Were The Runaways Are Running The Night

the fire

POV ARTEMIS

After the fight was over, Artemis and Athena walked up to the main protester and said, "You know, spare change might not mean much to you, but to someone else, it could mean the world." Athena added to her sister's statement with a fact, "Lettie means the world to all of us. She might not mean anything to you because you only see beauty in one form; the normal. You don't see it in anything other than what you expect. You don't see the extraordinary. All of us, who appreciate true beauty, look beyond the surface and into everything else. We can see past the outside." Artemis cut in, "And in you, we see a person who needs to learn how to look at things from a different angle." The man looked at them with such disgust in his eyes that it made W.D push the sisters behind him. "Now, if you don't mind, stay away from my family." And with that final statement, W.D led them home. One big family back to the circus.

As they were all walking in, Lettie slumped into the corner. Artemis nudged her sister and nodded to Lettie. They slowly walked over to her and gently touched her back. "Lettie," Artemis started, "are you okay?"

The bearded woman nodded. "I've heard worse things said to other people. I shouldn't be worried about myself when there are other people that have better stuff to worry about. I mean, I'm just sitting here, feeling sorry for myself." Artemis looked at her sister, and said "As long as you live, you are allowed to be sad. You're allowed to be discouraged. You're allowed to be angry, upset, disappointed, and afraid. You don't need to be happy all the time."

After they spoke to Lettie, the twins went up to their room and went to bed.

After about two hours, the two girls heard a crash. "What was that?" Athena whispered. Artemis looked out the window to see what she feared most; A blanket of smoke billowing up into the sky.

She turned around as if in shock and without a word, Artemis grabbed her sister's wrist and dragged her to the door. "Artemis, what did you see?" Athena asked urgently. She just responded with, "We have to go."

As soon as the older twin grabbed the door knob, she felt a blistering heat crawl into her hand. She yanked it back with a yelp. "Artemis!" Without hesitation, the older twin kicked down the door, grabbed hold of her sister, and bolted through the flames. "Take your skirt off! The fire will catch it!" Athena did as her sister instructed and started to crawl through the hallway, calling for all of their friends. They found Lettie, Charlie, Phillip, Esmeralda, John, and Sherlock. While they were looking, a beam fell about seven feet away from them, and they did the only reasonable thing; they bolted. When they made it out of the building, they knew that they had just faced death and survived. Lettie saw Clopin asking if everyone was alright and that everyone made it out. "Wait. Were's Athena?" Everyone started shouting and looking around for the albino. "Artemis were's Athena?!" It went silent as everyone felt the truth sink in. Artemis clutched Lettie as if she was the only thing separating her from and endless void of pain. "Please don't go..." Lettie kissed the top of her head. "I won't." Just when they thought it couldn't get any worse, Philip ran into the the burning place that they used to call home. "PHILIP NO!" Clopin attempted to run in after his boyfriend but was stopped by W.D who held him firmly until he stopped struggling. For at least three minutes The oddities stood there. Alone. Feeling as if all hope was lost.

Until, out of the blue, Philip came out of the flames and with a brunt to the crisp Athena. The albinos usual pale skin was now splotched with black, red, and brown. Her usual cheery expression, has transformed into a somber and pained frown. As Artemis walked closer, she saw that her sister was shaking and obviously struggling to get her next breath. "Athena.." Artemis said with a shaky breath, "what have you done?"