Unrelated Worm One Shots

[YseultNott]

Spoiler: Author Note

Written for the first rouns of the Cauldron Blitz Cup, with the following prompt: A resurrecting cape attempts to solve their own murder.

When Tiffany opens her eyes, there is a corpse on her floor.

It's hers.


***


Tiffany doesn't mind dying that much anymore. It happens all the time. She's used to it.

The problem is it's not Lady Lazarus who got killed. It's Tiffany. Someone broke into her apartment and murdered her.

She was supposed to be safe here.

She doesn't remember anything after lunch yesterday, so she was killed at some point in the afternoon. She always loses time before her deaths.

Her jewelry and phone are missing. A look at her corpse shows her wedding ring has been taken.

"A burglary gone wrong?" she asks aloud.

Her corpse looks at the ceiling with empty eyes and doesn't answer. The wounds in her chest look like camellias, like her killer kept stabbing her even after she died.

Tiffany borrows the neighbor's phone and calls Lindsay.


***


Lindsay helps her get rid of her corpse, and clean up. Adam will be upset if he gets home from visiting his parents and finds a murder scene.

Here. Like nothing happened, except for her missing jewelry.

They took her wedding ring.

They came into her home and murdered her.

They came into her home and murdered her.

It's not like when Lady Lazarus dies. It's her home. She was supposed to be safe there.

It feels more personal, somehow.


***


"You texted me yesterday," Lindsay says. "You told me Justin came by, and said he wanted to apologize."

Justin. Her ex.

He never did accept her dumping him.

Her wedding ring was taken from her corpse.


***


Tiffany takes with her a gun scavenged during one of Lady Lazarus's nocturnal outings. Just in case.

She checks that Justin has left for work, and breaks into his apartment. It hasn't changed much since the last time she was there. Same ugly wallpaper, same piles of books, same Eidolon poster on the wall.

She looks for clues.

Nothing in the drawers. Makes sense. Too obvious. The vents are empty as well, and it takes her far too long to screw them back in place.

She pushes the bed aside and checks under the loose floorboards, where he used to hide his porn when they were still dating.

She finds a knife.

And her wedding ring.


***


Justin comes home sooner than Tiffany thought he would.

The way he blanches when he sees her, like she's a ghost coming back to haunt him, tells her more than a confession would.

He murdered her.

"You can't be here," he says.

He came into her home. And he killed her.

The gun feels very warm in her hand.

"You're dead," he says.

He stabbed her in the chest. Multiple times. He stabbed her, again and again, and he took her wedding ring.

He came into her home, where she was supposed to be safe, and he murdered her.

She's in his home, where he thought he was safe, and this time, she's the one holding a weapon.

 

[YseultNott]

Spoiler: Author Note

Written for the second round of the Cauldron Blitz Cup for the following ptompt: The Adventures of Imp in Brockton Bay. (When she's not with the Undersiders.)

There is a girl wearing a demon mask in Amber's apartment.

"Who are you and what the fuck are you doing here?" Amber asks.

"Eh," the girl says. "Don't worry about that."

The girl takes Amber's keys off their hook and throw them in a drawer.



***



Amber can't find her keys.



***



The girl with the demon mask is back. She's straining against the sofa, visibly trying to move it.

"What are you doing?" Amber asks, and then "Do you have anywhere to go? I can walk you home if you need to."

The girl lets out a laugh. Amber doesn't like it.



***



Amber swears as she hits her hip on the corner on the table again. This is going to bruise.

It's strange. She's not usually so clumsy.



***



The girl is holding Amber's phone.

"I would really like it if you could stop looking through my things," Amber says, and she snatches her phone back. "And you still didn't tell me who you are. Are you a cape?"

"I was done with it anyway," the girl says, and she ignores the second question.



***



Fuck you says the text Jennifer sent her.

Amber isn't blaming her. Not when she scrolls up their conversation and sees what she said herself.

She doesn't remember sending those messages. She doesn't even remember thinking them.

She's starting to think something might be wrong.



***



The girl is back again.

"Are you a cape?" Amber asks.

The girl has a knife.



***



Something is wrong.

