32

In a deep state of terror Marith jumped out of her car. She was shortly ambushed by two Runners, Joshua and Alexander. Their demeanour told her that they knew everything and might even have better information than she had at that point.

A sudden and icy, cutting wind pulled at their clothes and whipped their hair into their faces. That was Samuel’s signature, Marith intuitively knew.

Their eyes simultaneously darted up into the sky, as if their meteorological knowledge went as deep as James’s.

“You need to leave,” Joshua said resolutely.

“Where’s Samuel?” Marith ignored his instruction.

“No doubt somewhere close,” Alexander shared, ill at ease.

“He hasn’t made a move yet?”

“He’s inside,” Meriyem confirmed with a broken voice, coming up behind Joshua.

She stomped towards Gene’s car, without consultation, crying. When Marith had first met her she had been a little intimidated by the tall, strong Meriyem. She seemed to have infinitely more knowledge than any other Pupil, being related to Oracle and dr. Sybling. Seeing her like this was alarming.

“Where’s Vanessa?” Marith’s stomach constricted painfully thinking the thoughts she did.

Joshua nodded towards the large grey rolling doors behind her, while Alexander urgently stared at the Mage.

Each of them grabbed a wrist, with little regard for her mental state, when Marith looked over her shoulder towards the garage. The tempestuous Flow of information that entered her body jumpstarted her brain. The last thing it needed that day was electric shocks, but it did convince her to get back into the car.

The waveform definitely hadn’t collapsed yet. She hastily took a seat behind the wheel again and started the engine.

“Let’s drive away as inconspicuous as possible,” Marith mumbled.

“As if that’s still possible,” Meriyem sniffed.

“What happened inside?” Marith wondered, as she swiftly put the car in reverse.

The Runners had moved across the lot and were seated in Vanessa’s vehicle. They didn’t start it just yet. They patiently waited for the senior Mage to make the call.

Marith’s eyes anxiously darted from the clinic to the access of the road, where Brad’s blue truck was blocking the passage. He would close the ranks when they were ready.

I wanted to see the boy with my own eyes, Meriyem explained her presence, carefully pinching the contact point in Marith’s right wrist, and to visit aunt Cecile.

He was just showing me his drawings when it happened. He started to squirm and tremble. Then he started to cry and told us about seeing you on the ice with the Kid.

That’s when he learned about Etienne, Marith clarified.

That meant Etienne had felt Marith was in trouble right when it happened, long before Oracle had known the struggle on the ice had taken place.

It all happened so fast, Meriyem went on, shaking her head.

Dr. Sybling was adamant on facing the Kid, as a distraction, I guess… while I smuggled Etienne away.

She’s still alive, right?!

Yeah, but Iris…

Jesus! Marith couldn’t help thinking, after Meriyem showed her one particular image that burned itself into Marith’s mind.

Meriyem went on to explain to Marith how she had folded Etienne into her winter coat, his legs dangling from underneath the heavy fabric. She had carried him into the kitchen, while crouching, behind the nurse’s station.

Vanessa had been visiting… Meriyem hesitated for a fraction of a second.

My dad, I know, Marith verified quickly to encourage her to go on.

She had either heard us or Joshua or Alexander had alerted her. She couldn’t see the Kid from where she came from, but she could hear him or maybe feel him… I don’t know. Anyway, she cast a dome over dr. Sybling, but when Iris charged him nobody could save the dog.

Marith noticed how Meriyem’s mental voice started to sound as pained and strained as her actual voice.

While the Kid remodelled Etienne’s bedroom I took the sprint of a lifetime, she sighed, trembling, and followed one of the nurses to the garage.

Sophie, Marith said, seeing the images of the plumb, blond carer, that had been in the kitchen when Meriyem had entered.

Vanessa followed me as soon as the Kid left. I guess the Runners lost his track, because when I was ready to leave the clinic they were with you.

Where’s the doctor right now?

With the remains of Iris, I imagine, Meriyem broke out into sobs again. Sophie is with her, she assured Marith.

Suddenly something struck Marith as very odd. Why are you in the car with me then? If you were the one to put Etienne in there?

I can’t drive.

Marith had reverse-parked the red racing monster into a parking spot she wasn’t supposed to park in when the rolling doors went up and an ambulance came out with screeching tires.

