Was he too harsh?

Was he right to denounce his own mother like that?

Maybe she had a point... Five years was surely enough time to grieve...

No...

No.

He couldn't stand down on this. The only people Stefan could ever trust were his parents. And now one was dead, and the other...

It was fine. He'd be fine without a family. Just look at him now; running his own business, owning his own home, living the high life... He was fine.

But... What about Jelli? He couldn't get her out of his head. She was always so helpless; he just couldn't imagine her coping on her own.

But he'd have to.

Because she wasn't his sister.

She wasn't...

The phone rang. Without looking up, Stefan reached over and pressed a button.

"What? I'm busy," he grumbled.

That wasn't strictly true. The Fallen hadn't gotten any sleep the previous night, and the following day had just been dragging on and on. Not to mention all the calls from his mother that he had been ignoring...

"Sorry sir, but there's a call for you on line one," responded the voice of his secretary.

He scoffed.

"Is it my mother, perchance?"

"No sir. Erm... The caller ID is... not showing up correctly... hold on..."

A scrambled caller ID? That usually only happened when someone was phoning directly from Hell. But he knew no-one there that would know the direct number for his office.

"Patch it through," Stefan said, straightening up in his chair.

"At once, sir."

With a heavy sigh, the businessman reached over to his phone and raised the receiver to his ear.

"This is Stefan Blackwell of Blackwell Pharmaceuticals," he droned, leaning back in his chair.

"Ah, that's good. That means I've got the right number, then," spoke a voice that he didn't recognise.

As with all calls coming from Hell, there was a fair amount of interference, but he could just about make out the voice of a young man.

"Care to make this quick? I'm not in the business of dealing directly with people I don't know," Stefan sighed

"Oh, sure thing. I just need you to confirm that you're coming back to Hell."

Narrowing his eyes, Stefan sat up in his chair.

"Who is this? How did you get this number?" he asked sternly.

"Neither of those things really matter right now. I just need you to come back. It's more important than you realise."

"I don't know you; I don't see-"

"Call me a friend of a friend, so to speak."

Stefan bared his teeth as he got out of his chair, feeling mightily paranoid all of a sudden. Stepping over to the windows, he peeked outside, despite knowing for a fact that the caller was nowhere nearby.

"I don't have friends in Hell. Not anymore," the Fallen growled.

"Maybe so. But you have family, am I right?"

"No. I do not."

"Not even Jelli?"

His heart stopped for a moment. Gripping the phone tighter, Stefan's free hand balled into a fist.

"You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. I suggest you put the phone down before you overstep a bound you don't want to cross," he hissed, gripping the phone so hard it threatened to break.

Through the static of the audio interference, he heard the man laugh.

"I think I know enough. More than you, anyway, considering you're not even a part of her life anymore. I know that she still sees you as her big brother, blood ties bedamned. I know she's been struggling without your guidance. And I know she's not going to last much longer without you here to reassure her."

"Listen here, you son of a-!"

"Honestly, Stefan; I'm shocked you'd be so callous. Your parents are married, no? Shouldn't that have brought you two closer together?"

"I-!"

The man laughed once more.

"Oh, hit the nail on the head, didn't I? You still care about h-"

The Fallen slammed the phone down, cutting the call off immediately. His entire body was tense; his breaths coming in short, sharp gasps. It took him a few moments to realise just how tightly his jaw was clenched.

"Son of a bitch... Son of a bitch!" he roared, abruptly kicking his chair across the room.

The phone rang, prompting him to lift it up, only to immediately slam it back down. It rang again, so he jabbed the decline button. But again and again, the phone would ring, until Stefan released a howl of rage and ripped the power cable from the wall altogether.

There was a knock at the door.

"Sir? Are you okay in there?" asked the concerned voice of his secretary.

Wiping his brow, Stefan gripped the edges of his desk and took a shuddering breath.

"I'm fine! Just... not feeling too great. I might just head home early," he called.

"A- Alright, sir. I'll cancel the rest of your meetings."

For a few minutes, the cloaked Fallen stood alone in his office, silently recuperating from his fit of frustration. Once settled, he grabbed his coat and briefcase before he stepped out into the hall, where his secretary sat behind a desk of her own. She was a short lady with a normally nonplussed expression, but as she watched him pass, she wore a concerned face.

"Sir? Are you sure you're okay?" she asked as Stefan passed.

"I'll be fine after a decent night's sleep. Hellf- Lord only knows I've been missing out lately," he sighed in response, biting his tongue as he nearly spoke a Hellish colloquialism.

She made to make a response, but at that moment, the phone on the secretary's desk rang. Nodding to her boss, she answered it.

"Hello? Oh, you again. Um, yes, hold on one second..."

Looking up, she handed it to Stefan.

"It's for you, sir."

Swallowing hard, he resisted the urge to throw the phone back and instead held it to his ear.

"Time's running out quicker than you'd think, Stefan," spoke that sinister voice.

He thrust the phone back into his secretary's hands.

"End the call. Don't take any more, and block that number."

"S- Sir?!"

"If he tries to call again, just... I don't know, make sure it doesn't happen."

Leaving her with that, he stomped off towards the elevator, his eyes dark and stormy.

