CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
toeing the line
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FIRST, THERE HAD BEEN nothing. Nonexistence, every molecule dissolving and becoming one with the universe again. The brain unraveled; the body disintegrated into particles smaller than could be seen with the naked eye. This nothingness lasted forever, infinitely, though somehow, it also lasted milliseconds. There was no concept of time, concept of being, just pure, unmarred nothing in which Nadine Vidal became one with the void. She was everywhere; she was nowhere.
Then, slowly, an awareness. A realization that she was something, someone, that she was a substance that could interact with the universe's articles. With that revelation came a heavy blackness, spreading across her vision, and a jar of pain pulsing through her. A slight rocking accompanied it, swaying what had previously been nothing, and now was something. And with this awareness, that she was a cognitive being that could be perceived, that she was interacting with pieces of the universe, Nadine Vidal opened her eyes, because now she had eyes to open.
She was in the backseat of a car, a car that was driving far above the speed limit. For a couple minutes, Nadine could do nothing but blink, trying to recall what had happened to her. Her mind, though working again, was sluggish, her thoughts coming at a snail's pace. For a few seconds, she could only focus on remembering who she was—Nadine Vidal, age twenty-nine, from Dijon, France—before everything came back to her in one fell swoop. Her entire life up until this moment hit her like a truck, and suddenly her thoughts were speeding up—age four age ten age thirteen age sixteen age eighteen age twenty-one age twenty-five age twenty-nine—until she reached this week. As soon as she finished recalling every moment she remembered up until now, she let out a gasp, and finally sat up straight.
"Nadine?"
It was Klaus's voice. He was sitting in the front seat, his face pale with worry. His eyes kept darting towards something beside Nadine. Her heart stuttered, but she forced herself to look where he was looking.
Allison Hargreeves was clutched in the arms of her burly brother, her eyes closed, her clothes stained with blood. Luther was pressing a blanket against her neck, trying desperately to staunch the flow of blood, but it was already soaked through. Diego, beside him, looked on with worry, his eyebrows pressed together.
"Allison," she hissed. In her mind's eye, she could see Vanya's bow cut across Allison's throat, carving a deep laceration in the flesh. A shudder ran down her spine.
"Nadine," said Klaus again, and Nadine finally took her eyes off of Allison—her body?—to look at him. "Are you—are you okay? We—we came to the cabin, and we found the two of you..." he took in a shuddering breath.
Although she was feeling slightly better, it still took Nadine a couple seconds to find the words in English. "My—my head," she said. Her hand went automatically to it, and she felt a knot there, larger than the one she'd procured back when Hazel and Cha-Cha had broken in. It was surrounded with clotted blood; thankfully having stopped bleeding. "What—is Allison okay?"
"She will be," said Diego determinately. There was a little relief glimmering in his eyes, that Nadine had awoken, and even in her slightly addled state, she knew it was because he was hoping that since Nadine had survived, so would his sister. "We're gonna be home soon. We're going to get her some help."
Five, who was driving—which explained all of the rocking and jolting the car was doing; assassin or not, he really was a shit driver—pressed harder on the gas pedal, sending the car flying even faster. They were breaking law after law, but it didn't matter. All that mattered was getting Allison patched up, and saving her life.
"We're almost there," said Luther, peering out of the window. "Hold on, Allison."
And indeed, it was less than five minutes later before the car was spinning into a parking spot near the Academy, and everyone was clambering out, banging through the front door like bullets. Nadine leaned against Klaus as she followed, slightly dizzy, bile boiling up in her throat. Desperation filled her. Allison had to be alright. She had to be. She couldn't die, not when she'd been so alive. Not when it was at the hands of her own sister that had caused her to crumble.
Nadine wasn't dead. She'd likely suffered a mild concussion, but at least she wasn't dead; for some reason, Harold Jenkins had chosen to knock her out instead of shooting her brains out. Nadine should've been relieved that she was still breathing, but she couldn't, not when Allison was dying. Not when she'd failed both her and Vanya.
Harold had wanted to get her out of the way, and he'd gotten his wish. Now Allison lay, bleeding and unbreathing, on the stretcher, while Grace hovered around her, examining the injury. "She's suffered a severe laceration to her larynx," she explained to the others—Diego, Klaus, Five, Luther, and Nadine, the ones who had fortunately managed to bring her back in time. According to Klaus, Diego had returned from his time in jail with the news that Nadine and Allison had gone off to find Harold Jenkins by themselves, which, of course, prompted all of the other members to follow after them—including Five, who'd healed from his shrapnel wound nicely. They'd arrived just in time to find Allison bleeding out on the floor and Nadine unconscious, and had, rightfully so, freaked the fuck out.
