CHAPTER FIFTEEN
bottom of the barrel
⋆*✧･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ:
WHEN SHE WAS YOUNGER, Kadence was always expected to give up everything for her siblings. Her toys, since Marcus had broken his with his own inhuman strength and hers were still intact; her desserts, or else risk Jayme telling on her for being the one that broke the window last week; her talents, because she could turn glass into sand and wood into steel; and even her disobedience. Apparently, she'd been a mischievous baby, crawling around and turning her father's war medals into wax and her own crib into water. And she'd been an even worse toddler, because this time, she'd actually understood what she was doing—and thus her siblings' stuffed animals hardened into stone and her nanny's clothes crumbled away into dust. By the time she turned three, almost everyone was at their wit's end with her, and daddy dearest had proposed a solution.
Namely, beat it out of her.
Not literally. Her father's abuse—and a part of her, the part that wanted to see a therapist and wondered why she was twenty-nine years old and still let her siblings boss her around, knew it was abuse—was more subtle than a backhand to the face and a cane to the jaw. Reginald hurt his children, too, but his number one favourite way to do so, a way that didn't even require the tedious process of getting his hands dirty, was to get his children to do it for him.
Already, Kadence was just lowly Number Eight, the last-place member of the family that had been plucked up almost as an afterthought. When you quite literally give your children rankings from the day they're born, the formation of a pecking order is inevitable. Marcus is Number One, so he's the leader. Alphonso is Number Four, so he's in the middle. And Kadence is Number Eight. She's the lowest rung of the ladder.
At first, the Hargreeves siblings didn't understand this. Chubby-cheeked and little, all they knew was that the other screaming toddlers that occupied the walls of their household were their brothers and sisters. Fei and Sloane used to share a crib when they couldn't sleep. Ben and Christopher became fast friends, babbling to each other in a language foreign to both human and psykronium cube (if another one existed) ears. Kadence and Marcus giggled with each other during bath time.
But, as they grew up and began to understand the world for what it was—namely, that they were different than everyone else, that they were destined for greatness, and that some people were just better than others—they began to realize that they had an order. And that order, said their father, would dictate the rest of their lives.
This, of course, changed things. What had once been a close-knit, bubbly family slowly drifted apart in an attempt to maintain this order. Marcus (and Ben, though his reign didn't last nearly as long) took up his mantle as leader. Fei let herself be third in command. Sloane, Jayme, and Christopher all began to regress a little bit.
And Kadence? Well, she had no business acting the way she was. She was so outspoken, so unorderly, so sloppy. She was out of control, and her siblings saw that. And they knew it had to be stopped.
A mischievous toddler growing into a mischievous kid becomes far less mischievous when she's either ignored or told to be quiet. Shut up, Number Eight, Ben would sneer, already shifting from the sweet kid he'd once been to a monster. No one wants you here, Number Eight, said Fei. We make the orders, not you, Marcus reminded.
None of them were actively being malicious, Kadence knew. She still loved her siblings, and there were still times they could act as they used to. But as they grew older, shifting from children to teenagers to adults, those times got rarer.
Even doping their father up on pills didn't help. After all, the damage had already been done.
Kadence didn't remember much about that early childhood, those days when it seemed that there was an inferno blooming in her chest. Of course, she didn't. She'd been young and stupid, and had grown a lot since then. But sometimes, she swore that a spark of that inferno still smouldering in her chest.
The one spark that hadn't managed to be stamped out.
Here's a fact, though: in the right conditions, a spark has the capacity to bloom into a fire. Maybe not one as raging as an inferno—likely even smaller than a campfire—but one that's still there, nonetheless. Crackling. Flickering. Heating.
Which is what had happened to Kadence. Sometime between the Umbrella Academy's arrival and now, that spark had been fanned back into a flame. Rebellion flared up in Kadence's chest, hot and deadly, and it showed no sign of leaving.
The Sparrow Academy was falling apart. The Umbrella Academy had taken her siblings away from her. The order they'd all used to hold so dearly had been shattered.
