Look Alive, Sunshine

Friday, July 7th.
Twenty days after.

“So is anyone going to come up with a plan?” Tarquin asks.

Ria is looking at nothing, big surprise there. Icarus is looking at Soran, who is looking at him. Together they’re having one hell of a stare-down, silently trying to decide who’s more capable of making this decision.

What decision you ask? Tarquin hasn’t the faintest clue.

“So,” he starts. 

“She could be out of state by now,” Soran interrupts. He was just waiting for Tarquin to start speaking by the looks of it.

“Do you really think she is, though?”

“I have no idea if she is or not,” Soran says. “That many hours though, it’s plausible.”

There’s no way to tell. That’s the most infuriating part. If they had even an inkling they wouldn’t be so lost right now.

“I can go look,” Tarquin offers. “Go airborne for a few hours. It’ll be quicker than searching in the car.”

“You don’t even know what you’re looking for.”

“Well, I can start somewhere. You can stay here with them and I’ll go look for anything suspicious, and as soon as I see anything I can head back here.”

“I can do it too, you know.”

“You can stay here,” Tarquin repeats. He knows Soran is exhausted, even if he won’t say it aloud. At least one of them needs to rest at some point. “Does that sound good, or does anyone have a better idea?”

Nobody has been a big talker until now, and apparently they’re all reverting to that status as well. He’s not necessarily surprised. Soran and Icarus both talk well enough, but it’s Emmi that was always in your face about it. Her presence is a noticeable, gaping hole, something that Tarquin misses a lot more than he thought he would.

Better to leave now in an attempt to try. At least he can say he did.

“If no one protests, I’ll be going,” Tarquin says. He shoulders the staff again, pockets his phone. “I’d appreciate it if everyone stayed here.”

Ria nods without really looking at him. Icarus leans back against the truck, head in hands. Only Soran actively glowers at him, but he expected that much. It’s Soran who follows him all the way to the edge of the parking lot too, out of sight. As much as he tries to avoid the hand on his arm, Soran's grip is unrelenting and forces him to a stop so sudden he nearly loses his footing.

“You know as well as I do that you need to stay here,” Tarquin says before he's even turned around. “You can’t―”

“I never said I was going anywhere,” Soran says. “I just wanted to say - I don’t think she’s far.”

“Why do you think that?”

“From… from experience, if someone wants you dead that badly, they do it outright. They don’t risk taking you somewhere else first. The only reason they do that is if they have something else in mind. Sure, their plan might be to kill her eventually, but that wasn’t it out of the gate.”

“So…”

“So, you adapt to wherever your target is,” Soran continues. “They knew she was here, they had a plan that involved them being here. They wouldn’t waste time driving her out of state.”

“Which means she’s close-by,” Tarquin surmises. “In the park, at least.”

That narrows it down by a very large margin. Tarquin will fly in circles through this whole place until he finds her.

As twisted as this all is, he knows Emmi would do the same for him.

“Somewhere inconspicuous, where they could lie low,” Soran says.”Not obvious whatsoever.”

Not to a human, maybe. But to a bird…

He can do this.

“Got it,” Tarquin says. “Listen, if I’m not back by the time the sun goes down―”

“You will be,” Soran interrupts. “You’ll find her.”

Where did such awe-inspiring confidence come from, especially from Soran of all people? He would never admit it, but clearly Icarus being back is good for him.

Or maybe, for once in his life, Soran is just trying to be an idealist.

Not likely, he realizes, but stranger things have happened. They’re happening right now all around him.

“I’ll find her,” he agrees. It seems wrong to argue with him on that front. He’ll find her, and they’ll fix this, because if not… well, he’s just not going to imagine it. Tarquin saw that gun to Ria’s head back in the car; whatever they could do to Emmi is far, far worse. “One thing, though. Just… keep an eye on them here. I know you’re tired, but―”

“Yeah, I got it,” Soran says. “Don’t worry about them. Worry about Emmi.”

He can handle this. Soran, who was just about dead a few days ago, doesn’t have much of a choice.

“One thing for you,” Soran continues. “When you find her, unless she’s in immediate danger, get your ass back here. The last thing I need is both of you ending up dead in a ditch somewhere. You come back and we’ll sort of them out together.”

