Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Part 5

i.

Even though he’s on the ground, he can pinpoint the exact moment all the fight goes out of Ziggy as she retreats into herself like a wounded animal.

“What?” she breathes.

Nick finds himself echoing the same sentiment. His head still throbs with pain every time he tries to move it.

“Deena,” he manages to get out. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

He tries to prop himself on his hands, but Deena comes and swipes at his arms with her legs, making him fall face first to the ground. The collision makes him groan softly.

“Deena,” Josh says quietly.

“No,” she snaps, hovering above Nick with the baton, waiting to strike. “His family is to blame for all of this. Every single fucking thing.”

Nick somehow manages to roll onto his back. He lifts a hand to his nose, comes up with blood.

“What?” he repeats, trying to focus. His vision blurs – two versions of Deena coming in and out of focus.

“It wasn’t fucking Sarah Fier,” Deena reveals. Her knuckles turn red with how hard she’s holding the baton. “It was Solomon Goode who started the curse. He framed her – she’s the only one who figured out the truth and he got her killed for it.”

“What are you saying?”

It’s Ziggy now, sounding dangerously close to collapse. Nick feels like he’s floating, oddly enough. Maybe because of the wounds or maybe because of Deena’s words – he isn’t sure. He blinks rapidly. The words aren’t quite sticking in his head. Solomon Goode? His ancestor?

His mind flashes to the family tree displayed in the living room. The elaborate details. The engraved drawings tracing the Goode family line up until 1666. Up until the head of the family when the Goode’s started to be somebody. Up until Solomon Goode.

“It means they’re responsible for all of it,” Deena spits. “Ruby Lane, Ryan Torres, William Barker, Sarah Fier—” she pauses. “Thomas Slater. It was them this whole time.”

Nick stares right up at the ceiling. He can see the cracks in the paint and feels like they’re about to swallow him whole.

The family name first, son, he can picture his father say vividly.

“Will Goode is the one coming after us,” Deena tells Ziggy. “He was at Sarah Fier’s grave tonight. He shot at us.”

I need you to be the right-hand man I’ve always wanted you to be – the kind of man Dad raised you to be. The one who puts family first.

Will’s words from just a few hours ago echo through his mind. The cracks loom larger and larger before his eyes as he struggles to get air in and out of his lungs.

“They’re the evil ones,” Deena says. “Not Sarah Fier. They give the devil a name, and he feeds on all the Shadyside blood. And they get anything they want in return. Anything.”

Nick shuts his eyes.

He feels like he did at sixteen, when Tommy Slater stuck an axe in his leg.

He feels like he did at nine, when he fractured his arm falling off monkey bars.

He feels like he did at thirty-three, when he killed Ryan Torres.

It’s too much for him to bear.

A choked gasp leaves his lips, and then the darkness overtakes him.

ii.

Nick is shrouded in shadows. Choking on them, really, like he’s lost at sea.

His mother and father’s voices echo in his mind.

His mom on her death bed, making him promise to be a good brother to Will, to put the family first.

His dad a few weeks before he died telling him not to let the Goode name down, not to let his ancestor’s sacrifices go to waste.

Even now lost in his dreams he cringes at the thought, as the terrible truth swims its way through his veins, poisoning everything it finds.

It’s Will cornering him in their father’s office when Nick is seventeen and wracked with nightmares, telling him that it’s crazy to believe in Sarah Fier, that mom is worried about you Nicky, I’ll send you to a doctor if I have to.

Nick tries to battle against the darkness, against the waves slamming against him on all sides, but it doesn’t work.

It’s Jeremy’s broken, bloody glasses on the shed floor. It’s Alice’s intestines spilling out of her stomach as she lays dead in the mess hall. It’s Cindy’s bloodied beyond repair polo sweater. It’s Stacey’s severed braids and the bloody smile carved on Sean’s throat.  It’s Gary asking him to go back.

It’s so many moments in between.

It’s Heather’s choked gasp as she bled to death in the mall, her last thought being that she was murdered by her friend. It’s Ziggy laying lifeless in that field. It’s his first year on the force and he walks into a house and finds everyone dead at the dinner table, killed with rat poison, including a four-year-old girl. The girlfriend did it.

All these moments swell around him, pushing him down under again and again, and Nick doesn’t deserve to come back up for air. He plummets down to the ocean depth’s, deep down to the core of the earth, and he stumbles onto another memory. One stolen from him.

He’s six years old, and his father is leading through the tunnels with Will leading the way. Nick looks frightened, clings to his dad’s hand.

“I don’t like it down here,” he cries. “I want to go up.”

“Be brave, Nick,” his father says coldly, yanking his hand out of Nick’s grasp. “This has been a family tradition for years.”

It’s Nick crying and screaming as Will and his father slit two goats throat and toss their carcasses onto the devil’s mark. It’s him refusing to accept the knife his father hands him. It’s Nick screaming and crying so hard he throws up all over his father’s shoes. It’s his dad shooting Will a look and murmuring something in a language he doesn’t understand. It’s Nick waking up with no memory of the event.

It’s his father’s dismissal and disapproval over the years. It’s the looks his mother and Will exchanged after he came home from Nightwing, the ones that made him feel like he was weak. Soft. As it turns out, no other Goode had qualms with killing.

The memory fades and the darkness comes again. Nick drifts battered and bruised and broken, so far down he’s sure he won’t ever come back up again.

“Nick.”

The waves swell a bit, and Nick finds that he can start to move.

“Nick.”

The voice, it’s familiar. It makes his heart race. It brings him back when almost nothing else will.

“Nick.”

He takes a deep breath and starts to swim.

iii.

Nick wakes with a start to find himself in what he assumes to be Ziggy’s bedroom. His arms are pinned above him, his hands handcuffed to the bed railing. Deena and Josh sit directly in front of him, glaring at him fiercely. Ziggy sits a little off to the side looking like she’s just seen a ghost. Like the world has been yanked out under her feet.

Nick can understand the feeling.

It takes him a moment to realize that his shirt is dripping. They must have thrown water on him.

“Listen closely,” Deena says. “You’re going to talk to us. Now.”

The baton lays on the ground beside her, but Nick is certain she won’t hesitate to use it if she needs to. At this moment, he isn’t sure he can blame her.

“I don’t know anything,” he says. “I don’t. I didn’t know, I didn’t—”

Hysteria threatens to overwhelm him. He shoves it back down as best he can.

Deena snorts.

“Right,” she drawls bitterly. “And we’re just supposed to believe you?”

Nick winces. If the roles were reversed, he wouldn’t believe himself either. In fact, it doesn’t even seem like it’s real just yet. Plausible. He fights off another wave of nausea.

“I didn’t know,” he states limply. “I didn’t.”

But he should have, he realizes. He should have known.

“Will is the one responsible for Nightwing, you know that right?” Josh asks him. His voice is a little softer than Deena’s, a tad more sympathetic. Ziggy still doesn’t say anything.

Nick’s muscles lock together so tightly it hurts. He feels like a caged animal trying to break free, just about to give into despair as he sees the hunter’s axe fall.

“From first born son to first born son,” Deena recites. “Generation through generation without fail. Really, you should be proud.”

Nick does the math in his head. There weren’t any other mass murders besides Ruby Lane when his dad was alive. His dad was responsible for the deaths of eight people. Will was responsible for over twenty.

“Why Tommy?”

Nick’s gaze flies up to Ziggy. It’s the first time she’s spoken since the interrogation started. Her voice sounds raw, broken. The look in her eyes tears him apart.

“Why Tommy?” she repeats. She looks at Deena and Josh, as if they can offer her an explanation for what his brother has done.

But Nick realizes, with a sudden sick spasm of his stomach, with a coldness that seeps right into his bones, that he can.

“He asked out Cindy one year at camp,” he recounts, feeling very much like he’s hovering outside of his own body. “Or he propositioned her. She said no because she liked Tommy. She started dating him right afterward.”

Now Nick remembers the look on Will’s face all those years ago when Nick had told him that Cindy and Tommy were counsellors that year. That look of satisfaction. Of opportunity.