Something is very, very wrong.

It started with little things. Finding her keys in the drawer when she always hangs them to their hook and walking into furniture. Small annoyances Amber could explain away with being stressed over the recent dead and the state of the city.

But things aren't getting better. They're getting *worse*. Now, it's scavenged food missing from her closets, strange gouges in the doors, text messages she doesn't remember sending.

Now, it's waking up with cuts and scratches on her hands and splinters under her fingernails.

She calls Justin.

"Can I come live with you for a while?" Amber asks. "I don't want to stay alone."



***



The girl in the demon mask is writing on the mirror in Justin's bathroom.

The paint is red, and Amber isn't sure it's paint.

"It was you," Amber says. "I keep forgetting about you, but *you* moved my keys, and my furniture, and sent those texts to Jennifer, and you…"

The knife in the girl's hands. The scratches on the back of hers.

"Oh god," Amber says, and then, "What do you want? Why are you doing this?"

"I'm Imp," the girl says. "I want you to leave Brockton Bay."



***



There is blood on Amber's hands. Two of her fingers are broken, and she's missing a few fingernails.

There is blood in the bathroom sink, and red words in the mirror telling her to leave.

 

[YseultNott]

Spoiler: Author Note

Written for the second round of the Cauldron Blitz Cup after I misunderstood which prompt I was supposed to write, with the following prompt: The lady on the train in Interlude:End mentioned she was going to a reunion. This snip tells the tale of that reunion.

Ann's hair have turned white.

Janice isn't sure why a part of her keeps coming back to this detail. It has been over fifty years. Of course Ann's hair have turned white.

It has been fifty years. The last time Janice saw Ann, her hair was still red.

"Those lamb chops are delicious," Janice says to Ann. "I wouldn't have thought to use blackberries for the seasoning, it's very original, but it works well."

"Actually, John made it," Ann says.

"And I'm glad to hear that you like it," John says. "Although I can't take credit for coming up with the recipe."

"I didn't know you cooked," Janice says.

For a brief, interminable moment, the conversation falters, and Janice thinks of why she didn't know that, and wonders if Ann and John do, too.

"I do like unusual recipes," John says mercifully, breaking the silence. "I make a pretty good dandelion banana bread, if I say so myself. What about you, Janice? Do you cook?"

"Well, I have to feed myself," Janice says. "But I can't say I really enjoy it."

The conversation stops again, the silence awkward and heavy with things all three of them know, and Janice desperately scrambles for a subject that would restart it.

"Well, everyone can't like the same things," John says. "What do you like to do, if I may ask?"

"Well," Janice says. "I have a taste for card games, and I like to think I have some skill as well."

"Oh, I remember that!" Ann interjects with a smile. "That's how you met Lawrence! He lost against you in a poker game and swore to play against you every week until he could win!"

Tentatively, Janice smiles back.



***



The rest of the evening goes the same way, with John picking up the conversation with obstinate eagerness every time it dies down.

Neither Ann nor John mentions the elephant in the room, and Janice doesn't dare to. It's one thing to explain past cruelties to a stranger on the bus, but it's far, far harder to bring it up with the people you hurt. To bring back old wounds and bad memories.

When the time comes from Janice to leave, they still haven't talked about it.

When John says goodbye to her on the threshold of his and Ann's home, his hair is very white under the streetlamp. White like Ann's hair, like Janice's hair.

Fifty years.

Fifty years where they could have been friends. Fifty years' worth of good times and merry dinners.

Fifty years lost.

"It was good seeing you again, Janice," John says. "I'd like to see you again soon."

"I'd like that, too," Janice says.

She means it.

 

[YseultNott]

Spoiler: Author Note

Written for the third round of the Cauldron Blitz Cup, with the following prompt: Several characters go ghost hunting.

"This place gives me the creeps," Velocity says, and a part of Shawn can't help but agree. The Boat Graveyard is, indeed, creepy, and the sunset makes of the rotting ships the corpses of colossal beasts. This won't be a fun evening.