“Me and you, you mean.”

“Who else? Unless you think Ria’s in the mood for a repeat of last night.”

God, no. She’s probably never going to be in the mood for that ever again, and frankly he can’t even imagine letting Icarus loose on them right now. Just because Tarquin wants to hunt them down doesn't mean he wants to see them incinerated to ashes.

“Sounds like a plan,” Tarquin says. “I’ll be back by sundown.”

“Sure will.”

He almost makes it away. Just before he does Soran grabs his arm again, not so tight this time. Tarquin forces his irritated reaction away.

Soran says something, and it takes him a long moment to realize that not a word of it was English. Something he recognizes but not nearly enough to understand. He wishes he could, honestly. Those words probably meant a lot.

Soran lets go of him.  “I’m not nearly fluent enough in Korean to understand that,” Tarquin says, eyebrows raised.

“Shut up,” Soran says, turning back to the cars where they’re both still waiting obediently. “You’ll figure it out.”

He waits. It doesn’t take very long. Soran only just makes it back to the cars when the split down the center of his lip begins to tingle, almost as if…

Almost as if it’s healing.

Tarquin smiles. Already it doesn’t hurt as much. “Thanks!” he calls after him, but gets no response. Not that he expected to. As if Soran’s apology was ever going to be anything other than in another language or total silence from the get-go.

It’s enough of one for Tarquin.

He backs up into the trees and takes off, already feeling a little bit lighter.

In the day this place is like another universe. Actually alive, enough people to make it more confusing than it ought to be. It’s not quite a maze - that honor is reserved for places like San Francisco and others that are equally troublesome. It’s no wonder that Tarquin keeps finding himself trapped in them.

He looks everywhere, high up above where no one would suspect a thing. Towns and buildings that lie on their own in the middle of the desert, ramshackle and untouched. Storefronts and nearly abandoned parking lots as people hike the day away. More and more ghost towns and other things lost to decay and almost everything else.

All the while he watches the horizon-line and the sun as it begins to sink, and yet he still keeps looking.

And then, miraculously, he finds something.

It’s nothing at all, really. A low-roofed, nondescript building at the very edge of a town, close enough to civilization that it looks as if it belongs but far enough that no one likely goes poking around it.

He lands close by, on a rickety fence-post that looks around the side of the building. As he watches a younger man comes peeling out of the rear exit door and makes his way to the lone car parked out front.

It takes Tarquin a moment to realize what he’s seeing as he turns this way and that, looking down the road. The left side of his face is average, normal, but the right side is half-covered by a ragged, makeshift bandage stained through with blood. It’s not so dark that it can’t be more than a day old.

Fresh blood means something.

He goes for the roof, this time, and listens. The young man at the car lights up a cigarette and exhales the smoke into the darkening sky.

There are voices. Male. Two of them, at least. So muffled that Tarquin can’t quite make out what they’re saying no matter how hard he strains to.

But then, something else. An answering voice, quieter, hardly audible at all.

Tarquin expects it to be unfamiliar, unwilling to hope.

But it’s not. Emmi.

Bingo.

―

Soran is in the midst of a very odd doze when Tarquin gets back.

He hadn’t even really meant to fall into such a thing. Ria was still outside sitting in the dirt, and Icarus was perched on the hood watching her do it, and he had thought sitting in the car was a better option.

It was, really. It was a hell of a lot cooler. He left the door cracked and let the wind rush in over him, and it was enough to tip him right off the edge.

He could still hear things. The wind, for one, and the quiet murmur of the spirits in the back of his head. No real words, just comforting murmurs as if reminding him of their presence. That, or they were trying to annoy him. They couldn’t be the least bit pleased about the fact that he tried to get rid of them.

Tarquin lands so suddenly next to the car on two legs that Ria squeaks and Icarus nearly careens off the hood. The sun has a precious few inches left above the horizon.

He knew he would come back in time.

Soran can tell just by the look in his eyes that he found an answer, even if that answer is vague and hesitant.

It’s an answer regardless.

He had an inkling this whole time that something was astray with this situation. Tarquin returning in only a few hours proves that. For some reason the people hunting Emmi were stupid enough to keep her close. What a mistake that will turn out to be for them.