Meriyem let go of Marith’s wrist to allow her to join the convoy.

In a split second they saw Vanessa’s fierce face and burning eyes behind the wheel. Marith hit the gas while holding the clutch pedal until the Runners were in Vanessa’s wake. The engine roared excited until she let it go.

She sped onto the bypass and squeezed in between the Runners and Brad.

A huge sense of purpose hit An and Pedro like a wave. They ran through the wilderness, flanked by not just two, but four Runners now.

They sped like the wind. They had never known they could be this fast. Mostly because they had never needed speed in their lives as Mages, but also because they simply didn’t possess the nimbleness or strength. The dexterity and swiftness of the Runners seemed to be pulling them through a tunnel that allowed them to accelerate far past their normal abilities.

Juliette, the most senior Runner of their tribe, had foreseen a certain chain of events in their path, as practiced Runners under duress often could.

They barely touched the surface of the snow, while they moved in on the target. Pedro’s ponytail and the strands of hair that escaped An’s wool cap were frozen into fragile twigs that would break at the touch. The skin on their faces was numb and their eyes were narrowed into tiny, prying gems to protect their eyeballs from the cold.

However, none of those sensations mattered as they were finally allowed to engage with the Kid, the bastard that was now parallel to the convoy, waiting for the ideal moment to jump Vanessa and the junior Watchmaker.

With long athletic leaps he kept up easily with the speeding cars. He could smell the magic trail the little tyke and the Pupils were emanating. Too bad he hadn’t sensed him before. The scent of Oracle’s sidekicks all over the area had masked the magic of the child.

At least the visit to the clinic hadn’t been entirely for nothing. He had gotten back at the old bitch and that dumb dog of hers, he thought maliciously. A big bonus was that he now recognized the child’s signature. He knew he was in the ambulance up front and he had just decided how he was going to enter that vehicle mid-drive.

Samuel was smart enough to not sprint over the asphalt. He was aware Vanessa would run him over and would have pleasure in doing so. That surely wouldn’t kill him, but he expected it would hurt fairly significantly.

He shadowed them from the woods. The safe cover the trees provided made that they hadn’t noticed him yet. Despite the hurdles that nature provided he was faster than their vehicles anyway. He moved like a mountain lion, planning his attack carefully, by first intensely observing his pray and going unnoticed until he was ready for the kill.

Just when she wanted to ask Meriyem whether or not dr. Sybling would be completely blind from that day on it happened.

They had secretly all been waiting for it, since Vanessa had burst out of the clinic’s station, but none of them had wanted to bring it up. It had been inevitable, so why waste words on it?

Like a cannonball entering a 17th century ship in a battle at sea Samuel hurtled himself through the flank of the ambulance. The material of the van tore and curled around the edges of the human sized hole in the flank.

It was the sounds that hit Marith’s ears, before the image entered her retina’s. The creaking blow startled her so much she almost jumped up in the driver’s seat.

He is inside the ambulance?! She wondered panicked, not believing her own senses. She couldn’t bring herself to utter a word. The wind was knocked out of her lungs. Judging by the silence of the Prophet next to her the same applied to Meriyem.

The hulking vehicle wobbled slightly in front of them, before finding a natural balance again, that kept it on the road. Marith kept her distance, but Vanessa didn’t slow down.

Marith and Meriyem were convinced there was a plan behind maintaining that velocity, but the logic flew right over their heads. They were convinced the Mage had a plan. Vanessa was probably shielding Etienne as well, they figured.

They still hadn’t spoked a word, but Meriyem had found her way to Marith’s wrist again.

From out of nowhere two Runners followed Samuel. Like professional swimmers they dove through the hole in the side of the truck. This time the jump-scare caused Marith to swerve and Meriyem to scream.

They could only discern Juliette’s multi-coloured tracksuit. The other Runner could have been either James or Anton.

Immediately the truck started to wobble again, but before Marith could regain power over the wheel of Gene’s car something, or rather somebody, was slung out of the ambulance.

In the three tailing cars every Pupil simultaneously held their breath. So much was happening in a matter of seconds.