The thought of some Shadyside girl rejecting him, Will Goode, for a Shadyside boy must have been something his brother never forgave or forgotten.

A choked, broken sound escapes Ziggy’s lips, and Nick begins to dry heave, straining against his bounds to crouch over as bile slips from his mouth. There’s the sound of movement around him, but Nick doesn’t look up from the floor no matter how badly his arms burn. Someone puts paper towel on the vomit to soak it up. He’s grateful for that at least.

Nick looks up to find Ziggy crying silently, hand over her mouth. She’s staring right at him, but it’s like he isn’t there. Like she’s trapped in the past, watching her sister be murdered over and over again.

“I’m so sorry, Ziggy,” he whispers. “Ziggy, I’m so sorry.”

She blinks rapidly, as if his voice has woken her up from her stupor.

“And Ryan Torres?” Deena asks. Her eyes are glassy with tears. “What was his crime?”

And suddenly Nick is back in Sunnyvale High, looking at the pictures in the display, Will sliding up beside him. Didn’t he storm the town hall and accuse me of stopping resources from entering Shadyside?

“He held that rally, remember,” Josh says, ever the smart one. “Ryan Torres. He accused Will Goode of corruption. No one paid attention to him, but—”

“It was enough to get him on Will Goode’s shit list,” Deena finishes. A tear slips down her cheek.

Nick can only see that picture of Ryan at the community center, wide smiled and happy, a soccer ball in his hands. His brother killed him. His brother killed him. Will killed him. And Tommy—

Will must have known Cindy would be nearby. He was counting on it. But more than that. Will knew that all those kids would be there. Heck, he’d been a counsellor there himself. He knew how many kids went to camp. He must have known some of them. He must have.

And he said Tommy’s name with that knowledge.

“Wait,” Josh starts suddenly, sounding panicked. “Will Goode was there at Nightwing, right? He came right at the end.”

To look at his handywork.

The words echo through his mind, a knife ripping his insides apart.

“He was,” Ziggy confirms. She seems to be slowly recovering from the news. A quiet sort of fury etching itself onto her features. Nick leans his head back and digs it against the sharp edge of the railing. The pain helps him focus, slightly.

“Why didn’t he say your name?” Josh questions. “He knew you were talking about Sarah Fier. He heard you.”

The edge in Will’s voice that night when he found out Nick brought Ziggy back to life. The suspicion.

Deena claps suddenly, forcing Nick to open his eyes.

“He tried,” she says, scrunching up her features as if trying to recall a memory shown to her by Sarah Fier. “He tried and it didn’t work. He tried to say your mom’s name, too. He tried to wish you dead. But it didn’t work.”

They all turn to look at Nick.

“You used the curse,” Josh concludes. “It’s the only plausible explanation – think about it! CPR isn’t enough to save someone from stab wounds for crying out loud.”

It’s a miracle, the paramedics had said that day. God must have been looking out for her.

“Or the devil,” he whispers to himself.

“What?” Ziggy questions softly.

It shouldn’t make any sense. It shouldn’t.

But it does.

“You did something, didn’t you?” Josh asks. “You saved Ziggy’s life.”

“I didn’t say a name,” Nick murmurs, the words slipping out of his mouth. “I didn’t know. I just—I just---”

“You just what?” Deena snaps.

Nick meets Ziggy’s gaze.

“I just wanted to keep you alive,” he confesses. “I wanted to take you to prom and be your friend or your boyfriend. I wanted you to live. I wanted you to never be affected by something like that again. I wanted you to be safe.”

Ziggy doesn’t look away, but Nick can’t help it. She’s always been braver than him anyway. His gaze drops to her shoulder.

“I just asked anyone who was listening to keep you alive,” he continues.

“And you didn’t realize you used it?” Josh’s voice is gentle but firm. This is important. Nick can’t stew in his shock and misery for much longer.  He needs to get it together.

“No,” he replies. “All I know is that I felt so cold, like I’d never be warm again. I thought it was the blood loss.”

“You took one of Will’s wishes away,” Josh tells him. “That’s why he didn’t want you to know about the curse. Second sons aren’t supposed to be able to be use it, are they?”

“They’re not,” Deena confirms. “No other second son in Goode history has done it.”

“But you did,” Josh insists. “And Will didn’t want to share that power with you. He needed to keep you in the dark. When you told your mom about Sarah Fier, they used the curse to get you not to believe in it, because they didn’t know what you would do. You were a loose cannon.”

“Josh, he could just be playing us—”

“Deena, if he was he would have let Sam kill you,” Josh interrupts. “He knocked you out of the way and almost took the stab himself. Hell, he could have come into Ziggy’s house and shot us, and then get the killers to finish the job. He could have let Sam loose and let her kill Ziggy. He could have killed Ziggy himself.”

“Yeah, but he’s still in love with her—” Nick and Ziggy both stiffen at the words, “—he could just be acting like this to keep her in line.”

“I’m right here, you know,” Ziggy interjects.

Deena and Josh pause, shoot her apologetic looks.

“It could have been Sarah Fier, too,” Josh says. “She could have helped bring Ziggy back. She must have seen how you were at Nightwing and thought you could help end the curse. Make things right. She could have confused the devil for just a second, just long enough for him to confuse you and Will. Just long enough to bring Ziggy back and have her cloaked in your protection.”

Nick finds he likes that version of events better, but he still isn’t entirely convinced.

“Better than having my sister’s blood be the price for my resurrection,” Ziggy quips.

None of them laugh. He doesn’t think Ziggy was saying it to be funny, either.

They’re all silent for a moment. Nick keeps on playing it all over and over in his head. Solomon Goode saying Cyrus Miller’s name. The first Shadyside killer recorded. He plucked out twelve children’s eyes and let them bleed to death in the church. William Barker was a ten-year-old kid. Why did Nick’s great great grandfather say his name? Why?

Why did his dad say Ruby Lane’s?

Will said Tommy’s name knowing all those kids would be there. Heck, that’s probably why he said it. More blood for the devil. More wishes to make.

Oh Nicky, Will had sighed a few weeks ago at the birthday party, when will you learn that it’s never a question of if but when whenever it concerns Shadysider’s just losing it?

His brother had known the truth the whole time. He’d known he was going to say Ryan Torres’ name. He’d known.

Anger burns in Nick’s stomach. A fury so strong he wants to scream until his voice grows hoarse.

“How do we stop it?” he asks Deena finally. “How do we stop the curse?”

She looks at him closely, and a small, unamused smile plays on her lips.

“We can’t kill the devil,” she replies. “So, we have to kill your brother.”

iv.

Nick is alone in the room now, still handcuffed to the bed railing. After Deena had told him what needed to be done, Ziggy had stumbled to her feet and ushered the two kids out of the room. Nick didn’t know if it was because she thought he would break free and kill them all. Maybe it’s because she didn’t trust him.

Nick doesn’t know. All he can do is sit there and think about Will. About Will being dead. Try as he might, he can’t imagine sliding a knife in his brother’s chest or blowing his brains out with a gun. Whenever he tries to picture that scenario, it feels almost laughable, like one of the campy horror movies from the eighties.

A groan echoes from the bathroom. Sam. Destined to be possessed forever, another Shadysider who just lost it, who just snapped. Nick swallows down the lump in his throat. That can’t happen. It can’t.

Just as he’s come to this conclusion, the door creaks open.

Josh, Deena and Ziggy filter through the room.

“We need to kill Will Goode,” Ziggy states, looking him right in the eye. “It’s the only way to call off the killers. To put an end to all of this. They could be coming after us right now.”

“So we need to get going,” Deena adds. She fishes in her pocket and pulls out his phone. “We need you to call your brother. If you’re on our side, you’ll tell him to meet you at Shadyside mall by midnight. Make up some excuse.”

Last Nick knew, it was only nine-thirty.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

His heart hammers like a drum in his chest, making his ribcage tremble. Deena sets the phone down and calls Will. They all sit there silently, as it dials.