Everyone piles into the car while he blinks himself awake, Tarquin already tracing his finger across a line on the map he’s pulled up on his phone.

“It’s an hour, if that,” Tarquin says quickly, pointing him in the right direction as he pulls out of the lot. God, they really are stupid. “Stovepipe Wells - not even a town. It’s a community. There was a building on the edge of it and she’s definitely there. I couldn’t get a good count, but I’d wager there’s three of them.”

“Three is barely an obstacle,” he scoffs. “They really don’t think that highly of us, do they?”

Unless they just think it’s Ria with her and no one else, then three would be an obstacle. They’re about to find out just how wrong they were.

“You know you can’t over-do it, right?” Icarus asks him, voice drifting in from the back-seat. It’s strange not to have him up here, but he didn’t try and apparently didn’t think to ask. Ria took her usual place but her eyes are in the very least slightly alert, flicking between them when Soran glances back as if she’s unsure of the words.

He can over-do whatever he wants. It’s one thing if it’s nonsensical, but there’s a purpose behind this one. If Emmi is still alive, then that’s an opportunity handed to them on a silver platter and he’s not about to waste it.

“Might have to,” he supplies instead. There’s no use in arguing his way through this. As it stands that’s gotten them nowhere fast recently, unless you count Icarus running off to get himself killed in the desert as fast.

He certainly tried to let it be.

“No overdoing it necessary,” Tarquin says. “If there’s only three of them, we can handle that.”

He wasn’t prepared to already get more blood on his hands, but so be it. Shit like that stopped bugging him a long, long time ago.

The sets of eyes looking at him through the rearview mirror are telling a different story than that of Tarquin's words. Icarus looks unsettled, his bottom lip raw from gnawing on it. Or maybe that was just from the sun scorching him. He hadn't exactly focused on the cosmetic issues when he had fixed him - the heat stroke had been the more pressing issue.

Ria's eyes were a different story. A hundred different emotions warred in them despite how desperately she tried to keep them blank. It was hard to relate to something he couldn't ever remember feeling. Maybe that was why Ria looked away as soon as their eyes met.

It was one thing to accept the death yourself, another to look someone else in the eyes and go on with them.

They would be experiencing more shortly. Better to get used to it now.

Besides, with what they were possibly headed into, he believed this was nothing. His words to Icarus hadn't been for show; they may all be dead by the end of this. Soran wouldn't even be surprised.

Tarquin swivels in his seat suddenly, craning his neck to peer out the back window. "I think… I think that was the car."

Soran glances behind them for a quick second. A lone, dark SUV has whizzed by, rapidly becoming nothing more than a speck on the dark road.

"You think?" Soran asks.

"It might not be."

"What if it is?" Icarus asks. "Did you see three of them?"

"I think so." He sounds almost certain. Almost isn't necessarily good enough.

"What if they left her to go somewhere else?" Ria questions quietly. "I don't… do you think they would?"

Hell fucking no they wouldn't. This is Emmi they're talking about. Anyone who manages to capture her should think twice about leaving her alone, inches from freedom. If she was that close, she would find a way to get out. If they left her alone, he'd wager money that Emmi was already out and running.

They can't be that stupid. Mistakes are one thing, revealing yourselves another, but driving outside of the community and leaving your prize…

It wouldn't happen.

Everyone is still talking around him, borderline squabbling. Soran makes the decision for them.

The truck groans when he slams it to almost a dead-stop in the road and begins to turn around. Everyone's voices stop with it, leaving it the most grating noise for miles.

"What are you doing?" Tarquin asks. It seems pretty obvious.

"They've got her."

"I only saw the three of them."

"Then she's in the trunk," Soran decides. She has to be. "If they went after her in the first place they know exactly the type of person she is. You know her too. If you wanted Emmi to stay somewhere would you leave her alone?"

He knows that from personal experience. Most people aren't sensible enough to stay.

Soran is included in that.

He does a quick 180 on the road. The SUV is still in the distance. He presses down harder on the gas, the engine groaning in protest.

This piece of junk is really proving itself today.

"So what's the plan?" Icarus wonders.

