the woman, his eyes black with fury; a stark contrast to her serenity. He shakes her by the throat. "Make it stop, or so help me God, I will--"

What Alexander plans to do is cut off by the explosion of glass and that oppressive, dreadful weight that tries to grab them all. The slashing blades that are his mind at full strength cut and shred what tries to touch him - but he doesn't have any physical powers to save him from the more mundane threat of shattered glass. He cries out in pain and shock as the glass rains down. It cuts into his scalp, his face. He instinctively tries to pull Olivia close, to shelter her from the glass, but instead it falls on her face, slashing at her. "Goddamnit," Alexander swears, low and vicious. He's frozen there for a second, torn between venting his rage and trying to help.

Then he hears Byron's words, and although the substance of them is difficult to make out, the pain is clear. He shouts to Lilith, "Don't let him do something stupid!" Then, he reaches out with his other hand to put his gloved hand over Olivia's bloody face, trying to seal up what wounds he can.

It's honestly better that Alexander has a hold of Olivia, especially once she starts laughing and telling Lilith to churn up the ground and see what else they find. Especially with Byron reacting so violently, so unstably, usually he is the one that has his composure in situations, not her. She's the one flying off the damn handle and she won't be that right now, she won't, she won't, she won't. She tells herself to take motherfucking control because he is not going into that hole and this house is not going to send him stumbling and pitching into it. She even takes a mild satisfaction in the way the house fights back with flying shatter to her warning cracks in the glass and she'll GLADLY fight and tear down this house, but...

Byron comes first. And she needs to figure out what he needs to end this, to feel it done, to destroy the woman, the house, whatever he needs to be able to walk away tall. She'll do that for him. Unfortunately, she's not very strong as he starts to apologize and stumble toward the hole of 'bones' in the ground, so while she's in the way, she reaches to take hold of his upper arms and hands to try and peel them from his head and still him into looking at her. Of course, she doesn't want him to lash out physically while he's confused, so she's not rough about it so much as she's telling him how things should and will be with a whipsnap tone of voice she wants the house to hear as much as him.

"No, Byron. No. That's not where you are. You're here with me and you need to open your eyes and see me. See me. Not him. Not this place. Me."

And even though her voice lowers to nigh intense whisper, she knows she doesn't have to speak loudly to be heard, "I need you to look at me. I'll break the whole goddamn world if that's what you need right now. But I'm not letting you go or giving you to this house."

For a moment, Alexander is thoroughly distracted by the need to pull out shards of glass and try and heal the damage before the woman permanently loses use of her eye. It's weird that she doesn't flinch, but this whole thing is weird. And once he's done making sure that her eye isn't going to leak all over her face anymore, he makes a sound of irritation and disgust, and pushes her away from him with his hand. He turns at Byron's gasp. Looks to Lilith. His lips are pressed tightly together - but if she does look his way, he'll give her a nod of agreement.

The only way out is through, after all.

Lilith looks hard at Byron with study, then looks over at Alexander with Olivia, then the yard itself. She's never really tried to blow up and churn the ground itself, but she knows how she can break where it's solid and churn it into pieces and particles with force. She's not even sure where to dig, she just does it, all of a sudden looking back at Byron with resolve and fury she unleashes onto the span of the yard with fanning out.

It's a little like watching moles churn everything and bump up the ground in fifteen different crossing pathways, like she's cracking placement, then it happens again with creep and cross in other multiple cracking backyard paths. Then after a sudden huff and close of her eyes to really concentrate on the yard as a whole, the dirt clods she's made to depth start to fly apart like there's been an explosion, but there's no sound, just the patter of rain and wet earth flying to reveal anything within a certain surfacing level beneath. She probably is using the depth that Alexander hit with the shovel as a general gauge, because while all the ground is more churned than dug up, it's done and thrown in a way that might reveal something.

Even under the circumstances, this proof of Lilith's raw strength and talent is enough to make Alexander suck in a startled breath. There probably will be consequences for this, but for right now, he looks at her with something like awe as the ground begins to churn. Which soon turns to horror as the corpses are revealed. "Jesus Christ," he whispers, low, one hand coming up to rub at the side of his face. Never mind the fact that this smears blood from the glass all over; he doesn't even seem to notice the sting of the leather on his wounds.

He licks his lips at the question Byron asks, and doesn't try to stop him from inspecting his own corpse. Instead, he looks from body to body, trying to find a place of balance. "None of this is real," he says, at last. "It's shadows and phantoms and lies, meant to hurt you. Show you places where you could have died, and try to convince you that you did. It's bullshit. Don't believe it." And yet, he can't help but stare at the field of dead Byrons, noting causes of death, the contusions, the injuries.

Lilith is automatically furious once she sees what churning up the ground unleashes in bulk and Byron's reaction to it. As he steps closer to look, she needs to take a moment to recover herself while staring, then she glowers between Olivia and the House itself, as if trying to figure out which one to rip apart first. The taunt of it, the shame of Byron's skeletons in the closet literally being laid bare. It's not anything she thinks is shameful, of course, but Byron is a proud, proud man and this is not what he wants them to see as the founding pieces of his early life.

That and... the fury of knowing how bad it was right under her very nose growing up. Lilith knew to degrees, of course, they conveyed it to each other in silence sometimes, just sitting on top of the monkey bars or laid out in a sleeping bag together after what she knew was a bad time at home. But she had a shit home life, she just figured everyone's was different kinds of shit and people were shit and that was that. But seeing this, she is so furious at Stephen and Mary Thorne too, not that she ever liked them, but this is... this is...

No. No. No.