“Nick? Where the fuck have you been? I’ve been calling you all night, worried sick.”

His blood boils as Will’s voice echoes through the room. He wants to scream at him. Wants to smash his phone to pieces, stomp on it until there’s nothing left but smithereens. Ziggy catches his eye, and Nick—

“I’m sorry about that,” he forces himself to say, keeping his tone as even as possible. “I was out on patrol. We keep on getting prank calls about copycat killers. Stupid kids running around in ghost face masks.”

“Fucking Shadysiders,” Will swears. “Listen, Nicky. Listen. I need you tonight, do you understand? It’s urgent.” His brother takes a deep breath.

“Need me?” Nick asks. “For what?”

“It’s hard to explain over the phone,” Will says. “It is. But I need to tell you. Just in case. So you can carry it on for me-- I wasn’t planning on this, it was supposed to be—”

The connection breaks off.

“Will?” Nick says, stomach rolling into knots. “Will?”

A crackling sound comes from the phone.

“Sorry,” Will says. “I’m back home. Where are you right now?”

“I’m doing rounds on the highway,” Nick replies. “I can meet you at Shadyside mall by midnight.”

Will lets out a relieved breath.

“Okay, Nicky. Okay. Shadyside mall works. We can fix everything there.”

Another sound comes from Will’s background. His brother doesn’t like he tried to kill two kids tonight.

“I got to go; Daisy is in the background—”

Nick freezes, entire body jerking suddenly, and Deena reaches out and slams the phone shut, baton at the ready.

Daisy. Daisy Daisy Daisy—

Somehow, in the midst of all of this, Nick had forgotten about her. His niece. If Will died, if his brother was dead---

What did that mean for Daisy?

“Daisy,” Nick breathes, posture suddenly poker straight. “What will happen to Daisy?”

His legs shake as he tugs at the handcuffs digging into his skin. Nick isn’t even entirely sure what he wants to do. He just needs to break free, he needs to make sure Daisy is safe, he needs to put an end to this—

“We don’t know,” Deena responds finally. “A girl has never been first born before. Never. Not since before Solomon Goode.”

Nick’s heart plummets to his stomach.

“If Will dies,” he says, voice wavering. “If Will dies, will Daisy be the one in charge of the curse then?”

“But she doesn’t know about it, right?” Josh prompts. “I mean, she’s only six. If she doesn’t know it’s an option—”

But Nick’s mind has disappeared to hours before when Sabrina and Daisy came to visit. Will took her out two weeks before her birthday, Sabrina had said. Said it was for some father-daughter bonding. Said your dad did it with him when he was around her age.

Nick’s mind flashes to his own memory, the one he isn’t even certain is real, of his dad taking him down to the tunnels when he was six.

His horror must show on his face because Josh’s voice stops abruptly.

“You can’t,” Nick breathes. “Please, no, Daisy can’t be in charge of this. She can’t. Let me take Will into the station—”

“If we don’t kill your brother, we will die,” Deena tells him. “Sam will be lost to us forever. We don’t know what will happen if we manage to stop Mayor Goode. We don’t.” She pauses for a second. “I’m sorry.”

“Jail won’t stop the killers coming after us,” Josh adds quietly. “I’m sorry.”

Nick strains against his handcuffs.

“Please,” he begs. “Please, just—let me find another way. Let’s find out what will happen. Maybe Sarah Fier has the answers. If you let me go to her grave—”

“No,” Deena interrupts. “No. We’re not going to hurt your niece, Nick. We’re not. But we have to do this.”
 

She looks around the room suddenly, seems to find something she’s looking for. She snatches it off Ziggy;s dresser. It’s a scarf. Nick doesn’t realize what’s happening until Deena is crouching in front of him.

“No, Deena, don’t—” His voice is muffled by the scarf she uses as a gag.

“I’m sorry,” she repeats. “We will come back for you when it’s over.”

Josh looks aghast by his sister’s actions, but he doesn’t say anything else either.

“Do you have his keys, Josh?”

Her brother nods, looking down at Nick with sad eyes.

“Okay,” Deena says. “Let’s go put a stop to this.”

She leaves the room, and after a few moments Josh trails after her. Ziggy stands there, looking down at him. He thinks maybe they left the room on purpose. Nick strains against his gag, trying to form her name. Ziggy, Ziggy.

And then, Daisy.

He looks up at her with wide, pleading eyes. Ziggy crouches down in front of him, her knee grazing his thigh. He thinks she knows he’s not asking her to forgive Will or to not try and stop him. That he understands. That he wants to end this. He just needs to make sure Daisy is safe.

Ziggy reaches out and cups his cheek. The warmth of her hand startles him. Nick hadn’t even realized he was cold.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “Nick. I’ll make sure Daisy is safe, you know that, right?”

He gurgles against the gag. Ziggy doesn’t remove it. She probably doesn’t want to hear what he has to say.

“I promise,” Ziggy breathes. “I promise.”

She leans forward and presses a kiss to his head. She still smells like vanilla. And then she’s gone.

All Nick can think of is how he promised to save Cindy too, and failed.

There’s some commotion in the background as they carry Sam out of the house and into the car. Some more movement in the house. Then Nick hears his car start, and then they’re gone.

v.

Nick isn’t sure how much time passes. He’s trapped in the spot they left him in, gag soaked with his spit. Tears leak from his eyes as he sits there, his arms aching uncontrollably. He can’t help but feel like a failure.

He wanted to help them – he wants to help them so badly. But Daisy. Daisy.

The person he loves most in this world. Nick can’t reconcile the fact that Will told her about the pact with Satan. He can’t. How could sweet, innocent, gentle Daisy ever want to kill someone? How?

He wonders if Will had been like that at Daisy’s age. Had he been? Is that why his Dad tried to show him the family tradition? Had Nick shown some propensity for darkness? For murder?

He shivers at the thought.

It’s hard to figure out what’s real anymore. He sits there and tries to sort out the shambles of his life. The sight of his uniform makes him sick. Had Will put another name on the wall when Nick ran for the sheriff’s office? To ensure he would win?

Will had done so when he ran for the mayor’s office. Nick knows that now. And Ryan Torres—he’d been there not only for retribution, but to ensure that Will won the second time around too.

His mom had known the truth. Nick realises that too. When had she been let in on the secret? On her wedding day? Before? Had she had Will and then realized she was tied down to a monster forever? Nick doesn’t know. All these questions, and he’ll never know the answer.

Did his recluse great-uncle know? The one whose house Nick bought?

Nick has lived in that home for years now. Did it also have some secret underground tunnel leading to the cave that housed the Goode family secret?

He goes through a list of names of people he knows. His father. His mother. Will. His grandparents, at least on his father side.

Sabrina, who has always been kind. Who has always looked out for him. Sabrina, who Will set his sights on, even though she was engaged to Kevin Smith, someone Nick knew from school. Sabrina, whose fiancé died when he came back to town after she broke things off with him to be with Will.

For some reason, his heart squirms at the thought.

Sabrina, who married Will a month after Kevin’s death and had Daisy within the year.

Had Will put some Shadysider’s kid on the wall just so Sabrina would marry him? Sabrina wouldn’t have even realized. One day she must have just woken up and decided she didn’t want Kevin anymore, that Will Goode was the man for her. Nick feels sick at the thought. Kind Sabrina, who loved her daughter so much. Who was worried about Will’s behaviour.

Something nags him in the back of his mind. I want another kid, Will had told him just two days ago. Sabrina’s opinion on the matter isn’t of much importance to me at the moment.

The anger in Will’s voice. The pinched expression on his face as Nick watched him at Daisy’s birthday party – the one that had been there for at least two weeks, after he had taken Daisy to the tunnels. It had bothered Nick so much to see it, and he realizes now it’s because it’s the same look his father sent him every time he thought Nick wasn’t looking. Of scrutiny. Of suspicion.

Another memory unfurls in his head – the phone call he just had with Will not too long ago, with Deena, Josh and Ziggy hanging around in the background. “Listen, Nicky. Listen. I need you tonight, do you understand? It’s urgent.”

