Slender Man Chronicles (Matched Collectors)

Chapter 14

"We're coming too," Brody called over. "Come on. No fighting, unless it's with slendy."

"Slendy?" I snorted. "Seriously?"

"Yup," Brody grinned and led the way to the door of the house.

It was rather small, but then I'm used to a mansion. Yeah, yeah, rich boy problems. It was also threatening to fall down around us, and I wasn't sure where Emily had gone. I wanted her with me, but I realized we needed to kind of split up. Brody would let me know if I needed to go to her. A wolf trotted up and joined me, and swear to god, it had the same cocky look that Cody had before he shifted. Great. At least he wasn't with Emily.

We were poking around, and Brody pointed that we should go up. I didn't really want to, those rickety stairs worried me, I was afraid of falling through and hurting someone. Mostly I was worried that I'd fall on Emily. I knew she'd heal it, but it would still hurt.

The stairs held, which was a huge relief. We got through one room fine, and then as I stepped into another room, the floor creaked in a way I didn't like, but when Cody came in, it was too much. I reached out to grab him, but it wasn't enough. I thought about him and held him still with my mind. I wanted to use my powers, but this wasn't exactly what I envisioned using them for. As carefully as I could, I set him down on the first floor, but he ended up falling again, and I was able to grab him with my mind again.

"Fuck," Brody took off running, leaving me to get downstairs by myself.

That was when I felt the funniest thing. It started out as like this sinking feeling that started in the pit of my stomach and quickly rose up and grabbed my heart. Emily. Brody had run off in order to save Emily. This was his job.

I tore down the stairs and shoved Charles out of my way. I had to get to her, and didn't really care when he'd walked into the house or what he was doing. As I ran, I could hear Sean calling after me, wondering what was going on. Like I was going to stop to tell him. Sure, she was his sister, but she's my heart and soul. At that moment, I was afraid to find out what would happen to me if something happened to her.

I let the feeling pull me to the bottom of the stairs. There in the basement was a huge pile of rubble. Where Cody fell through the floor, it caused other floors to fall. Standing in the center of the rubble was Emily. She looked up, then bent down and put her arms around the wolf that was standing beside her. The relief that flooded through me totally eclipsed what I'd felt when we got to the top of the stairs.

"I shielded her," Brody answered my unasked question. "That's how I protect you guys. I knew where she was, and I shielded her."

"Dude, I could kiss you," I looked at him.

"Well, how about you give it to her instead?" Brody grinned. "I could deal without you puking afterwards."

"Like you want me to kiss you," I called as I made my way over the rubble. When I got to Emily, I pulled her into my arms and kissed her. "That one was for Brody," I dipped my head again and kissed her harder, deeper. "That one, however, was all yours."

Before she could say anything, we heard one of the wolves pawing at the rubble, and making like this whining noise. It was like he was trying to tell us something. Brody managed to get him to back off, and Emily and I moved the rubble with the telekinesis. When we got to the bottom of the pile, we saw what Cody was trying to tell us. We found Jessica's body.

"Is that the girl we were out here to find?" Austin had shifted back and walked up behind us.

"Yeah," I nodded trying to look him in the eye and no where else. It was a bit hard, I'm taller. I'm six-two, and my mom swears I've got another inch in me somewhere.