Chapter Text
ZOEY
The ding of the elevator pounded in Zoey’s ears with every floor they passed. Fifteen left to the corporate suite with Celine’s office. Fourteen left. Thirteen. Twelve. She struggled to stay on her feet as the walls wrapped suffocatingly close around her.
No battle against hordes of demons had ever scared her this badly.
The elevator jolted to a stop, and the doors slammed open. Zoey’s line of sight raced out into the bone-chillingly empty office spaces opening up before her. Her body walked out on autopilot, her feet taking her past the field of empty desks and glass conference rooms and potted trees to the familiar hallway of executive offices.
To the very last office at the very end. The office of Kwon Celine. The woman whose music as part of the Sunlight Sisters first made 10-year-old Zoey think “I can connect to something from Korean culture after all.” The woman whose husky voice and whose sharp face made 12-year-old Zoey realize for the first time how much she liked women. The woman who, when 14-year-old Zoey had gotten the chance to meet her personally after finding out about the demons of the underworld, had recruited her to lead the war against them, and who’d introduced her to the two best friends she could’ve ever imagined having in her life.
The woman who’d held Rumi’s head on a chopping block for over 20 years.
They walked up to the creamy birchwood door of the executive office, and Rumi took her place against the wall so Celine wouldn’t see her. To think that whatever pain Celine was about to suffer — either from the test itself or from Rumi becoming enraged at the results — was going to be 100% self-inflicted. If Celine had set up a glass office for herself like a normal executive, then there wouldn’t have been a way for Rumi to hide while Zoey and Mira confronted her. They couldn’t pretend Rumi was dead if Celine could see her right there, and if Rumi couldn’t be present for Celine’s reaction to her alleged murder, then wouldn’t be a point to pretending she’d been murdered in the first place.
Plus the whole thing about ‘she chose to put a target on Rumi’s back in the first place.’ Zoey supposed that everything about to happen to Celine was going to be 100% self-inflicted for that reason too.
Mira grabbed the door and all but threw it down in front of her, and Zoey stormed in with her.
Inside the office, Kwon Celine was sitting at a simple wooden desk, wearing a plain gray suit over a plain white button-up shirt. The tan walls around her were largely unadorned, save for the bookshelves directly behind her. She looked up at Zoey and Mira — her eyes narrowed at the abrupt, unannounced intrusion, but so far, she only looked annoyed, not angry. Zoey could scarcely wrap her head around such a minimalist, unassuming figure being the mystical titan that her and Mira’s existence had revolved around for the last 8 years. That Rumi’s existence had revolved around for her entire life.
And it certainly didn’t help anything that this evil, vicious, lying bitch-monster was still somehow the most stunningly beautiful woman Zoey had ever seen. The luscious waves of her jet-black hair. The eagle-like piercing of her scowling eyes. The softness of her suit over the gentle curves of her lithe, deceptively muscular body. How could someone so easy on the eyes be so — oh, damn, that was a good line: ‘So sweet, so easy on the eyes, but hideous on the inside.’ Zoey would have to write that down later.
She forced herself to focus. She reached her fingers into the Honmoon and conjured a single shin-kal blade behind her back, willing it to land on the floor to prop the door open so Rumi could hear everything more easily.
“Please. Come in,” Celine said with a sigh, giving a ‘since it’s too late to stop you’ wave of her hand. “Can I help you?”
Oh, what Zoey would’ve given to just wipe the smugness right off Celine’s infuriatingly hot face. She forced herself to stick to the plan — her plan. “‘We are hunters, voices strong. Slaying demons with our song.’” The words scraped across her lips and tongue like chalk. “Sound familiar?”
“… Yes?” Celine asked through clenched teeth.
“Are you sure?” Mira asked. “‘Fix the world and make it right, when darkness finally meets the light’? You’re sure you know that that is?”
Celine’s nostrils flared as she stood up. “Listen, girls, I understand you’ve had a hard day — Robert told me you had to cancel tonight’s performance, so I understand that whatever came up must’ve been serious — but I do also have my own work to take care of so this doesn’t cause even more problems for you tomorrow.”
