Here we are - Part 2! This bit is also rushed and it's not amazingly written, but I kinda felt more pressure to get it out there as it was part 2 of the same chapter. There was originally more to this chapter (a whole 1000 words more!) but I cut it all and will add the essentials into the next chapter. It's Darcie & Bash from here on out!
(Pictured - Kiza)
(C)Copyright SJCLewis
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Oh god..!
With a panicked gasp of near hysteria, Darcie faced forwards again. Feet squelching in her now-puddle-soaked boots, she raced up the hill and across the road, one hand clamped tightly around Tito's phone, the other scrabbling desperately around the bottom of her bag for her keys.
"Please..." she whispered, her voice cracking with terrified desperation as she reached 153's peeling front gate. "Fuck, fuck, fuck...!"
Her hands closed around cold metal as she sprinted down the garden path, and her stomach gave a sickening lurch of adrenaline. "Yes...!"
Nearly throwing herself at the front door, she jabbed the key into the lock, her hands shaking uncontrollably as she chanced another glance behind her; The street behind was completely empty. Heart hammering in her chest, she pushed the door open with her shoulder and, facing forwards again, stumbled inside.
She was just over the threshold when she felt cold fingers close in a fist in her hair. Sharp nails scraped her scalp and she let out a strangled cry as she was yanked bodily out of the door again, her bag and Tito's phone falling to the ground with a clatter. Pain flared across her shoulders as the hand in her hair pulled her head roughly back, and she felt a scream stick in her throat as the wasted, pallid face of the broad-shouldered woman bent over her own.
"Hey now, don't worry." she barked into Darcie's face, bearing the brown stumps of her teeth in a grin. "We'll give you over to the highest bidder. Someone fancy, I'm sure. Lots of money. You'll be living in the lap of luxury in no time!"
Her eyes were pools of black in her wide face. Her breath was stale with the smell of cigarettes, and from this distance, Darcie could clearly see the blisters clustered at the corners of her mouth. The too-cold fingers tightened in her hair, and Darcie yelped with pain and fear... And rage.
Without really knowing what she was doing, she reached back and grasped the thick wrist at her skull. Digging her nails into the cold flesh with as much strength as she could muster, she attempted to twist away, blindly aiming a kick in the direction of where she thought the woman's legs would be. Her intent was strong, but her foot met only air and she flailed pathetically; The hand in her hair remained tight-fisted against her scalp.
"How sweet..!"
With a derisive laugh, the woman kicked hard at the backs of Darcie's knees, knocking the weight out from underneath her, and Darcie let out another cry of pain as her legs gave way and she sagged towards the ground. She was held upright for a split second - dangling like some obscene puppet by the unrelenting grip in her hair - before the woman laughed again and released her. Darcie fell hard onto her hip on the concrete path and she yelped as she threw out her hands to steady herself, palms scraping brutally across the paving stones.
She was beginning to cry now, and her breaths came in great, panicked snatches of air. Heart thumping wildly in her chest, she peered up through a tangle of hair at the woman looming over her; The broken teeth were posed in a greedy leer, her black eyes triumphant as she stared down at her.
"They'll look after you, don't worry!" she sneered, the little blisters at the corners of her mouth stretching horribly as she grinned. "You're an asset. They'll want to keep you healthy...until there's no longer a reason to..."
It happened so fast, that Darcie almost missed it. Bloody hands appeared out of nowhere - seemingly disembodied and ghostly in the dark - and fixed themselves on either side of the woman's head. One second, she was talking down to Darcie, and the next - the hands had materialised, grasped her face, and jerked it violently to one side. There was a low, unmistakable crunch as her neck snapped.
Paralysed with shock, Darcie's lips parted in a silent scream as she watched the woman crumple sideways over the low garden wall, her head hitting a decorative flower pot in next door's garden with a nasty crack. The sound was very slightly echoed around the otherwise silent street before it faded into dreadful silence, wherein Darcie couldn't help but stare, horrified, at the eerily limp, impossibly still body. Dead.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Face grim and eyes glowing violet, Tito stepped forwards out of the dark.