Now, Grace continued, her eyes flitted back to the group, "One of you will need to give blood."
"I will," everyone chorused.
"I'm doing it," said Luther, already rolling up his sleeve, jumping for the opportunity to save his sister. But Pogo was quick to shut him down.
"I'm afraid that's not possible, dear boy. Your blood is more compatible with mine."
"Hey, don't sweat it," Klaus piped up. "I—I got this, big guy. I—I love needles." He patted his forearm, the one with his umbrella tattoo, and prepared himself to give blood. But, again, Pogo dismissed him.
"Master Klaus. Your blood is... how shall I say this? Too polluted."
Now it was Diego's turn to move to offer up his own arm, but Nadine held up a hand, stopping him. "No. It... it has to be me. I'm the one who—" her voice cut off, and she took in a deep breath, everything flashing back to her once more. The rocking cabin, her heart-to-heart with Vanya, Allison's interruption and reveal, Vanya's anger, Allison's attempts to Rumor her, and the violin bow carving into Allison's neck. Then the blood, the screams, and Harold—he'd fucking knocked her out. Years of training, only to yet again halt in the face of a gun. Now, Harold had Vanya, and Allison was dying. It was all her fault.
She tried again. "I was there. Just take my blood. I know we have the same type." She'd read it in a fan magazine, long before she'd ever flown her way to the Academy. It was a hysterical fact that only made this situation seem more dreamlike.
"Nadine..." Diego clenched his jaw. "You're hurt. It's alright, I can do it."
He stepped forward, extending his own arm. Nadine was too exhausted to argue, even when he took one look at the needle, whimpered, and immediately passed out.
Pogo looked down at his prone form. "Stick him," he ordered Grace. And because they were running out of time, she obliged.
APPARENTLY, REGINALD HAD at least cared a little bit about his children's wellbeing... or perhaps only about how long they'd be out of commission before they could resume their training again. He had an entire room that served as an infirmary, full of beds and supplies made for aiding his children in getting to their feet again. It was because of this that they'd brought Allison to the Academy instead of a hospital—some of Reginald's strange concoctions might have just been enough to save her life.
While Grace worked on her, her brow creased in concentration (which was another thing that made her seem more human, Nadine thought), Nadine sat in another one of the beds, her fingers twitching with the urge to touch the bandages now wrapped around her head. Pogo had led her here, given her two needles; one, he said, was for pain alleviation (and indeed, it had worked—Nadine no longer felt like her skull was cracking open with each breath), while the other was for healing. She shouldn't overexert herself, he'd added, but with this, she'd be good as new in only a couple of days. Though, with the end of the world still looming above her head, Nadine wasn't sure she'd even have that much time.
She bunched her hands on the crisp white sheets of the bed, and realized they were still coated in red. Her blood. Allison's blood. It clung to her skin, seeped into her pores. Always a grim reminder of what had happened. Of the carve of Vanya's bow across Allison's throat.
My name is Nadine Vidal, she told herself, mouthing the words to let them take shape. I've been shot before and lived. I've been attacked, and I lived through that, too. I'm supposed to save the world. I can't let this get to me.
She stood up, the world fluctuating around her, and steadied herself with the wall. You're fine you're fine you're fine you're fine you're fine. Everything's fine. Everything is fucking fine.
She looked down at her hands again, sucking in a breath. This was something she could deal with. She'd clean up, take a shower and scrub the remnants of what had happened off her, and then she'd come back and regroup with the others, who surely would want to know what had happened. She'd be alright. Even if her mind kept flashing back to Allison, to Harold, to her own piercing screams. She was Nadine Vidal. She didn't let herself fall.
It was getting harder and harder to believe that. But Nadine made her way to a bathroom anyway, pausing in her room to extract clean clothes from her suitcase. Then, without bothering to look at the temperatures, she turned on the shower, stepping in and let the water—which turned out to be scalding—take over her. Steam curled off her skin, but she didn't turn the water down, relishing in the pain. It was reassuring, somehow. It was like it reminded her that she was still alive.
Come on, Nadine, you're fine, you're fucking fine.
"It doesn't matter, Nadine. You weren't... you've never been a part of this."
"Please don't make me do this."
