An early update because I adore all of you!
Hope you're all staying safe.
We return to the immortals.
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
Gone.
One moment she was there, right before him.
Alight in golden hues, an angel on earth.
Oh, how he had wanted to kiss her.
Wanted to press her into him, watch her melt in his arms.
As their music built between them, as they fought with their instruments.
Floated up into the stars, raced through time and space.
The entire universe was nothing in comparison to what he felt for her.
And then she was gone.
The moment plays over and over in his mind like a broken record.
Her flushed face alight as the audience began to cheer.
And then the darkness.
The sound of her running.
Alexander presses his fists into his eyes.
Watching as stars formed in the darkness of his eyelids.
A cavern had opened in his chest.
Emptiness sucking the light from his soul.
She was gone.
And so was the sun.
There was no light, no happiness.
Only darkness and pain left in her wake.
He does not need to see to know that Theodore is still pacing the room, his phone glued to his ear as he barked out orders.
Alexander had recently run out of calls to make.
"...what do you mean you don't know, Graham? I fucking-"
His words are cut off by the sound of shattering glass.
Alexander glances up, watches as Dante grabs another glass from the cart and throws it at the wall.
The pain on his face unlike anything Alexander had ever seen from him.
Anguish and fury, just like his own.
The shards rain down across the floor, glinting in the light of the fire.
The force knocks one of the photo frames from the top of the fireplace.
It falls to the floor, clattering against the hard wood.
Theodore hangs up the phone, a beat of silence passing as they each stare down at the frame.
He bends down to pick it up, his fingers running along the metal edges.
It's her.
Posing next to a snowman the four had built together on one of the snow days.
Her cheeks rosy from the cold, a knit cap snugly pulled over her curls.
Her smile is wide, beaming.
Theodore's breath catches.
The impact of the fall had formed a crack in the glass.
Cutting straight through her.
He traces it with his finger, tears burning in his eyes.
He had been terrified of losing her before she was even theirs to lose.
His heart twists painfully in his chest.
Theodore had failed her.
He had promised to protect her, to cherish her and keep her safe.
She was the most important thing in his life.
And he had sworn he would do everything he could to keep her.
But their violence, their mistakes-
He had failed.
Theodore struggles to breathe.
It seemed as though the oxygen had been sucked from the air.
He stares down at her face, the crack tearing her down the middle.
How badly he wished he knew where she was.
So he could find her.
So he could fix things.
Setting it carefully back onto the mantle, he turns back to his friends.
His brothers.
"I understand your grief, Dante, but throwing a tantrum is not going to help us find her." He cannot keep the exhaustion from his voice.
It is all he can do not to throttle the other man.
The lack of control over the situation keeping him on edge.
"Yeah, like your useless phone calls are helping any. We need to be out there searching! We could have chased after them!" Dante bursts angrily.
Theodore barks out a humorless laugh.
"Just go searching blindly? We have no idea where she went. The security footage was cut off the second she finished playing! Instead of running around aimlessly, I've made sure that every television in America is showing her photo. Alex has scoured every inch of her phone for clues. And all you've been doing is acting like a damn child!" He roars, gesturing to the shards of glass.
Alexander sighs, standing from the couch.
He walks to the corner, drowning out their argument.
Her cello is propped against the wall, abandoned.
She had left it behind.
Just as she had left him behind.
He runs a hand across the wood, brushing gently across the strings.
Imagining her own fingers doing the same.
"Stop. We must work together if we're going to find her. Fighting accomplishes nothing." Alexander turns back to them.
Dante deflates, rubbing a tired hand down his face.
"She's been gone for over 48 hours. What do we have so far?" He sinks into the armchair.
Theodore sits stiffly in the other one, grabbing his phone from the coffee table.
"She left the auditorium in a dark vehicle, heading south. As you pointed out when you took stock of her room, Dante, she had packed a bag of belongings prior to the Winter Gala. It's clear she's been planning this for a while." He lists solemnly, nearly choking on the last sentence.
God, what had they done?
Dante hums, gripping his head in his hands as he thinks.
"We know she couldn't have done this alone. With the cutting of the lights and cameras and the get away car, she had to have had help. Like we've already guessed, it was probably her friend Emilia. Her phone has been offline since an hour before the performance which solidifies that theory, but it means we can't track her location until she turns it on." He checks his watch.
It was four in the morning.
None of them had slept a second since she disappeared.
He could barely close his eyes without seeing her haunting expression behind his eyes.
Her beautiful eyes staring up at him in distrust.
Dante had thought that things were getting better.
Just before the show, she had said she loved them.
