𝑊𝐴𝑁𝑇 𝑇𝐻𝐼𝑆 (locke and key gabe)

17 rewritten

I wanted to feel everything. I wanted to notice every smell, every texture, every crack and crevice of everything I passed. I wanted to reach out to the trees, to feel them, to sit alongside them. I wanted to savour the wind in my hair and the clouds high above me. I wanted to squeeze every sensation and memory and moment into one last day. I wanted to be with everyone and everything and to hold my family close and never let them go until- until...

The fear had subsided now. I couldn't explain it, the desperation that was left in its wake. The longing to live a lifetime in a mere day.

But the keys, I had promised Gabe the keys. If I were to give myself up to him, I had to find a way to ensure my family was well protected, I had to leave something for them, some help, some tool. Anything.

I wondered if they'd cry when the found out what had happened to me, wondered if they'd miss me every waking and sleeping moment. Or if perhaps when the little blossoms of pink and ivory and rich magenta I had painted on my mum's dresser had faded, they would all forget who had painted them to begin with. When their memories of me were nothing but chipped paint and smoke and ash.

"Avery,"

"Avery, you're alive," Kinseys voice was a fractured, quiet whisper.

"Kins," I whispered, rushing into her arms. I clung to her so tightly, I felt my nails bite into her skin. I wanted to hold her forever, to never be apart, to never have to say goodbye to her. And I couldn't. I realised. I couldn't bring myself to tell her what was going to happen to me. "He let me go," I lied, "he let me go, Kins."

"Where Duncan?" She asked, pulling out of my embrace. "Did he come back with you?"

I shook my head, panic rising in my throat. Had Gabe even let him go? Was Duncan even alive?

"I thought-" I murmured "I thought he might already be back,"

Then as if he had been summoned, Duncan burst through the front door, eyes glassy with tears. His face was streaked with blood and dirt, and rich purple bruises blossomed across his exposed skin. His left eye was beginning to swell, and his nose was bent at an odd angle. Snow clung this clothes, his skin, his lashes, and I could practically hear the chatter of his teeth as I rushed towards him. And he looked at me in a way that told me he knew exactly what deal I'd struck for his life. His gaze made me want to cringe and wither away out of pure shame at what I had done. Protecting those keys was his life's job, his purpose, and I had just gone and thrown it away.

But he couldn't die- he couldn't. I'd gladly forfeit those keys to keep him- to keep any of them- safe.

Kinsey reached for my hand, but the second her skin touched mine, she recoiled.
"Ave," She murmured, "are you okay? You're burning up."

Was I?

But as though her words had triggered something in me, I suddenly became aware of the beads of cold sweat gathering at the nape of my neck. I raised

I wanted to leave something behind, some dark, ugly stain, some last act of defiance against Gabe, against what was to come. But there was nothing that I could possibly attempt without endangering the lives of my family, of my-

Fire.

Fire.

My saviour and my nemesis, my sweet, sweet nemesis. That had brought my childhood home crumbling to its knees, that had shaped and moulded and- and melted...

Maybe my dad had always known. Maybe he had given me this lighter for a reason, just like he'd hidden the head key in Kinsey's bracelet, and another in Tyler's old trophy, one more in Bode's childhood cradle. Maybe there was a reason he chose those specific keys for each of us. Maybe there was a reason we were here, in key house.

Maybe my life, which I had always believed to be so twisted and cruel and wrong was always leading to this, to here, to now. I didn't bother to find a coat or a hat as I rushed into the bitter cold of the outside.

I gripped the lighter so harshly I was sure I felt its heat blossom in my blood. Burning hot, spreading through my veins like a growing network of heat. Burning. Burning. Burning.

I came to a halt before the workshop, just off the house. I could hear it now, the darkness, the whispers, the quiet cries of all the wicked, wicked things that lurked in the shadows of this damned house.

"Please dad," I whispered. My voice wobbling ever so quietly, "Stop me before I do something I'll regret. Stop me before I ruin everything again."

I was already damned. I was already destined for something dark and terrible, but that didn't mean that I couldn't stop Gabe from hurting anyone else. I knew what Gabe needed. I knew what he had to do to merge our world with his. He had to open the black door, to destroy it, and to merge the world behind it with this one. To do that, he needed the Omega Key.

I set the Omega Key down on the worktable, and I clutched my lighter in my right palm. My fingers trailed the grooves of its surface, until I felt the key click out of place. I slid it into my palm and struck it against the Omega Key.

Nothing happened.

Of course, it had to have some sort of protective wards, but I knew whispering iron could be melted, I'd witnessed Duncan do so at the cabin.

My eyes trailed to my palm, and I was overcome with a sudden terrible idea.

I closed my eyes, and begged the gods for one last sign, one last sign to stop before I made some horrible, horrible mistake.

"There was once a girl with fire in her blood and kindling in her eyes..." I remembered the beginning story my dad would tell me each night, and I wondered if there was a message there, something dark and buried deep.

"Stop,"

I whirled. Duncan.

He was bruised and bloody but he- he was alive.

"Uncle Dunc!" I breathed, rushing to embrace him.

Only Duncan didn't return my embrace.

"What did you promise him?" He asked. And when I said nothing, he repeated his words, louder, angrier. "What did you promise him, Avery? Isn't your soul enough?"

"The keys," I mumbled, "Heat creeping up my neck," The keys for your life."

"Fuck," He murmured. "Fuck. Why would you do that, Avery? Do you have any idea what he can do with those keys?"

"Nothing worth you dying for," I retorted, "Mums always drunk and now you're the closest thing to my dad I have left. I wasn't going to just let him kill you!"

"Tell me you have a plan," He gritted, "Please for the love of god tell me you have a plan,"

"I don't know, I thought I could destroy the Omega Key and then we'd be somewhat safe," I suggested feebly.

Duncan sighed. "Yeah, just give him more reasons to kill us, Ave."

"I don't know, okay?" My tone turned sour, but in a moment my expression seemed to collapse, harsh demeanour cracking at the edges to reveal fragments of how scared I truly was. "I just wanted- I just wanted you to stay alive okay, I didn't think about the consequences?"

His eyebrows scrunched, but then his face relaxed. "Come here kid," He said, taking me into his arms. "It'll all be okay, you're an idiot though, you know that right?"

I let out something between a laugh and a cry as he wrapped his arms around me.