So maybe Kadence was Number Four now. But she was also Number Eight, the Number Eight she'd been before being crushed underfoot. She was no longer going to sit back and conform. She was no longer going to let her siblings dictate her every move.
No way. She was going to take things into her own hands.
The streets were empty when she made her way to the Hotel Obsidian. The hotel was even emptier. People continued to disappear in droves, swallowed up by the beast in the basement. Kadence figured that it wouldn't take long before it got a taste of her, too. But if she was going to die—or just simply cease to exist—she was at least going to make her death mean something. She was at least going to take a few others with her, too.
The stairs creaked under her weight as she made her way to the second floor. Obviously, she had no idea which room Viktor was staying in, but she'd find it eventually. There were only so many places he could hide. There were only so many rooms she could kick down the doors of.
(Of course, she wouldn't literally be kicking them. This was a stealth mission, after all—at least as stealthy as walking down a hall could be.)
The first place she checked was the bathrooms. Male and Female, just in case, though she doubted Viktor would be in the latter. To no surprise, though, they yielded no results. The only person Kadence stumbled into as she pulled back shower curtains was a very peeved-off man just trying to do his business.
Whatever. Kadence flipped him off.
After she was done with the bathrooms, she headed to the first set of doors. She pressed her ear to each of them in turn, expanding her reach to the molecules that made up the rooms' interiors. If there was a blockage, she knew there was something living in there. If it was a blockage that seemed particularly powerful, she knew it was a member of the Umbrella Academy.
The first two rooms were empty. Kadence moved on.
Down the hall she went, sniffing out her prey like a shark to a drop of blood. Most of the rooms were vacant, though the possessions within still lingered—a sign their occupants had either fled during the fire or been eaten. The few people that did remain were all just civilians—tourists, mostly—trying to get some shuteye.
Just as Kadence was beginning to grow frustrated, however, a low murmur of voices coming from around the corner caught her ears. Kadence couldn't pick out the contents of their conversation, but their tones were annoyed enough that it was easy to discern that whatever they were talking about, it wasn't pleasant. Experimentally, she reached out with her abilities.
The molecules in almost the entire hallway were there for her to twist. But there, just around the corner, were two blockages. They were like a glare over a screen, the headrush that comes when you stand up too quickly. They were a skipped track, a dead battery, a broken pair of eyeglasses.
They were, of course, human. But they were more than that.
They were Umbrella Academy.
Kadence flattened herself against the wall, stuffing her hand into her mouth to muffle her breathing. The voices approached, slowly growing louder, until she could actually pick out fragments of the conversation. "Let's just get a good night's sleep, Nadine. We can figure out what to do in the morning."
"We can't tell the others about this. You know what they'll do."
"We might not have a choice."
"That'll go over well."
Finally, they stopped. "I'm going to check on Harlan. I'll meet you back in our room, okay?"
"Yeah," the other voice sighed. "I barely slept last night, anyway."
Kadence's heart pounded in anticipation. That had to be Viktor and Nadine.
"See you," Viktor said.
The blockages split apart. One went to the right, while the other started making a beeline straight for Kadence. She couldn't tell which was which. It didn't matter.
This was a stroke of luck either way.
The person—Nadine or Viktor—got even closer. Kadence prepared herself, her head starting to ache. She usually didn't sense things with just her abilities for this long. That wasn't what they were meant for.
Viktor or Nadine was seconds away from crossing Kadence's path. Rage expanded in her like a blooming flower. They were so... casual. It wasn't right. Not when four of the members of the Sparrow Academy were dead.
Finally, footsteps right by her ear. Kadence waited a breath. Saw a flash of purple.
And sprung.
Her hand curled around a surprised mouth, muffling any potential screams. Her other hand locked around a muscle-taut waist and yanked it backwards. The person it belonged to didn't even have time to flail before Kadence opened the door to the nearby hotel room (it hadn't been locked—she'd checked earlier—though even if it hadn't, she could disengage it easily) and pulled them both inside.