There was no way she’d be taking such a patronizing tone with them if she’d had any idea the world of pain she was in for. Should Zoey interrupt? Take control of the conversation now?
No. Not yet. Her words needed Celine’s undivided attention, and she wouldn’t get that if Celine was fighting to be heard herself.
“So please, whatever you need right now, let’s just get to the point so that we can deal with it like mature and responsible adults.”
Well, if Celine insisted, then Zoey had no choice but to drop the bomb now. “We killed the demon you’ve been protecting.” She forced her face to stay cold even as the words burned their way out of her throat.
Celine’s hands slammed against her desk. “EXCUSE —” Her face paled and contorted, her fury evaporating into terror as her words froze and sputtered on her lips. Her eyes darted to the empty space behind Zoey and Mira, and she gulped for air. “Where’s Rumi?”
Mira scoffed. “Did she stutter?” Zoey could practically hear Mira’s eyes rolling.
Celine’s arms and shoulders started shaking. Her hands visibly struggled to hold her up. “What have you done?”
Had Celine really just been the world’s most horrifically deluded dumbass after all? It was certainly starting to look that way, but Zoey still needed to make sure. “Your job. We found out that thing was a demon, and we killed it. The way you were supposed to. You’re welcome.”
“No, no.” Celine’s eyes lost focus. “She’s your friend. How could you —”
So it was clearly turning out that Zoey and Mira had been wrong after all — Celine really was the dumbass that Zoey had only pretended to think she was.
Oh well. That just meant the new point of the exercise was to make sure the message stuck deep enough that Celine could never forget it again even if she tried. “With my shin-kal and her gok-do,” Zoey said. “That’s what they’re for. Killing demons.”
“NO! Rumi’s not like that! She isn’t one of them!”
“Uh, yes, she was. She had the patterns of a demon, and you’ve told us for years that demons with patterns need to be killed.” Hopefully, Zoey had put just enough emphasis on “you’ve told us for years” to make it clear that Rumi’s death wouldn’t have been a random, tragic natural accident — it would’ve been the result of Celine’s conscious decision — but without making it obvious that she was putting emphasis on it.
“Are you saying you didn’t know about her patterns?” Mira asked. “Like, you thought she was human?”
“You don’t understand! She WAS human! Her patterns were just an infection, and the Golden Honmoon was going to cure her!”
Mira shook her head. “No, we understand exactly what you told us,” she said, keeping her voice more level and matter-of-fact than Zoey could’ve hoped to manage herself. “If there were humans with patterns, you would’ve told us years ago not to kill them, but there aren’t, so you didn’t.”
“No, it wasn’t — I had to — it was just —”
Well, they had their answer now. No doubt Rumi would be pulling the plug any moment now.
RUMI
“Your job. We found out that thing was a demon, and we killed it. The way you were supposed to. You’re welcome.”
Why the hell had Rumi agreed to go along with this?
She should’ve stood her ground. She should’ve called Celine immediately and told her that Zoey and Mira had discovered her patterns, but that they accepted her. If Celine had come up to the penthouse immediately, then Mira and Zoey would’ve only had a few minutes to stew in their paranoia, and they’d have easily accepted Celine’s explanation because they wouldn’t have had the chance to work so hard at prepping themselves to reject it.
Even through the crack between the door and the frame, Celine’s whimpers of grief crashed like a thunderstorm. “No, no. She’s your friend.”
This cruelty had gone on too long already. She reached out to push the door open, and she opened her mouth to yell out “All right, that’s enough.”
“How could you —”
Rumi’s hand stopped above the handle. Her voice stopped in her throat.
How could Celine ask that? She’d known for Rumi’s entire life that she’d eventually be forced to tell Rumi’s future hunting partners a lie, and after finally meeting Rumi's hunting partners, she'd had spent the last 8 years being forced to tell them the lie — of course she knew what the potential consequences of the lie could be.
But she didn’t have to lie anymore. Zoey and Mira obviously knew about Rumi’s patterns, and they’d done a frighteningly good job of making it look like their knowledge had gotten Rumi killed. There was nothing left for Celine’s secret plan to protect, so why wasn’t she coming clean about what her plan had been?
