😀

Adonis stared at Mabel, his eyebrows crunched together.

Mabels mouth opened and closed, making her look like a fish out of water.

How was she supposed to respond to that?

"W-what? I-I wasn't tr-trying to escape! I was trying to f-find you!" Mabel says, a headache forming at the front and back of her head.

"All the way out here?" Adonis scoffed, yet his eyes stayed alert as the faint buzzing of commotion seems to be dying down.

"W-well I got si-side tracked" Mabel says, stepping a couple steps back and waved for the kids to come out.

Atreus walked out and in front of Mabel as Eddie stayed back, trying to drag Blake out from behind the bush.

Mabel sighed and picked Blake up so Eddie could stand in front of her.

When she looked back at Adonis, he held a blank look, but she could tell by the slight dip in his smile that he was confused.

"A-Adonis, t-this is Atreus." Mabel says gesturing to the boy as he stepped closer to Mabel cautiously.

"Eddie." She says as the boy holds Atreus' hand in worry.

"An-and this i-is Bla-Blake." Mabel finishes, hiking Blake up on her hip so she doesn't slip.

Adonis' eyes seemed to glint as his lips turn up in the slightest.

"Why is it you always seem to attract children" Adonis says jokingly, making a blush rise on Mabels face.

"Who are you?" Atreus says boldly, feeling the need to protect the woman that saved them, even though she really wasn't in any danger.

"Adonis Timor" Adonis replies, narrowing his eyes at the child. Why exactly is this boy talking to him?

Mabel sighs at Adonis' tone and placed a hand on Atreus' shoulder and bent down to his height.

"T-trey, be quiet b-because we h-have to escape soon o-okay?" Mabel whispers to the little human boy.

"Are we gonna go to paradeisos?" Atreus asked, making Adonis' eyebrows shoot up.

Mabel smiles a sad smile and shakes her head slightly.

"N-not yet." She says, cupping the poor boys slightly chubby cheeks before standing properly and wobbling on her feet.

Adonis shot forward to help Mabel balance herself and the child that seemed to be glued to her.

"I'm okay." Mabel says, slightly turning in on herself at the feeling of his touch and brushing his hands off.

She did a double take. Why didn't she want him to touch her?

Adonis grimaced slightly at the action and stepped back.

"L-lead the way." She says in a desperate plea to divert his attention away from the fact that his touch wasn't wanted at that moment.

Adonis nods slightly before turning and walking through the door that had been left ajar.

As they walked Eddie began to whine slightly, and rub his eyes. He was the only one out of the three kids that seemed to be injured, with a cut along his arm and a bruise on his throat, and something wrong with his leg that was causing him to limp.

Adonis sighed as he realised they were slowly slowing down because of the child and turned around and picked the ginger haired boy up and let the boy wrap his legs around his torso.

Soon Eddie was passed out on Adonis shoulder, his arms around his neck.

Blake was drifting in and out of consciousness, her head bobbing as Mabel walked with her.

Atreus seemed to be alert, however, as he stayed level with Mabel, keeping a hand on Blakes leg, in what Mabel assumed was a comfort tactic.

They soon navigated through the maze like fortress and reached a cell door and by the overwhelming smell of Soter she knew it was her cell.

Mabel stepped forward, breaking their rhythm of walking, and opened the door.

Inside was Soter, Ame, Oria, Penny and Karmichael along with a few other people who seemed to be medics. A light was burning through the dim darkness and when Mabel looked towards it she recognised it as a torch.

Soter jumped up from his seat and used his super speed to get to her much faster than humanly possible.

"Mabe you've gotta put a cap on scaring the shit out of me." He sighs, and cracks a smile when she started to scold him for his poor use of language in front of the children.

"Oh please they're fine, two of them are passed out and the other one looks like he couldn't hear me if I shouted in his face." He says, waving her comments off.

Mabel glanced at Atreus and saw what Soter was talking about.