He hadn't realized it was a goodbye.
Another wave of anguish pulls him under, choking him.
Dante had filled his life with words.
Growing up, there wasn't a book in his proximity that he hadn't read.
And then he had begun to write.
To fill pages with stories and thoughts and his words.
Words were comforting, they were powerful.
But this.
No words could truly describe the feeling of losing her.
He was lost before she came into their lives.
Floating in limbo, waiting for her to breathe life into him.
And then she walked into his office and the entire universe flickered around him.
And she-
She was everything.
His hands curl into fists, the urge to grab another glass to throw throbbing through him.
It was all their fault.
They had driven her away.
Driven.
His heart thrums in his ears as he sits up straighter.
"Does Emilia have a driver's license?" His words tangle as they rush out of his mouth.
Alexander turns to him, his eyebrows furrowed.
"She has to, she drove Enid away." His bloodshot eyes filled with confusion.
Dante leans over, pulls the laptop from before him.
"But what if she didn't? I remember once in class she mentioned needing a ride to her boyfriend... Shit! Her boyfriend. How did I forget about him? How have we not checked this?" His sentence rolls into a frantic mumble as he types quickly.
Well, he knew how.
Having Enid in that class meant that everyone else was simply background noise.
He knew that made him a bad teacher, but hell.
It was hard to focus with her so close.
It was impossible to focus with her missing.
The database finally finishes loading and he leaps up from the armchair.
"She doesn't have a license! I'm going to call Graham in here right now." He grins, a small tendril of hope knitting in between the cracks in his heart.
Only a second later, Graham comes flying through the door.
He is gasping for air, a wide smile stretched across his face.
Dante looks up in shock, his finger pressing the last digit of his phone number.
"Bloody hell, are you telepathic-" He is cut off by Graham.
"Shut up. Sorry, sir. I just- The girl's phone just turned on. It's pinning her location right now!" Graham lets out a relieved laugh, dropping beside Alexander on the couch.
The three men rush toward him, each moving to grab the laptop.
Graham pulls it toward him, glaring at the desperate men.
Worried they might mess up the download with their reaching.
They watched impatiently as the map began to form.
A stream on the side showing that whoever was using the phone was searching for the nearest bus station.
Graham held his breath in anticipation.
He hadn't known Enid for long, but he had developed a rare fondness for the small girl.
An entirely platonic fondness, obviously.
He didn't have a death wish.
"Atlanta. They're in Atlanta." He said as the locator finished, watching as varying emotions rush across their faces.
Relief. Joy. Concern. Excitement. Nerves.
He's never seen them so raw, so unfiltered.
Right after he copied down the location, the phone tuned back off.
And then the immortals were racing into the night, on their way to their private plane.
Hope burning in their lungs.
"They were searching for a bus station, what if they're gone by the time we get there?" Alexander asks halfway through the flight, a frown on his face as he stared out the window.
Tense silence is all that answers him.
A rental car ready and waiting for them, they were speeding through the streets of Atlanta nearly as soon as they touched ground.
Pulling up outside the motel that the directions had led them to, Theodore headed straight for the small office on the first floor.
The teenage girl at the counter perked up as he walked in, her eyes widening.
A flirty welcome began to roll off her tongue before he cut her off.
"What room is Enid McCarthy in?" He demands as Alexander and Dante come flying through the door behind him.
The girl's eyes widen further, her jaw falling open.
Three gods were standing in the cramped office of her uncle's hotel.
Maybe she didn't hate this job so much.
"Quickly!" The accented command snapping her back into attention.
Right, they looked like gods.
Very, very angry gods.
Dante watched impatiently as the girl flicked through the book before her.
"Erm, there's no one named Enid here..." She starts nervously, watching as their intensity heightened.
Alexander feels the ground drop out from beneath him.
"But! But some people pay with cash and don't leave names. Maybe you could describe her?" The girl continued; her voice squeaky with nerves.
Just then, Dante's phone starts to ring.
Pulling it out of his pocket, he reads the unknown caller label and lets Theo and Alex provide the description as he steps outside.
"Hello?" Impatience sharpens his voice.
"Um, Dr. Romano?" A girlish voice crackles through the speaker.
His eyebrows furrow.
He doesn't give out his phone number to his students.
"Emilia?" The hope is heavy on his tongue.
There is a sigh of relief on the other line and then she is speaking, filling him in on the past hours.
And Dante is running.
Running faster than he ever had before.
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
I had to rework this chapter a few times, as fitting each of their emotions in individually without it being repetitive took a while.
I hope it turned out okay!
Comments fill my heart with joy.
All my love, Sappho ⁂