Marith clenched the wheel, determined to keep the car on the road, no matter what came their way. In her rear-view mirror she saw the big blue truck behind Vanessa’s car enter the left lane for the briefest of moments, until Brad realized that the left lane was currently occupied.

Right where Samuel landed – perfectly on his feet - An and Pedro stepped from the trees, with their hands patiently folded. They walked onto the tarmac, while James and Jonathan appeared behind them, lingering in the treeline that bordered the road.

The cars raced on. Samuel faced the Pupils that had come for him, with the intention of vengeance, not knowing what they had fabled for him.

Marith had almost forgotten how Pedro controlled his talent, until he bend the wrist of his left arm again, until his hand floated horizontally through the air. He spread his fingers and when the Flow was just right he snapped the thumb and middle finger of his right hand with a precise, but almost flamboyant gesture.

A wily smile crossed his face and with an intense look in his eyes he beheld how the Kid lost his senses and stopped death in his tracks.

As if this was not enough An showcased his inclination to pyromania by setting the distraught First Runner on fire. Marith never saw the ray of light mid-air, that she had seen when An had set the tree on fire. From one moment to the other Samuel was on fire, rolling screaming over the road. Despite the cold weather and the moist asphalt he caught flame like a matchstick.

The Pupils formed an organized storm of chaos, leading Samuel on, while combating him.

Of course, Marith witnessed all this in a flash, since the cars were speeding up again.

Vanessa, Marith, the Runners and Brad now had the opportunity to travel side by side, taking up both lanes, except when ongoing traffic would be an issue. Juliette and the other Runner never left the ambulance.

“Are you okay?” Meriyem wondered, after Samuel appeared to have been dealt with.

She had shown Marith the horrors that had unfolded inside the hospital, not leaving any of the gory details out, but she knew the Mage had quite the afternoon behind her as well.

“Well,” she touched her neck again, almost subconsciously this time, “you know what they say, to really live you must almost die.”

“How did you come across him?”

“Well, I was supposed to prepare a Christmas recital with him,” Marith brought out with some restraint.

“You’ve met him before?”

“Yeah, several times,” Marith admitted ashamed.

“Weren’t there, like, any clues?”

“Well, it wasn’t like he had a split tongue, yellow eyes and a pentagram on his forehead.” She sighed. “There were plenty of indications he’s a massive douchebag, but nothing that indicated him being supernatural or anything,” Marith finally answered, wrecking her mind for memories of them being together. They all seemed blurry, unclear and to be fading away quickly.

“He can camouflage himself,” Meriyem remarked. “That’s probably what happened,” she assured the sensitive Mage, eyeing her up and down.

Marith nodded demure, firmly clutching the wheel, with clammy hands, driving dangerously close to the bumper of Vanessa’s car.

She felt how she started blushing and quickly looked outside, where Anton and Jonathan ran through the wilderness parallel to the cars, flanking An and Pedro. The storm between him and them raged on. An and Pedro had done everything that laid within their powers to him. All the Pupils could do now was not wasting the time they had bought by the attack.

“They’re going to hit the brakes soon,” Meriyem shared in what was almost a whisper.

Marith took her foot of the accelerator and kept some distance.

Despite the roaring engines and the green and white world flashing by at a dazzling tempo Marith felt the urge to look into her side mirror, as if her eyes were attached to elastic bands that pulled them to the left.

She knew what she was going to see, but she couldn’t not look. The colourless Runner looked enraged in a calm, determined way that chilled Marith to the bone.

They last saw him behind them on the road, standing over the double yellow lining, before he jumped to the left, into the forest again. He had looked straight into Brad’s eyes via the rear-view mirror as to showcase his regenerative strength and to say it wasn’t over... by far it wasn’t over yet.

Marith got this pain around her heart that she would also get as a child when realizing that there was something profoundly wrong with her parents. The primary caregivers she couldn’t escape as a child, just like she couldn’t escape Samuel as an adult.

She felt powerless and her lack of control made her feel deeply sad and profoundly broken.

She looked composed and put together on the outside, but she was screaming on the inside.

Her fight with Nate had showcased how fragile everything in her life really was. How things could change at any moment. Her battle with the Kid confirmed her worst fears. She was not of any direct usefulness to the Chain and she could do very little to change that.

