The Dark and the Light (Book Three: Supernatural fanfic)

Twigs & Twine & Tasha Banes

Back when I was aware of where I was, chained to the chair in the Men of Letters compound with warded cuffs that wouldn't let me get free, wires and bolts in my head for the rewiring, and a British man chanting the spell nearby to try and continue to break me down, I was still fighting, but was getting weaker. Ketch and Hess were watching.

"Hello, Octavia," Ketch told me. "It's been a while since we first met. Rings any bells?"

I glared at them tiredly in rage that I hadn't been able to stop feeling. "I suppose it amuses you to watch this. Torture of a fallen Angel. Once possessed by the Devil, tortured by the Darkness, given birth to two Nephilims fathered by an American hunter. You want me to kill the hunters, Lucifer's children, and take Ariel and Faith, who you think would listen to me while I'm in this state. You said they could heal me bit by bit without causing permanent damage to me. Without losing me to whatever you're trying to turn me into forever. What happens if they try to heal me all at once?"

"Then you turn into a monster that they will never see their mother in again," Ketch answered. "Give in, Octavia. It'll be over sooner than you think."

"Your eye twitches when you lie," I told him.

Ketch shrugged. "My eye twitches all the time. Fine, if you want the truth. If you don't give in, this is the very beginning of what is left to come. But still, you're you. And you are protecting your family, after all. Fighting what we want to keep them safe. You can't stand the thought of giving in and hurting them. If you gave in, to kill Sam and Dean, take Ariel and Faith... well, wouldn't want them to think Ava doesn't love them."

"Go to Hell," I told him angrily.

Hess nodded to Ketch.

Ketch smirked, continuing the brainwashing torture that sent electricity through the bolts in my head to my brain as the other man continued the spell, making me groan a scream of pain as it was burned so far into my mind by now.

      *        *        *      

Once again, when they put me back under the spell, I woke up in the bunker inside my mind, in the library, looking around in confusion.

Ariel and Faith walked in. "Hi, Mom."

I sighed anxiously, shaking my head. "Not this again."

"What?" Ariel asked.

"What's wrong, Mom?" Faith asked.

"What's wrong is that none of this is real," I answered. "You're not Ariel and Faith. You're just visions of Ariel and Faith conjured to make me break. After what they made Sam tell me, no less."

"Wow," Ariel told me. "Mom, you're never this angry. Maybe you should be this angry more often. At least then it'll hurt less if something bad happens."

"Or if you did something bad that you know you don't want to do," Faith told me.

I tried to ignore them, more hurt that they kept using visions of Sam, Ariel and Faith to torture me than I wanted them to know, turning away, holding my head in pain.

"It's okay if you wanna stop fighting, Mom," Ariel told me. "We wouldn't blame you. It's not your fault. It's something being done to you."

"But you know if you give in, the pain will stop," Faith told me. "And you know that you'll be able to see the real versions of me, Ariel and Dad soon."

"Yeah, but that would be because they're trying to use me to hurt all of you," I told them. "And I'm not... I can't."

"Oh, come on," Ariel told me. "You know sooner or later the spell is gonna own you. Because it was designed specially to control Angels."