The PRT got calls about ghosts in the Boat Graveyard, reports of lights, banging noises and, once or twice, of a translucent silhouette standing on a ship. It's probably nothing, just a few drunks or a prank or teenagers scaring themselves, but there is still the off-chance that the transparent figure is one of Crusader's ghosts. Better safe than sorry.

"It was the SS Pioneer Myth, right?" Shawn asks. "Because I found it."

The ship is still afloat, trails of rust bleeding down its hull, and is close enough to the shore to get aboard by climbing the ladder.

Shawn uses his boots to fly to the desk. Velocity is already standing there, surrounded by open containers like a statue amongst yawning graves.

"It's kind of sad," he says. "This ship used to sail, you know? It used to travel the world, to carry people and things across the ocean, and now it's just… Dead. Stuck. Rotting in place. The whole place is dead."

He sounds almost melancholic. Shawn, unsure of what to say, elects to stay silent, and they start looking inside the containers for anything suspicious.

"What about you, Dauntless?" Velocity asks. "I mean, what do you think of all that?"

That's a complicated question, and they continue their search for a while as Shawn thinks about it.

"I don't know," he finally says. "I mean, it sucks what happened, and that a part of the city died, and I don't like it, but… I guess I just don't really care about travelling, and seeing new places? It's my city, you know, even if it's kind of shit and scary sometimes. All the people I care about are here."

Addison. Jennifer. Everyone he knows.

Velocity opens his mouth, but is interrupted by the sound of something hitting metal. Shawn readies the Arclance, and then there is a yelp, and a man stumbles from between containers, followed by Velocity. He looks homeless.

"I'm sorry," the man says, sounding terrified, "I'm sorry, I will leave, I thought no one ever came here, I didn't think I'd bother anyone, I'm sorry, I…"

"Hey," Shawn says awkwardly, "It's okay, we're not here to make you leave. We're just… We just have a few questions for you, okay?"

He's pretty sure they found their ghost.


***


The man's name is Mortimer Thane, and he has been living on the ship for the last two months. The noises come from him moving containers, and he uses a flashlight at night. The transparent figure is a clear raincoat being moved by the wind.

Shawn and Velocity leave.

Mortimer keeps living on the dead ship.

 

[YseultNott]

Spoiler: Author Note

Written for the final round of the Cauldron Blitz Cup, with the Following prompt: The main character accidentally burns their pizza.

It's almost 7 pm and Taylor is hungry.

Her dad isn't at home, and she doesn't know where he is. She doesn't know where he was yesterday, either, and Wednesday, and Tuesday, and Monday. She barely saw him all week. She thinks maybe he forgot about her.

Taylor is hungry, and lonely, and she wants to call her dad, but she can't. He doesn't have a phone anymore.

She doesn't know where her dad is, but she knows he came home last night. She found his clothes in the laundry machine. He's alive. He's not dead, not like her mom. Her mom is dead.

Her dad isn't gone. He's just too sad to care about her.

Taylor doesn't feel very well. Her head is kind of dizzy, and she's very, very hungry. She ate snacks and yoghurt yesterday, and Wednesday, and Tuesday, and Monday, and this morning she ate the last of the cereals, and the closet and the fridge are empty. Except for the steaks, but her mom bought them, and they survived her they smell weird, and
Taylor really doesn't want to touch them.

Maybe there's ice cream in the freezer?

She looks in the freezer. There isn't any ice cream, only some peas and a frozen pizza. She could warm the pizza and eat it.

Taylor isn't supposed to use the stove or the oven when she's alone at home, and her dad isn't here.

She's not a baby. She knows how to cook a pizza. She has seen her mom her parents adults do it hundred of times on weekends when she has sleepovers with Emma. It doesn't look that hard. She's sure she could do it.

Taylor is very, very hungry, and her dad isn't here, hasn't been here all week, not really.

Taylor turns the oven on, puts the pizza in, sits at the kitchen table, and waits.

And waits.

And waits…


***


Taylor wakes up to a kitchen full of smoke.

She doesn't understand, at first, blinking uncomprehendedly, and then a part of her points out that "smoke" might mean "fire".

"Dad!" she cries out. "Mom!"

There is no answer. Her mom is dead Her dad isn't here.