"You killed her!" Darcie gasped, cold with shock, her chest constricting with panic and blocking her airflow. "Did you kill her?! Oh my god..!"
Tito's hands shone with blood in the light from the hallway as he bent down to snatch up his push-button phone. "Call Leala." he panted, his voice sounding a little strained as he tossed the phone into Darcie's lap. "Get upstairs. Now!"
Darcie jumped as the phone hit her stomach and - her brain too numb for action- was only able to peer dumbly up into Tito's furious face, tears frozen in tracks on her cheeks. His brow was freckled with a spray of red: blood, and she blanched.
Somewhere at the back of her mind a faint voice - as if calling from a great distance, was willing her to fight through the stupor enveloping her. With a great effort, and with her stomach roiling with nausea, she seized the phone and her bag and scrambled to her feet. As she turned to stumble through the door again, she caught sight of three figures emerging from the darkness of the alleyway over Tito's shoulder.
This sight was enough to kick her into flight mode again, and her stomach gave a nasty lurch of terror. "Hurry!" she panted in a high, trembling voice, whirling fully and launching herself into the house and towards the stairs. "Behind you!"
But she needn't have warned him; Tito was right on her heels. He slammed the door behind them and followed her up the stairs, taking them two at a time. They were almost at the top when there came a great bang and a crunch from behind them, and they both turned instinctively to find the front door hanging off its hinges. Three more of the Lycan crowded into the hall : the tiny woman, her tattooed companion, and their dumpy leader with the greasy hair.
Darcie gasped, but Tito didn't look at all surprised that they'd made such quick work of the door. Jaw set, he turned back to Darcie and grasped the front of her cheap, imitation leather jacket with one hand. "Leala!" was all he said again, before - without warning- he half threw her backwards onto the landing.
There was no time to nurse her surprise. She landed hard on her hip again and she winced, her hands stinging as the grazed palms scraped the carpet. Scrambling at once to her feet, she watched - breathless- as Tito turned away to assume a defensive crouch from his position on the stairs.
The three Lycan took the stairs without ceremony, led by the beefy man with the stragly hair. The knife - now shining with fresh blood- was once again clutched tightly in his fist, and his face was now devoid of any amusement or humour. The heavily tattoed man and his companion kept close behind, their black eyes glinting maliciously in the hallway light. As the three closed in on Tito, Darcie met the gaze of the woman, who beared her needle-like fangs at her in a greedy, demented little half smile.
Through the blanket of terror muffling her good judgement, Darcie felt a flash of anger - knife sharp- at the ravenous entitlement in that smile. It was enough to nudge her into action and, panting with suppressed hysterics, she turned tail and ran down the landing towards her room, unlocking Tito's phone as she did so. She found Leala's contact information, and was just about to press the call button, when a terrible scream sounded from the stairs - high with pure, unsuppressed agony. She knew, even before she'd peered - terrified- over the landing balustrades, that it was Tito.
He was bleeding profusely from a cut on his shoulder, and he was pressing his fist into his stomach to staunch the flow of blood from a stab wound low in his belly. Somehow, the tattooed Lycan had managed to dodge past him, and he now stood behind him on the stairs. Darcie watched, horror-struck, as he grasped Tito by the hair and wrenched his head back, exposing his throat to his leader, who's mouth was now gaping horrifically, his jaw stretching to accommodate his elongating fangs.
Darcie could hardly breathe through panic now. They're going to kill him! she thought desperately, thoughts of Laela forgotten as she cast around for something - anything- to help Tito. He's going to die! Oh god he's going to die!
As if he could hear her thoughts, the tattooed one glanced up from his position on the stairs and laughed at her with a sort of insane delight. He held her gaze as the frontman slashed the knife across Tito's uninjured shoulder, who let out another cry of pain - so full of agony it was clearly beyond his control. It went right through Darcie, reverberating in the very depths of her brain, and internally she screamed at herself to do something. To protect.