“You don’t understand! She WAS human! Her patterns were just an infection, and the Golden Honmoon was going to cure her!”
OK, so that was a good start, at least. It had taken Celine longer to get into it than Rumi would’ve thought, but now that she’d just explained Plan A, she could also explain all of the Plan Bs. Once she did that, Mira and Zoey would see that Celine had been a loving and responsible caretaker after all, and this whole nightmare could all be over.
“No, it wasn’t —” Wasn’t what?
“I had to —” Had to what?
“It was just —” Just what?
What was Celine waiting for?
She was going to give them the explanation, right?
She did have an explanation, right?
MIRA
Un. Fucking. Believable.
Either Celine was the most brilliantly convincing actress in the world, or Zoey’s fake guess had been right all along. Celine had raised Rumi with her patterns for the last 24 years, she’d taught Mira and Zoey 'kill anything with patterns' for the last 8 years, and not once in that time had she made the connection 'Mira and Zoey might kill Rumi if they find out about her patterns'
How was that even mathematically possible? How many days, how many hours, how many minutes had Celine committed to this without thinking about the logical consequences for even for a single second?
“No, it wasn’t — I had to — it was just —”
Well, no reason to stop twisting the knife now. “There’s no way to make this complicated,” Mira said. “You knew that everything with patterns was a demon that needed to be killed, so you told us to kill them.”
“… Are you even listening to yourselves? You KNOW her!”
Mira shrugged as aggressively as she thought she could get away with. “We certainly thought we did! You tricked us into spending 8 years letting our guards down around a monster that could’ve killed us at any moment!”
“We’ve been sharing our home with her, for fuck’s sake!” Zoey shrieked. “Our penthouse is supposed to be a sanctuary for us to recover from battling demons, but now our home is covered in blood because we had to kill a — wait a minute.”
The hell? What did Zoey mean by “wait a minute”? What was she —
Oh.
Blood.
She’d just said that their home was covered in blood. Rumi’s blood.
Which, Mira realized too late, was exactly what would’ve happened if they’d killed Rumi — she’s half human, and humans bleed. But if they’d killed her thinking she was a normal demon, they would’ve expected her to disintegrate completely. They would’ve realized themselves that she wasn’t a demon after all after seeing her bleed to death, and they would never have come barging into Celine’s office announcing 'we found out Rumi was a demon' in the first place.
And Zoey had just exposed the lie by putting their mistake front and center.
Could Mira salvage the slip-up? Could she turn this into a scene about her and Zoey realizing too late that because Rumi had bled like a human when she died, therefor she couldn’t have been a demon after all? Could they play themselves becoming overwhelmed with grief and horror that they’d just murdered their best friend for no reason, then pivot to realizing 'the reason we murdered our best friend is because Celine lied to us about what patterns mean'?
Nope — too late. Celine’s wide, unfocused, devastated eyes were already narrowing and laser-focusing in skepticism and fury. Any second now, she was going to start interrogating Mira and Zoey about why they would lie to her.
Rewriting the script wasn’t going to work anymore. She was on to them, and them trying to salvage the performance after it had already crashed was just going to make her the winner. They needed to change the fight so that her knowing everything was fake still made her the loser, and that meant they needed to rub it in her face how fake the whole thing had been. How the horror and trauma she’d just suffered had been the result of everybody else being a united front that had actively conspired against her.
Mira drooped her shoulders and rolled her eyes in the most theatrically over-the-top way she could manage. “RUMI!” she yelled over her shoulder at the door. “ZOEY SCREWED UP HER LINES!”
RUMI
“… Are you even listening to yourselves? You KNOW her!”
Was Celine even listening to herself? She’d spent the last 8 years teaching them ‘kill everything with patterns’ even though she knew Rumi had patterns. Of course the two of them killing her would’ve been the obvious consequence of them finding out.
Had Celine genuinely never thought about this before? Had Zoey been right all along?
Zoey’s voice fell silent. The room fell silent with her.
“RUMI!” Mira yelled through the door. “ZOEY SCREWED UP HER LINES!”
So apparently it was over. They’d given Celine a chance to prove — from a place where she could be 100% irrefutably honest — that she’d thought carefully about the danger Rumi had been in, but she’d given them nothing the whole time, and now their chance was gone.