The poor boy was struggling to stay awake, his fingers desperately clinging to Blakes leg as his eyes drooped every twenty seconds.

Adonis takes hold of the boys hand and pries him off of Blake's ankle, and leads him over to a doctor that was setting stuff up in the corner, probably for the boy.

"Well isn't he the silent one, ay?" Soter says, elbowing Mabel gently as he tries to get her to crack a smile.

But Mabel couldn't feel anything.

Earlier it was easy for her to feel sadness for the boys and happiness when she saw Adonis and love when she saw Adonis meet Oria again.

-yet for some reason she felt numb, as if she was suddenly floating in the air and looking down on herself.

She clutched Blake as if the child could bring her any comfort, any emotions, anything.

Yet she felt zilch.

She didn't freak out, instead walked away from a now worried Soter, to a wall and leaned up against it, feeling herself sink to the floor.

She didn't freak out because she didn't have the energy too.

Blake rustled, burying herself deeper into Mabels side.

Mabel wished to feel something.

And then the weirdest thing happened.

She closed her eyes and instead of seeing darkness she saw the bottom of the ocean. She wondered how she got there. It felt so real.

A thought occurred. Maybe she put herself there.

As she inhaled, her lungs filled with water, making her body burn despite the frostbite she was receiving from the freezing waters.

She exhaled only to inhale twice as hard.

She flailed her arms around in the water, searching for a way out. Although she didn't know why, she wasn't afraid. In fact she quite liked it, liked how the pain made her feel something. Because that's what she wanted after all- to feel something.

Her arms went stiff, stopping her from throwing them around. Soon after her legs froze up too. She sank, all the way to ends of the deep blue sea. Her eyes stayed open as her lungs became heavy with water, throwing her deeper into the dark abyss.

Would it really be bad to die? She thought, perhaps I would feel something.

She startled herself with the sinister thought.

Then she opened her eyes.

To find no one looking at her and Blake still in her arms.

She wasn't drowning at the bottom of the ocean. Mabel didn't know if this revelation was a good or bad thing.

She noticed Adonis' eyes stuck on her face as she stared back, both of their faces matching with the same blank look.

She laid her head back, resting it on the wall behind her and not long after she was asleep.

She knew she was asleep because she finally felt something.

A deep sadness that she never thought she was capable of. One that cut her Oxygen off and made her feel sick to her stomach. One that squeezed her lungs worse than the water at the bottom of the ocean. One that made her heart beat prominent in her throat- and even though she was in a deep sleep, tears streamed down her face, leaving trails for all to see.

The Queen was definitely not the same person she was before.

But then again, who is?

***

He went in expecting Mabel to be traumatised.

He knew she was going to be afraid and most likely withdrew.

He didn't anticipate, however, the way his heart clenched and flipped when she recoiled from his touch.

Or when she started shaking when she closed her eyes.

Or when she held onto the sweet child that seemed to cling to her, but wouldn't dare touch him.

He did not anticipate to feel not wanted.

He felt selfish for wanting her to be exactly how she was, but he had to remember, this was not the Mabel he knew.

Adonis no longer knew Mabel inside and out and felt the revelation slowly kill him.

Instead, Soter knew Mabel. The Vampire knew her yet Adonis himself didn't.

He felt ashamed for taking so long to find her, and when he does he doesn't focus on her- rather focus on killing the mutt who kept her captive.

He watched as Mabel slowly cried in her sleep, as the child in her arms tightened her grip and as Soter slowly wandered towards her, ready to sit down.

Adonis rushed over when he realised Soter was fixing to be his mates pillow, shoving himself next to a sleeping Mabel and putting his arm around her.

Instantly she began to whimper as Soter glared at Adonis and walked away.

Her whimpers quietened down and she shuffled closer to him, her tears coming to a stop.

Adonis feels a trickle of satisfaction run through him.

He knows that even though him and his beautiful mate will have to overcome obstacles, they are going to do it together.