Take my heart

Chapter XIV

Dawn is in a war path, and nothing anyone says can stop her. She's a chaotic force of nature, when she gets like this, but it's never been directed at anyone but Adryan, who's a force of nature himself and can, therefore, hold his ground. Now, though, she stomps into their lounge, positively seething, and completely ignores her boyfriend.

"Who do you think you are?" Dawn yells, stopping between the TV and the sofa where Caesar and Connor were playing a game. "You absolute piece of trash! Do you want to die?" A phrase learned from her boyfriend, but the familiarity doesn't make it any less terrifying.

Connor grimaces, and Caesar feels the tail-end of his nervousness in his own bones. They're both trying very hard not to shrink under Dawn's boiling fury.

"I told you to stay away from her!" she goes on when they don't answer. "I told you she was too good for you and I warned you what would happen if you hurt her, but you guys never listen, do you?"

Oh, she's mad at all of them, by extension. Not a promising situation. Caesar glances around in search of something that could help, but only finds Adryan awkwardly hovering near the stairs.

"Okay, um," he tries, but he's not a great deescalator. "Why don't we... why don't we calm down and talk about..."

"Don't tell me to calm down," Dawn jabs a finger at him, and Caesar shuts his mouth. "Instead of that, you could have told your stupid friend to behave like a decent human being. Maybe then he would have listened."

"Dawn, listen," Connor says.

"No, you listen!" she turns to him then, expression livid. "You don't get to defend yourself now. What were you even thinking? I can't believe it! I thought after all this time, you guys weren't like you seemed when we met, but boy was I wrong. I should have never let Ali get involved with any of you."

"What's going on?"

Like a nonchalant angel fallen from heaven, Darren walks in right that moment, an arm around Lee's shoulders. He tilts his head and observes the situation, a very scandalized Dawn towering above a very pale Connor, and two very uncomfortable Adryan and Caesar nearby.

Noticing his arrival, Dawn turns to him.

"What's going on is that Connor here toyed with my best friend and gave her false hope, and once he got bored he went and dumped like any other fuckboy would! Apparently he just never liked her, but that didn't stop him from stringing her along, did it?"

Unaffected by her rage, Darren nods to himself and furrows his eyebrows.

"And you're lecturing him about that?"

A strange enough question to bring Dawn to a halt. Connor and Caesar exchange a confused glance before looking back at the others.

"What do you mean?"

Darren blinks. He looks at Dawn, then at Adryan, then back at Dawn, then at Lee, and back at Dawn once more. When he makes a vague gesture with his free hand, Lee is the only one that understands.

"Oh!" he gasps, and his face splits in a humorless smirk. "Yes, terribly ironic."

"Isn't it?" Darren agrees.

"Delightful turn of events. The sheer audacity of some people."

For apparently no reason, or at least, none that Caesar can fathom, Dawn goes beet red. She opens and closes her mouth several times, most of her bravado suddenly gone.

"I- I didn't..." she starts, but the curl of Lee's mouth cuts her off. "But it's... It's different!"

Darren shrugs one shoulder. "Yeah, probably. All I'm saying is you're not the most adequate person to call him out, don't you think?"