Release, Part Thirteen

by Tangerine

After convincing Bobby and Remy he was fine, Warren slipped into the loft carefully, untying his laces and placing the bouquet of white roses on the front table. He would get her to believe him; he'd let her go into his mind and find the truth he knew was there. Betsy would see he'd never intentionally hurt her like that.

Warren felt slight disappointment at the fact she hadn't waited up for a confrontation. Sure, Betsy had told him to get out, but she had been wrongfully angry at the false memories, and he was positive he could make things right between them again.

He waited where he stood, clearing his throat loudly, hoping he'd disturb her. She was usually so aware of things while she slept, especially when she was upset. Why hadn't she come out to yell at him?

Giving up, he walked quietly into the master bedroom, seeing the bed empty save for a single rose lying on his smooth pillow. Picking up the delicate flower in his hand, Warren smiled gently but immediately dropped the rose as a tiny thorn drew blood from the tip of his thumb. Watching it drip methodically onto the silk sheets, Warren stared as the scarlet fluid stained the fabric next to the dropped flower. He was mesmerised by the eerie sight.

Betsy hated red roses.

A numbing sensation invaded his already weary system, and he stumbled back slightly, dazed and nauseated. He looked to the flower, noticing now a honey-like substance coating the stem, and the same material was on his hand, near the piercing the sharp thorn had made, mixed with his crimson blood.

Warren fell onto the bed as his mind fogged and his body went limp, murmuring into the night, "I didn't even see that coming..."

* * *

The music played in the background, a hushed symphony of flutes and a grand piano playing delicate melodies for all in the group to hear. Warren watched as his surroundings whirred by like wind, everything moving at a pace far too quickly for his eyes to catch.

It was so electrifying, so completely disorienting, he wondered for a brief second if this was indeed hell. The people were so false, so like paper dolls that he bet if he blew ever so slightly into the crowd, they would all fall to the ground.

So he blew a gust of wind through gentle lips, and the guests fell like two dimensional pieces of paper into a neat pile. They were all so fake, so utterly unreal, prancing ignorantly through life without a care to themselves or the world. One breath was all it took to completely destroy them.

"Is anything real?" He spoke with a whisper and the room shattered into a thousand shards of glass. So fragile, it was, so illusive.

Did he exist? Or was he nothing more than a paper doll? Was he real? Or did he live as a copy of another? Why could he never find his true self? Why did everything have to be so false? He had only wanted to live! But like it always had been, like it always would be, he knew he asked too much. He wasn't a man anymore but a pathetic little puppet, and when Apocalypse pulled his strings, he danced as one. He wasn't real anymore. He had no life beyond this illusion. He was merely a living mockery of a long dead man.

"I only wanted life," Warren murmured, looking up to see his friends stare at him accusingly. Their eyes, so beady and condemning, he couldn't bare it! "I never lied to you! I never did! You just never asked me . . ."

And he began to weep, for he didn't know what he was talking about. He could never remember what it was he didn't have here. It came and went, brief flashes of enlightenment, letting him see the reality, but then he went back to the real world, living in confusion and despair. He needed to remember because whatever it was, he was losing it now. God, he had already lost it! It was always too fragile, the truth always cracked under pressure.

* * *

Warren awoke abruptly, his body covered in a fine film of sweat as a response to his bizarre dream, but then his dreams were always like that, portals into a diseased soul, a window into all he hid, the truth always.

"Warren?" The voice whispered in his ear, the soft breath throwing him into a state of consternation and fear. He shook uncontrollably at the cruel and deadly word, struggling to twist away only to find his wrists and ankles tied to the posts of his bed and his body too sluggish to be of any use to him besides.

"The drug is making you feel this way," Candy murmured in his ear, unbuttoning the top of his shirt. She slipped her fingers down his chest, catching on a chain clasped around his neck. She tore it away, glaring at it. On the end of the gold chain was a gold ring, an engagement ring. "You were going to ask her to marry you?"

"Yes." He had planned to do it weeks ago, but every day he grew too fearful that her answer might be no. He was going to do it, he knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, but once again fate intervened and left him alone.

"You honestly thought she'd want to marry you?" Candy laughed, undoing the second button with delicate fingers. "I told her all about your precious little secret, Warren, I told her you weren't really alive."

Warren looked away from her, protesting what she was doing, what she was saying, while his body was proving to be useless. "I don't know what you're talking about, Candy, and stop this, I'm not going to play this game."

"Apocalypse warned me you would deny it, like you deny everything, always," Candy said, viciously tearing his shirt open, leaving his blue chest bare to the iciness of the room. "You're like me, precious, living because Apocalypse said so. Do you remember it? I do. It was the most excruciatingly painful experience of my life."

Warren tugged on the bonds as she cut away his silk shirt with a pair of kitchen scissors. He caught her eye, wishing his wings would respond to his commands, wishing they'd protect him, but they always had been useless that way. Instead, he was forced to lay uncomfortably on his huge wings, helpless.

"I thought to myself, if I have to do what our Dark Lord demands, I might as well make it memorable," Candy confessed, licking his chest in a feline motion. Warren lurched, attempting knock her away, but the submissive position he had been forced in allowed little room for defense. "It's okay, baby, I'm not going to hurt you."

"I won't let you do this," Warren muttered in a cold sweat as his energy was siphoned by the drug. He felt utter helpless, so lost, and the fear of what may come terrified him into a state of horror.

Candy laughed, cutting through the fabric of his pants, running a hand up his leg to follow the trail left by the scissors. "Did I mention the drug takes away control? You may not want it, lover, but your body does."

