William Holloway

I'm a devil in disguise

At first, William had tried his best to keep track of the days. As William would drop from exhaustion onto the metal cot that was his 'home', he'd done his best to count the hours that he'd spent locked inside those metal walls. But living without the sun had proved difficult, and after (he guessed, at least) one hundred days, he'd lost count of his time spent entrapped by his own fucking species. He'd known that this day would come eventually. He'd been running for nearly two hundred years from these people, and they'd finally caught up with him in those few moments when he had let his guard down. And he should have known better, because when he'd let his guard down and thought for a moment that he might have the life that he'd been promised before the fucking nightmare of his second rising. But then they'd caught him as he'd left Sebastian's home. It had been such a cheap shot, not even trying to fight the Duke. It had been a needle in his neck and when he'd awoken, he'd been in those metal walls with handcuffs keeping his hands - and his power - incapacitated.

It had been so much like his first years of living with his master. They'd wanted him to use his power if only so they could learn to control the monster he'd become the instant he tapped into his 'gifts'. Gifts, that's what they had called them. They were not a gift to the hunter. They were a curse and one that he would have given up if only it meant that he could spend eternity in Sacrosanct alongside those that he loved. Sebastian... He had supposed that he was spending eternity - or however long they decided to keep him prisoner here - at Sebastian's side. When he had refused to cooperate those first few months (were they months or years?) at the compound, they'd informed him that they held Sebastian in another one of those dreaded cells. They would kill him, they'd insured him, if he didn't do exactly what they told him to do. And so he'd done exactly that. He'd wake up in that cell, spend hours attempting to create those blades that he so hated without losing his mind (he always failed), and ultimately would be drugged when he lost control. Then he'd wake up again in that cell with those dreaded handcuffs to disarm him. But they weren't necessary, those handcuffs. No, knowing that Sebastian was in danger was enough to keep the Hunter perfectly docile. He did as they said. After all, he'd watched his best friend die once, he couldn't bare to do it again. No, if he spent the rest of eternity being tortured to know that Sebastian was alive and breathing, he'd do it. Even if that life was miserable and inside the compound, it was a world in which Sebastian existed, and that was enough.

They'd never meant for him to know the truth. And they hadn't thought that he'd overheard them. They'd been naive, new to his holding place. The drugs - he must have been getting used to them - had begun to wear off as they had put him within his cell. "He's a fool," One of them had said as they laughed at his expense. "So easy to believe that we have his friend." It hadn't been a guarantee, but it was the first bit of hope he'd had in a long, long time. His hands had still been free and that was their undoing. They'd both been dead before they realized their mistake. The whole compound had been dead within minutes - those minutes perfectly clear to William before the madness so associated with his power had taken him. When William had regained his sanity, the compound had still been empty and he'd been both heartbroken and consoled to find that the Earl was nowhere to be seen. There was no evidence of another prisoner there. No one besides himself, and perhaps he had been a fool for believing them so easily.

William had held no idea where he had been held - other than assuming it was in the middle of nowhere. Upon his escape, he was both relieved and devastated to learn that all this time he had been but an hour north of Sacrosanct. All that time he had been so close to home. So close to the ones he loved. But now that he had that sweet freedom, it made it so much easier to return to Sacrosanct and to his loved ones. The Duke spoke to no one on his journey, at least not until he tried so earnestly to enter the home that belonged to his best friend and was stopped by a set of guards asking if he had... an appointment of all things? Why would he need an appointment to get into his own home? For a moment, that madness that he'd been driven to over and over and over again threatened to take hold. He could end them so easily if it meant getting to Sebastian, and yet more blood shed would hardly be helpful. He didn't regret the deaths of the hunters who had held him, but these guards had done nothing other than the crime of keeping William from Sebastian.

"I'm... I'm here to see Sebastian. Lord Ellington," William corrected, though he'd hardly been awarded access to the mansion. Instead, he'd merely gotten a laugh and a 'aren't they all' put his way. "Please, get Lord Ellington of Bridgewater, Viscount of Linconshire and Baron of Belton for me, he will clear this up." William ran a hand through his hair in a frustrated manner at their continued unwillingness to let him through those gates - when did Sebastian get a gate anyway? "Fine, if you won't get Lord Ellington, then get Charles. Tell him William is here."