I'm Surrounded By Idiots
Cassandra felt her whole body tremble as she saw the image before her of her father fade away. She heard less and less of Sir Reginald Hargreeves' voice as he shouted at her to concentrate and to practise using her power. In her fourteen years of life, Cassandra had yet to master having visions at will. Even now, as she felt a vision overcome her, she was not in control of it. She could just make out the bemused look of anticipation on her father's face as Cassandra's eye went completely white and she succumbed to the vision.
Hargreeves slowly, cautiously, approached the girl. She couldn't see him, he knew, but she was always very unstable during her visions and the slightest movement could distract her. He pulled out a notebook from his waistcoat pocket and uncapped his fountain pen before scribbling down notes on her physical appearance to her clearly unstable emotional state. The girl was trembling and flinching despite the atmosphere around her being completely calm. He could see beads of sweat forming on her tensed brow as she screwed up her eyes which remained open and deathly white all over.
Then, without warning, her eyes widened as if they had snapped open and the white visage dropped in the time Hargreeves' took to blink. Before he could do anything further, the girl opened her mouth and let out a deathly scream. The sound that escaped her lips was deep and guttural, filled with raw emotion as if her very soul had escaped her body. Hargreeves' flinched as the sound hit him like a shard of glass but made no attempt to comfort the girl. She kept on screaming, oblivious to the word around her.
"Don't come in!" Hargreeves' ordered as the other children quickly flooded in the doorway. They froze as he had ordered but lingered in the threshold, trembling in sympathy as they could only watch their sister's face twist in terror as she continued to scream and whimper, tears streaming down her pale cheeks.
Grace pushed her way through the crowd who had formed in the doorway and, ignoring or just not hearing Hargreeves' instructions to leave her, cupped Cassandra's cheeks and scooped her trembling body into a firm, motherly hug as Cassandra's body crumpled to the floor. The girl lay in her mother's arms whimpering as her screams ebbed and the vision faded. She would always remember the chaos she saw that day. The terror nor the vision would ever leave her. It haunted her every night in her dreams.
*
To prevent herself from fixating on her nightmares, Cassandra took to aimlessly walking the halls. She found herself heading from the kitchen down to the bedrooms. At the end of the hallway she could hear the distant chatter of raised voices. It was coming from Five's bedroom. After her nightmare, which she was sure she had seen Five in and seemed so real, she felt drawn to him. He had been acting awfully shady recently, perhaps he had some answers.
"What are you doing here?" Cassandra heard. It was Luther's voice, authoritative as ever, coming from inside Five's bedroom.
"I'm looking for Five." That was Diego, defensive as always. Cassandra smiled to herself. Those two.
"Oh and let me guess you're going to save the day?" Luther retorted as Cassandra came to stand in the doorway.
"It's what I do, asshole." Diego snapped and turned around to leave. He caught Cassandra's eye as he past her in the doorway and hesitated, putting a strong hand on her shoulder, "Come on, Cass, you don't want to go in there." He muttered, passing Cassandra and waiting for her to follow him. But she stayed stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame nonchalantly.
"Last I checked," Luther called out as Diego headed down the corridor. He stopped and turned back, "You mopped floors."
Diego stopped dead in his tracks and immediately strode back into Five's room. Cassandra followed close behind him. She could see how his whole body had tensed at the sound of Luther's words. They needed someone there to keep the peace. She hovered in the doorway, for some reason not wanting to enter the room once she saw Pogo there. She felt her shoulders rise and tense.
"And what do you do?" Diego hissed in Luther's face. Cassandra could've sworn he had stood on his toes, "Sit on the moon for four years, waiting for orders?" Cassandra sighed as soon as the words left Diego's lips. He shouldn't have said that...
"Boys this won't help us find Five." Pogo interjected from behind them. Even Cassandra had to agree with him on that.
"Keep on being a loyal soldier after everything our father did to you?" Diego added. Luther grew more and more tense and somehow, straightened up even further. When had he gotten so tall?
"What, do you mean save my life?" Luther asked bitterly.
"No I mean turn you into a monster." Diego replied, snarkily. Smirking as Luther fumbled for a comeback. Turns out he decided he didn't need words to prove himself as he decided to punch straight through the door to Five's closet. Cassandra peered around to make sure Klaus wasn't in there again. She had to say, she was a little disappointed he wasn't, although she had no idea why.
"You can't hide it anymore, champ." Diego spat, snidely.
"Diego, stop." Cassandra reasoned. When they had first come back, she had enjoyed hearing Luther and Diego bicker, it had reminded her of simpler times when they were just kids. But now they were adults, they could do some serious damage to each other and, quite frankly, Cassandra didn't want to have to patch either one of them up.
"He had a difficult decision to make and he made it." Luther defended. Cassandra sighed, had neither of them heard her?
"Grow up Luther we're not 13 anymore." Diego snapped. Neither are you, Cassandra thought, but refrained from voicing it as she didn't want to encourage any of this.
"That's what leaders do by the way." Luther added, ignoring Diego's comment entirely.
"Luther!" Cassandra warned, this had gone on far enough.
"He sent you on that mission all alone. Almost got you killed." Diego provoked, in a sing-song tone.
"Yeah, well at least he was there." Luther asserted, bitterly, "Where were you? You and everyone else in this family?"
Cassandra opened her mouth to snap at them again and try to put an end to this stupid argument but upon hearing Luther's last comment, she quickly changed her mind.
Where was everyone else in this family? She was at home. She had always been at home, just waiting for someone to come back. Turns out it wasn't her they had come back for. Cassandra folded her arms and shifted her weight uncomfortably, avoiding both of them by looking at the floor. Diego looked over his shoulder at her and his expression softened briefly, before he turned back to Luther.
"You walked out." Luther snapped, clearly not having noticed Cassandra, just like he never noticed her after literally everyone else expect for her had left.
"And thank christ I did! Or I would have ended up just like you." Diego snapped, before he even realised what his words had meant.
Cassandra turned away from them both and walked off down the corridor. She heard footsteps quickly following behind her and saw Diego in the corner of her eye.
"Cass. Look, I didn't mean it about you." He mumbled, reaching out for her shoulder but she flinched away from and carried on down the corridor. "Cass, stop." He persisted as he followed her up the stairs, desperately trying to get her to look at him but she was having none of it.
"Where are you going?"
"Where am I going?" She snapped, turning around as she reached the front door. "I'm going to find Five, our brother, because that's what siblings do. They look out for each other and they don't leave one of them alone in the house they grew up in, alone with their vile father for years without even calling. That's where I'm going." She snapped, flinging open the door and slamming it behind her, not giving Diego another chance to say another word.