Quickly and successively, an overview of the situation zipped through En's mind, the thoughts going faster as her breathing quickened to match. Hayden's back was cut. Vince's chest was cut. Karen's throat was cut. All clearly knife wounds. They were unconscious and had lost a lot of blood. Hopefully someone heard the explosions and called the police. There were still people at the party, right? Right?
The scruff of footsteps cut through En's panic. She looked up into the face of the perpetrator. A remorseless perpetrator with rips in her sea-green dress and blood on her hands. Blood that did not belong to her.
"They were stronger than I expected," Beatrice Levesque said, wiping a smear on her cheek. Her brown and blonde hair hung down in thick curtains, framing her cold, dead eyes. "Maybe I went a little overboard?"
A string of sarcastic words lost itself somewhere up En's throat. Her fingers curled into the burned dirt, the pebbles around her jittering to life. She sprang to her feet with a burst of feverish adrenaline, leaving deep contemplation for later, hands poised to attack.
Bea's lips curled into a grin full of elation. She met her head-on, catching both fists. "Bad move." Her palms exploded, burning En's fingers and sending her stumbling back.
A mess of thoughts whirred through En's mind, the pain of seared flesh taking precedence. It hurt to bend her fingers, but she did anyway, clenching her teeth tightly against the warning bells inside her. She's weaker because she already attacked them. En sent a shower of pebbles onto Bea, transferring every particle of her rage into them.
"Too (freaking) weak!" Bea ignited them all with a single blast, causing a rainfall of coals to hit the floor.
En used her distraction as a chance, hurling herself forward once more, tossing aside all caution. She slapped Bea's hand away, wincing at the detonation right next to her ear, and reared her fist back for a punch. "Why'd you do it?"
"I'm just following orders!" Bea attempted to grab her, but En dropped a rock onto her shoulder and rammed her knee into Bea's defenceless chin.
"Whose orders?"
"(Crap)," Bea hissed, a snarl dripping from her mouth along with a stream of blood. She spat at En's face, missing by mere centimetres. "You're a (freaking) natural at this, ain't ya?" Sparks crackled between her fingers, steam rising to engulf her hands.
"I take after my mother!" En jumped aside, the explosion just managing to graze her arm. "Whose orders are you following?" she repeated, another sting of pain rushed through her, but, again, she ignored it, allowing her adrenaline to push her. She backed towards the hospital's outer lights, heel crunching the coarse gravel strewn on the path. En lifted several stones low in the air, baiting Bea into range.
"You run just as much as that (freaking) Sea-Bass," Bea growled, ignoring her question. "Pisses me off." She stalked closer, like a fish tempted by a dangling worm, now clutching a black sawback knife in her hand. "C'mon, fight me already!"
En remained silent, waiting, waiting. There. Just as Bea's foot entered the pool of light, her little bits of gravel shot upwards, propelled by much more force than the ones before. They smacked into Bea's unsuspecting face with whip-like precision.
"You (fudge)face!!" She surged towards her, propelled by explosions, and knocked En off her feet, making her back smack against the ground. Bea straddled her, knife plunging down.
En stopped her with both hands, heart dropping when the weapon fell out of Bea's grasp. But, the entire knife abruptly melted in the air, forming a little orb that snapped towards Bea and smacked into her forehead.
In the instance while she recoiled, En struck, her fist connecting with Bea's nose and the sound of a satisfying crack splitting the air.
Bea's eyes rolled and shut, but she did not hit the floor because she was caught. The air around her seemed to vibrate as Sebastian appeared from nowhere, holding her up by the arms and dragging her off En.
En sat up and she would have kept fighting had it not been for tug at the back of her ruined dress. She turned to glare at her brother, feeling the adrenaline within her die down and leave heavy fatigue in its wake.
"That's enough, En. There are more pressing matters right now." He looked down and so did En, startled to see a white cat staring up at her.
She did not get the opportunity to respond to Buttercup's presence because blaring ambulance sirens reached her ears right then. Soon after, flashing light came into view, and then paramedics and police officers in navy blue uniforms who followed a very concerned Mr. Hemingway.
Derek stood in front of her, blocking the paramedics' view. "Get back to the car." He dangled his keys behind his back. "And take Buttercup with you."
En did not speak as she waited in the passenger seat, stroking the cat gently. She continued to remain silent, even as they followed the three ambulances and Mr. Hemingway's car to the nearest hospital. Of course, the nearest hospital which was not abandoned.
Derek mirrored her silence, only speaking up when necessary as they loitered in the waiting area with Mr. Hemingway, eating shawarmas because they had missed dinner. The hours ticked by slowly, adding to the ever-increasing feeling of dread in En's stomach. Even an iced-capp did not make her feel better.
A pretty blonde nurse dropped by to dress the burns on En's arms, her touch quick and gentle. Somehow the memory of similar, more loving hands hurt more than her wounds.
A tidal wave of relief crashed over her when their siblings came out from behind the double doors, woozy, stitched, and bandaged, but fixed. Their formal clothing was just as torn as hers and caked with dry blood.
"We're alive..." Hayden muttered sloppily, a shoulder sling on him.
Vince smiled. "Whoopie!"
Karen wiggled her fingers dryly, chewing her lip. Her other arm sat in a blue sling.
