Eli stood in front of the cabin for what felt like an eternity. She was never one prone to needless anxiety, but she'd connected Klaus to the leaked footage, which meant others were likely not far behind. It seemed that he'd forgotten that the two of them shared the same contacts and she had formed all those connections first. A little bit of poking around was all it took for someone to mention that somebody that looked miraculously similar to him had passed along the footage to the man who had aired it.
It was dark by the time Klaus showed himself. His clothes were filthy and there was soot on his fingertips.
"You leaked the footage," Eli accused in lieu of a greeting. By that point, she was on her third can of cheap beer.
"You're wrong," Klaus said, lying blatantly to her face. His exhaustion was clear in the way he stood slouched and the roughness of his voice, but Eli was too upset with him to care.
"Really?" Eli snapped, crushing the empty can and tossing it aside like she had the rest. "So you didn't suddenly start showing up at headquarters without being called? Without me or Alex? You happened to go there and just never ran into us in any of those? You went on your own and came back at times we wouldn't notice and it's a coincidence?"
Eli knew her voice was rising with each word. She knew that this was going to escalate if she didn't get her temper under control, but she didn't want to. At least she wasn't strangling him like she initially planned.
Klaus opened his mouth to argue, face twisted the way it always was when the two of them were arguing.
"It was my idea," Aria broke in, stepping in front of Klaus before he could start. "I dragged him into it."
If Eli was thinking straight, she might have noticed that Aria was holding herself like a shield, like she thought Eli was going to hurt Klaus. She might have wondered where she had been or when she'd shown up at all. Later, Eli would pinpoint this as the moment where she completely forgot about her initial target.
"You reckless little fool," Eli snarled from where she sat on the porch. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"
"Something," Aria said. "Which is more I can say for the Elites."
"I told you we would fix things! The only thing you had to do was stay here and stay silent! What the fuck were you thinking?"
"You talk a big game," Aria said, "and then you sit idly on the sidelines because you were told to. Like it isn't within your power to do more."
Eli laughed shrilly. "I don't know how someone could go through everything you did and still be so... naive."
"Naive?" Somehow, Aria didn't sound offended, just curious. "For not indulging in whatever political games your boss is so entrenched in? For not wanting to sit around and wait for somebody else to do something? Or is it something else?"
The sound Aria's voice was so fucking serene that Eli almost wished she would yell back like Klaus would've. It made Eli feel out of control to be the only one. Eli hoped to at least look like she was in control of her emotions, but she knew her voice would give away. "For thinking you can change things with a little bit of anger."
Now Aria was smiling, but it was cold. "You're a coward, aren't you?"
"Being careful, trying to keep us all alive, is cowardice to you?"
An aggravated look crossed Aria's face. It might have given Eli some sense of victory to finally get her to show her emotions, but it didn't, not when she stared at Eli like she could see through her. Eli couldn't help but notice how empty her eyes were. They were dead, dark enough to swallow any light in their path.
Eli looked away, unable to bear the weight of her gaze and annoyed at herself for it.
Aria moved closer, tipped Eli's chin up so she could better look her in the eye. There was a gleam in there now, something that sent a chill down Eli's spine. "You really shouldn't put words in my mouth," she murmured, voice silken and predatory. "I think you're a coward for letting yourself be pushed around. For blindly taking orders from someone you know isn't all they seem. I think you're a coward for sitting here, pretending you play their game for security when it's because you're afraid."
It didn't matter which side someone was on; everyone in the world had been warned about Sirens when they first started popping up. They were creatures that could lure one off a cliff with honeyed words and sweet songs. If, in that moment, Aria told Eli to slit her own throat, something told her she would have done it without hesitation.
Eli didn't realize she was holding her breath until she gathered her wits enough to speak. "You don't know what you're talking about."
Aria hummed thoughtfully and crouched down, legs bumping against Eli's knees. She drew her fingers away from Eli's chin and leaned her own face a little closer. "Do you trust them?"
"Not everyone," Eli admitted, "but I trust the director. That's enough."
"You've gone behind his back though."
"I said I trust him, not that I agree with all his decisions."
"So why should you expect the rest of us to?"
The door shut behind her and Eli nearly gave a start, only then realizing that Klaus had slipped past her.
"If you're going to be angry at someone, be angry at me," Aria said again, in a transparent attempt to draw attention back to herself.
There was no use in it. As upset as she was, Eli felt very much like a deflated balloon. What use was there in fighting with her? All she could do now was try to hide that Klaus was involved from the Elites and try to keep the woman in front of her from doing something rash.
Aria seemed to sense that Eli was done. "Expecting others to act was foolish, I'll admit that. It wasn't enough."
Eli looked at her closely. She was obviously exhausted. The shadows beneath her eyes attested to that. There was ash on her face and a nasty burn where her sleeves were pushed up. In her drunken haze, Eli's hand nearly moved of its own accord. She wanted to reach out. Swipe her thumb across the ash smeared on her cheek.
Alex emerged from the path, looking just as worn out as the rest of them. Aria glanced over her shoulder and muttered a polite greeting before going inside.Alex watched her go with a strange expression.
"Where have you been?" Eli asked. She had tried to contact him more than a few times.
Alex frowned at the empty cans before answering. "One of the potential recruits was dead. A cop came in his place. Aria killed him."
Eli blinked. "So?"
Alex joined her on the porch and slumped against her shoulder, shutting dull, tired eyes. They were red around the edges, like he'd wiped at them incessantly. "She told him to shut his eyes and then she slit his throat."