Would this be it? Would today be when she would die? She wondered briefly how it was going to happen and how it would feel, before her mind redirected itself towards the things she hadn’t been able to do.

She hadn’t had an opportunity to make up with Nate. She had never done a solo concert on the cello. She could not even see her little sister graduate if she would be yanked off the timeline now.

She felt as if her anxiety was injecting hard drugs, until they ran her system. Not that she had ever been brave enough to try any of that stuff out in reality.

Memories from her childhood raged on behind her eyes. She had been taught since infancy that her body and mind weren’t hers, because they belonged to the people that had brought her into this world.

She had always felt like a guest in her own life, knowing she had to earn her existence somehow. She had been holding her breath, always feeling watched.

She had spent most of her adolescent years in her room, sleeping, studying, playing the cello and secretly eating in solitude. Never feeling at home with her own family had stifled her development and personality to such an extent that she had been able to create a new world, founded on frustrations, a better world, together with Nate, who had lived through a fair share of misfortunes as well.

She had lived with panic attacks, depressive episodes and thoughts of suicide for as long as she could remember, but she had been told time and time again that the problem raged within her.

It couldn’t be her parents. It couldn’t be the Kid. It couldn’t be the town’s most respected lawyer and his perfect wife who was such a lovely homemaker. It couldn’t be an eternal force of nature that had taken her mentally hostage.

She shook her head as to bring herself up from her dark, morbid thoughts. Today just didn’t feel right for some reason.

“I think you’re incredibly brave. You know that?” Meriyem stated.

Marith was briefly taken aback by the fact that the Prophet was somehow commenting on her internal struggles.

“What?” Marith mustered tensely, the wind knocked out of her lungs.

“How you’ve fought Samuel on the lake earlier…” she answered, looking at Marith in an investigative way. “Etienne showed me when it happened. There was nothing you could have done differently that would have brought us another outcome.”

Marith nodded, looking straight ahead, keeping her eyes on the ambulance in front of them. “That sure was scary,” she said, with a slight sigh.

If Marith hadn’t known any better she would have thought Meriyem had been able to read her thoughts without touching her wrist and was in actuality commenting on her past.

Well, Marith thought, if she was, Meriyem was right. She had suppressed all her emotions and needs, so she could navigate her way out of misery, away from her pathologically crazy parents.

She had survived so much. She had gotten her life together, more or less, in an environment that had hurt her time and time again. She was going to survive today as well... and so was Etienne. They just had to.

When the convoy came closer to Sweet Lake’s town centre the roads melted into flat, snow covered sheets of whiteness, only interrupted by tire-tracks.

Around the clinic they’d had the opportunity to speed without consequences, but the closer they had gotten to Sweet Lake the more they were forced to slow down and abide by traffic laws, due to the increased hustle and bustle the tri-lake area experience towards the Christmas season.

The brightness of the decorative lights that the local entrepreneurs association had hung at the façade of each business reminded the Pupils that dusk was falling with alarming speed. They didn’t have much time, before they would lose the last sliver of daylight.

Not that sparks couldn’t fly at night.

When they jumped out of the cars and the ambulance at the Bellevue the air was stale and tense. Darkness was creeping up on the town about an hour earlier than it should have been doing.

A sudden and brisk wind rustled the branches of the pine trees that surrounded the murky building. Snow whirled down to the pavement.

Apart from the moving of air the world was silent, a little too silent, and the winds were never a good sign.

For a few undecided moments the one Prophet, five Mages and six Runners stood as still as meerkats, each exerting their senses and applying their talents. The temperature had rapidly dropped during their race from the clinic to the apartment complex. They blew clouds of condense into the air in between them, shielding their faces.

Etienne still laid rolled up into a small, kid-sized ball on the floor of the ambulance, under the glove-compartment, between the passenger seat and the bonnet.

A shiver so severe it was almost painful ran over Marith’s back.

“Right on time,” Brad mumbled.

“Good,” Vanessa answered, almost inaudible.

Kyle and Amber sprinted towards them from the shadows that the building and the trees spread over the parking lot.

Why do I know anything last today? Marith wondered, after her astonishment had subdued somewhat. Wasn’t she the one to discover the Kid?

In the distance she noticed the black van that belonged to Kyle’s mother.

“We’ve got no time to lose,” Vanessa instructed in a whisper that travelled smoothly through the cold air.

