Welcome To My Nightmare

Rome gasped and choked as he sat up, bleary-eyed and weird: the sort of feeling you got when you woke up from unconsciousness instead of sleep. Which, all right, was most of the (little) sleep he'd been getting these days, so nothing new there--but he definitely had an excuse this time.

There were traces of tears in his eyes, a stickiness and a moisture that he would absolutely never admit to--too many emotions warring in him at once, like anger, longing, and fear, but mainly anger--and he rubbed the "sleep" out of his eyes quickly and staggered to his feet.

There was scrambling all around him, people waking and rushing. Adara was gone. Presumably the line of people knew where she had gone, and he followed them. There were weapons scattered all over the room. Abandoned presumably in favor of whatever would kill Adara--no, it didn't have a name, this, what was it? djinni--so Rome didn't think whatever he picked up--Caleb's handgun, probably--would be a whole heck of a lot of use more than as comfort.

...But surely anything dropped if you put enough lead into it? Rome grinned even as he thought it, knowing Elenna and Lily would have a canniption if he ever said that out loud.

The last to arrive on the scene, Rome had a moment to observe: the djinni at her car, trying to make a quick getaway; Aly with a gun on her, the rest of them surrounding her with swords and knives dipped in--something. Blood, maybe? She had frozen, but not the safe, I'm-in-trouble kind of frozen: this was the coiled-ready-to-strike-when-they-least-expect-it kind of frozen.

"Really?" Rome said out loud, conversationally, quickly reassuming the cocky, sure-fire attitude he felt he had been so long without. He didn't even raise the gun: this was the hero's monologue, and she certainly wasn't going anywhere with the half-dozen sharp objects pointing at her. "Let me get this straight. You're running, and that's fine. I'd run, too, if I had these hound dogs on my trail--thanks, guys, seriously, when we clean this bitch up, the next, like, 12 rounds are on me." Then he turned back to the Djinni, who was glaring daggers at him. "What I don't get is that you have no qualms about mind-raping innocent people to get your kicks--you had a type and I happen to fit it, so forgive me if I take this a little personally--but the second it came to shedding actual blood you, what? Pussed out?"

Adara hissed as she slowly climbed from the car. It wasn't going to drive anywhere anyway.

"If I could have killed you, don't you think you would be dead already? It was a trade." She growled, her eyes shimmering brightly. "One death was not good enough for them, so I made a deal. Control of the mind in exchange for the spilling of blood. I killed them over and over and over again. The poor little whore died quickly, but he hung till he finally starved to death in his sleep."

She smiled cruelly. "The price for avenging a broken heart is never cheap."

Adara moved closer to Rome till the gun he aimed her pressed into the middle of her chest. "Do you really I ran because I was afraid of you? The pain of death will be nothing compared to what is to come. I have over a thousand years of death to atone for and when I die He will see that I am made to pay."

She lowered her voice, and her eyes locked with his. "Do it Rome. Pull the trigger. I broke your heart, now exact your revenge."

Rome usually had a pretty good idea when he was being played. This whole dream thing had really screwed with him--what he could remember--bits and pieces flashing back to him--but he felt more or less on top of his game again. And being on top of his game meant he could actually tell when someone was lying to him.

He was pretty sure she wasn't lying. Adara--the djinni!--looked scared. And maybe she was playing him, a little: maybe over-exaggerating, but deep down she was scared. And sad. Call him crazy, but Rome was getting definite sadder-but-wiser-girl-who-got-pissed-and-turned-black-widow vibes from this one.

The gun he was holding dropped until he wasn't pointing the barrel at her anymore. He didn't want to shoot her so much now. Was he still under her spell? What the hell? No one, but no one pulls one over on Romulus Remington and lives to tell about it! Was he still believing her lies?

Or worse: was he being psychic?

But he certainly couldn't let her--or anyone--know what was going on inside his freaky head, so: "Okay, you've got ten seconds to explain why I shouldn't have sent you to start atoning nine seconds ago."