Shit. Shit! Think!
As the knife was raised again, Darcie's frantically searching gaze fell on Minerva's hockey stick, which was propped just inside the door of her bedroom, directly across the stairs. Without a second thought, she dropped the phone in the hall, sprinted back across the landing, seized the stick, and whirled to face the stairs. She wasn't quick enough to take them totally by surprise - the tattooed Lycan gleefully watched her run and half turned, smirking, to face her- but with his hands full restraining Tito, he was unable to block the blow. Darcie reached him just in time to swing the hockey stick hard into the side of his face.
Wham!
It was as if she'd attacked a concrete wall. Where it collided with the Lycan's head, the hockey stick splintered, splitting in two, and the end piece was sent spinning over the heads of the others, landing with a thump in the hall below. It didn't knock him out, but it was enough to throw him off balance, and he loosened his hold on Tito's hair, throwing one arm out to steady himself.
Tito didn't miss a beat. Instantaneously he threw himself to his knees, pulling himself out of the Lycan's slackened grasp and driving his shoulder into his shins. Overbalancing, his former captor toppled over Tito's back and crashed into the other two, sending them all flying back to join the end of Minvera's hockey stick in the hall below.
Tito let out a little grunt of pain and remained crouched on the stairs, clutching his abdomen. Numb with shock at what she'd done, Darcie hastily stumbled forwards, intending to help him to his feet, but in the next instant he was by her side on the landing. His right hand was pressed hard into his stomach to staunch the flow of blood, and his face was very white. "Leala!" he managed to croak, before crowding her back down the hallway and kicking his discarded phone towards her. "Please!"
The phone skittered through Darcie's legs and hit the door of her room. Panting, she lunged for it, snatching it up with clammy fingers, and jabbing at the buttons to find Leala's number again. She turned on the spot as she did so, glancing at Tito, who was leaning heavily against the wall and peering wearily over the banisters to the hall below. His face was twisted with pain and exhaustion, a there was a little puddle of blood on the carpet from the wound in his stomach. Darcie felt a sinking feeling of despair as she pressed the dial button and held the phone to her ear.
What can Laela do now?
That sinking feeling morphed swiftly into a swoop of panic as feet thundered on the stairs, and a second later, the three Lycan appeared on the landing. Despite his obvious exhaustion, Tito pushed himself away from the wall and turned to face them, blocking Darcie from view. Hands slippery with sweat, Darcie pressed the phone tighter to her ear and cowered back against her bedroom door.
Just as the little group on the landing charged towards Tito, the dial tone in Darcie's ear absuptly cut off as the call was answered, and a far away voice on the other end of the phone barked: "Déjà en route!"
Before Darcie could even open her mouth to say anything, the line went dead. She remained with the phone pressed flat to her ear for quite sometime after, seemingly unable to move as she watched the group advance, pell-mell, down the landing. They moved as one with chaotic, angry movements that had very little to do with strategy, fighting amongst themselves and pushing each other out of the way in an attempt to gain the lead. It was the woman who drew up against Tito first, but in all the confusion and tangle of limbs, it was their leader who managed to dodge beneath her flailing arms and land a blow. Trembling with fright, Darcie could only stand and watch as he jerked forwards with a repulsive hiss and drove the knife deep into Tito's thigh.
Tito let out another gasp of pain and stumbled off-balance, but by bracing himself against the wall he managed to land a well-aimed kick at the Lycan's face with his uninjured leg. The Lycan crumpled, his weight dragging the knife from Tito's thigh again, and Tito yelled, half slumping against the banisters, clearly in excruciating pain. Blood spurted from the puncture wound, spraying the wall and carpet, and so disabled, the tiny woman took her chance. Crouching low, she lept over her leader, who now lay sprawled on the floor with a bloodied nose, and rammed her shoulder, hard, into Tito's stomach.
"Tito!"
Darcie's scream rent the night as the woman tackled Tito right through the balustrade, the banisters splintering magnificently as they smashed through them. There was a nasty crash as they landed heavily in the hall below and then a horrible, agonized cry.