The drive home was another episode of silence, punctuated only when someone hissed as the Hippie Van hopped on a section of crappy road. Derek and En helped Hayden, Vince, and Karen onto the beds in the boys' room, exhaustion settling over them all after they changed into more comfortable clothes.
Derek went down to the living room, taking his laptop with him and saying something about being back on square one. He was definitely pulling another all-nighter.
En collapsed onto the floor next to the sleeping Karen, leaning her head against the mattress. She was too tired to think about what had happened, but at the same time, she did not want to leave the bedside, in case someone needed something.
A little mewl brought her attention down. Buttercup's snowy paw rested upon En's knee and then cat clambered into her lap.
En laughed quietly, stroking her. She never realized that she quite missed Buttercup when she was gone. "You were never our cat, were you?" Her eyes dropped, deadened by tiredness from finding Marie, losing her, fighting Bea, and waiting at the hospital. Behind her lids, she saw the stray kitten Yasha had found so many years ago. "You always belonged to Noah, right?"
~🐍~
Noah did not fancy his dreams being interrupted by angry conversing. He already felt like trash after revealing his true self to Marie. He pulled his pillow over his head, using it to block both ears as he curled tighter into himself. The warehouses were freezing and a single fleece blanket did not suffice as protection.
Even through his pillow, Noah could still hear the conversation:
"I had to test how strong they were," Karl was saying, a beseeching tone to his voice. "C'mon, Colton, they're not dead."
Colton's reply did not make it through Noah's shield of wool. He released some of the pressure he was putting on it, allowing the voices to reach him.
"...understand why you keep doing this, Karl. Just leave them alone." Desperation and exasperation crept into Colton's words. "Like you said you would."
Noah shrugged the pillow off his head, brows scrunched. What could Karl have done this time? He did not know much about the agreement between Yasha, Colton, and Karl, but had deduced that it basically meant Karl would keep his nose away from the McLeods as long as these two followed his orders.
He clearly was not doing a very good job keeping that pact.
"Grow up, Colton." Karl snorted. "No one keeps promises in the adult world. And don't say you aren't an adult; you're nineteen, you can drink."
The warehouse's old lights flickered, momentarily darkening the already dark room Noah was in. He rolled out from beneath his blanket, landing quietly on the cold, stone floor.
Across from him, on another bed, Marie twitched, the voices pulling her out of her deep slumber.
They needed to shut up or she would wake up and strangle someone.
"Noah, don't." A whisper came from near the door. Yasha leaned against the wall, arms crossed.
"What's going on?" Noah inquired, settling back onto his mattress.
"Colt just handed Bea's (butt) to her after he found out she attacked Hayden, Vince, and Karen. And then, Karl stepped in and said it wasn't really her fault because she was only following his orders." Yasha backed away from the threshold, just as a shadow appeared on the floor.
The door burst fully open, the outside lights burning Noah's retinas.
"Get up, Marie." Colton stormed over to the sleeping girl, shaking her shoulder.
The blood rushed away from Noah's face as he saw her stir. "Oh, no, no, no. Colton, do not do that."
"Why not?" Colton shook her harder. "Get up."
As if a switch had been flipped, she shot up, pale hair flopping down. A frown scrunched her small face, murder in her gaze. "What. Do. You. Want." She drawled out the words like a statement rather than a question.
Noah held his blanket up to hide himself, knowing full-well how much Marie hated being woken early. Small she might be, but the girl's personality morphed into an icy, seething version of itself when she did not get enough sleep. To add to it, she knew how to hold a grudge much longer than necessary.
For just a second, Colton looked like he might break into cold sweat. "We're dropping by your house. Your siblings are going to die."
The grouchiness immediately vanished. "What?" Her eyes widened. "What happened to them??"
As Colton explained the situation, with some unwanted help from Yasha, Noah sat on his own. The prospect of going back once again created a jittery fear in the pit of his stomach. He recalled all too clearly how his siblings treated him; like he was an enemy, like they wanted him gone. But, if Marie went home, would she come back to him?
She and Colton looked prepared to depart, the latter taking Yasha's car keys.
Noah stood. "I'm going too," he said.
"Why?" Colton asked. "We don't need you."
Noah pushed back the uncertainty, latching on to the problem at hand. He pointed at Marie. "To make sure she comes back."
~🐍~
"Should we climb in through a window or something?" Marie wondered, arms wrapped around herself as they stood in the chilly night. "That might be En downstairs." She had momentarily forgotten her irritation under the shock of finding out her siblings were injured, but now she wanted to crawl back into bed again.
The McLeods' house towered above them with its three floors and many windows. A touch of wonderful spookiness sat about it because of the dimmed street lights. One of the downstairs lights was on, softened by the white curtains.
"Of course we're climbing through a window," Colton said, already gauging which of the many surrounding trees they could utilize best. "Which window, though?"
Noah was the first to climb, hoisting himself up onto the branches of maple tree. He had grown up conquering these trees, learning their footholds and their deceptively stable areas. "That one. The boys' room one."
"Why?" Marie followed, having just the same skills as him.
Colton was the last to join them. He was much more cautious, testing each branch before getting on it.
Noah raised himself higher and higher, only stopping when he reached their destined window. He pulled on the loose screen, dislodging it easily because the rusted screws barely did their job.
Marie clenched her fingers so tight that her knuckles flashed white. "Noah," she struggled to keep her panic at bay, "why this window?"
Noah hesitated, only increasing her alarm. "Because I can feel death coming from here," he said.