ARCANE

029

The scuffle is coming from the kitchen. She darts inside and discovers Erik straddling his Dad and stabbing him. Again and again and again. June leaps backwards, her hands going to her mouth in horror. Her throat chokes, and she can feel herself hanging again. June's knees hit the ground and she struggles to breathe. She watches, stab after stab, after stab.

June manages to crawl over. She tries to pull Erik off of his Dad. He shrugs out of her grip, but she keeps trying. Blood splashes up on to her face, decorating her with a second set of freckles.

"Erik, Erik it's me," she reassures him, wrapping her arms around him and holding him. "It's June. You've... you've got to stop. Stop. Please, Erik. Please!"

Erik throws the knife down. Though he can feel the adrenaline inside him, he listens to June. He lets himself lean back into her, beginning to sob. June tries her best to be delicate, but her hands are shaking, and they wrap into tight fists around Erik. She continues to hug him from behind, leaning against a wall.

"He killed her!" Erik wails. It's hard to understand him. The voice reminds June of her mother's, as she told her father what had happened to August. "He murdered my sister. He fucking left her body in our backyard. He killed her. He did it!"

June holds him tighter. She can feel the anger and the pain in Erik. Tomorrow is the anniversary of August's death. If she could give anything to kill the man who killed her brother, she would.

"He has been fucking beating us our whole lives, and look what he got coming," Erik spits, his voice a mixture of blood and tears and snot.

June nods, trying to digest it. She tries to be Cara and figure out what they are going to do, but she can't. A sudden headache controls her. This is too much to handle, and they need the others.

"We need to get out of here," June tells him, her voice shaking. She is crying to but trying not to for him. "Let's go!"

Erik nods. He turns around to face her. His eyes scan her face, looking at the blood smeared across her cheeks and the fear in her eyes. It takes a while for him to nod. His wet, red hand takes hers and squeezes.

Words aren't enough.

Erik plants a kiss on her cheek and then stands up. He reaches down and grabs the gun out of his Dad's holster. The pair head to the front door. Erik grabs his jacket and his backpack. Hand in hand, the two leave together.

~~~

Unlike the others, Cara and Eden are jolted awake as the Ferris wheel moves downwards. It sinks one closer to the ground and tips to the side. Cara begins to scream, her hands gripping the sides as tightly as possible. Her voice joins the dozens of others on the carousel. Their carriage swings on its side and the emergency breaks kick in while they are horizontal.

Cara's eyes scan the space and then stares below. Their carriage is the one at a 90-degree angle, which means they are the ones which spun the most, thankfully. Everyone else is fine. Beside her, Eden follows his gaze downwards. It's nearly impossible to see in the absence of the strings of light which previously decorated the Ferris wheel.

Their eyes begin to adjust to the light from the stars. It's still impossible to make anything else on the ground. They just know they need to leave. Now.

"How long will it take for us to get to the park?" Cara asks Eden.

"Too long," he holds on to her tightly, trying not to think about the ground below. He can see how high they are up now. "How high are we?"

Cara would shrug if she wasn't worried about it tipping. She can hear people around her crying, but the noise is beginning to die down. "I don't know. 60 feet? That's like, 20 meters. We can't survive that. That's triple what June fell. We have to wait."