"Allison. Allison, don't—"
"No! No! Allison! I didn't mean to!"
"Vanya! We have to go!"
"You leave her the fuck alone!"
"I always knew you'd be trouble."
Nadine clutched at the walls, trying to keep herself balanced. She closed her eyes. Breathed in. Out. And then spread out her fingers, one by one, and plucked a scene from the file folder in her mind. Slowly, with her already-throbbing forehead buzzing, an image formed around her, piecing itself together and shifting slightly when what she saw was not up to par. Flowers sprouted from the ground, which was now a grassy knoll, the ceiling morphed into a clear blue sky, and the water still coming from the showerhead became a pleasant spring rain. A sun shower.
She slowly sank to the bottom of the tub, and looked around. In the distance, she could see an oak tree with a swing set attached to it, rocking slightly in the wind. She had a tree like that back in France, in front of her old house. She used to spend hours there with her father, attempting to get as high as humanly possible, and, when she wanted to freak him out, she'd jump off when the swing reached its peak. Usually she ended up unhurt, though once she'd bruised her tailbone after a particularly rough fall.
That didn't matter, though, because to a young Nadine, the pain had been worth it. There were a few seconds when she was in the air where she'd feel weightless. Invincible. Like she could just fly away.
Nadine reached out, and a flower sprouted out under her hand, just shying away from caressing her skin. Its leaves bristled from a breeze Nadine couldn't feel, and then it shrank back down, disappearing into a seed, a process started anew. A reversal of time, like the one that had brought Five here, stuck in the body of a thirteen-year-old but filled with enough love with his family that he was willing to break his contract and stop the apocalypse.
The apocalypse. Everything in the past week came back to the end of the world. Nadine thought back to Harold, and the bandages over his eye (presumably from when he'd been beaten up). She'd have bet anything he'd lost it, and that the glass eye Five had been lugging around would fit perfectly in the empty socket. Harold, paying people to beat him up, Vanya having powers... she sucked in a breath. He must've known. He must've somehow fucking known that Vanya wasn't ordinary, and latched onto her in order to exploit it.
Goosebumps rose on her bare arms, and Nadine got to her feet, dissolving the illusion and reappearing back in the bathroom. The blood was gone, purged down the sink, and by cleaning herself up Nadine almost felt like she'd cleaned the memories away, although it was probably more like temporarily sweeping them under the rug. Her breathing was still uneven and her head was still throbbing, but she felt more clear-minded than she had when she'd first stepped in here.
Harold was supposed to end the world. There were two pieces of evidence for this—the fact that his name had been printed on the slip of paper Five had brought back from the Commission, and the matter of his eye. But Nadine had never understood how, exactly, a below-average in height man with no discernable talents would've been able to pull off such a feat. But now, thinking back to Vanya in the cabin, she wondered if Harold had even done it at all, or if he'd merely pulled the strings.
She straightened, turning off the water abruptly. Harold had taken Vanya with him, which meant that she was in danger. She figured now it was time for a meeting.
"THE BASTARD THAT nearly killed our sister's still out there, with Vanya," said Diego, pacing around the living room. Nadine, who was definitely feeling better now that she was in clean, blood-free clothes and freshly showered, sucked in a breath at his comment. Diego didn't know that it had been Vanya that had slashed Allison's throat back at the cabin, her anger overtaking her. In fact, she figured none of the Hargreeves siblings did. After all, who were you more likely to believe attempted murder in this scenario: the demure woman who wouldn't hurt a fly, or the sadistic killer manipulating her?
I can't tell them, she thought to herself. Nor could she say anything about the whole power situation. The Hargreeves siblings had never been too fond of Vanya, and the fact that it was her that had left Allison bleeding and dying in the cottage might be just the thing that got them to forget about her entirely—or worse, try to stop her. No, Nadine couldn't take that chance.
Diego continued, "We have to go after her."
"Vanya is not important," said Five. He was still limping a little. Diego narrowed his eyes.
"Hey, that's your sister. A little heartless even for you, Five."
"I'm not saying I don't care about her, but if the apocalypse happens today, she dies along with the other seven billion of us. Harold Jenkins is our first priority."
Today. The word hung heavy in the air, and Nadine curled her fists together, realizing that each second that ticked by was bringing them closer and closer to their seemingly inevitable deaths. And this time, with Five gone as well, there would be no timeline switch. No avoiding it. Failure meant they were really gone.
