Fight or Flight
Fight or Flight
As our group moved stealthily up the basement stairs, I whispered to Barnaby that he had to get our friends to safety. In a low tone he argued back that he wouldn't leave me alone, but I reminded him I was the only one who had an advantage over Ben. Being able to predict his moves, it was logical I be the one to stay behind. He didn't like it, but he agreed to get our wandless friends through a fireplace to Penny's and come back with reinforcements.
We reached the top landing where the door to the living room stood ajar, I peeked around the corner and saw nothing. Not wanting to risk alerting Ben to our presence, I decided against casting Homenum Revelio, and instead reached out with my mind, hoping to find some evidence of his or Alexi's whereabouts before moving into the open room.
Alexi was easy to hear, he was nearby and panicking. I held my hand up to our group, indicating they shouldn't follow me and proceeded through the house trying to pinpoint where Alexi's thoughts were coming from. It was unnerving knowing Ben was hiding somewhere, ready to strike without warning.
I blocked out almost everything, straining to catch any mental waves, I even pushed Alexi's thoughts out of my head for a minute. Finally, I felt something. It wasn't a picture or tone like I was used to, it was something nearly undetectable. Like a low vibration, or the feeling of a static radio without any noise. It was the absence of thoughts I was sensing, a void. Goosebumps broke out on my arms as I realised it was coming from just around the corner from me.
I looked back from my position behind the door to the hallway. Barnaby had never taken his eyes off me and was covering me with his wand from the top of the basement steps. I shook my head at him and pointed to the living room fireplace. "Go!" I mouthed silently at him. His eyes were tormented, but he nodded and took a step into the room, Diego and the others just behind him.
I knew from where I was if Ben took one step around the corner we'd all be in his sight, so to cover the noise of the others footsteps I cast a nonverbal banishing spell on the window farthest from us, making the shutters slam open against the house with a heavy bang.
At that moment a piercing wail filled the house as the others activated the Caterwauling Charm on the fireplace. I had no time to check that my friends had gotten out, I stepped around the corner a split second before Ben did the same. "Protego!" I shouted, anticipating his curse. The force of whatever he hit me with rocked me backwards, even through my shield charm. Without flinching I hit him with Expelliarmus and saw one of six wands he held go sailing through the air. One of the six.
I stepped back around the corner into the living room so he'd be the one with a split second delay in the duel and tried to regroup. How in the hell was I going to manage against someone who had five wands? I picked up his void again and this time I heard, or sensed the curse loud and clear. And the voice in Ben's head was not Ben's. I ducked just in time to avoid being hit with Cruciatus Curse. What in the ever loving fuck.
I hid behind the sofa knowing full well a shield charm wouldn't protect me from an Unforgivable Curse. I was completely screwed, my only hope was that Barnaby would find someone at Penny's flat and come back in time to give me some cover. Ben shot another curse at me, exploding the lamp on the end table next to where I hid. My fight or flight instinct went into overdrive as I realised there was no possible point of escape. There wasn't anything else I could do, I had to fight back.
"Stupefy!" I screamed, pointing my wand straight at Ben's heart. He deflected it non verbally with an almost lazy wave of his wand. Ben had improved his dueling skills tenfold in our seventh year at Hogwarts but this was far beyond what he was capable of. Someone had puppeteered Ben, programmed him into a cold, merciless monster. It dawned on me then that at any moment he might use the Killing Curse on me. If he'd resorted to one of the three I'd put nothing past him and prepared myself for the worst, that I might not make it out of the duel alive.
I shot an Impediment Jinx from the opposite side of the sofa and heard him stumble. Success. I was on my feet that same second and hit him with Expelliarmus once again while he was slowed. One more of his wands flew out of his hand and clattered across the hardwood floor.
But he'd already recovered and sent another curse my way. I dodged it, barely, and it shattered the glass and frame of the window behind me with a ghostly moan of splintering wood. I reacted instinctively shouting "Salvio Hexia!" I felt the next curse blow past me out the already busted window.
Ben and I faced each other, each of our wands raised ready to attack. I heard again, that gruff, gravelly, hoarse voice in Ben's head. Not Ben's voice was about to hit me with Crucio. I wasn't fast enough. It was pain beyond all comprehension. Every muscle, bone and organ in my body had been doused in gasoline, lit on fire and was simultaneously being stabbed with jagged, rusty blades. I heard my own blood curdling screams as if from a far away place, with no concept of how I'd gotten there or how long I'd been gone. It felt like days had gone by while I was being tortured, but then suddenly it stopped. The pain went away although my body wasn't aware and refused to function. My mind told me I'd lost, Ben was about to finish me off, or maybe he already had and I was just slow to catch up. But a second or two later, I exhaled nothing, drew a sharp, painful breath and found that I was still alive.
My legs screamed in protest as I scrambled into a crouch. Peering over the top of the sofa my heart flew into my throat and my eyes welled up with tears at what I saw. Ben was sprawled face down on the floor, Alexi still clinging to his back, the wound on his own back torn open and bleeding once more. And next to the fireplace stood Barnaby and Talbot, their wands still raised in offensive poses.
I tried to will myself to get up but it seemed impossible. I barely had control of my extremities, yet I felt my fingers clutching my wand twitch as I thought of moving them. I slowly raised my trembling arm to cast Incarcerous on Ben's unconscious body. Alexi finally rolled off him, panting and I managed to make my legs obey me long enough to stumble over to him. Barnaby and Talbot took control of Ben, on top of my binding spell they added their own to ensure there would be no possible way for him to even move if he came to. The fireplace sparked as Andre and then Jae tumbled out of it, looking like they were prepared to go to war. They quickly assessed the situation. "Blimey we couldn't get here fast enough, Chiara had been screaming in the fireplace of T&T for five minutes before Elliot was able to make sense of her and come and get me." Andre looked twice as guilty as he sounded. I waved away his apology as I knelt down next to Alexi and started trying to heal him.
Once Barnaby was sure Ben was neutralised he joined me on the floor and wrapped his arm around me. I flinched involuntarily at his touch, my nerves still reeling from the Cruciatus Curse. He withdrew, looking hurt but I couldn't even muster up the strength to explain. I kept all my focus on healing Alexi but the wound was not looking much better after several minutes.
"We need to take him to St Mungo's." I told my friends. "This just keeps opening up, I'm afraid it's starting to look infected too, we need a proper healer." Alexi groaned that he didn't need the hospital but I ignored him and instructed Barnaby and Andre to get him up and take him outside to Apparate. I limped across the room collecting wands and handed them off to Jae to return to our friends, keeping the one I recognised as Ben's. When Jae had gone there was just Ben to deal with, and I was at a loss. Talbot surprised me by suggesting we take him into St Mungo's or even the Ministry. "This might be bigger than we can handle Samhain. You know how little faith I place in any institution, but it's just too dangerous keeping him here. I know what he did to you, we arrived too late to stop him casting it but there's only one curse that makes someone scream the way you did." I avoided his eyes, for some stupid reason I felt embarrassed that Talbot had seen me being tortured.
Before Talbot and I could arrive at a decision on where to take Ben, my fireplace sparked green again. Tulip, Tonks and none other than the most famous Auror himself stepped out into my battle torn living room, his magical blue eye swivelling madly.