Taylor coughs, lungs full of smoke, and pulls the collar of her shirt over her nose, and then she turns off the oven and opens it. More smoke billows out and, blinded by her fogged glasses, she stumbles toward the window to open it wide and turns on the ceiling fan, and then goes to wait outside until it finally clears out.

When she finally pulls out the pizza, it's burnt, charred, completely inedible, and her eyes are full of tears.

It's the smoke. It's only the smoke.

Taylor is hungry, like she was yesterday, and Wednesday, and Tuesday, and Monday.

Taylor is alone


***


"Hello Mrs. Barnes? It's Taylor. Could I eat with you tonight, if it's not too late? I wanted to see Emma."

 

[YseultNott]

"Robin, could I ask you for a favor?" Armsmaster asks.

"Sure," Robin says. "What is it?"

"You know Hannah and I have to go to New York for a week," Armsmaster says, "And Samantha has the opposite of a green thumb. Could you take care of my plants while I'm gone?"

"Yeah," Robin says. "No problem. Just tell me how often I should water them."





It all started a year ago, when Shawn and Samantha teamed up to organize a Secret Santa with a hard upper limit of five dollars, with the stated goal of "team bonding". Poor Samantha then immediately got tasked with the duty of finding a gift for Armsmaster.

"Just get him chocolates," Robin had suggested. "Or, like, alcohol."

"Hannah says he doesn't drink", she had answered, miserable. "And I didn't think to ask if he liked chocolate. What if he's allergic?"

"Ask her again?" was all Robin had been able to say, and Samantha had looked even more despondent.

"She left to spend a few days with her family," she had said.

In the end, she had given Armsmaster a plant, gleaned from a neighbor trying to get rid of it.

"It's a spider plant," she had said. "It's pretty easy to take care off, apparently. You can keep it in your office, it would liven up the room!"

"My office doesn't have windows," Armsmaster had pointed out.

Despite his initial doubts, Armsmaster had bought a sun lamp, and put the plant on a shelf.

And then, a month later, he got another.

And another.

And another.





And now, every free surface in Armsmaster's office is home to a plant or a sunlamp, and the room looks like a sunny afternoon.

"…And if you have any doubt, I tapped a list of instructions to the door," Armsmaster says. "Don't forget to say nice things to them while you water them, it makes them grow better."

Okay, so Armsmaster is a bit weird about his plants.

Robin can't bring himself to be upset about it, though. He's been happier since he has them.

 

[YseultNott]

"We didn't invite the neighbor," Debra said over breakfast, and Bobby raised his head from his newspaper.

"What?" he asked, eloquently.

"The neighbor," Debra repeated, clicking her nails against the kitchen table, "the bachelor. We didn't invite him. We invited everyone else, but not him. That's rude."

"We did invite him," Bobby said in protest. "He said he couldn't come."

Debra gave him a flat, disappointed look.

"Not Hayden," she said. "The other one."

"I don't think he would come either," Bobby said, and refrained from mentioning that he found said neighbor quite intimidating.

"We can't not invite him," Debra said. Her tone left no room for arguments. "It would be rude."

And so, Bobby went to invite the neighbor. As the prospect of ringing the doorbell and waiting for him caused poor Bobby insurmountable terror, he instead elected to wait until said neighbor went to pick up his mail.

"Hey," Bobby said with all the bravery he could muster. "Wallace, right? Calvin Wallace?"

"Hello," the neighbor said, towering over Bobby. "It's Colin Wallis, actually. It's written on the mailbox."

It was, indeed, written on the mailbox in neat, accusatory handwriting.

"Did you want anything, Mister Gilmore?" Wallis asked, and Bobby realized that he had let the silence linger somewhat longer than appropriate.

"Yes!" Bobby said. "We're doing a, a cookout! On Sunday ! Everyone will be here! The Shephards, I mean, and the Atkinsons and the Holts, and Miss Rocha and her children! A nice, neighborly get together! Except for Hailey, he can't be there. My son Evan will be here, too, he's at the University now, I'm very proud of him and…"

Bobby took a breath.

"We'd like it if you could come?" he said.