"Well, we're in luck, then, because Vanya is probably with Harold Jenkins," said Nadine. She swallowed, her throat bobbing, and prepared for the inevitable interrogation. "When I was in the cabin, before everything went to shit, he was trying to convince her to leave with him. I tried to stop him, tried to keep Vanya safe, but..." she gestured to the bandages wrapped around her head. "It didn't end well."
Diego turned to Nadine. "What else happened? In the cabin?"
Nadine inhaled, channelling her inner fabricator. "We—me and Allison, I mean—found Vanya at the cabin, and we tried to convince her to come with us. We told her about Harold, how he was really Leonard Peabody, and I know she was starting to believe us when Harold came. He... he attacked us, Allison and I, and then he... he must've taken Vanya away. She's with him. She has to be."
Diego clenched his jaw. Nadine could tell he bought it, even if she wasn't as good a liar as Allison was. "Let's go."
"You guys count me out," piped up Klaus, who was perched on the couch beside Nadine. "I mean, you know, no offense or whatever. It's just... I kind of feel like this is a whole lot of pressure for newly-sober me, so..."
Nadine, who'd half-risen out of her seat, stopped and turned to him. "You went sober?"
"Oh, yeah, I forgot you missed the big meeting yesterday," said Klaus. "I got clean, and I ended up conjuring dear ol' Daddy himself." He made jazz hands. "Hooray."
Diego was shaking his head. "You're coming," he insisted.
"No, no, no. I mean, I think we can all agree that my power's... I mean, it's pretty much useless. I'd just be holding you guys back."
"Klaus, get up," Five snapped.
"You can't make me."
And that was when, at lightning-quick speed, a knife zinged its way over to Klaus and jammed itself in the cushion between his legs. He raised his arms in surprise, staring down at the blade. "Oh, then again, a little exercise couldn't hurt." He rose to his feet after the others, while feathers burst from the couch cushion he'd been sitting on.
Nadine grabbed his arm. "Come on," she urged. "Let's find this fucker and let him rot." She pulled him into the hallway after the others, but stopped after a moment. "But, Klaus?" the man turned to her, and she forced the corners of her lips to turn up a little. "I'm... I'm proud of you. Sobriety is a hard thing to achieve."
Klaus smiled back, and then they were out. Nadine was, yet again, chasing after Vanya's tail, attempting to find her before it was too late. But, as she climbed into the car, still shaken up and a little dizzy, she realized it almost felt like the stakes were higher now. The world was ending. Vanya was in real danger now. It wasn't just some game of cat and mouse, it was one of survival.
She took in a breath. My name is Nadine Vidal. I'm supposed to save the world. And I'm not going to fail this time.
She'd failed Allison, merely stood by and watched as Vanya had drawn the violin bow across her throat. And she'd failed Vanya, too, in a way. She'd wanted to help her control herself, but instead it seemed she'd stoked the flame, the fire turning on high. In a way, the Vanya that had lashed out and lacerated her sister's throat reminded Nadine a lot of herself. She'd always been easy to anger, easy to irritate, and had always ended arguments with a broken nose or a bloody lip. But she'd never gone as far as Vanya had. It had always been like she was toeing a line, inching further and further each time without crossing it.
Vanya, however, used to decades of shrinking in on herself, never fighting back, allowing people to walk all over her, didn't know a line existed. So the first time she'd lashed out had ended with a lot more blood than she'd originally have liked.
Nadine remembered her screams, her pleading, her desperate attempts to keep the flow of blood from Allison's neck at bay, and her jaw hardened. She needed to find her. She needed to keep her safe, whether she wanted it or not. She had to protect Vanya, not only from Harold Jenkins, but from her siblings.
Because when they found out that it had been her that had slit Allison's throat, they might not be so forgiving.
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HAVEN: :((( poor nadine is TRAUMATIZED holy shit, but honestly, who can blame her?? i'd definitely be worse off than she is if i went through all of the same things. but she really deserves a BREAK!! i wish i could give one to her in this book :(((((
and yes, nadine did lie to the hargreeves. although this was in good intentions, it's obvious that she should've just told the truth. i'm saying this now, because there is a scene in a few chapters where nadine directly confronts the consequences of these actions, and i just want you to know that the other party will be 100% justified in being mad at her (even if they take it a little too far). i'd be pretty pissed too, if someone kept that kind of secret from me.
anyway, next chapter, there's a vanya pov 👀👀👀 we're going to see what she really feels for nadine 👀👀👀👀👀👀
thanks for reading <33