Culture Shock

Chapter 2: Deaf Pleas

In which Camry says the fuck word a lot.

(BTW if there are two or more Spanish-speaking people talking to one another, unless it's said otherwise, it's pretty safe to assume they're speaking in Spanish :3c)

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If it hadn't already been so close to when her alarm clock was set to go off, Sadie Dowell would have been very upset to hear such a harsh and insistent knocking on her front door. As it was, she glared at the display beside her bed and groaned. 6:28 am? Couldn't the intrusion have waited for another fifteen minutes? Sleep is precious, especially to someone who works in front of a camera.

When the knocking didn't stop after a minute, she firmly patted her sleeping husband's arm a couple of times and swung her legs out of bed. Dressed in slippers and with a robe pulled on over her silky pajamas, Sadie tried and failed to suppress a yawn behind her hand. Well, at least the colors from the sunrise were pretty to look at. She passed a window on her way to the door and faintly smiled at the rare sight.

"Alright, alright, I'm coming," she grumbled, unlocking the door and swinging it open. To her surprise, Ariadna stood there, ruddy-cheeked and panting hard. Her fist was poised to keep knocking, the knuckles of that hand bright red from the constant and repetitive impact. She was dressed in only pajama shorts, a T-shirt, and a baggy jacket that swallowed her thin frame in its folds. But what struck Sadie most of all was Ari's expression.

There were dried, smeared tear tracks making trails down her cheeks, and it looked as if more were on their way. Sadie didn't see such desperation and fear very often, especially not in the face of a girl as young and innocent-looking as Ariadna, and it shook her to her core.

"Oh, no," she gasped, her hand flying up to cover her mouth. "Sweetie-- what's going on?"

Ariadna gestured emphatically, not quite signing anything but trying to convey a sense of urgency. 'Oh, right' Sadie remembered as she lowered her hand so the teen could read her lips. She repeated the question carefully, and Ariadna saw.

"Please, Camry-- help," she panted, stabbing a thumb back over her shoulder and waving her hands back and forth.

"Come inside, sweetie," Sadie said in response to that, slinging an arm around Ari's shoulders to guide her over the threshold. When she looked back to shut the door, she noticed two spots of blood on the porch and let out another sharp gasp. "Oh, honey, you aren't wearing any shoes! You're hurt-- Mason, get up! Go wake up Camry!"

Urgent shuffling came from the master bedroom down the hall before Mason appeared, looking more than a little bit rumpled and bleary. "Huh? Wha's-- oh, Ariadna? What's going on?" he mumbled, rubbing a hand down the length of his face once. "It's six-thirty in the morning."

"I know, dear, but go wake up Camry right now," Sadie said quickly. "I don't know specifics yet."

"Okay." Mason nodded and took the stairs up to the second floor two at a time, his feet's pounding echoing hollowly through the large house. "Cam? Honey? Wake up. Something's going on."

In the meantime, Sadie pointed to herself, then to Ari, and pantomimed picking her up while mouthing that intention. Ari nodded and allowed herself to be carried into the kitchen, where she was settled down on a clear section of counter space. How easy it was to carry the girl surprised Sadie, to say the least, and she made a mental note to invite the Hinojosas over for dinner more often. She then hurried to one of the bathrooms to gather up what medical supplies they had begun to hoard for Relle Phantom's sake.

Small drops of blood ran down the arch of Ariadna's dangling feet and dripped from her big toes to the linoleum floor. She must have been in pain from her injuries, but if she was it didn't register in her expression. In fact, a vacant, far-off stare dominated her features more than anything else. When Sadie returned, her arms full of gauze and disinfectant, she set it aside and got down on her knees to get a good look at what she was dealing with. There was plenty of dirt embedded in the scratches, and if she squinted she might have made out a little shard of glass pricking into the arch of her left foot, but the cuts were superficial and only bleeding so much because Ariadna hadn't once stopped running since she had begun.