"Well," Wallis answered. "I suppose I could. If only to make sure my neighbors of three years remember who I am."

"Great!" Bobby said, and he promptly went back home.

Colin Wallis watched him leave in confusion, then shrugged and took his mail inside.








"Sorry for being late," Michael Shephard said three days later, having just arrived to the Gilmores' house, "the babysitter for the twins canceled at the last minute. We took them with us, I hope it's not an issue?"

"Oh, it really isn't," Debra said. Behind her, Bobby took the socially acceptable out of cooing at the babies to escape the obligation of small talk. "Bobby loves children."

"I can see that," Leah Shephard said beside her husband, and then, "Is that Wallis? He doesn't generally come to this kind of thing. Looks like he's getting along pretty well with Heather."

"They're about the same age," Debra said, consideringly, "and two children are a handful for a single mother…"

"Mom, no!" Evan said. "Please. I heard them, she's telling him about bone collecting, that's all."

"Oh, look at the time!" Bobby interjected, eager to escape this line of conversation, "I'd better start the grill! Everyone must be starving!"

"Blllllblbllbblblbb", said one of the twins from her stroller.

"See? She agrees," Bobby said.

Debra laughed.







"It was nice talking to you," Heather said. "Everyone here is very nice and all, but I know bone collecting creeps them out, especially the nitty-gritty."

Colin shrugged.

"I've seen worse," he said, and he hesitated for a brief instant before continuing. "It was nice. It's been a while since I last talked about something that isn't work with someone who isn't a co-worker."

Heather smiled.

"You could come by, one of those day," she said. "Have a talk, maybe a drink. I'll show you my collection."

Behind her, the Atkinsons were saying their goodbyes, and the Shephards were already gone, the twins asleep in their strollers.

"You know," Colin said. "I think I might take you up on this."

It wasn't friendship, not quite, not yet. But it was, maybe, a step in that direction.

 

[YseultNott]

Makayla Crane is a superhero.

Mom doesn't know, of course. She would say Makayla has school and homeworks and can't be up late or leave the house alone and that she needs to stop dreaming so much, but that's stupid. Makayla has superpowers now, just like Alexandria and Legend and Sweet Dreams and Daisy Bell, and they're very serious.

Makayla is going to be just like them.






Makayla is a superhero. Superheroes need costumes.

It has to be pretty, and cute. Like her wings. Not all ugly and serious and boring. And it can't be her nice dress with all the ruffles they got for Aunt Adele's wedding, because

Mom keeps it in the attic and it's locked.

Maybe she could use Trinity's tutu? She forgot it before she left, and she lives in Maine now, so Makayla can't give it back. And it's yellow, just like her wings!

Makayla puts on the tutu and the fairy mask from Halloween, opens the window, and flies.






Flying is super fun, and Makayla never wants to go back down ever again.

It's not like walking at all. It's not slow, or boring, and her wings never hurt like when she stands up too long or puts the left shoe on her right foot and doesn't notice. She can go super fast, or make looping! Or find crime!

Makayla is a hero now. She has to do cool hero stuff.






There's a cat stuck in a tree.

Makayla should get it down. That's the hero thing to do, right? Scion does it all the time, and he's the best hero ever, even if Makayla think Sweet Dreams and Daisy Bell are cooler. Sweet Dreams has a really pretty dress, and Daisy Bell has wings, like her, except they don't glow and she made them herself.

Makayla picks up the cat, and gets it down on the street, and an old lady tells her she's a good girl and gives her a chocolate.

Being a hero is really fun.






"Do your parents know where you are?" Daisy Bell asks, and it feels like when the cat ate all the whipped cream on Makayla's birthday cake and they had to eat boring fruit salad instead.

"I'm a superhero!" Makayla says. "I can fly, like you! Mom would just be boring and tell me to do boring stuff!"

"Kid," Daisy Bell says, and she doesn't sound happy like on TV, "You should tell her. It's dangerous."

Makayla flies away, faster than Daisy Bell can go.

It's not fair. She was supposed to be on her side.

Heroes aren't supposed to be boring.

It's not even that dangerous. Makayla has a secret weapon.