Will had sounded so strange to him then. Nick had never heard Will sound desperate before. Fearful. He must have realized that Deena was still alive, that she and Josh knew the truth about Sarah Fier.

“It’s hard to explain over the phone,” Will had said. “It is. But I need to tell you. Just in case. So you can carry it on for me-- I wasn’t planning on this, it was supposed to be—”

Just in case of what? Nick wonders now. Just in case he died?

Will was planning on telling him the truth tonight just in case he died. He wanted Nick to assume the mantle. To carry on the Goode line. His worry that Nick would somehow wrestle the power out from under him was outweighed by his fear that the pact could die with him. And if Will survived, he could just say another name and have Nick’s memory of the night swiped. No harm no foul.

But why? Daisy knew the truth. As hard as it was for Nick to believe that she would ever do such a thing, no other first-born Goode had ever failed to do it.

Unless Will had good reason to believe that Daisy couldn’t do it. That the pact wouldn’t be applicable to her.

Nick frowns deeply, strains against the handcuff. Will wanted another kid and soon. Had the devil rejected his niece because she was a girl?

He inhales and exhales deeply through his nose, mind filling with images of Daisy. Daisy, learning how to walk. Teaching her how to ride a bike. Watching Cinderella with her. Daisy at her birthday party, playing with Indiana. Daisy as a newborn in the hospital, him watching over in the NICU, because she’d been born a month early.

Nick freezes.

Daisy had been born a month early. Daisy with her blonde hair and green eyes. Both Nick and Will looked like their father. All of the sons in their family looked like their father. Even the rare daughters did too. They had the family portraits to prove it. The ones that lined the walls of the Goode family mansion for all to see.

Will, frantic on the phone earlier. Will, who knew that if he died, the curse would end with him. Will, who had been so desperate to tell Nick, to ensure that someone with Goode blood would carry on the pact.

Because Daisy wasn’t his daughter.

Nick wheezes against the gag. It is as though a massive hole has been wrenched through his chest. Will’s anger and coldness with Sabrina. Him treating Daisy oddly over the past few weeks. Will couldn’t just up and divorce Sabrina out of the blue and abandon Daisy.  He couldn’t. The town would hate him. And he would never admit to anyone the truth because it would hurt his pride too much. Will, who had been so arrogant, so entitled to believe that he was owed Sabrina just because he wanted her. Will, who had never considered the fact that Sabrina may have already been pregnant before he married her.

Nick isn’t even entirely certain that Sabrina knows.

There’s even a small chance that Nick isn’t right to begin with.

But he thinks that he is. He feels that he is, in his heart.

If Daisy isn’t Will’s biological child, then there’s nothing holding Nick back from stopping the curse tonight. His mind flashes to Josh, Deena, Ziggy. All of whom are at Shadyside mall, trying to put an end to all of this.

Nick jangles his arms, tries to break free.

Come on, he thinks, tears of frustration piercing his eyes. Come on!

It doesn’t work. He exhales loudly, entire body slumping over as much as his bound hands will allow. Please, he thinks. Nick needs to be there. He has to protect all of them. He has to. And Daisy—

Who knew what Will’s plan with Daisy was once he managed to get Sabrina pregnant again?

After all he’s learned tonight, Nick wouldn’t be surprised if Will meant to get rid of her. The thought infuriates him even more, and he kicks at the floor, trying to find purchase. His thrashing makes a few items on Ziggy’s nightstand fall to the floor. He tries to blow an errant curl out of his eyes but it doesn’t work. The gag won’t let him do it properly.

His arms are burning now, strained beyond relief. He still doesn’t know what time it is.

Come on, Sarah Fier, he thinks. Help me.

He looks around the room, trying to find something, anything to help him. He comes up short. He bangs his feet on the ground again, making Ziggy’s fallen hairbrush rattle on the floor, along with a few hair ties and pins—

Nick stops moving, heart in his throat. He narrows his gaze as he peers over. Those are hair pins. If he can get one, Nick can try and work his way free.  He shifts his body down as much as he can, extends his foot out blindly, searching. He almost chokes on his spit at the angle, gags against the scarf, trying to clear his mouth. He drags his foot on the floor, and—

Jackpot, he thinks. He uses his heel to catch one of the pins and drag it up. It gets caught on Ziggy’s carpet. Nick squirms, uses his heel to detangle it. His arms are burning with his body angle, feel as though they are about to snap. He has to kick it over a little, and Nick does so with bated breath, worried that he’ll kick it under the bed where he can’t reach.

It slides right next to him. He almost cries with relief. Nick sweeps his legs under him and uses the angle to try and bend down and pick up the pin with his mouth. A groan escapes his throat as his back curves unnaturally, his entire body straining, handcuffs digging into his skin so strongly they draw blood. But he needs to do this. He has to help them.

Daisy needs him. Deena, Josh, Sam—

Ziggy.

He feels like he did at Nightwing, when he threw himself on top of Ziggy, his only thought being to keep her safe. His teeth graze the pin and Nick manages to pick it up with his mouth. He exhales loudly through his nose and then leans back and tilts his head up, using his lower body to lift himself, straining his hands downwards.

Sweat beads at his forehead and—

His hand curls around the pin. Nick wriggles his fingers around, trying to see where the opening is. He screams loudly against the gag, and then the handcuffs open with a sudden click. Nick instantly falls to the floor, his arms sore beyond relief. He only has the energy to rip the scarf out of his mouth.

He lays there, head against the wooden floor, and tries to calm the beating of his heart. His shirt sticks to him, still wet from where one of them had thrown water on him. He hears the door creak open, but he doesn’t have the energy to look up. Not until he hears the soft pitter-patter of feet, and then Ziggy’s dog Major Tom is licking his face. Nick scrunches his nose up. The dog whimpers loudly, and—

Nick sits up with a sudden jolt. They’re all still at Shadyside mall. He bolts to his feet, the dog following behind him, and stumbles into Ziggy’s living room, his head still aching from Deena’s blow. They took his car keys of course, probably raided his boot for the spare guns he has there. But Nick still has the gun he has tucked into his holster, so that’s something at least.

His eyes land on the numerous clocks in Ziggy’s possession. 11:50pm, they all read. Nick’s heart lets out again, and he searches frantically for Ziggy’s car keys, pulling open kitchen drawers and looking under the couch.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he swears, slamming his hands against the table.

Major Tom whimpers from where he is by the door, and scratches the wall, almost as if trying to say something to Nick. His eyes latch onto the hooks where Ziggy’s key dangle.

“You genius dog,” Nick breathes. He snatches the key from the wall, but not before bending down and patting Major Tom on the head, who lets out a pleased groan. “Thanks.”

And then he’s out of the house and climbing into Ziggy’s car, old and rusty thing that it is. The tires screech as he pulls out of the driveway, but Nick doesn’t give a damn.

He needs to get to that mall, no matter what it takes.

vi.

Nick arrives at Shadyside mall five past twelve, having broken every single traffic law in the book. Will’s car is nowhere to be found though. That makes him pause. Only Nick’s lone sheriff’s car is in the parking lot. But that isn’t true. There’s another cop car. Nick recognizes it as Kapinski’s

It’s possible Will wasn’t there yet. Or maybe Will brought them as backup. The thought makes him push on the accelerator faster. Deena took Nick’s phone so he has no way of knowing whether Will called him again. None at all. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. Heart pounding in his ears, Nick sharply pulls into the parking lot and turns off the ignition before leaping out of the car. He pulls out his gun and runs for the entrance.

Ziggy Ziggy Ziggy—

The door groans as he pushes it open, and it slams shut behind him. The lights are off, casting the mall in a dark purple-bluish hue. It is like the night Heather died. Nick’s throat goes dry as he moves as quietly as possible.

Goode is evil, they’ve painted on the walls. Psychos this way.

The bright yellow, glow in the dark letters make his eyes hurt, but Nick pushes onward. On the ground, he starts to notice the bright yellow squirt lines on the ground. He bends down and pokes it with his finger, bringing it close to his eyes for inspection. Blood. His stomach clenches painfully. But the lines look intentional. He follows it closely and knows without having reached the end that it leads to the hanging tree.