"I'll crash it if I have to," Soran responds. If that's what it takes.

Ever closer, the distance between them grows smaller. If all goes well, they'll never see it coming.

"If she's in the trunk…" Ria starts.

"A crash could kill her," Tarquin says quickly. "You can't. We need to figure something else out."

"Then figure it out," he suggests. Quickly, if he had a preferable option. With every inch they gain on the SUV they lose a precious second. Them following along won't go unnoticed forever. A plan has to be put in action quickly or the opportunity will never come.

A hand suddenly locks over-top of his shoulder. The hesitance in Icarus's grip as he leans forward into Soran's space is palpable, but his fingers squeeze tight anyway.

"If we crash it, could you keep her safe?" he asks.

"Can we risk losing the car?" Ria asks.

"I've got an idea," Tarquin says. "If you can keep her safe, all you need to do is get along-side the car. I just need eye contact."

"He can get the driver to veer off," Icarus says. "If you can keep her safe. Do you think you can?"

"Theoretically." Most things are possible. Not all, but most. Keeping someone safe for a few moments while Tarquin hijacks the driver should be a piece of cake, especially if it's the only thing he has to focus on.

They're almost there. They can do this within the minute.

"Can you keep her safe?" he asks aloud. There's already enough going on in his head.

Everyone is watching him carefully but everything feels like background noise.

As safe as anything.

That's good enough for him.

"Alright, we're doing this," he announces.  He reaches a searching hand into the backseat until someone places the hilt of the sword into it. Better to be safe than sorry. He leaves it in his lap as they inch right up to the bumper of the SUV and then he swerves out into the opposite lane, pulling along-side them. Only the man in the back-seat turns to watch them, but his eyes are only curious.

He’s going to learn soon enough just what a mistake that is.

The man behind the wheel is almost admirably resolute, eyes fixed firmly on the road ahead. All they need is a second.

Soran lays down on the horn and lets the sound blare for as long as he can. Finally the driver turns. He looks decidedly less curious than his friend. He allows his mind to empty until only one goal remains, the only one he needs to focus on.

Tarquin goes still as a statue. A second later, the driver’s eyes glaze over white.

Game over.

―

It sounds stereotypical.

It is stereotypical. People say all the time that there are no words to describe certain things, and those people are liars.

There are always words. Thousands of them to choose from. If you gave yourself the time you could think of them.

But at that moment, there really isn’t anything in Emmi’s vocabulary to sum it up.

A second ago she had been far away, tucked into the safest corner of her brain that still existed. They had tried to get rid of it, pry it out. She hadn’t let them. Every chip of her they took got them closer, but she refused to let them that far.

The blare of a horn had pulled her out of it. Everything came back in that single second - the pain, the disorientation, the threat of choking on the gag they hadn’t taken out of her mouth.

It was the answering shout that finally brought reality back to her. The horn stopped. The yelling picked up in volume.

And then Emmi felt the exact second the car tipped off the edge of the road.

There was no use in bracing herself. She was going to tumble head over heels, trapped in this confined space, and likely break every bone in her body. She already felt broken enough, but there was always more.

For some reason though, nothing happened. She felt gravity slipping away, and then…

The car kept moving, but Emmi did not.

It felt like she was suspended in a bubble, lying at the very bottom of it. An invisible force was pinning her to the floor of the trunk except she couldn’t feel anything, and as she tried to focus through the darkness, realized she couldn’t hear anything either. It was like she was underwater and everything was very far away.

There was stillness a moment later, even though Emmi had been still the entire time.

All at once, everything came back.

Emmi crumpled to one side of the trunk as the car finished tilting. There was a creak, a long-drawn out hissing. Someone was still shouting. It turned into a scream a moment later, followed by a single gunshot. She flinched despite herself, trying to curl up even tighter, but every limb protested the movement. With reality coming back so did the pain, and Emmi felt like she was on fire.

She drove her foot up against the trunk but like previous times it refused to budge. It almost felt like it was caved in, slightly… shit, no, it couldn’t be, she’d never get out.

There was thumping, and more screaming, and as the screams died off there continued to be voices. Her ears were ringly so badly she couldn’t make any of them out no matter how hard she tried.