Warren closed his eyes tightly, praying Betsy would come rescue him and praying he could save himself, but he was tied too tight, and he had no control, no control at all. He thought of gruesome things, of death and disease and despair, but she was right. His body no longer obeyed what his mind told it.

Driven by restrained desire
I want what I need
Shaking as her sex takes hold
I've lost all control...

Candy pulled her shirt over her head, moving sensually to the hard music, letting the words and the beat take control. Struggling and in mind Warren fought, but she saw his vulnerability, his truth. "Remember how it used to be?"

Drowning in a sea of rage
I taste the embrace
Helpless as it steals my soul
I've lost all control...

"Don't do this," Warren protested in whisper, reaching out for Betsy, for Jean, for someone who could help him before he was forever tainted. Candy placed a finger to her lips, kissing his slack flesh tenderly. "God, don't do this."

We exist in a world where the fear of illusion is real...

"This isn't real, oh God, this isn't really happening."

And we cling to the past to deny and confuse the ideal...

"This is real, lover, more real than it's ever been."

Once inside, we conceive and believe in a god we can't feel...

"Oh God, help me... oh God, please..."

Destined by a fate so cruel
And drugged to delight
I'm laughing as the lies unfold
I've lost all control

Temptation
It never lets me down
Temptation
One foot in the ground
Temptation
You satisfy my soul
Temptation
I've lost all control...

* * *

"Don't cry," Candy whispered, wiping away his warm tears with her fingertips. "She won't ever have to know, and now, I get to disappear, and you'll never have to see me again. She can have you."

Warren closed his eyes to her words, to her face, so innocent in its appearance, so evil at its core. This could not be real, he wouldn't let it be. "He sent you, didn't he? Apocalypse sent you to me."

"He gave me life," Candy breathed, dressing herself with steady hands. "And in return, I had to do what he wished of me. The monster detests me, anyway, but he knew I was the only way to get close to you."

Warren gasped a ragged sob, trying to maintain some level of self control. "What was this supposed to do? Break me?"

Candy laughed lightly, lacing her black boots. "Warren, baby, he never sent me to do this. I only wanted one last memory of you. It's a pity I had to steal it, but I'll cherish it always, my love, my Angel."

Candy touched her lips to his before cutting the bonds wrapped tightly around his wrists. His arms fell limply to his side, unable to move or fight back. The drug had worsened his body, making it useless and numb.

Candy held his body to hers, stroking his powerful back with gentle hands, moving over the sinewy muscles in concentric circles, smooth and electric. Moving like a snake, she tempted him and disgusted him with every slow caress.

"You disobeyed him, lover," Candy whispered in his ear. "He has given you a choice, go back to him or die slowly. You must choose one."

"I won't ever go back."

Candy sighed deeply, and the sting of pity drove deep in her chest. "If that is your choice, but you must understand, you grew wings when you shouldn't have. Of you, they are the only things that are real, that are alive. They bleed real blood; they live as real flesh. Without them, you cannot live unless you go back to him, Warren. They are what have kept you alive this long, but even they cannot stop it forever. You'll lose them anyway."

Warren's clear blue eyes shot open in horror as he whispered in a final, desperate attempt to save himself, "no... oh God, no, not that, anything but that, Candy. Please, if you ever loved me, don't do that. It'll destroy me, God, Candy, no..."

Candy felt a pang of guilt, of sympathy for his pleas, but it was too late. The deal had been made, and if she didn't do this, then her life would be forfeit. She had died twice already, and she would not go through that again.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, holding him close as she withdrew the katana blade from its sheath, the chosen weapon of his precious lover. How fitting it would be that Betsy's sword would do him the greatest harm. Candy appreciated the irony. "I'm so sorry."

Warren whimpered slightly, holding back the sobs, and for a slight second, Candy almost backed out of her given task, almost...

Warren screamed as the knife sliced into his flesh, and he cried as the first of the mighty, white wings fell to the floor, painting his world red. He sobbed as the second wing was cleaved from his body, and Candy dropped him on his torn back, stepping away from the massacre.

"Oh, God, Warren, forgive me," she pleaded, staring at the grotesque sight. Warren lay still, only semi-conscious now and shaking violently. A halo of deep crimson continued to expand as his lifeblood slowly ebbed away, killing him.

"What have I done?" Candy murmured, touching her hands to the wet cloth. Pulling her murderous fingers back, she placed them to her head, tattooing her skin with his maroon blood. "My God, what have I done?"

Warren moved, eyes half closed in anguish, skin pale and sickly as his essence flowed from his cold form. She caught his glazed eyes, digging her nails deeper into the flesh of her temples. So utterly dead his eyes appeared to her.

"I loved you." The whisper carried weakly in the dead silence. "I love you."

But Warren's dim, blue eyes closed slowly, her words lost in his agony.

"No!" The scream echoed in the dead room, but Warren was ignorant to her cries and her tears and her shame. This was not as she thought it would be. "Apocalypse has damned me! He damned us both, but I fell for his black lies!"

Candy shook her head, stepping back from the mutilation. She wasn't supposed to be feeling this, God, she felt regret and despair when she had convinced herself this was right. She had destroyed him; she had butchered him when she had loved him, for once she had loved him more than life itself.

God, she was a murderer! She didn't deserve life...

And in her chest, she plunged the blade, tearing through her lungs and into her heart, ripping apart her insides, condemning her body in a last attempt to save her soul.

Candy collapsed weakly upon the bloody ground, cushioned by a feathery, red appendage, and staring at what she had committed, the slaughter of a pure and innocent Angel, she died as she was meant to so long ago.

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