Crossroads → Nicholas Scratch [CAOS]

xii. roses

"Dad, not now," Calum hissed, curling his arm around his sister's neck and pulling her close. "C'mere... try not to think about it, alright? Dad and I are right here, we always will be."

Wiping her cheeks with the soaking sleeves of her top, Dani rested her head on Calum's shoulder. As comfortable as she was in her brother's arms, Dani couldn't bring herself to fall asleep. It wasn't that her eyes weren't heavy or that she didn't want to sleep, but every time her eyelids would fall for even a second, even for a blink, the image of the hairy, clawed and fanged beast would flash in her head, making her breath hitch and heart thump even louder. So, instead of the drive to their house feeling quick like it should have with the short distance between everything in Greendale and the dangerous speed her father was driving at, the travel home felt like several torturous hours for Dani who couldn't brush away the fear of what she would see if she let herself fall asleep.

When the car slowed down and began pulling into their driveway, Dani couldn't find the strength and energy to sit up and exit the car although she so very much wanted to be in the safety of their house, in the comfort and warmth of her bed. She urged her head to lift off her brother's shoulder and for her arms to raise and pull the door car door open, but every single bone and muscle in Dani's body refused to obey her, anchors weighing down on them. She felt like she had just drowned, tied up in heavy chains and unable to rise back up to the surface. She could breathe, but even so, she still felt like chains were around her, crushing her chest and lungs. She could see, even through the blur of the tears in her eyes, but she couldn't bring her irises to move, staring in one spot like she was daydreaming, except she wasn't daydreaming; she was having a night terror. A real-life night terror experienced fully consciously, and that didn't seem to end even despite being away from the danger. Even as her brother helped her out of the car and guided her into the house, Dani couldn't see or hear or feel anything– not the smell of the grass and the flowers or her hand grazing against the door frame of their house. She couldn't even see Calum or her dad. All she could see was the tall, broad, silhouette of a beast, all she could smell was the dog-like scent of its grey coat of fur and its acidic breath, and all she could feel was its hand wrapped around her neck so tightly that had it tightened its grip on her neck even a little bit more, her pulse may have stopped.

"Over here." Dani's dad patted a chair at the kitchen table after he exited his office with a small, brown box. Following his instructions, Dani shambled to the chair, sitting down and watching him zip open the white pack filled with plasters and pain killers. With both hands on either side of her face, Matthew examined Dani's cheek. "Barely even a scratch." He chuckled half-heartedly, trying to console his daughter while he used a disinfectant wipe to clean the dried blood surrounding the wound. She watched cautiously when a small, round, flat, cream jar was pulled out of the box. With her heavy eyelids and her exhausted, frail body, Dani still managed to find a way to be concerned by the cream; the word, "wolfsbane" was carved on the lid of the cream, and through the translucent body of the jar, she could see a purple substance. She stared cautiously as her dad unscrewed the lid and used a cotton swab to pick up a bit of the unusual coloured cream. When he moved the cotton swab forward to apply the strange purpleness to Dani's face, she pulled away, so sure that by its unnatural colour and odd name, this had something to do with the hunters and supernatural creatures. "Wolfsbane... it's to kill off any bacteria or toxins that may have come from werewolf's scratch. It'll help speed up the healing and reduce the pain," he said, but his assuring elaboration did nothing to reduce her uncertainty toward the medicine, so, still, she kept a distance. She trusted her dad almost more than she trusted anyone, but after everything she had seen him do– even the things like tonight at the carnival, that he hadn't been involved in made her mind race because although he hadn't been there when everything had happened, Dani knew that at some point in time, he had probably dealt with many things like this.