Finally there was a thump right above her, as if someone brought their fist down on the trunk.

She flinched with every thump. She couldn’t see. Emmi wasn’t sure she wanted to.

There was another creak and then wind was rushing in over her, hot as can be. There was no light, but Emmi knew.

The trunk was open.

It wasn’t until a hand landed on her arm that she felt proper panic, trying to wrench herself away. There was nowhere to go, not anything she could do, and Emmi already felt the knife cutting into her again, the phantom pain just as bad as the real kind.

“Emmi, stop! It’s us, you’re okay, it’s okay.”

Shit. Fuck shit fuck.

What was happening?

“Don’t move, I’m getting you out.” She knew the voice. She was unwilling to believe it until she could see. Hands hooked under her shoulders and began to pull her from the trunk; her feet bumped up against the edge of it and then scraped against the ground. Real, solid ground.

Holy shit.

The second she was seated on the ground there were fingers sliding underneath the gag - it slipped out and fell to her neck. Every breath she took in was more a gasp, struggling to take enough air in.

It was highly possible that Emmi was still about to die.

Next the blindfold, and it dragged over the cuts on her face as it was removed. The panic set in again. The blindfold was gone but Emmi still couldn’t see no matter how hard she tried. She was blind, or her eyes were gone entirely. They had cut them out of her sometime after she had passed out, or―

“Go get me some water,” the voice instructs. “And an extra shirt or something.” The hands on her shoulders were gentle but she could feel herself hyperventilating even as she tried to sink her teeth into her own lip, trying to quell the feeling.

“Hey, you’re safe now. We’ve got you. Just try to breathe.”

It wasn’t possible. Emmi was hallucinating, or dead already if Logan had been kind enough to let her go so easily.

She had to be.

Skidding footsteps returned to them sooner rather than later and she tried to hold her breath, even out her heart-rate, to little avail. Something wipes over her face - damp and cool, pressing gently against her eyes.

“Try now.”

Emmi blinks. A few times at first and then frantically. Her vision is tinged a multitude of colors - pinks and reds and dusty browns and oh. She can see again.

Which means it was all blood.

“Hey,” the voice says. She looks - actually looks, and nearly chokes on a sob. Icarus is crouched in the dirt in front of her, Ria right next to her, and somehow this is real. The concern on Ria’s face is one thing, but with Icarus it’s almost laughable. If only she had the strength to do that.

All she can do is stare. And then, alarmingly, the sob finally breaks free.

Icarus too looks equally alarmed. Ria puts a hand on her arm, so gentle that her heart twists along with her stomach.

“I’m sorry,” she cries. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I can’t―”

“Stop apologizing,” Icarus orders. God, why is she crying. It all feels like such a vicious cycle she’s not sure if there’s another option.

Can this really be the rest of her life?

She doesn’t know how her face ends up buried in his shoulder, if she slumps there herself or if he guides her. Ria’s hand tightens on her arm, thumb soothing back on forth. It’s not long before there are two more presences - one by her side, and another that drops down behind her back before a hand wraps around her left elbow.

“Stay still,” Soran instructs. She squeezes her eyes shut at the sound of his voice, too. “I’m gonna cut these off.”

The feeling of a blade against her skin is nearly enough to send her running, if she even could, the tightness around her elbows increasing as he saws through the multitude of ropes. The blood rushes back down the second they fall away. She hears more than feels Soran stand back up, the pins and needles too intense to feel much else.

“Make sure there’s nothing serious I need to deal with right away,” he suggests. “I need to get rid of the bodies.”

Bodies. Emmi blinks, but with her face mashed into Icarus’ shoulder she can’t see much of anything. “We need to leave, period!” Tarquin calls after him. The volume of his voice makes her whole body flinch and he curls a hand around her shoulder in response. “Not a good look to be next to a crash-site like this!”

Crash-site…

Emmi lifts her head up. The light stings her eyes, but not well enough that she can’t make out the smoking hull of the car, or what’s left of it. It lays on its side in the dirt, right side completely buckled in. There are sprays of blood all over the side of it. Certainly no signs of life.

“Is this real?” she croaks. It doesn’t seem like it can be.