Makayla is a superhero, and superheroes fight bad guys.

It's not hard to tell the man in the alley is a bad guy. He has a gun, and he's yelling, and the lady in front of him looks very scared.

"Stop!" Makayla says, and the man laughs.

It feels like when Adam told her her fairy drawing was a mutant mosquito and called her stupid, and she doesn't like that.

She flaps her wings faster, spreading pixie dust, and the man screams, and

There is a noise, like a petard or a car, loud enough Makayla's ears hurt, and

There's red on the wall, chunky, like when Mom dropped the strawberry jam, and

The lady isn't moving.

The lady isn't moving at all.

 

[YseultNott]

Quinn heard the music before they heard the sirens. It was low and high, swelling, deeper than anything they heard before, and it came from the sea.

They thought it was a tsunami, a wave. It wasn't. They wish it were. It would have been over faster.

It would have been over at all.

Stormkeeper down, the armband says. Believer deceased.

Quinn can barely hear it over the song, thrumming deep into their bones, its warning made useless by their own helplessness.

Some things are too loud for them to quiet.






The man on the ground has stopped breathing.

Quinn doesn't know how long it has been since they knelt down in the water and pressed their hands against his torn side, how long since they started their clumsy attempts at CPR, how long since his heart stopped beating, since they failed at the one little thing they could do, and…

They get up.

It's all they can do. Get up. Follow the arrow. Try again.

They don't even have blood on their hands. The water washed it off.






The song is shrill, high, piercing, beating against the inside of Quinn's head, painful enough they almost don't notice the way it suddenly swells around them, louder and louder and louder, a tidal wave of pain and danger.

There is a woman standing at the end of the street, calling out for people to come to her, promising shelter from the wave, and Quinn runs toward her, as fast as they can.

The water is heavy against their legs, slowing them down, and they try to stay up, to keep running, to go faster, fast enough, to just get there in time…






They didn't make it.

 

[YseultNott]

Written for the Cauldron Fic Spoops of 2021 for the following prompt:
A horror movie monster is after the Undersiders

Click to shrink...

Brian is woken up by the sound of his phone. It's five in the morning. The sun isn't even up yet.

Why the fuck is Lisa calling at that hour?

"What's going on?" he asks.

She doesn't answer immediately, but Brian can hear the sounds of her breathing and running and, if he listens carefully, what sounds like a high-pitched voice in the background.

"You need to find everyone else," Lisa eventually says. It's hard to hear her voice, choppy, disconnected, and he can't tell if the problem is with the signal or her being out of breath. "...Get to the loft to warn…"

A car passes in the street under Brian's window, blasting heavy metal at full volume, moud enough to cover Lisa's voice for a few sentences.

"Run," she says.

When Brian finally gets to the loft, Lisa is dead.






"I didn't do it," Alec says. "I woke up and she was like that. I was about to call you."

For a second, Brian doesn't know whether to believe it. Alec was there. Alec was there, alone with Lisa, and now she's dead.

Except Lisa wasn't in the loft when she called.

"She was trying to warn you," Brian says.

Alec looks at Lisa. She doesn't look back. She doesn't have eyes.

"I suppose she did," Alec says.

Brian tries not to think about her hands.






"I called Taylor," Brian says. "She's okay, and on guard. I tried to contact Coil, but he's not answering his phone, and Rachel isn't either."

One of her dogs was sick or hurt or something like that, and she wanted to spend the night with it. She probably forgot her phone, or the battery ran out.

Hopefully.

"We're getting Taylor first," Brian decides. "We know for sure where she is, and there could be a trap at Rachel's shelter. And if not, she has her dogs."

On the other hand, she's not aware something is wrong, but they have to start somewhere.

Lisa said to find everyone. Brian thinks…

Brian thinks she might not have been the only target.






"I'm not sure what woke me up," Alec says. "I think I heard a noise, like something falling. I almost went back to sleep straight away, but I decided to check who it was. You got there ten minutes later while I was looking for my phone."

"You really can't think of anything?" Brian asks, and Alec thinks about it.