Darcie felt the phone slip from her fingers. She was shaking uncontrollably now, staring, horrified, at the place where Tito had disappeared. With a lurch of fear, she registered movement in the corner of her eye, and with a feeling of mounting terror, she turned to face the hallway again to find the leader of the group struggling to his feet, leering. The nose was now clearly broken above the horrific, gaping mouth, and blood dripped sickeningly onto his bare chest. The knife was once again clutched in his fist.
I'm going to die!
Darcie stumbled backward into her room, sobbing with terror. No longer able to control her breathing, her chest heaved with shallow, panicked snatches of air and her vision swam as she became lightheaded.
Don't pass out! Don't pass out!
She sensed a sudden movement just beyond her line of sight, and whipping around she found the lank-haired Lycan was suddenly behind her, leaning - almost nonchalantly- against her wardrobe, twirling the knife in his hands. He seemed unconcerned by his broken nose, but even as Darcie watched, the steady drip of blood began to slow until it stopped altogether, and Darcie felt another scream stick in her throat as the bones in his nose straightened themselves with a crunch. He laughed at the look of horror on Darcie's face, which was echoed by another from the hallway, and she turned - hyperventilating - to find the tattooed Lycan framed there, his black eyes glowing, yellow fangs gaping horrifically.
Darcie whimpered, clutching the splintered end of Minerva's hockey stick to her chest, paralysed with fear and unable to move. The Lycan in her doorway grinned, and then lunged, grasping the stick and snatching her forwards so violently that Darcie felt her shoulders pop.
"You must be important to someone." he hissed into her face, as Tito let out another roar of pain from below. "For a Gamma to lay down his life..."
As before, there was no warning before the Lycan was promptly cut off -midsentence - by an unanticipated attack. One second he was stood there, gurning at Darcie, and the next - someone had tackled into him with inhuman speed, sending him halfway down the hall and out of sight in a rush of air and a blur of bodies.
Tito?
Darcie felt pain seer across her shoulders as her arms were pulled suddenly in the same direction by the Lycan's grip on the hockey stick, and she let go of it with a gasp of pain. She had barely enough time to flex her shoulders before someone else was in front of her, crowding her back over the threshold again and slamming the door behind them.
Looking up at the newcomer, Darcie felt her stomach swoop a little. It was not Tito.
The woman now facing her radiated pure power. Tall and amazonian, she was dressed head to toe in black combat gear - with great plates of leather covering her torso and thighs. Her skin was a rich, deep brown, and a great mass of dark, coiled hair surrounded her exquisitely beautiful face. Her eyes- flashing violet- were trained on the Lycan behind Darcie as she whipped a hand-gun from her jacket. Darcie had just time to register the two lozenges of metal hanging from a fine chain about her neck before she was grabbed roughly from behind by the hair, and her head was forced backward. Unable to move, she gazed, terrified, at the ceiling above.
'Another gamma!' the lank-haired lycan hissed beside her ear, his foul breath fanning Darcie's face. 'You really must be important!'
'Let her go." the woman drawled, in clear, east-London accent. 'Or I shoot.'
Her voice was strong; commanding. Darcie quivered.
"Shoot me and i'll kill her." the Lycan growled, and in the next second, Darcie felt the unmistakable edge of the knife against her throat. There was a clicking sound, and the grip in her hair tightened.
"I'll only tell you once again." the woman said coolly, unhurried. 'Let her go and you won't have to die.'
The Lycan sneered, pulling back Darcie's head yet further, so she was now almost looking towards the back wall. 'You won't shoot!' he jeered, and Darcie yelped as she felt the knife press tight against her throat. 'Not when I'm holding...!'
There was a sudden crack, and Darcie screamed and reflexively screwed up her eyes as something hot splattered across the left side of her face. Almost at once, the grip in her hair loosened, and she felt the knife fall away from her neck. The heavy arm now lying strangely limp across her chest began to pull her backwards and she stumbled and would have fallen, had not a pair of warm hands closed gently about her shoulders and pulled her forwards.