All three of them nod, though, almost in unison. It’s so strange that finally a laugh almost escapes.

Tarquin leans forward, poking and prodding at her, down her legs and back to her arms. Checking for signs of anything worse than what he can see. That’s what Soran meant.

Because he can fix her.

“Fuck,” she whispers. There’s nothing else more than that. Ria gives her a sage nod at that, finally in agreement on something she never understood before.

Simply, fuck.

“Can you walk?” Tarquin asks. “We need to get out of here, and then we’ll fix everything.”

Emmi has no idea, but she nods. It feels like a group effort, Emmi at the certain of it, as they pull her up, until her trembling legs are somehow holding her. It feels like the world around her should be on fire, or in the very least that she should be burning, and yet…

She’s alive?

She’s alive.

It’s over.

―

The diner slash rest-stop slash oddly placed gas station is one of the most tragic things Icarus has ever seen in his life.

Unfortunately, it’s not. Something higher on the list is currently in the car next to him.

Emmi’s eyes aren’t just dead. They’re beyond that. She’s vacated to a place nicer than the one she’s currently in. Not exactly high standards judging by the look of her right now, but she’s found it, and she’s staying there.

At least until they pull into the parking lot. Soran bumps over the curb so fast it shakes every single one of them, and Emmi’s hollow eyes spark back to life, if only for a second.

“Go to the bathroom,” Soran says. It’s difficult to ascertain who he’s speaking to, but Icarus is the first to open the door and step out. Without taking her eyes off the floor Emmi shuffles over to him at her own speed until he’s able to grab a hold of her arm, gently pulling her to her feet.

The bathroom it is.

The outer one is a single room attached to the outside of the diner, dank and complete with a single flickering overhead light. He holds the door while everyone else files in after them, and only once everyone is safely tucked in does he lock it tight, trapping them all.

Emmi has found a seat on the closed toilet lid, fingers twitching, knee bouncing incessantly. She refuses to look up at any of them.

For a long while, no one dares to speak. Tarquin is the first to properly move, rummaging through the bag he drops to the floor, occasionally placing a few items on the sink’s edge. Fresh clothes, by the looks of it. A comb and a toothbrush. An extra pair of shoes.

Icarus is still clutching onto the extra shirt Ria got him, damp with water. Eventually he crouches down in front of her yet again. At this angle, it’s nearly impossible for her not to look at him.

“You don’t have to do anything,” she says, voice hardly a rasp. “I’m good.”

She is most definitely not good.

“Don’t even bother,” Soran interrupts, crouching down by his side likewise. “Just let me deal with it.”

Before he can grab a hold of her arm Emmi grabs him back, fingers tight. “Are you sure they’re all dead?” she asks. She hadn’t actually seen the bodies. It hadn’t been intentional, but none of them had let her. They had just packed her up in the car and off they went.

“Hundred percent,” Soran confirms. “You don’t have to worry about them.”

Good riddance for that. If Icarus doesn’t have to deal with any of those lot ever again it will still be too soon.

With that Icarus backs up and lets Soran do whatever it is he’s doing, really, watching his shaking hands. He’s past exhaustion at this point, and Emmi’s grip on his arm is matching that. It doesn’t even look like she’s aware of it. Everyone is holding on by just a thread and at any moment it’s like to snap.

A few short days ago, once he had realized Soran was going to live, Icarus had thought he was the one closest to the edge.

How much can change in that span of time.

When he had gotten Emmi out of the trunk Icarus had thought nothing of it. He just had to get her out. He wasn’t worried about his hands or what he could do to her. The purpose had over-ridden any sense of fear he might be harboring within himself.

Again, things change. Or maybe that sense of awfulness only applies when his hands itch to reach out for Soran.

“What are we doing now?” Tarquin asks.

“You should all just… go home,” Ria says carefully. “You don’t deserve to deal with any of this.” She’s still lingering by the door, arms wrapped tight around herself. A feeling he’s sure they all understand.

Much to his surprise, it’s Emmi that scoffs. “And have this,” she says, jabbing a finger towards her face. “Be for nothing? No, we need to find it.”

He’s been trying not to linger on her face for too long, the mottled bruises and slashes they cut open across her skin.