They must have been trying to lure the killers this way. But why? More importantly, did Will fall for it?

Nick is standing there pondering this when he hears a loud scream echo from further down.

Ziggy.

He runs through the mall, hearing her scream, and finds Will holding Ziggy in a headlock, gun pressed to her head. The yellow substance is splattered all over Will – parts of his hair, his clothes. Surrounding them all are killers. Ryan Torres. Tommy. Others he doesn’t recognize.

His family caused this.

They caused all of this.

The sheer weight of this realization makes him feel dizzy, but it’s gone in an instant as he hears Ziggy let out a garbled sound of pain as Will yanks at her hair. She struggles against Will’s hold, and Nick just reacts. It’s reflex, really, even after all these years.

“Drop it, Will!” he shouts, lifting his gun. His hand trembles a little, but he keeps his arms locked anyway. “Drop it!

Nick slowly approaches them as his brother whirls around.

“Nick?” Will demands incredulously. “What the fuck are you doing? Help me!”

Nick doesn’t waver.

“Put the gun down,” he says. He clocks his gun. “Put it down!”

A thousand different emotions cross over Will’s fine features. Malice, indignation, hurt, and then rage.

“You’re picking this Shadyside trash over your family?” he yells at Nick. The killers grumble as they circle around the pair, almost as if they’re confused about who to target. “After everything I’ve done for you!”

Nick almost winces. He thinks about Will, ruffling his hair as a kid. Will, his big brother. The golden boy. He thinks about his father. The Goode name above all else, son, and whatever’s left inside of him fractures.

Will cackles.

“Do you know how inconvenient my brother’s infatuation with you has been over the years?” he questions Ziggy conversationally, pressing the gun tighter against her head. Nick straightens his own aim again out of instinct. “Whatever protection wish he pulled after Nightwing prevented me from saying your name. But people thought you were batshit, so it didn’t fucking matter.”

Darkness twists Will’s features.

“I should have just killed you myself—”

Nick fires a warning shot above Will’s shoulder.

“Don’t do it, Will!” he yells. “I swear to God I’ll shoot. Call the killers off. Come into the station. Don’t make me do this. Just admit what you did. What our family has been doing—”

“And what is that, exactly?” Will hisses. “Getting rid of Shadyside scum?”

Rage flares in Nick’s veins.

“You killed children! Little children, butchered! Teenagers, kids. Innocent people!” Nick’s arms begin to waver with emotion. “Put your fucking gun down, Will.”

His brother looks at him like he’s nothing more than dirt underneath his shoe. Something for him to crush.

Something to get rid of.

“No,” he replies. “I don’t think so. If I die, she dies!”

Will takes a few steps back so he’s underneath the bucket hanging from the ceiling, with some of the yellow substance still dripping out of it. Ziggy screams and thrashes, trying not to let if fall on her, but it doesn’t work. It takes Nick a second to realize what the plan was. Blood. Carrie. The killers snarl and start to go after them. Will shoves Ziggy in their direction.

“Your blood is on her!” Nick yells to Deena and Josh, wherever they are. “It’s on Ziggy!”

But Will has miscalculated a little. His brother manages to take a few steps before he’s caught by Ryan, who stabs him in the shoulder. Will elbows Ryan in the face, knocking him to the ground before groaning in pain. Nick, for just a second, stands there, frozen, unable to process what’s happening in front of him, and then his brother tugs off his jacket and throws it to the side. Instantly, the milkman forgets him, setting his sights on Ziggy.

Ziggy!

Nick fires at the milkman once, twice, three times. It slows him down enough so Nick can rush over to Ziggy, his knees digging into the ground.

“Come on, come on,” he urges her. “Get up!” He starts to tug at Ziggy’s sweater, trying to get her to take it off.

“Nick?” she breathes, as if she can’t quite believe he’s real.

“Hi,” he says, cupping her face in his hands. “Ziggy, your sweater, get it off—”

He shoves her to the size as he sees the Milkman raise his arm and fires his gun, hitting the Milkman right in the head. The killer slows down for a second and then continues with his thrust. Nick just barely manages to scramble out of the way, Ziggy swept behind him.

The other killers surround them too. Nick’s eyes latch onto Tommy, to the sack closed over his head. He’d seen the pictures of Tommy in the paper of course, but it’s another thing entirely to see it in person. Tommy’s sunny smile hidden forever. The horror of it almost overwhelms him again.

Nick raises his gun and shoots. The killers both grunt. He shoots them again and then his gun clicks. Empty. Out of ammo.

“Ziggy, run!” he yells, turning to try and push her onto her feet. He clambers up as well. The bullets will slow them down for just a second more. Ziggy manages to climb up to her feet as well and—

Tommy and the milkman pause, weapons held up in mid-air. They turn away to stare off at Deena, who is standing right by the hanging tree, her bleeding palm held out in the open.

“Nick,” Ziggy urges, tugging on his arm. “Nick, this way, come on—”

“We can’t just leave her—”

“We have a plan! Come!”

He follows her into an open store and Ziggy immediately pulls down the railings, sealing them off from the killers, but not before shrugging off her sweater and tossing it at them.

“Sheriff Goode? What the fuck?”

Nick whirls around to find Martin of all people, standing there with some water gun next to Josh.

Martin pulls out a regular gun from his back pocket and points it at him – Nick recognizes it as the spare one from his car.

“Put that down!” Josh yells, trying to bat it out of Martin’s hands.

“What the fuck is wrong you two?” Martin demands incredulously. “This is Sheriff Goode. I thought we established that the Goode’s are mother fucking evil, as established by the numerous resurrected killers that just tried to murder us, and killed two fucking cops—”

“Nick isn’t like that,” Ziggy cuts in. “He’s here to help.”

“How did you escape from your handcuffs, anyway?” Josh asks him.

“You’re here to help us murder your brother?” Martin cuts in, shaking his head.

Nick opens his mouth and closes it.

“Yeah,” he replies simply. “I guess I am.”

Martin looks decidedly unimpressed.

“Fucking white people, man,” he swears.

Nick’s brain finally latches onto what Martin said earlier.

“Who died?” he asks, turning around to look at Ziggy.

“Kapinski and some other guy.  The milkman got them.”

Nick feels like he’s been punched in the gut, but—

Tommy’s loud grunting distracts him, makes them all rush to the railing where Deena has disappeared.

“Will came through the tunnels,” Ziggy says. “He snuck up on me. We had just released the killers from where he had trapped them in the stores when you came in.”

“How do we help Deena?” Nick asks. The killers are grunting around, looking for a trace of her blood. Soon enough they’ll be able to pick up her scent.

His eyes land on the water pistol in Martin’s hands, the other one in Josh’s keeping.

“Does that still have her blood?” he asks them.

It takes them a second to understand his meaning.

Ziggy passes him another water gun to use, and she lifts up the railing just enough for them to squirt the killers, the yellow substance splattering all over them. Ryan Torres. Isaac Milton. Thomas Slater. The milkman. At once they turn on each other, slashing and stabbing, completely and utterly ruthless.

Nick watches it happen, almost mesmerized. Sickened and saddened beyond belief. He watches as Tommy decapitates Ryan Torres, and he can’t help but think of Cindy on that field, fighting to try and keep her sister alive. How could she have survived against that?

How could anyone?

They weren’t supposed to.

Nick is too busy watching them that he doesn’t notice Sam has escaped until Josh points it out.

“Sam’s gone!” the boy yells, rattling the railings. The killers fall to a heap in front of them, all severed limbs and black blood. “We have to go after her, we have to save Deena—”

Ziggy pulls open the railing.

Nick turns to Martin.

“Tell me you guys got the extra ammunition,” he says.

Martin tosses him a few bullets and Nick reloads his gun.

“Not sure what good that’ll do us,” Martin says. “It didn’t help Kapinski or blondie. Or even you, when you got here.”