"Darcie!"
The hands moved from her shoulders to her face, and a moment later she felt something rough graze her cheek. Darcie shrieked and wrenched her head away, stumbling backward over something large on the floor behind her. Warm hands caught at her waist and pulled her forwards again, and a second later the something was brushed over her face once more. Darcie opened her eyes, her breathing rather shallow, and met the violet gaze of the woman in front of her. Her sobs intensified.
"It's ok." she soothed. "I'm with Bash."
Her hands were still on Darcie's face; Her fingers had retreated into the stiff sleeves of her armored jacket to rub them over Darcie's sticky cheeks. Darcie gasped and attempted to twist her head away towards the window, but the woman stopped her, her fingers gripping her jaw so tightly it almost hurt. She shook her head.
"Don't look!" she murmured, and Darcie shuddered. "Not yet."
Her eyes flashed around her room in a once over, and in the next second, she had relinquished her grip on Darcie's face to stride across to the bed. Ripping off the duvet, the woman laid it over the floor directly behind Darcie - over the body, Darcie knew laid there.
As this realisation hit her, her legs finally gave out. Sinking to her knees, she huddled against the radiator and pressed her hands to the carpet, willing herself not to faint. The woman moved in front of her again and crouched down to peer into her face, the metal tags around her neck glinting. "You're safe now." She murmured, placing a hand on Darcie's shoulder as she struggled for breath. "Are you hurt?" Her eyes were so reassuringly purple. "Darcie are you hurt?"
One hand chafed up her arms and legs, and smoothed the hair over her forehead, checking for injuries. Darcie whimpered, her breathing already becoming a little easier. She managed to shake her head. "No..." she stammered, her teeth chattering. "I'm fine! But, my friend...! I think that Tito... Oh my god...There was so much blood..!"
She trailed off and the woman gave a sad little smile. Taking Darcie's hands, she folded them between her own and squeezed them gently. "It's ok." she murmured earnestly, squeezing her hands again. "Tito will be ok."
There came another crash from below and someone let out a high screech. Whether it was of anger, fear, or pain, it was impossible to tell. Darcie felt her stomach lurch with terror again, and the woman released her hands and stood. "Alright." she announced quietly, in a voice of impossible calm. "Now we're going to get out of here."
Darcie gazed past her, still shivering with fear. Another bang and a deafening snarl sounded beyond her door, frighteningly close, and she felt her breath catch in her throat again, her heart hammering furiously.
"Ok?" she continued evenly, ducking her head again to catch her gaze. "Is there anything you need to bring with you?"
Darcie willed herself to refocus on the woman's face and drew in another deep, shaky breath. "Where are we going?" she mumbled distractedly, clutching at her side to reassure herself that her handbag was still there. "How do I know that you're not really with them? "
The woman didn't answer immediately. Instead, she studied Darcie for a moment, her bottom lip clamped between her teeth, before she sighed, strode across the room, and threw open the window. She peered out of it.
"She has a point," she murmured lowly, addressing someone apparently stood in the garden below. "How does she know I'm not really with them?"
There was a split-seconds silence before the woman stood back from the window again, her lips twisted in a wry smile. Darcie blinked, and in the next instant, Bash was climbing off the window frame and into her room. Her stomach gave a pathetic little lurch.
His eyes immediately took her in where she still sat, huddled against the radiator, and then slid over the duvet, beneath which the unmistakable outline of a body was clearly visible. His arrival seemed to release the torrent of emotion Darcie had been holding back, and -unable to help herself-she burst into tears.
He let out a low sigh, and then turned to the woman, his mouth set in a grim line. "Downstairs is clear- Tito's still in the hall. We need to go now. I'll meet you both out front."
The woman's smile grew a little. "Valde, Beta Seb." she murmured, inclining her head to him before turning and offering Darcie a genuine smile. "I'll see you in five."
Drawing her handgun from the inner folds of her jacket, she left, closing the door firmly behind her.