At least now, though, there’s a flicker of rage in her eyes.

Rage they can work with.

“So what do you want to do, then?” Icarus asks. “Up to you.”

Her face is still a wreck, evidence of the breakdown she had on him whilst they were still sitting in the dirt. The state of her had alarmed him, of course, but the tears more-so than anything else.

He had held her because he knew what happened if he didn’t; the same thing would have happened to him if Soran hadn’t so adamantly followed him out of those ruins.

Emmi sighs, wringing her hands together. When she looks up at the ceiling he can see fresh tears in her eyes, though she doesn’t allow them to spill over.

“Right now, I just want to eat something, maybe, and sit until I can process this,” she says. “And then we can figure the rest out. Is that good enough?”

One by one, they all nod. As if there was any doubt; no one is going to try and refute her. If Emmi needs to sit and process, then that’s what they’ll do. Besides, Icarus could use some of that himself, and he’s sure the others are in much the same boat. A little bit of breathing room won’t kill anyone.

It might just help.

“Next door, then?” Soran asks. “See how long it takes for them to look at us and call the cops.”

Emmi gets to her feet using the wall as a support, wincing. “Why not?”

What a disaster they all are, and even disaster doesn’t seem like a strong enough word. It has long since passed that point.

In the very least, they’re all together. A few days ago that no longer seemed like a possibility. He was off wandering and people were picking fights and Ria had blood all over her hands, truly one of the strangest images his brain is clinging onto.

He’s back, though. Emmi is alright, relatively speaking, and they’re all alive.

And yeah, she’s right.

Food does sound good right about now.

―

Ria chooses the furthest corner booth and wills herself to disappear into it.

Soran all but forced them to anyway. He’s still standing at the main counter with seemingly the only employee around in the dead of night.

Emmi still looks a wreck, and Tarquin’s face is yet to resemble full normalcy. She could have talked, but she would rather die, honestly, and Icarus hadn’t put up a fight about it either. So to the booth they go, in silence, feet dragging, and Tarquin ushers her into the very back of it and then Emmi after her.

Ria forces her knees up despite the lack of space, wrapping her arms tight around them. She’s trying to not think about anything too much. It’s a careful process. Every time her thoughts begin to wander she has to pull them back, extract the good from a bad.

Everyone else seems to be finding more success than her. Emmi has it mastered, that empty stare. Right now she’s aimed it at the plastic container full of sugar packets off to their left. Tarquin has plucked one out and is moving it across the table with a finger, each back and forth motion something that Icarus watches carefully, nothing better to do.

As if something so trivial can be so entertaining.

Soran approaches the table with his arms full of drinks, sloshing some over his arm as he struggles to place them all on the table mostly intact. “Ordered half the menu. Don’t ask me what. I already forgot.”

Shadows have formed under his eyes as if placed there by magic, each punctuated blink slower and slower. When he sits down his whole body gives way and slumps over onto the table, head pillowed on his folded arms.

“Just close your eyes for a while,” Icarus says, a plea woven in his voice.

“Don’t fucking want to,” Soran mutters, sounding more like a petulant child than she’s heard recently, over maybe ever. “It’s never safe to close your eyes in public.”

“Well, we’re here. You are safe.”

Ria is no longer sure of the truth behind the statement. She feels the weight of the tree branch in her hand, sees the scabs rapidly forming over Emmi’s face.

There is no safety out here.

Tarquin leans over the table some and takes the sugar packet with him. “It’s not safe to pass out in public, either, but that’s what you’re going to do if you don’t go to sleep.”

“Shut up,” Soran reminds. “Don’t make me punch you again.”

Of everything said in the past while, that’s what makes Emmi react. It’s slow. She blinks a few times, rolls her head to look between them both. “Again?” she asks, eyebrows furrowing together.

“He started it,” Tarquin blurts out. There’s a muffled noise of complaint from the entrapment of Soran’s arms, but nothing else follows. Emmi rolls her head back against the booth, flyaway hairs tickling against Ria’s neck as she fixates her eyes on the ceiling.

“I can’t leave anyone alone,” she realizes. “Not for five minutes.”

If only she knew the full stories. Soran and Tarquin went at it, sure, but Emmi got taken and Ria killed someone.