Nick knows that he makes a valid point.

“Better than nothing,” he replies, taking a step out into the mall.

“You always hurt the one’s you love.”

Josh gasps loudly and tugs Nick back inside the store.

“Ruby,” Ziggy comments quietly. She jumps at the sound of a bat hitting the railing. They all turn and look to find a small kid wearing a mask banging a bat against the wall. And more killers begin to appear. More and more.

“We need to stop them from getting to Deena,” Nick says. “It’s too late to stop Sam but—”

“It can’t be!” Josh bursts out. “That’s my sister!”

Ziggy grabs a hold of Josh’s arm.

“We know that,” she says fiercely. “I understand. But we have to try and get rid of these guys first. Deena can handle herself, okay?”

Nick picks up one of the water pistols and shakes it.

“We’ll just use these again.”

He sticks the butt of the water pistol out of a space in the railing and squirts. Nothing comes out.

“Fucking hell,” he curses loudly. “Fucking fuck, we’re out.”

Martin confirms the same for the other two pistols with a loud curse.

“We don’t have time for this,” Josh says. He picks up the axe Nick had in his car for emergencies and tugs up the railing before Nick can even blink.

“Josh, wait—”

Nick rushes after him and makes it hallway across the room before a guy in a clown costume suddenly leaps out from behind a column, laughing manically, and shoves Nick to the side with a grand sweep of his arm. Nick crashes to the ground, wheezing, and looks up just in time to see the clown’s face get blown off. He looks over to see Ziggy standing there, gun in hand.

“That’s one,” she declares, looking right at Nick. He starts to smile when--

“Get off of me!”

Nick turns on his side to find Ruby Lane crouching over Josh, knife in hand. Scratch marks line Josh’s face.

No, he thinks, stomach still aching from the blow the killer clown gave him. No! The knife comes crashing down on Josh, and Nick—

He isn’t sure how he manages to stand or move. All he knows is that he’s on the ground, and then he’s diving across the small space, knocking Josh to the floor. Not one more child, he thinks wildly, thinking of Jeremy, with his thick framed glasses and nervous smile. Thinking of Rod, Stacey, Sean, Jesse, and their mutilated bodies in that shed sixteen years ago. Thinking of Heather, who he was too late to save.

Not one more child.

Josh lets out a scream as Nick shields him, and then there’s a fiery stab of sharp pain through Nick’s back and side as the knife pierces his skin. Blood fills his mouth.

“Nick!” Ziggy shrieks from across the room.

Ruby Lane pulls out the blade and a grunt escapes Nick’s throat. Josh is screaming loudly, limbs thrashing. Nick tries to move a little.

“Run,” he grunts. Josh doesn’t seem to listen. “Run.”

Josh finally manages to kick himself out from under him, and then he scrambles over towards Ziggy, who is shrieking her head off. Martin is holding her by the waist as she thrashes, trying to run over.

Nick sits there and waits for one more stab, the final blow, but it never comes. Like Tommy did all those years ago, Ruby Lane abandons him in favour of hunting Shadysider prey. Nick tries to urge them all to run, to go back and shield themselves in a store using the railing, but it hurts too much. It’s a strain on his head to keep it propped up so he can look at them. His head slumps down on the ground as blood pours from his wound.

Gunshots echo through the mall. He hears Martin and Ziggy curse as they shoot at the killers, trying to get them all to stay dead. He hears the unnatural crack of the bodies as they start to put themselves back together, the killers reanimating. Blood continues to pool from Nick’s wounds, spreading all around him, even coming to his ears. He doesn’t have the strength to roll onto his stomach. It hurts too much.

He hears the click of his guns, the signal that they’re out of ammunition, and he hopes that they run into the store, that they save themselves—

Please, he thinks desperately, curled on his side. Please please please—

He hears screaming, running, the thud of footsteps, and then nothing. And then silence.

“Ziggy?” he murmurs, coughing up blood. “Ziggy?”

She can’t be dead. She can’t be. Josh can’t be dead. Even fucking Martin can’t be dead.

No one answers.

“Ziggy?”

Almost as if they were frozen in time, they spring back to life.

“Nick!” Ziggy yells. He feels the rush of her feet heating the floor as she runs over. Ziggy slides down beside him, rolls him onto his back and into her lap.

“Hey, hey, hey,” she rushes. He can feel her hands tremble as she presses them against his wound. “Hey, you’re okay, it’s okay, you’re going to be fine.”

The world whirls in and out of focus. Nick feels quite distinctly that he’s falling down a pit.

“Is it over?” he manages to ask.

Ziggy nods rapidly, hair falling in front of her face.

“It’s over,” she confirms. “Deena did it, Nick. She did it.”

A relieved exhale escapes his mouth.

“Good,” he whispers, feeling increasingly lightheaded. “That’s good.”

Ziggy looks across the room.

“One of you help me!” she yells at them. “Get a first aid kit, or something! Something to help me stop the bleeding.”

He hears Martin and Josh run off to follow her instructions, hears them murmur something between them.

“You’re gonna be okay,” she says, looking down at him again. Good, he thinks. He’d rather the last thing he sees as he dies be Ziggy’s face.

“It’s okay,” he tells her. “It’s okay. Ziggy. You can let go.”

“No! I am not losing you too, do you hear me?” Ziggy demands, just as indignant and determined as she was when she was fifteen. “I’m not losing anyone else. You are not dying.”

“I’ll try my best,” he replies weakly.

A sad laugh escapes her lips.

“You better.”

There’s the sound of rapid footfalls again, and then Josh is hovering above him too for a second, handing something over to Ziggy. Nick feels something pressed against his side and hisses.

“I’m sorry,” Ziggy says desperately, tightening the fabric across his wound. “I’m sorry, Nick. I’m sorry.”

He grits his teeth and bares it, slumping back down when she’s finally done.

“Is there anything else we can do? Martin called an ambulance.”

Nick’s gaze flickers to Josh.

“You did good, kid,” he says. “You did good.”

Better than Nick had done at sixteen.

Ziggy pulls him closer in her lap.  Nick inhales in the scene of vanilla.

“I’ve loved you since I was thirteen, did you know that?” he asks her, voice slurred.

She looks down at him, almost perplexed by his words.

“Even though I had a girlfriend,” he continues, finding it increasingly harder to breathe. “I still noticed you.”

Ziggy bites down on her lip.

“I was jealous of her, you know,” she confesses quietly. “Maria. I didn’t want to admit it but I was.”

He hums a little, ridiculously pleased.

“So that’s why you brought up her name that summer after I found Sheila trying to burn you,” he comments lightly. The notion that Ziggy noticed him for just as long as he noticed her pleases him to an embarrassing degree.

“Don’t sound too happy about it,” Ziggy says, her voice faltering a little as she tries for levity.

The world flutters around him, coming in and out of focus. Ziggy hovers above him, her red hair framing her head like a halo. He reaches a hand out and cups her cheek, traces the freckles there with his thumb. Ziggy leans into the touch.

He feels something wet fall on his face.

“Don’t cry, Zig,” he whispers. “Don’t cry.”

She hiccups loudly.

“I’m not crying,” she tells him fiercely. “Because you’re going to be fine. We’re going to be okay, Nick.”

He hums in acknowledgement. He can’t feel his fingertips.

“Will we finally start that Judy Blume book club?” he asks her. His words are slurred.

“Yeah,” she agrees quietly. “We’re going to read all the Blume books. Even King if you want.”

“I thought you were done with King,” he coughs. It feels so nice laying there in her lap, her fingers brushing through his hair.

“I’ll read King again for you,” she says. “And we’ll go to the beach, and you’ll read me poetry.”

“Poetry?”

“Poetry,” she confirms. “Robert Frost.”

“That sounds nice.”

She feels farther and farther away now. Nick is so tired it hurts to keep his eyes open. He’s just about to close them when he realizes something.

“Hey Ziggy,” he starts, “How did you get your nickname?”

She laughs a little hysterically.

“You’re asking me that now?”