The Prophets nodded. Car keys were tossed around in the uneven circle that they had unintentionally formed. Marith didn’t know which keys ended up in whose hands, but she did notice only the three Prophets ended up holding any keys.

“Marith?”

“What?” She almost hissed.

“Your car keys.”

“Why?” She wondered, suddenly possessive of her father’s car.

“They’re going to drive out of town as a distraction.”

“Having them parked here is too obvious.”

“Also, the farther we get away from here the faster and easier Oracle can brief us,” Meriyem elaborated.

“Here,” James gestured. “I can drive a stick,” he assured her.

Reluctantly and half-heartedly she threw the keys his way. Her pitching skills were an abomination, but he caught them anyway.

“What about your car?” She inquired, looking at Vanessa.

“Ditched it in the woods,” Joshua shared, coming up behind Brad and Juliette, with Alexander striding next to him.

“Is it still intact?” Vanessa informed darkly.

“Totally,” Alexander assured her, with a smirk that wasn’t reassuring at all.

“Before you leave,” Jonathan said to James, while stomping over to the red rally car.

With one smooth yank he removed the axe from the bumper. After a brief creaking sound it left a dent and a slit in the rigid metal bar, but it would have taken anyone that wasn’t a Runner a lot more wiggling and prying to get it out of there.

The last time Marith had seen him handle an axe had only been three months earlier. The assault on his store seemed ancient history, as if it had happened in a different lifetime.

None of the new Pupils were acquainted with the circumstances under which Marith and Jonathan had met, but they didn’t ask about what Jonathan could possible do with an axe. There were more pressing matters at hand that afternoon.

“How is it that the Kid can see again?” Joshua asked Pedro, who looked as uncomfortable as Marith felt.

“And isn’t burned to ashes?” Alexander added, glancing at An.

“Our talents affect him, but they don’t last on him,” Pedro shared curtly.

The two Mages were clearly taken aback by this discovery. Deep down they had known they wouldn’t be able to send him back to the Empty, once and for all, on a weekday afternoon, but the lack of lasting results were worrisome.

Another gust of wind disturbed the snow-covered branches of the solemn sea of pine trees that encircled them.

Brad glanced flustered over his shoulder.

“What is it?”

“He is close, for sure.”

“We’ve been out here for too long,” Vanessa shared agitated, a thick strand of hair falling into her face as her eyes raced over the looming shapes in their dark surroundings.

“I can feel him,” Etienne squeaked form inside the ambulance, looking up for the first time.

For a few long moments nobody dared to move or even breathe.

“Can you locate him?” Meriyem hissed at Brad.

“No,” Brad shook his head briskly, clearly disappointed by his own inability to be of more precise help.

“Let’s go, guys. To the nearest highway!” James incited the Prophets.

“Give that fucker the run of his lifetime,” Brad encouraged them.

If they are able to lead him astray at all, Marith thought sceptical, assessing how much man-power they had left if these four Pupils left them. Theresa, Lisa, Nate and William had been keeping their distance from the group all day. Losing four more Pupils left them with ten to fight the Kid if he wouldn’t be bamboozled into following the ambulance.

“We’re trying to lead him astray,” Brad clarified, when he saw the terror in Marith’s eyes.

“Where’s James going then? Don’t we need him?” Marith did a bad job of hiding the rising panic in her voice.

“He’s going to see Theresa.”

“Why can’t she come to us?”

“All Prophets are staying at a distance from this place for now.”

“Then how will we get updates from above?” Marith urged with big eyes.

“The plan is clear,” Brad answered. “We cannot risk losing any of them, before…”

Before William gets his Rebirth, Marith finished his sentence in her head, when Vanessa stomped by with Etienne. “Let’s get inside,” she commandeered Marith.

Vanessa kept Etienne floating in a bubble next to her, at shoulder height. He sat inside it on his hands and knees and stared at the Pupils. They were his peers in every way, except in age.

He looked like a ghost, a pale spirit of a young boy that would appear in the bedroom of the main character in a horror movie. Marith was impressed at how calm he was. She figured it probably wasn’t every day that he was hunted by a maniac with unresolved childhood issues. Then again, hadn’t they all been haunted by the Kid in one way or another since they were young?