It was pitch-black in here, which threw her opponent off just enough that Kadence could throw them to the floor. She closed the door behind her and locked it. With trembling hands, she groped for the light.
When it turned on, she discovered who she'd abducted.
It wasn't Viktor.
Nadine scrambled to her feet, eyes blown wide, skin pale enough that her veins shown through. Her blonde hair was a windblown mess, and her face still bore the marks from Fei's attack. She was shaking from head to toe, though Kadence sincerely doubted it was from fear. Already, her hands were curling into fists.
When she saw her attacker, her body went rigid.
"You," she snarled, all sharp wolf's teeth and flared nostrils.
Kadence didn't bother greeting her back. Her entire body was singing for violence—every bone, blood cell, and muscle overwhelmed with it. She wanted to make this woman hurt. She wanted her to feel every inch of the pain she was going through after the loss of her siblings. She wanted to remind her that the great devourer in the basement was her fault.
Instead, she stepped forward, warping the floor as she did. Under Nadine, the carpet suddenly turned needle-sharp, enough to go straight through your foot if you weren't careful. The woman gasped, stumbling back. A swore broke loose from her lips. Kadence just continued to advance toward her.
Her hands were trembling. Red spotted her vision. Her siblings' faces flashed in her mind once more.
"Who was the man who killed them?" she demanded. "Who the fuck was it?"
Nadine closed her eyes, and Kadence saw that faint blue light at her forehead again. In seconds, her body flickered, merging to blend in with the room like the skin of the chameleon. Then she shifted and disappeared completely.
Kadence almost scoffed. Not this again.
"Just tell me who did it," she called, swinging her head around to attempt to catch a flicker of movement, a scuff of the foot. "You and your deplorable Umbrella Academy are still going to pay for what you've brought here, but maybe I'll go easy on you."
"As if," a voice scoffed, bouncing around the room. Kadence found the source of it and made a beeline toward her enemy. "I've been around you and the Sparrows long enough to know you guys don't play fair."
"You killed my family!" Kadence swung. An invisible hand caught her fist in mid-air, blocking it from making contact. A foot whistled up to attempt to take advantage of her distraction. Kadence twisted out of the way.
Another curse left her invisible attacker's lips. Kadence struck out for a second time, having no idea whether or not she was close to making contact. She could use her abilities, but that would take precious energy and effort—both of which were resources she couldn't afford to lose. So, she had to do it the old-fashioned way. Taking guesses.
"I didn't kill anyone!" Nadine shouted, flashing back into view. She looked larger than normal, and it took Kadence a moment to realize that she was growing, filling out the space until her head bumped into the ceiling. Her arms, which had already been like tree trunks, now seemed capable of crushing Kadence's skull, and her hands were nearly as big as dustbin lids.
It was only an illusion, but it was quite a convincing one. Especially since Kadence had no idea what parts of her were real and which were fake.
She kept attacking, anyway, swinging punches and open-palmed jabs and attempting to evade blows from incredibly large hands. A few times, Nadine's hits caught her across the face, but Kadence retaliated with her own powerful strikes. Her foot cut through the giant illusion and sunk into flesh. Nadine cried out in pain. A few seconds later, she was spitting blood onto the floor.
"You're the reason they're dead!" Kadence cried. "You and your academy!"
"You guys were trying to kill us first!"
Nadine disappeared again. Kadence spun around wildly, turning the walls as needle-sharp as the floor. There was a brief cry of pain that was almost immediately cut off. Kadence sprung for the sound.
When she made contact with her opponent this time, Nadine went tumbling over the bed. The springs creaked, and the mattress dipped under her weight. Right before she landed on the other side, Kadence took control of the floor. This section became thorny, too, and just in time. The sickening sound of barbs piercing into flesh and the spray of blood onto what had previously been a carpet could not be hidden by an illusion.