“I’ve always wanted to know,” he murmurs. He thinks he can hold off long enough to hear her answer. He’s waited since he was thirteen years old to hear it. “Ever since that first year at camp.”

Ziggy chuckles again, and he can hear the tears in her voice.

“You’re such a sap,” she whispers. Ziggy sniffles loudly. “Cindy couldn’t pronounce Chrissy,” she tells him, running her hands through his hair gently. “It sounded like Ziggy.”

His eyes flutter closed.

He imagines Cindy – sweet, kind, endlessly brave Cindy Berman, struggling to pronounce her little sister’s nickname.

“So not Bowie?”

“Not Bowie,” Ziggy confirms. “That came later.”

That image of Cindy as a kid, young and happy, playing with her little sister, unaware of her bloody and painful end only a little over a decade later. It burns in his mind, glowing like a lighthouse in the dark.

Nick hopes he’ll see Cindy again. He hopes he’ll get to tell her that Ziggy survived the curse twice. If not, he hopes this knowledge will grant him some measure of peace in hell. Distantly, he hears sirens in the background.

“Nick, Nick, just hold on okay, hold on—”

He tries to for her sake, but it doesn’t work.

The darkness comes for him again, and this time Nick surrenders to it peacefully.

vii.

On this occasion, the darkness screams at him, ripping him apart.

Nicholas, a dark voice whispers. Nicholas.

Nick tries to run away from it, but it haunts him.

Will is there, watching him with dead eyes, blood pouring from his skull. Deena’s work. His mother, his father.

Nicholas, the dark voice whispers. Come to me, Nicholas. I’ll save everyone you failed to save. I’ll make you brave, Nicholas.

He screams at it. Leave me alone!

A chuckle revibrates through the darkness, making him shiver, and Nick is dragged under. When he glances down, his mother, Will and his dad are all holding onto his ankles, pulling him down like an anchor. His grandfather. So many others, lining up behind each other like a link in the chain.

But Nick refuses to be another domino.

Let me go! He screams. Let me go!

He kicks at them fiercely, and his mind flashes with images of the book. The one his family used to call to Satan. The one his father held so proudly the single time he took Nick down to the tunnels to teach him how to be a killer.

Come to me, Nicholas—

The sun starts to peak out through the dark, hazy waters.

Nick.

Ziggy.

Nick, don’t you dare die, wake up, Nick, wake up—

But the book calls to him, begging for a sacrifice and—

He wakes with a start, the light in the ambulance blinding him. Ziggy is holding onto his hands.

“The book,” he gasps, his grip on Ziggy’s hands tightening considerably as the darkness fights to overtake him again. “Burn it—”

And then consciousness escapes him.

--

When Nick wakes, it’s to the sound of beeping. The glare of hospital lights blinds him as he stirs. His awareness is foggy due pain meds. He puts that together. He wriggles his toes, thinks they’re all in one piece, and then does the same for his fingers, but his one hand doesn’t budge. It’s weighed down by something—

Nick glances down to find Ziggy sleeping beside his bed, her head resting on his hand. His heart spasms in his chest, his emotions too much to bear. His heartrate picks up rapidly on the machine, and Ziggy stirs at the sound.

“Nick,” she says, panicked. “Nick—”

She cuts herself off when she sees him sitting up, just staring at her.

“Hi,” he greets, wincing a little as he flexes the hand she was sleeping on.

“You’re awake,” she states. “You’ve been in a coma for five days since you came out surgery.”

Her face crumples a little as the words leave her mouth.

“I’m awake now,” he tells her, eyes still adjusting to the light. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

A tear slips down Ziggy’s cheek as she bites the inside of her cheek angrily.

“You better not,” she says. “You better not, you complete and utter jackass.”

He laughs a bit and then cuts himself off with a pained groan.

“Idiot,” Ziggy says, running a hand through his hair. His body relaxes at the contact.

They’re silent for a moment as Nick takes everything in. Everything has changed now. Everything was a lie.

He leans back against the pillows and looks up at the ceiling.

“Did you burn the book?” he questions.

“We did,” Ziggy tells him quietly.

Nick allows relief to bloom in his chest. The book is gone, and so is the voice. So is the curse, dragging him down. Cursing all Shadysiders. He opens his eyes again.

“Will?” he asks, staring at the white hospital ceiling. “Is he dead?”

Ziggy’s expression both tightens and softens all at once.

“He’s dead,” she confirms quietly. “Nick… the town. They all know. About Will. They’re calling him the Sunnyvale serial killer.”

Nick closes his eyes.

“Yeah,” he says. “That’s good. The truth is out.”

“It is,” Ziggy murmurs. “I talked to Mrs. Lane.”

Nick opens his eyes. He remembers the hard lines of grief etched on her face whenever he saw her at camp. But she was still so sweet. So kind. She had wanted to hurt Tommy, but only to stop him. Only to save all those kids, like she hadn’t been able to do for her daughter. Ruby Lane, who loved to sing.

Cindy Berman, who wanted to escape Shadyside.

He wonders again then if Ruby Lane made the same crime of rejecting a Goode, and bile rises in his throat.

“Good,” he manages to get out. “She deserves to know that her daughter wasn’t a killer.”

He thinks of all the Shadyside killers he can remember. There’s a dozen at least.

And there’s so many more.

So many more people they killed. So many more families who were hurt, just like Mrs. Lane.

All because of his family. His brother. His dad. His grandad. And every other male descendant from 1666.

Nick thinks about his father, who taught him how to ride a bike and shoot a gun. He thinks about Will, and how he wanted to be him so much when he was a kid. The first son. He loved them, even if he didn’t always like them.

Ziggy holds his hand as he starts to cry, and the weight of it gives him the knowledge that he’s not alone, at least.

--

Nick has a few visitors in the hospital. A great deal of them are police officers, people he knows since he was their boss – maybe he technically still is, he isn’t sure – who come and ask him questions. Nick has been cleared from Will’s wrongdoings by the testimonies of Ziggy, Deena, Josh and Sam, all of whom told the cops that he helped them stop his brother from killing Sam and Deena and was stabbed in the process. They eye him with slight suspicion, more than uncomfortable as they ask him questions.

Nick doesn’t think that they know what to do with him. To be honest, he’s not sure what to do with himself either.

Josh, Deena and Sam come to visit him. Ziggy is sitting beside him, like she does most days, her hand in his.

“Thank you,” Deena tells him. “For saving my brother.”

She doesn’t apologize for killing Will, and Nick doesn’t expect her too.

“I’m glad I could keep him alive,” he responds.

They stay a little longer and mostly talk to Ziggy, promise to keep in touch and take care of Major Tom for her. Josh thanks him again before they leave, and that’s that. They all know the truth. They all know the horror of the Goode family. Nick is the one who has to carry the name with him and all that means. All that it symbolizes for them.

--

Sabrina comes to visit the sixth day after Nick wakes up.

That morning, instead of finding Ziggy curled up in the chair next to his hospital bed, he wakes to find Daisy staring at him, green eyes wide and tearful, a bouquet of flowers in her hands. Daisy. Daisy.

“Hi, kiddo,” he greets.

Daisy bursts into tears and flings herself into his arms. Nick winces a little at the pain, but still manages to hug her.

“Daddy is dead,” Daisy sobs. “You were dead too, Uncle Nick. And the police came, and they wouldn’t let us see you—”

“Shh, shh,” Nick murmurs, glad to have her in his arms again. “It’s okay. You’re okay. I’m okay, Daisy. I’m so sorry you were scared.”

He rocks her back and forth until she calms down a little.

“Daisy, honey, give Uncle Nick some space.”

His eyes dart to the door where Sabrina is standing. He hadn’t noticed her, too wrapped up in Daisy. Sabrina wears a tight black dress that shows how much weight she has lost this past week. Her eyes are hollow, sad. She isn’t wearing her wedding ring, or the engagement ring Will gave her, though another one graces her hand.

Nick gulps.