Eli mulled that over. Aria seemed to be gaining some sort of control over her abilities if she managed that much so suddenly.
"She was terrifying," Alex admitted. "She realized I was scared of her."
Eli couldn't fault him for being afraid. She'd felt it a few moments ago herself. But if Alex had made it obvious, what if it set Aria back somehow? "She wouldn't hurt you."
"I know," he sighed. "I know."
"How's her control?"
"This was the only time I ever saw it, but I guess what we talked about last night made some sort of sense to her. No idea if it was luck or if she'll manage it again though."
Either way, it was probably a good sign for now. Maybe she'd be ready for the Elites soon.
"Why'd you call me earlier?"
"Those two were behind the leak. They're like Dumb and Dumber."
Alex snorted. "Which one is dumber?"
"Klaus," they decided in unison.
The night did not end as early as Eli would have liked. Her phone rang before she had sobered and her gut sank. She would have liked to sleep, but it wasn't like she could turn down something so urgent that Knox himself would call her at this hour.
It should have been an easy, routine job, even if it was not one that could be left for later.
Eli should have known better than to take it drunk.
✘
There was a group of Hunters specifically targeting Elites. Knox had caught wind of where they were camping and wanted them handled before they could lose any more of their people. There was no guarantee the intel was any good, but it wasn't worth ignoring.
It left a bitter taste in Eli's mouth when she thought about how he'd shot her down her desire to stop them when civilians were being targeted, but that could have just been the alcohol.
The intel wasn't completely wrong, Eli realized, but she was woefully under armed and outnumbered. It wouldn't have been a problem if she were sober, but in her state, she was a little slower than usual. She'd handle it from a distance, she decided.
Crouched out of sight, Eli fired her gun once.
She missed.
The bullet startled the Hunter who was on guard enough to shout, waking his companions. She heard them shouting to each other, asking if each had seen what it was, then one of them called out in her direction. "There! There!"
Eli cursed silently and immediately pulled back, ducking just out of sight as the two Hunters began firing blindly in her direction. It seemed as if the whole forest was alive with shouts and gunshots. There was no choice but to act fast. She crawled away from her hiding spot and made a mad dash for the trees, soon out of sight and out of range of the Hunters.
Eli couldn't be killed by a bullet, but she knew she wasn't in the right state to take them all out awake.
She scrambled and ran for what seemed like hours, until finally she was too tired to go any further. There was a cliff ahead, overlooking a river. It would be a waste of effort to keep going. She took a moment to catch her breath, only to hear commotion behind her as someone gave chase. It only sounded like one set of footsteps. That was fine. She could handle picking them off one at a time.
Eli hid herself behind foliage and readied herself to shoot.
The noisy footsteps stopped some distance away. Eli strained her ears, trying to pinpoint the Hunters location in the dark. She held her breath, listening for any sign of movement, but there was nothing.
A heavy weight hurtled into her from the left, knocking her into the ground and sending her weapon flying. A boot slamming into her gut had her tasting metal. Her knuckles connected with something hard, and an inarticulate grunt escaped the Hunter before he stepped back, allowing her to scramble to her feet.
A gunshot rang out through the woods and Eli gasped, the force of the bullet sending her staggering back. There was a second, a third, and suddenly she was falling, tumbling off the cliff's edge.
Eli's heart raced as her body plummeted. Her hands instinctively reached out to stop her fall, but there was nothing to grab onto. Time seemed to slow down, the world around her fading away.
A voice in her head screamed out, the fear of all that could be lost pushing her to fight against the darkness. Suddenly there was a light, a glimmer of hope in Eli's future, and with a determined force she pushed her eyes open and thrust her arms out, grasping for anything that would break her fall. Wind rushed past her ears, loud as a shriek.
It was like the water rose up to meet her - pulling her down like an anchor with deathly force. It rushed into her mouth and nose, a thousand bubbles rising around her in the dark. And then, Eli felt arms wrap around her, pulling her up. When her head broke the surface, water sprayed from her mouth and nose, ejecting the water from her lungs. She couldn't do anything more than choke and sputter, stinging eyes squeezed shut as she was tugged out of the water.
There was damp earth beneath her in the next moment and a heavy weight on her chest. The water kept coming, like the river was determined to drown her even if she escaped it.
With a gasp she opened her eyes and there before her was a figure silhouetted against the moonlight, beautiful even its panic.
"What the fuck," Eli managed.
"We need to go." Aria stood, hand held out.
Eli grabbed onto her, shocked the other could pull her up with such ease.
Aria kept a tight grip on her hand, leading her along the shore and keeping to the shadows. "They're probably headed here," Aria muttered, stopping beneath a set of steps. She dropped her hand, "Sit."
Eli did. She wondered if the Siren was putting her voice to use or if she was too waterlogged to argue.
Aria didn't join her. She stood at the edge, eyes fixed straight ahead. Sopping hair stuck to her face and fabric clung to her body like a second skin. She was drenched in water and starlight, like a goddess born from the river.
"What were you trying to do?"
Eli should've been asking Aria why she was following her, but she was too messed up to think too hard about it. "Hunters. I messed up."
"Hunters? I thought the Elites didn't bother with them."
"They do when they're the ones being targeted."
The Siren stared. "You went after them drunk and alone knowing they're capable of going after Elites?"
"I can't let them go," Eli said instead of answering.
"I never said to," Aria said. "I'll help."
Author's Note
Aria's been having a very, very long day.