Rumi forced herself to reach for the door handle. On the other side was the woman that Rumi’s life had revolved around every day of her life for as long as she could remember. The woman who’d told her as a child that she was important — that she was destined to save the world, and that she’d be able to cure herself of her infection when she did finally it. Who’d introduced her as a teenager to the first friends her own age that she could open up to about most of her secret life as a demon hunter in training. Who’d celebrated Rumi’s and her friends’ first Idol Award as proof that they’d finally become powerful enough musicians to officially take over as the newest generation of hunters.
Rumi loved her friends to the end of the world and back, but Celine had been there longer. Celine had always come first.
She was going to fail her friends, wasn’t she? Celine was going to tell her “You’re wrong,” and Rumi was going to be so desperate for Celine’s approval that she was going to roll over like a dog, apologize for disobeying, and accept whatever punishment Celine saw fit to impose.
Her best friends in the world had just put themselves through the worst pain of their lives for her sake, and she was going to throw all their bravery, all their love, and all their sacrifice away the second she walked into —
No. Wait. She wasn’t going to walk in.
Celine had told her for 24 years that her demonic blood was something to be ashamed of. Zoey had told her 24 minutes ago that Rumi being able to shapeshift, fly, and teleport the way demons could shapeshift, fly, and teleport would be the coolest thing in the world.
They were the ones on Rumi’s side. Not Celine. Rumi was going to do this their way.
She closed her eyes, took a breath, and imagined the inside of Celine’s office. Visualized where she’d heard Zoey’s and Mira’s voices coming from. Commanded herself to be right in front of them.
The world around her shattered into glass. Every organ in her body twisted inside out.
A thousand shards of twisted color came crashing back around her. She was in Celine’s office. Her eyes and nostrils burned with the stench of sulfur and lightning.
Across the desk from her, Celine — the woman who’d raised her her entire life — recoiled in horror, yelping as she fell over her chair and collapsed onto the floor.
“Ni-i-i-ice!” Mira whooped.
Zoey threw what felt like a dozen play-punches into Rumi’s side. “I told you that’d be cool!”
To think that Celine had told Rumi so many times all her life that her friends could never accept her demonic nature. That Rumi had been stupid enough to believe her. Every single time.
“You — how?” Celine gasped from the floor. “How could you? How could you lie about —?”
How could she accuse Rumi of doing anything wrong?
Rumi threw the desk to the side. “It was almost real.” She walked into the space where it used to be. “When Mira saw my patterns, your voice in her head told her to kill me.” She reached down. Grabbed Celine’s throat. “And the only reason I’m alive right now is because she disobeyed you.” She lifted Celine up.
Celine’s weight fell limp in Rumi’s grip, and her eyes started losing focus. Clearly, the fact that Rumi really had been in danger after all was deeply, deeply upsetting to her. But she wasn’t saying anything about her role in making it happen. Was she trying to think carefully about her words to avoid making a mistake?
Too bad — she didn’t have the right to start giving the silent treatment now. If she’d needed time to gather her thoughts, she should’ve started 24 years ago. Rumi pinned her against the bookshelves. “And I have been defending you for telling her to do it.” Leaned right into her tear-soaked, whimpering face. “Was. I. Wrong?”
“… Yes.”
Rumi’s hand went numb. Celine fell from her grip and collapsed on the floor.
It was all true. In 24 years, Celine had genuinely never bothered to give a single moment’s thought to the danger she was putting Rumi in. Not once. Not until Zoey and Mira made her think it was too late.
All the years of love and joy and safety that Rumi could’ve shared with her best friends in the whole wide world. All the years she’d sacrificed because Celine told her to. All the years of loneliness that had taken their place. All the years of pushing away the most incredible friends in her life because Celine told her not to get too close to them.
All of it had been for nothing.
Rumi thought about the hallway outside the door. Commanded herself to be there. The colors of the room shattered and crashed around her, and brimstone burned across her face. She was back in the hallway.
Her legs gave out under her. She caught herself on her hands just in time to throw up all over the floor. She crawled backwards, curling up against the wall.