Dollhouse ~ Ghostbird Fanfic

18• Hysteria

Nathan chokes out, "Did he do this to her?"

I glance his way and take in his bulging eyes, the sweat trickling down his temple, the way his fists clench at nothing at his sides. There's pure panic in his eyes. Phil told us we'd guard her with our lives, but this doesn't look good for Luke. If he did this to her because she didn't want to be held by him - then what the fuck are we capable of when she doesn't blindly obey our Cadavers? If Luke could be capable of this, I'd be an absolute beast.

Kota soothes him from a few feet away, not wanting to risk spooking Luke by moving too suddenly, "We can ask him once we get him to calm down enough to shift back, but I don't think he hurt her. He mentioned something followed them and that it chased after her. That's the more likely culprit."

Gabriel's eyes look at them from the side. He's also being very careful not to move too much. Out of the corner of his mouth he asks, "But where the fuck did it go then?"

Owen whispers back, body braced to go after them if Luke decides to lunge or run, "Luke may have managed to scare it off."

Seeing that being softspoken isn't working on Luke when he's like this, Sean makes his words sterner and commanding, "Luke, that's enough. Bring her here. Now."

Luke doesn't like this though. He stands to his full height, lifting up on the pads of his feet even more and howls this chilling sound to the sky. The howl wavers in pitch, loud and low, loud and low. 

And then he's gone.

I'd blinked and he was gone.

We're all running in the direction he took off in without a word exchanged. Whether Luke hurt her or not, she's injured and needs to be seen about. She'd barely kept consciousness when we found them. Her sapphire eyes had been glazed over and dull, not even hinting that she was aware enough to understand what was happening around her. That adorable dress she'd worn - one I actually liked as it wasn't her usually frilly contraptions - is now muddied and torn at her waist. The fabric stained deep red from some wound I couldn't make out but is likely large based on the amount of blood I'd seen.

So much blood that it trickled down the skirt and dripped onto the forest floor. Drip, drip, drip. That fucking sound is going to follow me to my dreams.

We get to a section of the woods that thins out too much to be able to track him like we'd been doing. In the denser trees, his large frame left a trail of snapped limbs and piles of leaves scooped up from where he'd stepped. Here, it's open enough that he's has less obstacles to work through. Owen, who'd been at the front of our group, turns back to us. He looks determined and put together, but there's a crazed gleam in his eyes that has me thinking he's more worried than he's letting on. "Split up! Two groups of three, one group of two. Call if you find them. Do not pursue on your own!"

All of us nod and subconsciously split off. Gabriel follows me close behind, surprisingly keeping up even though he hates running with a passion. I guess we're the group of two. 

"He wouldn't hurt her like that! I know him," Gabriel calls to me. I'm not so sure about that and I know Luke nearly as well as Gabriel. We haven't the slightest fucking clue what to expect when we turn. Maybe we should've been prioritizing learning that stuff more the last week, but all of us couldn't pull away from learning about Methuselah and about her era in time. We wanted to make her as comfortable as possible with us. We wanted her to feel safe and adored. We wanted to erase the bad in her past with the good we could bring to the table. A part of us believed that if we just loved her enough, showed her how wonderful it could be in our family, we could make the past fade away.