“What the f*ck, Rome? Who cares why she did what she did. Take a silver knife and lamb blood, and kill the damn b*tch. She would have killed you without hesitation. She scared all of us nearly to death. Kill the damn b*tch or I’ll do it.”

Lenna stepped closer to the jinni and Rome, not sure what to do. But she didn’t care if Rome wanted to hear the big monologue of the evil guy. And Lenna was really sure that she wouldn’t let the jinni hurt Rome in any way. Not when they just saved him.

The antsy one who kept shooting her tires, moved close enough to press the barrel of her gun to Adara's temple.

"Move again, and I'll shoot you, I swear it."

Adara sighed tiredly and with one swift move, brushed her hand gently across Aly's.

"No you won't Aly." She said, lowering the woman's hands. Aly's eyes grew heavy as she backed away, the gun clattering to the floor.

Adara's gaze flicked over to Caleb. "You might want to sit her down." The gun in Rome's hand pressed against her chest again.

"She will be fine as soon as it's over. I promise." Adara said quietly.

Rome looked at her confused. "As soon as what's done?"

Tears slid down her's cheeks. "This." She reached up and pulled the trigger for him.

A blinding flash of blue light filled the room as Adara fell to the floor. The light disappeared, taking with it the blue flame of her hand, the blueness of her eyes, and the swirls of ink on her skin.

Rome yelped, dropping the gun and jumping back as the muzzle flashed, and the bullet in her forehead fizzled blue lightning and then went still.

"Whoa! What the hell?" he cried.

She definitely wasn't moving. He checked the magazine--something he probably should have done earlier--and these were silver. "What, are djinns like shapeshifters or what?" And, more importantly, at least to him: "Why did she kill herself? She could have at least tried..."

The feeling of empathy with the creature wasn't going away. So it wasn't her spell: She was dead inside. She was tired. And she just wanted it to end.

He turned around, suddenly uninterested in the body of the djinni.

"Whoa, Aly? Aly!" he called, kneeling by the body Caleb had lowered gently to the ground. He slapped her face a few times. "Hey, Aly. Alyson. Scully! Wake up, dammit!"

Aly woke slowly as someone called her name and slapped her. She reached out and grabbed his shirt pulling him down.

"Don't call me Scully."

Aly sat up realizing she was in Caleb's arms. She shrugged him off and stood on her own.

"So the D'jinn is already fried--I miss all the fun. We should probably finish up and get out of here, you know, before Chicago PD get here to find a warehouse of fugitives."

"No problem, Scully," Rome grinned, the perfect image of his former self. No way he was going to let on to anyone that he wasn't 110% okay with himself and with his pounding head right now. That would be for later, when he'd get some alone time, try to sort everything out, and probably call Rawson, just to hear the asshole's voice.

"I think she's got a furnace in the back. Whaddya say we torch all the evidence? Salt and incinerate, that's my motto," he laughed.

“Djinns are not like shapeshifters, usually a jinni is killed with a silver blade coated in lamb’s blood. But maybe it was that she killed herself that she didn't need the blood, basically her way of waking up in a different way.”

Lenna picked up the dropped guns while she said. “Right. Let’s just hurry and go, please.” Looking imploring at Rome.

I don’t wanna fight again against the FBI or police or any other normal humans.

"Believe me, chica, no one hates the fuzz more than me," he winked at Aly, whom he decided he should try to lay off as she looked like she was seriously going to kill him and, anyway, had saved his life today.

"Let's torch the evidence and get out of here before anyone calls the cops. Although...it's Chicago, right? One gunshot isn't going to alarm any..."

Sirens in the distance.

"Well, sh*t. Okay, let's hurry. Caleb, help me with her," Rome said, grabbing the djinni's ankles.

"Hari Kari somehow feels like robbing us of revenge," Caleb sighed, pulling a small packet of baby wipes from his jacket and wiping the blood from his blade with one, "Let's get the frag outta here."

Caleb sighed heavily, glancing at Aly before turning and pointing his sword in the rough direction of where they'd left the cars. He then stooped and lifted the far end of the Djinn by the hair, letting her hands drag along the ground. His look at Rome asked "where to?"