Not just someone. A friend.

She shouldn’t have allowed herself to think about it. Bile rises in her throat and she swallows, eyes stinging. Underneath the table a foot presses up against hers, but Tarquin is still looking at that silly sugar packet.

It’s not something that should be comforting.

Lessons in human contact have been weighing on her. If Tarquin hadn’t hugged her when he did, Ria isn’t sure where she’d be right now; possibly in pieces all over the ground, some of them in Kyrenic’s blood. The phantom sight of it still lingers on the front of her sweater and in the grooves of her hands.

Even now, though, as his foot nudges up against hers, something in her settles, or at least tries to.

It’s a reminder that she’s grounded. No longer is she lost up in the sky.

Ria listens to the distant sizzling and pair of voices in the kitchen. Quiet conversation is exchanged around her, floating in one ear and out the other. When the waitress finally approaches with a heavy tray over her shoulder she looks undoubtedly suspicious, focusing on Emmi’s face first and then Tarquin’s, eventually turning to what Ria suspects is Soran fast asleep on the table. Out like a light.

She looks at Ria, too, but her face changes. Something in it almost… settles as she begins to drop baskets over the table.

As if what she’s looking at is normal.

Ria forces a smile on her face before the woman leaves. She can’t even get hungry, but for the sake of normalcy she can fake it.

Everyone falls on the food like ravenous wolves. Everyone except for Soran, that is, and no matter how long she stares he doesn’t move. Not a twitch, even, as Icarus lays a careful hand on his back.

“Just let him sleep,” Tarquin recommends, dragging one of the baskets closer. “He needs that more than food.”

Apparently so.

“If he’s that exhausted, he shouldn’t have done it,” Emmi says around whatever odd thing her mouth is currently working through, gesturing to herself. As if he was just going to leave her to suffer. None of them would if they had a choice.

Ria plucks a fry from Emmi’s basket and munches on it, watching everyone inhale food like it’s their last meal. It’s good that they can do this. Everyone needed this break more than anything.

“Anyone else have information I should know?” Emmi asks. Some of the life is gradually returning to her face.

Tarquin looks at Ria. She takes another fry and stares at it a healthy amount.

“What about you, Human Torch?” Emmi presses. Her eyes are on Icarus, obviously. Thank God for that. “Any new developments we should know about?”

Icarus carefully retracts his hand from Soran’s back. “Nothing that I know of.”

“Want us to take you back to that crater and find out?”

“Not in the slightest,” he responds, artificial cheer heavy on his tongue. Ria doesn’t think that would end well. That place was bad for him, for whatever reason. Something was undeniably wrong with it and it triggered the explosion.

Ria isn’t sure what it is about that statement that sets off something in her brain, like the lighting of a match.

It turns over again and again. The crater. The trigger.

The ability to unlock everything inside yourself from one little object.

She blinks, owl-eyed, until Tarquin’s foot nudges her once again, sharper this time. He raises an eyebrow when she looks up. Icarus and Emmi are still talking away next to them as if nothing is wrong.

Maybe, for once, nothing is.

Ria has it now.

“The crater,” she whispers. The other conversation simmers out.

“The crater,” Tarquin echoes. “What about it?”

“He said it was underground,” she murmurs. It doesn’t seem real and yet it’s the explanation that makes the most sense.

“Who said what was underground, exactly?” Emmi asks. Ria can’t get into it, not right now. All of the work she’s been putting in to think of other things cannot be ruined, especially not right now.

“You… you think it’s there,” Tarquin says quietly. Not so much a question as it is a statement.

It almost sounds like he believes it too.

It all adds up. They didn’t really look; more pressing matters at hand had seen to that. The sudden emergence of unexpected powers so strong that they nearly killed someone, the uneasiness she felt even before everything happened. The wind, too, stinging her eyes - had that been an unknown side-effect of Tarquin as whatever hidden below the crater tried to take control of him, too?

There simply was nothing else that existed in Ria’s mind anymore.

“It’s there,” she says. Never in her life has confident been a word she could apply to herself. Not until now, anyway.

But Ria is sure. She’s never been more sure in her entire life.

Their answer has finally arrived.