Her chest rattled with gasps in between her cries of agony, her sobs of pain that wouldn't stop - she begged internally for it to go away but it didn't listen to her. Her skin was on fire. Hot pokers jabbed into her temples, and she clawed at the sides of her head, unable to feel anything but blinding pain.
Her sobs and cries were shattering.
She had never felt this much pain in her life. She thought she had shaken hands with pain, danced with death - she could remember every slice of a blade, every burn of a bullet, every hit taken against her skin - but this was something else.
Her eyes were red, throat raw within seconds, the entire farm overshadowed by the echo of her haunting screams.
It didn't stop.
She couldn't think.
Her arms wrapped desperately around her torso, her vision blurry. She was sobbing. Begging something of a higher power to stop!
She couldnt think, couldn't catch her breath, couldn't see straight, couldn't hear anything around her but her own screams echoing inside her skull.
She didn't hear Five screaming her name.
She didn't see him attack Lila with a new found ferocity he'd never even known he could posess before. She didn't know that her siblings were picking themselves up outside, trying to come up with a plan all until they heard her cries of pain and began rushing to her.
When Five hit Lila so hard she hit the floor and had to blink away - then the switch was flicked.
Her scream cut midway through her throat, gasps burning her already raw vocal chords as the searing agony faded.
A pair of strong arms caught her as she collapsed in sobs against him, too weak to try and get him away, her skin scalding at the touch, her mind screaming. She was reduced to hoarse, uncontrollable crying and trembling.
Five clutched her against him as she shook uncontrollably, her heart straining against her ribcage, her vision blurred with tears. The ringing in her ears didn't go away and she couldnt hear their panicked shouting around her.
She wanted to die. She wanted it to end. Anything would be better.
She had no idea that they were all watching her, scared, unable to help and having nothing to do but watch as Five tried to hold her together, not knowing what to do himself.
He just kept shouting her name, trying to break through to her, trying to calm her down - but how could he when he was being tortured himself, watching her suffer so much?
"What happened?" Allison asked, hand covering her mouth in horror at the awful sight.
"Lila did something. She just started screaming, I-" Five swallowed, trying to keep her hands from clawing at her skin, trying to keep his panic internal. "I don't- she's in pain. I can't stop it. I don't think she can either."
They all looked sick to their stomach as the girls sobs went quiet.
Violet couldn't think.
Her body felt like a train had hit it. She blinked in and out of dizzy clarity, her body shuddering against the pair of arms holding her to his chest. Only soft whimpers and sharp inhales wracked her body. The pain was subsiding slowly, but the memory of what it had felt like struck her, paralysing her mind.
Never had she been able to imagine so much pain.
Never.
A sheen of cold sweat stuck to her skin, bits of her long hair clinging to her neck, and slowly and shakily, one of her hands crawled up to clutch the fabric of his blazer in a white knuckled fist. Her eyes were half lidded, her body losing strength to keep them open, her ears buzzing uncomfortably at the silence of it all.
Clutching his blazer was all she could manage.
Five had never in his life felt such raw, gripping panic. Not when he saw the world obliterated, not when he watched a chunk of the moon hurtle towards the world, not when death hung around the corner or when it caught it's grips on his family.
This, somehow, was infinitely worse. Knowing there was nothing he could do but watch as she suffered so severely that Violet broke every one of the rules she had set for herself subconciously and screamed until her voice cut out.
Never had they heard her use her voice to such an extreme. And it was all unwilling.
Five scooped up Violet in his arms, looking down at her with worry while she whimpered and hid her face against his collarbone, catatonic in state.
Diego had followed Lila to the barn and called ot the others. He carried her, trailing behind the others and ignored everyone trying to speak to her - it didn't feel right knowing what she had done to the traumatised girl in his arms.
He carefully put her down out of the way of the group, setting her down so she could rest her back against a rectangular stack of hay, but as he did she gripped his blazer tighter and couldn't help herself as she leant against him when he tried to pull away in the slightest - she couldn't get her limbs to work properly, it seemed. She felt so weak, so unspeakably weak.
