Your Way Out

Laevateinn

**A/N: This chapter deals heavily with trauma, abuse, and depression. I want to say that the trauma involved is personal to me and it isn't healthy. That's part of the point. If you're sensitive to these topics, please keep this warning in mind before continuing on.

[Third Person]

Everything moved in stood still for a moment. Loki held a bitter strained breath in his weakened lungs as he fought to make a sound. Crimson eyes frayed as they locked onto the motionless body resting under Hanna's boot. The cracking and snapping of bones under an oppressive weight rang in his head like a siren. She didn't twitch. She didn't thrash in pain. Time must have froze because she didn't move at all.
"I'm sorry about your toy, Loki, but you know how weak they are on this planet," Hanna grimaced as she removed her boot from Elaina's back, pushing her over to the side.
She could've been sleeping, if not for the steady trickle of red that escaped the corner of her lips. He swore he heard her heart still beating, stronger than ever, until he realized that it was loud drumming of blood rushing to his ears as his chest sang the tumultuous song of rage. He felt a shiver wither down his spine. Red hot irons steeling his back as he managed to hold himself straight.
Blood seeped from his battered wrists, streaming in thin lines down his stiffened arms. He slowly wrapped his hands around the chains, gripping the cold jagged metal in a tight grip. He needed the pain. Shredded iron dug into his palms, reminding him he was still here. This was real.
"Bring her back," Loki whispered.
"I beg your pardon?" the witch sauntered to the Jotun prince, cuff a hand around her ear.
"Bring her back!" he roared. Every pin and needle drove deeper into his belly as he body tensed with searing hot rage. The pain only fueled him further. His eyes smoldered with a crimson glow as his skin continued to darken. The white ridges of his heritage ever prominent against his sapphire flesh.
"Now, son of Asgard," Hanna teased, tracing a blood coated finger over the firm white arch above his brow, "why would I do that?" She glared at him between twin slits. Hard onyx sclerae with a thin ring of vermillion red around a wide black pupil. Most would tremble with fear, but not Loki. Not now. Not anymore.
"I'll give you whatever you want, just don't let her die," he growled.
"The sword?" she beckoned.
"Fuck the sword," Loki cursed within the confines of his own mind. "Whatever you want. I'll conjure it, just save her!" he cried.
The agent twisted her wrist, circling her hand in a strange pattern. The chains around his wrists loosened just enough to let Loki fall to the ground on his tired and battered knees. He heaved a clot of blood from his throat, splattering more ichor on the cold grey concrete. Loki's lapis wrists were blotched with violet bruises and slick with thick bemired blood. Jagged teeth-like marks marred his sweat and gore stained skin. Covered in lacerations, bruises, and sores, the azure prince sat beside Elaina's inanimate husk. The physical pain hardly matched the biting grip inside his chest.
He brushed a lock of auburn hair from her face, cupping her head, and resting it on his lap. There was a low thrum as he passed his thumb across her temple. A slow ebbing pulse. Barely a pulse, really, a deathly still echo of a life that was steadily slipping away.
"The sword," Hanna reminded with a hiss. "Clocks ticking." The hag click her tongue and snapped her fingers. The horribly slow pulse barely resonating against his hands now throbbed within his skull like a hammer pounding away at his sanity.
Bum...bum.........bum...bum......
Each passing minute it delayed further. "Fuck..." Loki cursed in his head. "Fuck, fuck, fuck..."
He curled a battered arm around Elaina and held her close to his chest, hoping to merge their heart beats. If he could just give her a little bit of his vitality, maybe everything would be okay. She was so cold. The deathlike chill even punctured his thick Jotun flesh.
The golden blade of Laevateinn entered his mind. Loki forced himself to concentrate on it and not the frail listless body withering in his arms. His fingers slipped into her messy hair, trying to remember the feeling of lacquered Asgardian leather settling into his palm. His grip tensing around the metal base. How it hummed with his magic. The magic he shared with his mother. Frigga.
She was so cold.
Loki toiled between the sword, Elaina, and the memories of his mother, both happy and tragic. Her praising smile whenever he successfully completely a spell. The day he conjured a crude imitation of himself, making it dance so she would laugh. His heart ached remembering her laugh.
Bum......bum.........bum......bum.............bum......bum....
The hammer wailed against his fragmenting psyche as it drummed on. Slower, yet more powerful with each blow.
"Fuck," Loki hissed under his breath. "Please, I'm begging you," he pleaded, to what, he wasn't sure. The hag? Elaina? Laevateinn? Frigga? The universe and its twisted sense of justice? It didn't matter. He was on his knees and imploring anything that would listen, but his prayers fell on deft ears, and the body resting on his lap had stopped breathing.