Maybe this was a matter of habituation. He probably felt that he was going to be saver with them than with dr. Sybling. He may have estimated that his chances of survival were optimal in the arms of fellow Pupils.

“I am trying to mask him,” she explained to the ones who hadn’t caught up with her logic yet. “This way he will follow the ambulance… for a while, at least,” she added as she marched on to the building.

“I can’t hold this for very long,” she shared with Marith, as to motivate her to tag along.

“Where will the rest be?” She Marith asked, hastily following through the electric, sliding doors.

“Outside, guarding the perimeters.”

“Why don’t we bring him down? Into the Corridors?”

“First of all, the garage of the house he’s renting leads there…”

“He has no key,” Marith interrupted her, practically running to keep up with her.

Their footsteps sounded hollow on the brown carpet. As usual the building appeared abandoned, although there were no vacant apartments.

“That we know off,” Vanessa corrected her. “Second of all, we need to get him to the Clock in the Sky. That is really the only place where he’ll be safe.”

“Okay,” Marith agreed, reluctant and doubtful, as the doors of the one working elevator shuddered shut in front of them.

Marith and Vanessa had fled to Vanessa’s apartment, which was situated in a different wing, not wanting to bring the frail miss Parker into a dangerous situation or face the mess of Gene’s place.

The living room of her place appeared to be decked out in simple, soothing colours, mostly beige and soft shades of pink. Marith instantly noticed how the lay-out of the apartment was completely different than miss Parker’s or her dad’s, but the size was more or less comparable.

The lights, inside the apartments and mounted to the red brick outside, cast a yellow glow on the nature surrounding the building. The only window in the living area looked out on snow-covered pine trees. All, except three. Marith didn’t give that discovery much attention. She figured they must have been standing too close to the complex for the fresh snow not to melt every morning, when the central heating would jump on.

Marith sat next to Etienne on a soft, beige couch that was so saggy they almost disappeared into the mountains of pillows.

Vanessa was rummaging around in the kitchen. None of them really talked.

Their bubble of silence seemed only interrupted by Etienne slurping his lemonade and occasionally humming to himself.

The Kid didn’t depress the economy or undermine international relations. He depressed people, many people at the same time, but mostly and specifically the Pupils, and undermined their ability to function in society.

He didn’t spread propaganda or false information. He alternated how some people perceived the world and inspired them to twist the facts rather than conducting the actual work himself.

His haunting- and reality-warping capabilities had been tempered since his awakening, but he was as strong as ever in his physical form, which was problematic, to state the least.

Most of the Pupils had been so desensitized by the mental torments that they didn’t consciously notice this any more in their day to day life, but what they had actually been experiencing was the Empty on Earth.

Growing up they had gazed into the Empty time and time again, until they got their Rebirths. That process had distanced them from the void somewhat, but they still remembered those episodes. Their experiences with darkness had been peeled away from their minds, in the same way old wallpaper could be removed from walls by steam.

With enough distance between the Chain and the Empty they could overview the situation that was the Kid and perform some crisis-management. Whether or not this separation from the Empty was enough they were about to find out.

For now the stress made Marith feel dulled and numb. She didn’t want to talk. There were no words in her vocabulary that could bring a sense of peace, that could smooth out this situation. Judging by the sounds coming from the kitchen, Vanessa had no soothing words either.

“Drink?”

She raised two cleansed mugs, entering the living room.

“Sure,” Marith hesitantly agreed. She wasn’t much of a drinker, but the circumstances seemed fitting.

Vanessa loudly clanked the mugs on the coffee table and yanked a bottle of shiny, golden alcohol from the floor behind a heavy, salmon pink armchair.

“Is that my dad’s whiskey?” Marith wondered with a giggle.

“Yeah,” Vanessa admitted, laughing, “I removed any bottle that contained alcohol from his apartment, after... you know.”

She took a seat in the pink chair opposite the couch that was swallowing Marith and Etienne.

“Thanks,” Marith said, looking Vanessa in the eye, referring to both the mug and her taking care of her father.

“You’re welcome,” Vanessa answered, handing her the mug and slumping back into the chair.