Lilith churned up the earth to reveal dark secrets and terrorizing. Suddenly, her nose starts to fountain with blood flow and she flashes with extreme effort and power to do something she's never done before. She's always broken and killed and wilted plants, save for the little manipulations on cut flower petals she'd do here and there after a lesson. Mostly she leaves greenery alone and has no clue how deeply she can manipulate life itself on those building block levels.

All of the roots churned up start to sprout and the back yard starts to flood with greenery and shifting to recover what's been wrought. She dug up all the tiny deaths and now she has to fix it. She floods the backyard with greenery in a wave to cover and sprout and grow and shift the earth and conceal those bones.

She can't take Byron's pain like this. But she can cover it right the fuck up and put it back away where it belongs. He shouldn't have to see this.

"Bullshit," Alexander says, harshly. He's not speaking to Olivia, now. But rather to Byron. "These are just phantoms. Do you know how many times I've had to kill myself in one of these fucking Dreams? It's not really me. It's just a shaped fragment of dreamstuff that some complete asshole put a face on. It's no more you than the Circus was your actual family. It wants you to hurt. To feel guilty for being alive, when that is the one fucking thing you should never, ever feel guilty about. You are stronger than to give in to shadows."

As the lawn is covered with green again, he turns to Lilith. "You know him best, Lilith. Get through to him. Don't let these assholes rip his heart out because he survived."

"All of this is nothing. Just like the people I killed, it's not real. How many times do you have to tell me I'm not a murderer or a monster? How many times do we fight and survive and refuse to be victims of everything our lives have thrown at us. It's using what's real to confuse you with what isn't real, just to cause you pain. You're standing here, you're alive and real and I need you more than any ghost bones ever, ever will."

Lilith's nose is still bleeding. She might not even be aware, but it's dripping down over her lips, onto the black of her dress to soak in invisible. And when she sniffles, she's not just doing it because of the blood. She's crying. Tears are rolling too and she's not even bothering to be stubborn or fight them, she's afraid of him reacting so poignantly, so drawn to all this.

"It's trying to keep you. It can't. You're mine. I'm yours. Don't leave me. We fight together. Don't believe a fucking word."

It's difficult to say whether Byron believes any of this or not. The others were right, they'd all been tricked before. These weren't dopplegangers attacking him though and that's what troubles him. And he remembers...

Alexander brings up the freak show, a far more surreal look into his childhood trauma. That was different too.

Turning towards Lilith, when he hears the sniffling, he sees her face, her nose, dripping with blood, but he also sees her tears. There's a gentle creasing at his brow as he's about to say something. But what if... It doesn't come out. Instead, he reaches towards her to take her up in his arms. His bare hands cold to the touch and he looks as if all the blood in his body had been drained from him. Or that's how he feels, with the House's story of his lifetime havingt unfolded before everyone's eyes. Whether any of this is true or not, those bodies in the ditches, many of those bodies had injuries that he actually took, but ones that his father had healed to cover up for the abuse. He remembers those. They happened.

"And what do you want from me now?" He asks, eyes slowly turning towards, not Olivia, but the House with the shattered windows.

"Everyone dies eventually," Alexander says, slouching his way towards the other two, and taking up a defensive. protective stance near them. Not trying to intrude on their closeness - in fact, keeping a deliberate distance - but trying to put himself between the two and anything the House might throw at them. "You want him to stop living, thinking about death until he forgets that he's alive. It's stupid, and Byron isn't stupid." It's as much bravado as anything; Alexander is well aware of how keenly the other side's torments can cut when they really give it a shock, but from his glance back, he's hoping to provide a bit of a counter narrative, if nothing else.

Lilith remembers that Byron. The fourteen year old Byron. The first one she killed in her Dreams that she didn't know about at the time. It scared her so much she couldn't talk to him the next day, she hid. It kept happening, she kept hiding, terrified and confused and worried and trying so hard to protect him at both of their emotional expenses. She remembers exactly how she did it, too, what happened when...

If looks could kill, Lilith's would skewer Olivia when she stops at that spot and informs Lilith of that. But...

Byron's touch, even cold and bloodless, it's still his touch, his arms, and he's solid, it doesn't matter. They're still here. After closing her mascara-wet and streaking lashes down to rest and compose herself with a bit of a tremble, she swallows thickly and looks back up at Byron. She's about to ask him to tear everything down, everything that remains of his past because it's not his future.

But because it's not hers, instead she whispers,

"I love you. I think it's time to go home."

Byron has seen his dopplegangers get killed off before. Hell, he even killed one or two of them in the past. Maybe it's the power of the house, how personal this is compared to everything else-- everything else, besides the Freak Show Dream, that is. That one was personal too. He can't help but be shaken by all of this. Then again, he was here, at his childhood home. A place that filled him with dread for as long as he could remember.

After Lilith is done mentally murdering Olivia from the distance, Byron lifts her chin to guide her face forward. He then reaches to dab at the blood just beneath her nose. "I love you too, Lil. Nothing. Not even this House is going to take me away from you."

Was he mortified that others were here to witness all of this? In a sense, yes. But there was nothing he could do about it now. "You're right. You're both right." He murmurs, slinking his arm around Lilith's shoulder, his eyes then flickering over to Alexander, who he will assume will follow suit, before he looks beyond the other man to Olivia. "Let's get out of here."

The woman just watches them, not looking as if she's about to stop them. In their mind, the damage was done and Byron Thorne knew his place.

Alexander reaches up to pluck a couple of shards of glass from his hair, flicking them to the ground with a contemptuous gesture. Still, he can't help but take a look at the verdant backyard. Can't help but remember what's underneath. And despite his own assurances, Olivia's words, that boy you knew that night, he didn't survive either, can't help but stick where they shouldn't. It takes Lilith and Byron's voices to shake him out of it. He follows without a sound, although he keeps an eye on Olivia as long as he can watch her.