𝑊𝐴𝑁𝑇 𝑇𝐻𝐼𝑆 (locke and key gabe)

24 rewritten

The war was over for the Lockes. They had retrieved the Demon Key from Gabe's vault, and used the Alpha Key to make his demons human once more. Matheson was safe, and so were the Keys, most of which they had found in the dresser of one of the bedrooms. A handful were still missing, and despite Kinsey, Tyler, Scot and Duncan scouring the house, they remained lost.

As for the Alpha Key, Kinsey wanted to trust her sister to do the right thing, but that look in Avery's eyes... it had her questioning if trusting her with such a task had been a smart choice.

Her fears were put to rest when the four entered the kitchen.

Gabe was dead.

His body had fallen to the ground, a pool of red staining the white marble floor. Avery was still sat on the kitchen counter, still clutching the blood-soaked key in her trembling hands. Her face was stained with tears, her unblinking eyes not moving from his corpse on the ground. This wasn't like the others. Gabe was not made by a key, and so there was no human part of him, he was wickedness incarnate, a demon from the world behind the black door. There was nothing left after the Alpha Key. Kinsey had been right. The Key was made to save the others and to kill Gabe.

Tyler rushed to his sister, but the rest of them kept their distance. "It's okay," He consoled her, taking her into his arms. "He can't hurt you anymore,"

Avery's sobs quieted. If she wasn't so distraught she might have laughed at the irony. The fact he seriously thought that she cried because she had been afraid of him. Even with her head on Tyler's shoulder, her eyes were still on his body. She couldn't look anywhere else. Gabe was really gone.

The Lockes had won. They believed that all was right in the world, that they might return to some semblance of normalcy now that this mess with Gabe was over. They had no idea that the war was far from over, and that the one to break their newfound peace would be their own blood. Their fates had already been decided, and betrayal was brewing in the wind.

------------------

Three weeks had passed, and Avery felt as though she was looking in on someone else's life. She existed on autopilot, keeping to herself, quiet and reserved until night fell. That was when she broke down in silence, sobbing into the pillow that still smelt of him. It was impossible to sleep in a place where everything reminded her of Gabe, he haunted every inch of that house, memories good and bad flooding back to her constantly. It was exhausting, living in that state of in-between, where she much preferred being lost in her own mind to reality, having to hide her pain from her family.

School was even worse. Without Gabe, she had no place with the Savini's and Avery felt more like an outsider than ever. Her heart broke all over again each time she saw the empty seat beside her where he had once sat. Each time she passed his locker, she had to look away, unable to look at the notes and photos plastered onto the front of it. The door to his dorm was the same. Flowers everywhere, pictures of him and his friends, lit candles and colourful letters. She hated it, all those reminders that he was gone, that it was her fault. To everyone other than the Savini's, clueless to Gabe's true nature, she received nothing but pity, becoming known as the girl whose boyfriend had died. Everywhere she went there were stares, people watching her every move, wondering why she never brought flowers or lit a candle for him. In truth it was because she couldn't face it, the fact that he was gone.

And yet the Savini's, who she no longer truly considered her friends, were overwhelmingly apathetic towards her. In their eyes he was pure evil, and she was crazy to even be upset over him. She still sat with them, trailing after Kinsey like a lost puppy, for the simple reason that she had nowhere else to go.

But eventually, the idea of being alone became hugely preferable to wallowing in the midsts of a group of people who now felt like strangers. And whilst they planned their next film, going on with their lives as though Avery's wasn't shattering around her, she decided she couldn't take it any longer. She got up off the common room couch without saying a word. None of them spoke to her, they didn't pause their conversation or so much as glance in her direction, and so in that moment, Avery decided that she would never be going back.

She was just trying to get away, with no intentions of going anywhere in particular, but it seemed that fate had other plans for her. Her legs seemed to have carried her to Gabe's dorm without her minds permission. She felt foolish, standing there in the desserted hall, expecting the door to open and him to be standing there smiling at the sight of her. What she'd do to be in his dorm one last time, to rifle through his collection of books and to watch a movie curled up on his tiny couch, to go to sleep in the clothes that she'd borrowed from his closet. Little red hearts were taped to his door, flowers and trinkets on the floor in front of it, surrounding a framed photo of Gabe. His smile still melted her heart, and she didn't realise that she was crying until she felt the cold against her cheek. All these people had loved him- it made her feel like less of a fool. How could she be so crazy about the boy she had killed? How could she still love the boy who had done horrible things to her family? But standing there, she could pretend that none of that had ever happened, that he wasn't Dodge, that he was just Gabe.

She still had spare keys to his dorm, and as though she was acting on nothing but instinct, the next thing Avery knew, the door was unlocked.

The room was exactly as he had left it, and it broke her heart. He had no family to collect his things, no one to organise a funeral for him. Was this how it would stay, untouched by time, left as a shrine to the boy who had died at her hands? His homework was half-finished at his desk, his wardrobe doors hanging open. She smiled through her tears at the sight of the shirts she had borrowed countless times, at the bed she had slept in and the books she had read. The bottom corners were bent from the way he would absent mindedly push them backwards as he read, especially when the chapter got particularly good. How could someone so ordinary also be someone so wicked? Only she struggled to see him that way now. When people die, we tend to let their sins die with them, only favouring the good things, choosing to remember them. And in Avery's grief stricken mind he had been perfect, he had been everything. And she wished with every ounce of her being that she would have gone to him when she found out the truth and begged him to turn her. All she wanted was a do over, a chance to be with him forever. She would have done anything to live in a world where she didn't have to choose between Gabe and her family, because more than anything, she regretted that choice.

She had forgotten his true nature, how cruel and obsessive he was, to the point that nothing could tarnish her memory of him.

His desk drawer was ever so slightly open. Brows furrowed, eyes still streaming tears, Avery approached it slowly. As she pulled it open, she found inside the keys that had been missing from Javi's house. The Head Key, the Plant Key, the Matchstick Key and in the drawer above it, all alone; the Echo Key.

Her heart skipped a beat at the sight of it, a glaringly obvious sign from the gods of what she was to do. Slipping the keys into the pocket of her jacket, Avery was overcome with a perfect solution. She was unsure if it was even possible- Gabe wasn't actually a person, but she needed to try. She would do anything to bring him back.

Anything.