Marith took a sip and closed her eyes as the liquid burned its way down to her stomach. She was instantly reminded of why she never drank. It wasn’t even tasty, she thought. She imagined a gulp of battery acid or de-icing fluid would bring the inside of her mouth the exact same sensations.

She leaned back into the pillows. They were still wearing their boots and coats, ready to leave again, when possible.

The tension was almost unbearable. The Web around them vibrated in a state of utter chaos. The clouds above their clockworks still floated and swirled lacklustre in the presence of the awakened Kid, but they didn’t need their instruments at this hour. Every Pupil could sense the urgency, the need for resolution, without opening their timepieces or even touching each other.

“Iris,” Vanessa started, breaking the silence, while gazing at the contents of her mug. “I don’t think she made it,” she shared with a heavy heart, now that there was an opportunity to chat.

“I know,” Marith shared quietly.

“The Kid lost his temper and when he slapped her… against the wall,” Vanessa swallowed, her eyes wet, fumbling with the sleeves of her coat, “I saw her soul leave her body. Like when you killed and then saved that deer.”

“W-what do you see, when you see it?” Marith wondered, not sure whether she was shaking from the trip they’d just had or because of the conversation between the two of them.

“It’s like a dome around the head. I can see through it, like through a fishbowl or stained glass, and inside it, where the brain should be, there is… I don’t know,” she shrugged, while struggling to find an appropriate word, “energy, I guess? It’s basically an orb with very light, swirling, shiny stuff in it.”

“Like a marble?” Etienne informed.

“Yeah, like a marble, but with a light in it,” Vanessa confirmed surprised.

Marith eyed her with interest and nodded. “I can do the same with hearts now, since the deer.” She swallowed. “It looks different of course. I can see the path that the electrical pulse takes.”

“I can see the air,” Etienne went on, after a big breath.

“We know, sweetie,” Vanessa answered with a faint smile, taking another gulp of whiskey.

“Wheew,” she brought out, slamming the mug on the table, as to concretize that she had finished her drink. “When they’ve lured the Kid far enough from here we leave for the cliff,” she shared resolutely.

Marith had assumed as much, even though nobody had put it into words.

She just nodded. The cliff. She didn’t want to think about what had to happen there just yet.

“What about William?” She wondered suddenly. It wasn’t the first time that day that the last un-Rebirthed Pupil crossed her mind.

“James is picking him up,” Vanessa answered with a dark, emotionless undertone.

Marith nodded again. There didn’t seem to be much else to do.

Vanessa glanced outside, debating whether or not to pour another drink.

“What is it?” Marith inquired as she saw her frown.

“Nothing...” she almost whispered. Her mind was clearly elsewhere.

She breathed in and out loudly, it was short of a sigh. “I feel like these trees are either just placed here or they were recently trimmed, but the tree trimmers don’t usually come by during winter.”

Marith looked over her shoulder and frowned at the sea of trees, wondering which ones Vanessa was talking about.

Vanessa shrugged it off as soon as the intercom carried static and crackling noises into the apartment. She travelled to the sound like lightning to a boat at open sea.

“What?!” She practically yelled back, pushing the audio button on the panel, next to her front door.

A distorted answer followed.

“Why can’t these idiots just break in?” She asked no one in particular, after letting go of the intercom button. “Brad’s a police officer, for God’s sake!”

“I think we’re going to have to leave, but I can’t be sure. Stay here, until I’m back,” Vanessa urged.

Marith and Etienne nodded in unison.

“If the Kid comes you just… stop his heart.”

“He has no heart, or at least not a beating one. That’s how I know it is him.”

“Okay, well… I’m right back anyway.” Vanessa hurried flustered into the hallway.

She left the front door ajar. Marith could hear the sound of her footsteps on the carpet die away.

She put the mug with its content back on the table. She hadn’t wanted to seem uncool before, so she had held it like she had every intention of finishing the whiskey, which she hadn’t.

She looked to down to her right where Etienne sat, little and vulnerable, his short legs in an uncomfortable angle on the couch cushions. He was holding his lemonade as if he had just seen a ghost.

“What is it?” Marith wondered, stretching out her right arm to wrap it around him.

At that moment muffled sounds of a tussle were followed by a bone-chilling, blood-curdling scream.

“The air…”

Several alarms went off. Marith wished they would stop doing that.