-----

Seated in his sleek black car, Stefan Blackwell gripped the steering wheel tightly as he drove down the rainy streets of Plymouth, glaring hard at the road ahead. In his pocket, he could feel his mobile phone vibrate violently with an incoming call. It started the moment he got into the car, and hadn't stopped since.

That bastard - who ever he was - was persistent.

As he turned a corner and overtook a couple of vans, the Fallen reached into his pocket and shut the phone off, tossing it into the backseat with an inaudible growl.

No sooner had he done this when the car's dashboard suddenly lit up and began to play a jingling ringtone, the words "Incoming Call" proudly displayed upon a small monitor.

"For fucks sake, leave me alone!"

He violently turned the wheel, forcing his car down a smaller side street. Anything to get home faster.

But as he drove, the ringtone jingled on endlessly, causing a high-pitched whine to build up in the back of Stefan's head. Eventually, he caved and slammed his fist down on one of the dashboard's buttons.

"What do you want?!" he roared, leaning heavily on the acceleration pedal.

"So you've been ignoring my calls as well as your mother's. She's quite upset about that; I can hear her from here." spoke the voice of the mysterious caller in an almost nonchalant tone.

"This is my last warning! You keep this, and I'm gonna-!"

"Gonna what? Come down here and give me a good talking to face-to-face? By all means, Stefan, do. You may as well drop in on Jelli while you can. She's just woken up from-"

Pulling up in front of his apartment building, Stefan abruptly ended the call and shut the car off. Grabbing his mobile from the backseat, he stepped out into the rain, swearing beneath his breath as it soaked straight through his suit jacket. Kicking his car door shut, he gripped his briefcase tight and marched into his apartment building.

As he made for the elevator, the man at the front desk cleared his throat.

"Mr. Blackwell? I've had a couple of calls come in here for you," he said, pointing to the phone next to his computer.

"Don't answer them."

"But-?"

"I said don't answer them!" he snapped, aggressively jamming his thumb against the call button.

Stepping into the lift, Stefan clenched his fists and paced back and forth, seething beneath his breath the entire time. Why was he allowing this to get to him so badly? Surely this was just some kind of phone prankster.

A phone prankster that knew all of his phone numbers and had intimate knowledge of his family issues...

No, there was something off about this whole thing.

Once he arrived at his floor, Stefan made a beeline for his apartment, only to stop dead in his tracks outside the door. He could already hear the phone ringing inside.

He bared his teeth.

Throwing the door open, the Fallen threw his briefcase aside and marched straight for his apartment's phone.

"What do you want?!" he barked, nearly tearing it off the wall.

"This could be your last chance to see her, Stefan," spoke the voice in a serious tone.

"What?"

"She could be dying, you know."

As soon as those words reached Stefan, his grip on the phone loosened. His eyes widened.

"Wh- What...?" he breathed.

"Why do you think your mother has been calling you nonstop? Oh that's right, you were ignoring her. Well, allow me to enlighten you. Jelli suffered an anxiety-triggered outburst, and she's been hurt badly. Anxiety stemming from you," the voice continued.

"That doesn't... That doesn't make any sense."

"Does it not? The way I heard it, she's been blaming herself for you treating your own family like shit. Leaving without a word tends to inspire painful feelings in most people, nevermind those as sensitive as your sister."

"Sh- She's-"

"Not your sister? She doesn't see it that way. She thinks the world of you, Stefan, and she's been crying out for you. I heard her. Of course, I can't make out the most of what she says, what with all the screaming..."

"What? What have you done to her?!" barked the Fallen, his shock giving way to anger.

"Me? Not a thing. But the damage has already been done. Hypothermia, contusive trauma, compound fractures, skin lacerations, freezer burn... Do you want me to continue?"

Stefan swallowed hard and stared at his feet.

Outbursts were bad, especially among second stage demons. Stress, anxiety fear and panic; all can overwhelm a demon's psyche and force their magic to trigger an outburst as a form of fight or flight response, often with disastrous results. He had witnessed Jelli undergo such a phenomenon only once before, when she fell off the side of a bridge and into a river, back in Frankfurt. Many humans saw her create a protective shell of ice around herself, forcing Stefan to contact the Mesmers; an organisation of Succubus operatives skilled in the arts of memory manipulation.

She had to be hospitalised afterwards, she was so cold...

"Where... Where is she?"

"Brimstone Memorial Hospital. If you have even a shred of decency left, I'd advise you to drop on by. Be quick though; it's three hundred miles from Plymouth to Paris. Tick tock, Mr. Blackwell."

The call abruptly ended. Swallowing hard, Stefan ripped his Cloaking Charm off and staggered over to his apartment's balcony. Unperturbed by the rain, he switched on his phone and brought up a navigation app. He was already facing south-east.

"Three hundred miles..." he breathed, gazing up at the dark sky.

She wasn't his sister.

But they had spent so much time together.

Only out of obligation.

And yet, he still couldn't shake his fondness for Jelli.

It was just guilt.

But he couldn't just leave her.

The caller could be lying.

And if he wasn't?

If she died, it wouldn't affect him one bit.

Stefan's eyes widened.

"No... No, I can't just leave her."

Stepping up onto the balcony ledge, he spread his stony wings.

"Three hundred miles... I can still make it."