He barely remembers Kevin Smith, only how he died. A car crash. The death had been glossed over in the papers, overshadowed by Sabrina and Will’s wedding preparations. Daisy reluctantly slides off the bed and returns to her mother’s side. Sabrina just stares at him, unfeeling.

“Nick?”

Ziggy appears in the doorway, coffee in hand. She’d gone to the cafeteria before Nick fell asleep again.

“Everything okay?” she asks, a slight edge in her voice.

She comes over to his side and puts a pudding cup on his bedside table. He thanks her quietly, gaze flickering back to Sabrina, who holds onto Daisy’s hand like a lifeline.

“I’ll give you two a minute,” Ziggy says after catching his eye. She approaches Daisy, bends down so they’re at eye level. “My name is Ziggy. Do you want to come and play with me for a moment?”

Daisy looks up at her mother, who nods her assent, and then Ziggy gently leads Daisy out of the room, but not before sending Nick one last look over her shoulder. The instant the door closes, Sabrina lets out a shaky breath.

“Brina,” he starts, stomach clenching painfully. “Brina, I’m so sorry—”

“You know I woke up in the middle of the night seven days ago and I wasn’t sure of where I was,” Sabrina interrupts, staring out the window. She wrings her hands together. “I knew the location. Knew I was in my marriage bed. But I didn’t know how I got there or why. It was like I’d just been going through the motions for years without ever realizing that part of me was hovering in the air.”

Nick bites down on his lip.

“The last thing I remember with total clarity was Kevin,” she says, closing her eyes tightly. “Was wanting to marry him. And then Will—” she cuts herself off, hugs her arms around her waist as if trying to shield her body from his brother’s touch even though he’s dead. “And then Will came.”

Sabrina approaches him, plops down in the chair Ziggy has made her home these past few days.

“I deserve an explanation,” she says. “Please, Nick. Explain why I wasn’t in control of my body for years.”

He does. Sabrina never interrupts as he tells her the whole story, though her face grows paler and paler.

“He killed Kevin,” she concludes quietly. “Because he thought I was pretty.”

She sits there and cries into her hands, and all Nick can do is reach out and hold one of them, is surprised that she lets him. When he gets to the part where Deena told him the truth and how they left him there, Sabrina turns quiet.

“I was worried about Daisy,” Nick says. “I didn’t know how the curse worked or how it affected her. I wanted to find out before—” Before we killed Will.

Sabrina winces a little and says nothing.

Nick takes a deep breath.

“She’s not Will’s, is she?” he asks her quietly.

Sabrina meets his gaze without hesitation.

“Thank God,” she replies. “I wasn’t really aware of it. I remember knowing that I might be, before Kevin died, and then it’s like the knowledge was snatched away from me. I really thought she was his, all these years. I really did.”

She grows quiet again.

“I’m selling the house,” she tells Nick. “I’ll give it to whoever offers first. I don’t care what they do with it. And then I’m taking Daisy and moving away. Far away. I have an Aunt that lives in Jacksonville. I think Daisy will like the sun.” Her expression turns distant. “Kevin always did.”

Nick nods, not having expected any different. Sabrina can have all the money if she wants it. She can keep it for Daisy or give it all to charity or spend it all burning every memory she has of his brother to the ground.

Something snags around his heart.

“Can I see her?” he asks Sabrina quietly, voice breaking a little.

Her expression hardens for a second, and Nick is certain that she will say no. That she’ll tell him that she wants Daisy to forget every single memory she has of the Goode family, that she hates him.

He wouldn’t blame her.

“Of course, you can see her, Nick,” Sabrina replies finally.

He has to bite down on his lip to muffle his sob.

“I’ll bring her to visit before we go,” she adds, catching his hand and holding onto it.

“Thank you, Sabrina,” he whispers. “Thank you.”

“You love Daisy, too,” is all she says. “And she loves you.”

Sabrina stands and dusts off the skirts of her dress, wipes at her eyes.

“You know,” she says, stopping by the door. “I think I figured out why you never went out with any of the girl’s I tried to set you up with.”

“It’s not like that,” Nick says automatically, cheeks flushing a little.

Sabrina arches a brow at him.

“Nick, she’s barely left your side since you were brought to the hospital. Don’t be an idiot.” She shoots him a soft yet tremulous smile. “I’ll see you soon.”

A few minutes after she goes, Ziggy appears.

“Everything okay?” she asks, tucking into the chair next to him.

“Yeah,” he says. “We just needed to clear the air a bit.”

He hasn’t told her yet about Daisy – all of it, anyway. She just knows Daisy isn’t affected by the curse.

Nick looks down at his lap.

“Ziggy,” he starts. “You don’t have to stay here, you know.” The words catch in his throat. “You don’t have to stay out of some sense of obligation or guilt.”

For a second, she just sits there. Nick dares a glance at her and—

“You really are still an oblivious idiot, aren’t you?” she breathes, shaking her head with amusement.

He blinks at her, caught off guard, and is just about to open his mouth when she leans forward and presses her lips to his. He melts into the kiss just as easily as he did when he was sixteen. It strikes him that she was the one to kiss him first then too, and well, it figures that nothing’s changed in that regard.

Ziggy has always been braver than him.

“Does that answer your question?” she asks him, pulling away.

The machine gives away the rapid beating of his heart, making Ziggy’s lips quirk.

“Yeah,” he replies, cheeks flushing a rosy red. “Yeah, it does.”

viii.

All of the Goode property in Sunnyvale is sold off to whoever bids first.

Nick turns in his badge the day he leaves the hospital. The uniform doesn’t suit him anymore, not that he’s sure it ever did.

He and Sabrina divide the Goode fortune. Some of it is placed in a trust fund for Daisy, some of it Sabrina keeps so her and Daisy can live comfortably. The rest they donate. They try to give money to whatever families affected by the curse will accept it. Very few do. They donate a massive part to the Shadyside town council, so they can refurbish the city.

Nick sells his house, the one his great-uncle used to own, and buys an RV big enough to house all of his books.

And Ziggy’s.

Nick pulls into her driveway now. Ziggy stands there on the lawn, a few bags and boxes surrounding her. The sold sign still planted firmly in the grass. Major Tom barks loudly as he steps out of the RV and rushes in without another word.

“Excited, is he?” Nick muses.

Ziggy smiles at him, pulls him in for a quick kiss.

They put all her stuff into the RV. It’s a decent enough space that it doesn’t feel cluttered with all the unpacked boxes, few as they are.

I don’t have much I want to keep, Ziggy had told him when she was selling the house. She let the new owners keep the furniture, with the exception of a clock or two.

Major Tom curls up in one of the very many beds they have set up for him across the RV.

“Josh dropped this off for us, by the way,” Ziggy says, pulling a bag of brownies out of her bag. “They even made a card for us too.”

Nick smiles a little at the sight and slides into the driver’s seat. Ziggy joins him up front after putting a few more things away. A picture of Daisy has been taped right above the stereo. Written in cursive on the other side is her and Sabrina’s address in Jacksonville. They’ll stop by and visit when they reach Florida.

He and Ziggy plan on doing Kerouac’s trip in On the Road, and wherever they end up, they end up. It’s frightening in some ways, driving into the outside world, without Shadyside or Sunnyvale calling them back.

It’s freeing.

As they pass by the you are now leaving Shadyside sign, Nick glances at Ziggy from the corner of his eye.

“Are you sure about this?” he asks her quietly.

Ziggy’s eyes are a little sad as she stares in the rearview mirror, her eyes lingering on the sign.

“I’ve never been more certain about anything,” she replies, reaching for his hand.

He brings their interlaced hands up to his lips, presses a kiss to hers.

“I was just thinking about Cindy.”

Nick kisses her hand once more.

They aren’t whole again. Not really. Ziggy will always have the scars on her chest, just as he will always have the scars on his side. The wounds their families have left behind – though obviously for different reasons – will never leave them, not really. Nor will the nightmares. Some part of them will never be quite whole.

But as Major Tom snores loudly in the background, and Ziggy reaches out to slide in a David Bowie CD into the radio, he thinks that maybe, just maybe, one day they’ll get there.

End.