"It's weird," he says, "and I was probably still dreaming, but I could have sworn I heard singing.






They're getting out of the car when they hear a scream coming out of the Hebert house.

A man's voice. It's not Taylor.

Fuck it.

Brian floods the house in darkness and gets inside.






There are three people inside the house. Taylor, her father, and a child.

The child is singing.

With the hand bone connected to the back bone...

Brian doesn't like this song, doesn't like the way it fits with Lisa's hands and tongue and eyes, but he doesn't have time to think about it, because Taylor, Taylor is bleeding.

There is a scalpel stuck in her shoulder.

And the arm bone connected to the neck bone…

The room is thick with bugs, and Taylor's father, kitchen knife in hand, is trying to push her behind him, to put himself between her and the child.

And the rib bone connected to the head bone…

He pushes the knife in, straight through the child's eye.

The child laughs.






The child doesn't die.

Of course the child doesn't die. Of course the child shrugs off the knife, the bleeding, the missing eye, and runs away with a mouth full of teeth and smiles.

Of course.

Brian calls back the darkness.






"We need to go," Brian says. "The neighbors probably called the PRT."

"Doesn't that mean that we should stay?" Taylor's father asks. His hands are on her shoulder, keeping pressure around the knife.

"Dad…" Taylor says, the bugs buzzing around them, deafening.

Realization dawns on her father's face.

"Oh," he says.






They pull the knife out and bandage Taylor's shoulder, and they go looking for Rachel.

Brian tried calling again. She didn't answer.

"The child", Alec said in the backseat of the car. "I couldn't sense… Something isn't right with that kid's nervous system. I don't think my power will work here."

Fuck.

They don't know anything about the child. Lisa probably could have gotten something, but…

Run, she said, but run where? To the loft? To her? To Coil?

Run away?

Brian wishes he'd gotten there in time to save her.






They reach Rachel too late.

She's dead.

She's dead, and her hands and her teeth and her dogs...

One of them is still alive.

It shouldn't be.

Nothing deserves to live like this.

(Brian doesn't think he can forget the snap when they break its neck.)






"We need to go to the PRT," Taylor's father says. "I don't know what is going on here, and I understand that you're… that you're villains, but that girl is dead and Taylor is hurt and that thing or that child obviously doesn't care about collateral damage. We need help."

Collateral damage.

The child killed Rachel's dogs. The child attacked Taylor in her home.

Aisha.






They ignore the protests of Taylor's father and decide to go fetch Aisha, to make sure the child doesn't go after her, that she doesn't end up alone and defenseless and dead with her hands and her teeth and her eyes and…

They get out of the car on the sidewalk before where Aisha lives, and there are a few seconds where Brian struggles with the keys and…

Alec is missing.






"Who are they?" Aisha asks, looking at Danny and Taylor. "Who is he? Is that blood? Brian, what's going on?"

"We're getting you out of here," Brian says.

Alec. It got Alec. It got Alec right behind them, less than a street across from her.

"Taylor," he says. "You really didn't notice anything."

She sways on her feet a little. She's pale. Too pale. The bleeding isn't stopping. Something is wrong with the wound.

"No," she says, distantly. "I'm… I can't focus?"

"We need to take her to an hospital," her father says, and he gestures toward Aisha. "Damn it, that girl is a kid and you want to drag her into that? One person already died, and another is missing! We're in over our heads and I refuse to let my daughter die over a fucking jail sentence!"

Two.

Two people already died.

He can't keep them safe.

"Okay," Brian says. "Okay. We're getting help."






Brian tries to call Coil again, and he gets no answer again.

He doesn't want to try going to his base. Not if it's like Rachel's shelter, with the dogs replaced by men. Not with Aisha there.

Taylor, for some reason, has Armsmaster's phone number. Somehow, she convinces him to come.

Half an hour. Half an hour, and help will get there.






They find Alec at the bottom of the stairs, all hands and spine and hands and hands and hands, and he shouldn't have so many.

He shouldn't have more than two.

Brian goes back upstairs, and they flood the building with darkness and bugs, and wait.

Help is still twenty minutes away when they hear it.

A child, singing in the hallway.