"If we hurry, we can make it to a really nice diner I know for the first breakfast of the morning," Caleb stated.

Together, Rome and Caleb dragged the djinni to the furnace, which had been blazing presumably in anticipation of devouring Rome himself.

"Ha. Just desserts, bi-atch!" Rome laughed as they dumped her in. As the sickly smell of burning flesh wafted through the air and Rome and his companions rifled through her boudoir for anything of value, burning the rest, Rome rubbed his hands together and said: "Well, I'm buying breakfast, so who's hungry? And has anyone seen my phone?"

"Last I saw, Danila had your phone. Let's get our asses back to the cars before the cops get here," Caleb sighed, rubbing his tired eyes and leading the way.

She came up beside him while they returned to the cars. Aly would ride with Lenna, she just needed to speak to him.

"Hey, Caleb?" He slowed his pace but they kept walking behind the others. "I ah--I just wanted to make sure you knew that was just a dream. I mean, there's nothing...yeah, just a dream."

Way to sabotage

"Sure," Caleb answered, his tone matching Aly's, "Just the Djin's way of f***ing with us."

With another long sigh, he rested his hand on her shoulder.

"You're not suggesting we try at a relationship like that, are ya?" Caleb laughed, shoving her playfully.

"Not a damn chance of that now anyway, dog soldier," Caleb thought angrily to himself.

Lenna turned around at Caleb and wondered.

There is something...

Lenna shook her head, she couldn’t be right.

“Let’s just go I don’t care where we have breakfast as long we are gone.”

I wish I could drive alone just once.

"What, no--not a chance."

Aly laughed as he shoved her playfully. "Not that I don't find you attractive and all--you're just not my type."

Dig it deeper...go on...and while your at it lie down.

"Tall, burly and ridiculously handsome isn't your type? You'd love a photographer I met in Florida," Caleb chuckled back, resting his sword across his shoulder.

He nodded to her to pick up the pace as the others began to fade into the shadows up ahead.

"Hey, Allison, if you ever need to talk about anything, you know where to find me. We may not be engaged, but we're still a team," Caleb added.

Allison laughed nervously at his joke. It was more the situation that wasn't her type. Put him in a suit and give him a badge, and it would be magic.

She started to move away when he spoke again. The blood rushed to her cheeks. She could only smile and shove a shock of dark hair behind her ear.

"Thanks, Cal--same to you."

They'd stopped walking. This was getting awkward quickly. She had a choice, let it go where it seemed to want to go, or walk away.

She cleared her throat noticing they were getting closer to each other.

"See you at the diner." Aly smiled at him, turned around, and walked over to where Lenna had the car waiting.

When Aly finally got to the car Lenna was grinning.

“Do you know that you are blushing?”

And suddenly in this very weird moment Lenna was just a 19 year old girl. She started giggling.

“Caleb and Aly sitting in a tree and K-I-S-S-I-N-G First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a golden carriage!”

Aly leaned forward with her head in her hands and groaned.

"There is nothing there, Lenna--just the Jinn's way of screwing with us. We sat next to each other in the circle. It could just as well have been Danila sitting next to me."

It didn't work. Lenna just kept going.

"Look, are you going to drive or what?"

Lenna kept giggling.

“Right, you and Danila what a couple. That is nearly as hilarious as if I would hook up with Rome or Raws.”

She stuck out her tongue at Aly. This started to be fun.

“And you are still blushing.”

Aly laughed along.

"Pays to sit next to the cute guy."

Her eyes rolled.

"I'm still blushing because you're still yammering. Now, where's this diner? I'm famished."

Lenna didn’t stop giggling, but started the Mustang.

“I have no idea where it is, but what about follow your cute guy’s truck.”

Lenna looked at Aly.

“Okay I’m done, but I see your point. Caleb does not look bad for being so old.”

Aly's voice squeaked.

"Hey, he's not old. He's only four years older than me."

The monster truck peeled out of the lot followed closely by the Mustang and the other cars.