Nadine re-materialized again, wincing. Tears were streaming down her face, but her eyes were still narrow, cut sharp as knives. "Fuck you," she growled. "Fuck your entire family. We don't need you. We don't need some goddamn alliance with a bunch of back-stabbing replacements. Every time we think you'll turn around, you don't. I mean, come on. While we were trying to make things right, you were slinking around here. Ben sent you, right? Told you to take out everyone else while we were distracted? Fuck him. We're not the villains here."
"My brother didn't send me," Kadence said, narrowly avoiding an elbow to the face. "He's a shit Number One, and I'm done taking orders from him. No, I came here on my own. I came here because I knew he'd be too much of a pussy to do what really needs to be done. Which is why, when I'm done with you, I'm going after the little one."
Nadine's face paled even further. She had a bloody lip from where Kadence had kicked her before, a limp in her step, and hair that had come undone from her haphazard ponytail and was now getting in her face. "Leave Viktor alone," she hissed. "Or I swear to God, there will be nothing stopping me from ending your life."
"You wouldn't do it," Kadence said. Nadine's fist clipped her temple, and she stumbled back, wincing. Nevertheless, she continued. "I know your type. I have since our first fight. You're too weak to take a life, to pull the trigger. You couldn't plant a bullet between my eyes even if it was the difference between saving him and letting him die."
"Maybe not," Nadine admitted. "But there are worse fates than death."
A laugh broke free from Kadence's lips. "Oh, I'm sure there are," she said. "I doubt you'll get the chance to try them out on me, though. After all, you and your little team brought that thing into our basement."
Nadine's fist, which had raised to swing another punch, suddenly lowered. "What?" she asked.
Rule number one of fighting: never let yourself get distracted. Kadence took advantage of her opponent's confusion to sweep her off her feet. Nadine landed on her back hard. If there had been any spikes remaining, she would've been completely impaled. But Kadence had no intention of killing her yet. Not when she still needed answers.
She climbed on top of Nadine, straddling her. Pinning down her body with her weight and her arms with her legs, until she was completely and utterly trapped. Nadine writhed, but it seemed like Kadence had finally gotten the best of her. She wasn't getting away this time.
She leaned forward until their noses were almost touching. "Who. Is. He," she bit out, each word its own sentence. "Who killed my family?"
Nadine pressed her lips shut, even though one was still a magnificent crimson.
"Who?" Kadence demanded, her voice nearly rising into a shriek. "Tell me who!"
Nadine said nothing. More red took over Kadence's vision.
She reached out, grasping for something to turn into a weapon. It only took her a couple of seconds before she found the necklace. It must have been knocked to the ground during their fight. Obviously belonging to the guest that had once occupied this room, it was a sleek crystal dangling off a silver chain. It was also perfect for what Kadence needed.
She yanked the crystal off the chain, then altered its molecules, turning it to glass. The edges were as pointed as the crystal had been, but a lot sharper. When Kadence pressed it to Nadine's cheek, a bead of blood formed.
"Who. Is. He."
Nadine closed her eyes again. "You're not getting him, and neither are the Sparrows. What he did—well, it terrified me. But he saved my life. And I'm not going to just hand him to you to be murdered."
Kadence pressed the shard of glass deeper. More blood welled up.
She just—she just wanted her family back. She wanted her fucking family back, even if they'd never been a true family, because they were all she had. And the world was ending and Grace had gone mad and Pogo was gone, and Kadence had never even gone to a goddamned school because the Sparrow Academy had been all that she was. She wanted her siblings, who had been the only constant in her life for nearly thirty years, even if those thirty years had been rocky. She wanted team JAK. She wanted one of Sloane's hugs. She wanted Marcus's leadership.
She wanted to tell them she loved them.
Her vision began to blur, and it took her a moment to realize that she was crying again. It wasn't fair. It wasn't goddamn fair. And someone needed to be responsible. Someone needed to pay.
"I'm sorry," Nadine said, still pinned to the floor. She'd seemed to notice the look on Kadence's face—wild-eyed, teary, likely half-feral. Her own expression softened, and Kadence hated her more for it. She didn't need her pity. She needed her siblings. "I really am sorry. I know you've lost people. And I—I know you want revenge, because that's exactly what I would want. But I'm not going to let you hurt anyone else. This isn't—I don't want this to be my way anymore."
