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It didn't take long for Scott to reach another state with his bat wings. And it didn't take long for him to find a good hotel to check himself and his luggage in, not that he would settle for anything less.
Back in New York, Scott didn't give as much space for a teary goodbye nor farewells for Drift and Shelby, making his departure quick also let him make a break away from Abolish easily. This one is a personal business he isn't quite willing to share with his own coven.
He isn't quite sure what he'll meet with his centuries-old acquaintances. It has been far too long since he last met the spellmaker he found to be still alive and living somewhere by the Gulf of Mexico. And hearing word about his own sire’s life made an emotion bubble up from his chest. If it is of excitement or dread, Scott isn't quite sure.
For three days now, Scott has established a routine that will content both his own fill and the eyes that glare into his own actions. The vampire makes a side eye into a man on the other side of this bar he decided can be his temporary hunting grounds. He knew Abolish's organization can run deep and existed in an impressive amount of time even for an elder vampire like him, seeing Louis Oakhurst's files among the archives one time he was allowed in was a testament, and that incidence only happened because of a small favor he gave to the organization to prove that he is willing to get his hands dirty if it meant that Shelby and Drift can spend their immortal lives in bliss and whimsy.
He approached the bar, as the man he eyed does, ordering him a Bloody Mary, and commenting about the golden insignia branded on the ring in his finger. The same insignia Abolish had in his left pinky.
“How many times has this happened? You almost made me do something unforgivable back in Tennessee. I hope you are here to provide me some supplies instead of eyeing me darkly across the club,” Scott said, “You've seen what happened to the guy I made out with last night, he's alive and well, not a hint of vampirism in his blood, it was a tit for tat kind of trade,”,
The man stayed silent.
“Don't say you don't know what I'm talking about, you're working with an organization that existed for centuries in collaboration with entities that can live for an infinite number of years,” Scott snatched the olive from the drink and popped it into his mouth despite his inability to stomach it, “Ah well, all of you with your sticks up your bottoms, I'll go find my way back to my hotel now, hopefully a good snack along the way too,”.
Finding the atmosphere a bit too tensive and suffocating now, Scott strolls out of the club and into the open night. This street sure did have numerous bars and clubs open this night, and since it is Friday tonight, most clubs are full and brim with fun and drunkenness.
He was just a block away from his hotel when his stomach churned.
“This is the olive, isn't it?” Scott huffed, only for a massive wave of nausea to hit him like a ten-wheeler truck.
“Unfortunately, it is not, Mister Goldsmith,”, despite the drums drilling into his brain, Scott could tell it was the man earlier at the bar,
“I didn't do anything against the Veylocke’s policy!” Scott hissed, using his claws to straighten himself up against the wall, “And, you can't kill me,” he bared his fangs and dodged, as a long wooden pike was thrown in his direction.
Scott managed to become a bat and soared up into the night skies, but his flight was cut short by a tree to the face. Rolling over the forest floor he stumbled on. Somehow a vintage Chevy Impala rowed through the forest almost pinning Scott into the tree he had just bumped into. He was just about to skip this encounter altogether, until a familiar paralyzing force froze him mid-action. A cover of silver woven net engulfing his body, searing burns on exposed skin.
“What?!” Scott sneered, then the ring signet shone once more against the car's headlights, the insignia on the ring was crossed out, and realization dawned on him, “I suppose I was going rusty for a bit there,” he chuckled darkly, “Please say you're the last one from that list Veylocke gave me, I promise to make it quick,” he gave a jibe.
The man shook his head, “No, you won't, besides I only need to get rid of you, just for a century or more, let's say,”,
Scott narrowed his brows against the man, mentally counting the seconds he was stuck up in the air, the numbers feeling off.
His silence seemed a bit too loud to the man, that he replied with a more entertained chuckle, “This spell is a stronger version than the one the Headmaster found in Oakhurst, I know this because I was the one to enhance this, and I will only let go once I made sure you're so deep underground you'll wish you're not immortal,”.
“You say you only want to get rid of me for six hundred years, no?” Scott snickered, despite thinking that the last view he will see is the shadows of this dreary forest, “It's fine, I have time. And you don't,”.
The man put Scott inside a silver lined coffin before he heard the car revved up again. It was all engine and machinery, until a big thump almost shook him out of paralysis, but this man didn't budge from his focus on letting go. Not even when this long hike is taking too long to be done in a single state, for all Scott knew, they could already be crossing three states. Talk about being thrown off the track, he only promised a few months to the three, now it might become a few centuries at most.
Inside the coffin, Scott can only scoff. And he was just a few cities away from where his first old acquaintance was located.
“Are you really taking that long to bury me?” Scott shouted on the top of his lungs inside his ironclad silver coffin, hearing a bunch of mess outside his confinement, until finally the noise outside stopped.
And the silence pounded on his head like heavy bass drums, singing with the darkness’ sharp, -far too sharp-, singing on his ears.
Scott tried to block it out for the first few minutes or hours. The clammy feeling and the cramped space. He tries to fish his phone out of his pocket only to find no bars for signal, he tries to conserve the battery for what felt like hours maybe even actual days, until he decided to just turn the device off. He mentally cursed himself, the iron made sure he won't be able to escape easily, and…
“What a nightmare,” he admitted to himself, wishing that his current situation didn't have the gall to become a reality. He never told this to Shelby, not even Abolish, Abolish would be the last person in his list to open up to. But having been entombed for six centuries underneath his castle is a memory he often reminiscences in the form of nightmares.
Sometimes it started with a mob, sometimes from the dining hall with all of his fellow vampires. And it always ended with him alone and in the dark, swimming and suffocating into the void, the cold of loneliness stabbing his heart, like a sharp stake. Sometimes in the nightmares, he would wish they stabbed his heart instead. And sometimes they did.
Then he would wake, alone inside his room at the shared apartment with Shelby.
This time, Scott wishes that was the reality instead of this.
Instead, he lets himself melt into the nightmare. Just for now, let the dark embrace him.