"You're okay, you're okay," he whispered in her ear, eyebrows knitted together in worry. He didn't know at this point if he was trying to convince her or himself. He looked down at her but her eyes were glassy and fixed on a spot past his shoulder. "I've got you, Vi, I'm not going anywhere."
He felt relieved when she loosened her hold on him ever so slightly, allowing him to set her back against the hay so she wasn't solely leaning on him for support. He crouched in front of her and scanned her face, but her right hand didn't move from the fistful of fabric it clutched at the front of his blazer.
She looked like she could pass out at any second.
He didnt even know if she could hear him properly.
Five watched over his shoulder.
Lila sniffled through her tears, repeating only one thing now she knew the truth. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry-" she whispered, so conflicted with everything.
Five's shoulders tensed.
There was a single beat of silence before it was ripped to shreds by gunshots. They tore through the barn, yells erupting and then horrific thuds, one by one.
A sharp force struck Five's stomach and sent him falling back, his back hitting the floor. Only then did he feel the warmth and the searing burn tearing through his midsection. Pained gasps escaped him as he stared up at the ceiling, his breath clouding in front of his face.
Blood met his hand and the ringing subsided in the sickening silence that settled over the barn. The panic stole the air away from his lungs as he picked up on the sound of a quiet crying.
He blinked up at the ceiling, unable to move.
All he could manage to do was search for her hand against the front of his blazer but all his hand was met with was blood and air.
He angled his head slowly to the side, the blood splatters catching him off guard first. Then, the unmoving bodies of his family lying across the room, pools of crimson seeping from them and creeping across the dirt and dried hay.
Fear struck his heart like a dagger.
And in the middle of it all, was Violet covered in blood but with no wounds marking her skin.
The Handler was smiling at her from the doorway with the automatic gun in hand.
He tried to drag himself through the pain towards her, but he was too weak.
"Vi-"
She was crying when she looked at him. A glimpse of hope caught her as she fell to her knees beside him, her hands hovering over his body.
Another gunshot blared and Violet jolted, catching herself over him with her arm on the opposite side of his body on the floor.
She looked down at him, blood beginning to seep from the hole tearing at the side of her throat. His eyes widened and he tried to lift a hand towards her, but she used her other hand to cover it as her breaths rattled and sputtered.
Still, she did not move from above him, keeping him shielded from the vile woman behind her.
Her wide, glassy eyes met his and she opened her mouth to say something but nothing came out. She coughed on her own blood, and droplets hit his cheek making him flinch.
"You'll have to heal yourself first if you want to fix him, dear, and I've got plenty more bullets to ruin your pretty skin with," the Handler mused, taking a couple steps closer.
Violet was shaking, trying to heal her skin closed, but the blood was spilling down her front and mixing with his own.
"Vi," he croaked, scrunching his face up in pain.
She tried again to speak, but she couldn't heal herself fast enough.
Another gunshot - and this time Five was conscious of tears leaking down his cheeks. He couldn't do anything, too weak.
Violet shuddered, blood spilling from a spot in her stomach. She hunched further over his body, her hair brushing his face.
"Stop," he begged, voice wavering. She didn't deserve this. She wouldn't die, she was just being tortured with the idea of it with the bodies of her family around her.
A stray tear hit his cheek as she leant closer over him, arm holding her up growing weaker.
The Handler was enjoying this.
Violet's eyes glossed over as her neck attempted to patch itself together, the blood thinning out, the skin joining just enough for her to breathe clear again - she choked on a gasp and just when it turned to her favour, she was knocked down ten times harder.
The Handler fired again mercilessly.
"No!-"
Violet closed her eyes tightly as a whimper tore from her throat. The bullet struck her shoudler she collapsed against his side, her head falling onto his outstretched arm.
His hands went up to hold her by the arm and she weakly turned her head so that her lips brushed his ear.
For once in her life she pushed past the lump in her throat, the crawling terror, and she croaked hoarsely in the faintest of whispers one pleading sentence - "go back."
And suddenly, as they lay there, bleeding out as his tears mixed with her own - both staring up at the sky - he knew what he had to do.