Decades after Joel’s death, Marianne found out she’d never truly known him.

Whatever plans he’d held to confess, confided only to his brother, were cut short by his death. Only decades later, finding out he wasn’t quite human helped her make sense of some things – those times he’d started to say something but didn’t, his precise sense of smell.

The glimpse of something vicious, animalistic, that she believed to have hallucinated the last time they saw each other.

She didn’t love him less for it – after all this time, after everything together, she didn’t think she could – but she wished he’d made up his mind sooner.

Would things have been different? Would he have trusted her more, with other things, too? Would it have saved his life?

Such fanciful, empty dreams.

Now, with a dirty sack over her head and voices all around her, they seem even emptier.

In the end, they were too alike, father and son. It wasn’t just the fox tail and ears that her Thomas had inherited, but the mischievous, meddlesome nature, too.

How naive it was of Marianne to think he wouldn’t make enemies.

How naive it was of Marianne to think she wouldn’t, once again, be the one to pay the price.

She hangs limp in the arms of some man she doesn’t know. She’s awake – barely – but knows best not to show it, and she’s always been a fantastic actress.

This time there are no tears. This time, she’s better prepared, has less to lose.

There is steel at her throat, scratching the skin but not quite breaking it yet. Through fatigue and dizziness she can’t make out the words, but the people around her sound angry.

She keeps hoping to make out Thomas’s voice, calling out for her in worry, or maybe snarling at her captors the way Joel had.

She hears nothing.

————

References the same characters and events as Lie, Lie, Truth and In Love and Dreams. The second hostage’s POV can be found in Don’t Get Involved