"That's because you're pathetic," Kadence snapped, but her insult was ruined by the tears that continued to stream down her face. "Jayme, Alphonso, Sloane, and Marcus are gone. And if they can't come back... well, I'm not just going to let their murderers walk away."
Nadine sucked in a breath. Her bloodied lips pursed. She met Kadence's eyes, some real and genuine shimmering in her own.
Then she said something that completely knocked Kadence to the side.
"Kadence. Sloane isn't dead."
HONESTLY, PRACTICALLY BEING KIDNAPPED by Kadence Hargreeves was not how Nadine had expected her night to go. Oh, sure, the Sparrows weren't above taking hostages—they'd literally captured Luther a few days ago—but she never thought it'd be her they'd take interest in. She wasn't even a Hargreeves—she was just some outsider who'd forced her way in. She wasn't the leader or the most powerful or even the weak link of the group. She wasn't someone with the most value. She wasn't someone the Umbrella Academy would fall apart without.
Yet, here she was, only a few hours after the failed meeting with Ben, Fei, and Christopher, thrown into an abandoned hotel room by the missing Number Eight. The attack had come completely out of nowhere—she'd just been trying to help Viktor decide on a next step (both of them had decided that there was no way they were going to hand Harlan over, which meant that they needed to be prepared in the event of yet another Sparrow attack) then, out of ideas, had decided to go to bed. She'd let her guard down as she wove her way through the now familiar halls, which proved to be a mistake. Kadence had taken advantage of this and smuggled her to a secondary location.
It was clear from the get-go that Kadence was grief-stricken. Even if she was trying to keep a straight face, the tightness of her mouth and the cut of her eyes spoke volumes. She was violent only in the way someone could be when they really had something to fight for. There was a cut on her cheek, and her hair was a mess.
She wasn't wearing her uniform—no, instead she'd chosen a black turtleneck and gray sweats, likely to blend in. Even so, both components were torn. A leaf clung to the bottom of her pant leg.
At first, Nadine thought she'd been sent by Ben. What a move that would be, getting her to go after the others while they were too busy trying to make amends. But Kadence had denied it, and Nadine realized this was her own mission—one she'd determined that she had to take.
As she pinned Nadine down, strands of hair clinging to her face with sweat, tears finally welling up in those dark eyes, Nadine, uncomfortably, saw a lot of herself. Just like with Lila, it wasn't difficult to project her own consciousness into the woman before her. She knew that, two years ago, she might've done the exact same thing in Kadence's situation. When her fists were all she needed to solve conflicts, and vengeance came in a well-aimed punch to the throat.
Remembering this version of herself, the version she was trying to shed off like snakeskin, Nadine hadn't played into it. She let Kadence press a glass shard into her cheek without cursing at her. She ignored her demands for Harlan's name, or simply refused. She apologized for Kadence's loss.
In fact, the only time she even remotely struck out was when Kadence threatened Viktor. But you couldn't exactly begrudge her for that.
It was impressive, because not fighting back was like pulling teeth. Fighting was Nadine's lifeblood—sometimes she wondered if it had quite literally been injected into her veins. It had gotten her into many scrapes in her lifetime, but also got her out, too.
But though it may let her win battles, it would never win the war.
Still, she hadn't been sure whether or not words would work on someone as bloodthirsty as Kadence until the topic of Sloane came up. Kadence still thought Sloane was dead. She thought she'd lost three siblings this afternoon, not just two. This made sense—she hadn't been present when Luther had called to set up the earlier deal. But it hadn't really clicked into Nadine's mind until now.
When she said those four crucial words—"Kadence. Sloane isn't dead."—Kadence's entire face changed. Her eyes widened, her skin paled a shade, and her mouth opened into a near-perfect O. The hand holding the glass moved away from Nadine's face, and Kadence moved with it, scrambling to her feet.
"What?" she breathed. "What do you mean, Sloane's alive?"
Nadine took advantage of Kadence's surprise. "She never died. I didn't see what happened, but I think Luther tried to protect her. When you guys left, she was just knocked out. But she woke up only a few minutes later."
Kadence's entire body trembled. Nadine sat up, watching her warily.
"Is this—is this a lie?" Kadence asked. Nadine shook her head.
"No. If I was lying, I'd tell you Jayme and Alphonso survived, too. They—ehm. They didn't, and I'm really sorry about that. But Sloane did. I mean, think about it. Did you ever see her body? Did she look as messed up—did she look like Jayme and Alphonso did?"
"No," Kadence exhaled. "No, I didn't see her."
"We brought her back to your family," Nadine said urgently, slowly getting to her feet. When Kadence made no move to attack, she stepped over the still-sharp floor and began inching her way to the door. "She's with them right now. We wanted to let her go as a gesture of peace."
Kadence scoffed at that. "Peace? Yeah, right."
"You can go home and check," Nadine insisted. "I swear to God, Kadence, I'm telling the truth. We never wanted to be your enemies. Seeing you was a shock at first, but... I don't know. Maybe, if things had been different, we could've worked together."
Kadence wiped her eyes. "I would never work with the likes of you."
Nadine surprised them both by laughing. "I mean, fair. I kind of hate your guts. But I'm beginning to worry that we're too even of a match. We'll just keep beating the shit out of each other until the world ends." Which is definitely going to be sooner than you think.
"The Sparrow Academy would win. We're far better than you suckers."
"Well, agree to disagree." Nadine had almost reached the door. Something cold trickled down her face, and she realized it was more blood. "Whatever. It doesn't matter. What matters is that Sloane is still alive. And... and we gave you the bodies of Jayme and Alphonso, too. They deserve to have a proper burial. I know that."
Kadence's jaw clenched, and it really looked like she was thinking things through. Nadine continued to move ever-so-slowly, as if she was a wild animal that might be spooked by anything sudden. Her heart thundered in her ears.
"If you're lying to me, I'll kill the small one in front of you and make you watch," Kadence growled suddenly. "I know where you live. I can be back here any time—and I probably will be, either way. But if this is a trick, things are going to be a lot worse for you."
"That's fine," Nadine responded, exhaling softly. "But I'm not lying."
"That remains to be seen." Kadence crossed over to the window. Then: "Get the fuck out of here."
Nadine blinked. "What?"
"I said, leave. I still want to kill you, and maybe I still will, but not tonight. You weren't even the one I was aiming for, anyway." She flicked her wrist. The glass of the window fell to the bottom of the sill as sand. "I just—if Sloane really is alive, then I need to see her. That's—that's it."
Nadine could hardly believe it. Kadence was... letting her go? This easily? All because she'd said that there was a chance her sister might be alive?
Jesus. Words really did work.
"Okay," she said. "I know this isn't over."
Kadence began to climb out of the window. "Not even close," she said.
And then she was gone.
Nadine stood there for a moment, breathing hard, her feet and face stinging from Kadence's attacks. Her heart continued to pound, and goosebumps ran up and down her arms. Holy shit. Holy fucking shit.
She was alive. She was here, and with only the most minimal of injuries. Kadence was gone, and she'd left without even killing Nadine.
What Nadine had done... it had fucking worked. And that, in and of itself, was absolutely fucking incredible.
⋆*✧･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ:
HAVEN: i can't tell you how excited i was for this chapter. i've never written two sympathetic ocs on opposite ends of a battle before, and it was super fun to explore each of their perspectives in turn, especially kadence's!!
btw, i'm trying my best to make kadence sympathetic, so i really hope you guys don't hate her lol. she's really not a bad person, she's just been raised in the worst circumstances possible. and on top of that, she's just lost three siblings. i promise you, though, nadine and kadence's relationship is gonna get better soon. act two is gonna solve a lot of the problems here!!
(also, i don't really mean the whole 'don't hate kadence' thing. do whatever you want. i can't stop you. if you wish nadine died or something, that's on you).
thanks for reading <333