Sadie heard the scream right away. It's not like screaming wasn't common in their House – it was – when 20 young magicians were stuffed into one place just learning to throw spells around, yells were heard all over the place. But this yell, this yell Sadie knew. And yell didn't even come close to describing this.
Sadie heard it. She heard the agonized scream that continued, fading and rising in volume, she felt it rip through her ears, because she knew that yell. She'd heard it when she was six, she'd heard a few months ago, and she was hearing it now. But this was worse than Sadie had ever heard it before.
This was Carter in pain. This was Carter in a lot of pain. Sadie's heart was at her stomach and then falling to her feet as she lunged away from the dining room table, where she had been rummaging through some old weapons Amos had found in the attic. Her bare feet were slamming down on the hardwood floor as she raced to the training room. It just had to be so far away! Sadie was covering some ground, she was in a full out sprint across the large central living room and through the wide open doors that were the source of her brother's painful screams.
The Egyptian statues were whirling in her vision as she quickly scanned the room, fury marching up and down her veins. She saw people gathered in the corner, stooping over something. Someone. Alyssa's head shot up and she was looking at Sadie with a look that was a mixture of shock and fear.
Carter was still screaming. Sadie's heart exploded in her chest as she flew to her brother. Almost all of her trainees backed off, and Sadie recognized that she must've looked pretty formidable, little sisters could be scary. Protective little sisters were scarier.
"Walt was just trying-. He didn't mean to-, it just happened, Sadie!" A female voice stuttered.
Walt was in her way. Sadie instantly registered him as the enemy. She could hear his desperate pleas of apology. Walt hurt her brother. Sadie roughly shoved him out of her way yelling, "Get away from him!" The protective snarl in her voice was almost feral.
No one hurt Sadie's brother.
She dropped to her knees next to Carter. Her sometimes dense, impossibly infuriating, and endearingly clumsy older brother, was crying. Carter was squirming on the ground, one tan arm clutching the other to his chest. Sadie's stomach jolted; she could see his bone. It was sticking out of his arm. Spectacular bruises were forming over it, covering the entire length of the limb. Sadie stared in shock. Carter was twitching, jerking on the ground and wheezing painfully, tears were sliding from the corners of his tightly shut eyes, stabbing Sadie again.
Anger bubbled in her stomach. Sadie started screaming in Walt's face, going nose to nose with him. "What'd you do? What did you do to my brother? Are you stupid? What did you try, Walt? Tell me what happened!" The rage in her voice was almost tangible. Walt's eyes were huge and he was clenching his teeth.
A whimper calmed her down.
"Accident, S'die. 'S not his fault." Carter stuttered, he was gasping for air, squirming on his side, and a choked sob flew past his lips. Sadie felt her stomach clench tighter and rested her hand on his head.
Walt flicked his eyes to Carter and back to Sadie, "Gods, Sadie, I swear it was an accident! I was trying out this one am-."
"'Trying out?'" She challenged, her fist was clenched so hard she swore to Set she was going to punch him in the face, despite how cute it was. "Are you stupid?"
Alyssa's quiet voice broke through, "Sadie… Carter." She admonished.
She struggled to swallow her rage and turned back to her brother. "He needs to go to the infirmary." Sadie stated, her voice wavering.
"I'm sorry, Sadie. Gods, I'm sorry. I'll carr-."
"You? You think I'm going to let you touch my brother after what you did! You're nuts!"
Walt was literally begging Sadie for forgiveness with his eyes. And she really, really didn't want to admit that she melted. "Sadie, I promise I didn't try to hurt him. You gotta let me help. I didn't mean to doit, Sadie. I didn't." He was pleading, and she swore she saw tears gather on the bottom of his eyes.
She deflated, a little.
"Fine," she sighed through her nose. "But if you even so much as pull a hair out of his head I will make sure you never touch foot here again." She heard another groan. Sadie turned back to Carter and rubbed his messy hair. She was quite proud of it, really. She'd convinced him to grow it out (or maybe they just didn't have time for haircuts) and now it was long and black, hanging over his forehead and curling up at the nape of his neck. She'd never say it out loud, but her brother was developing into one of those boys that other girls might think was… cute. Gross, gross, gross.
"Carter? Carter, Walt and I are gonna get you to the infirmary, okay? Jaz is going to fix it. I'll fix it for you, alright? I'm going to fix this." He frantically looked at her, and continued gasping, moving restlessly.
"Can you sit him up?" Walt asked, pushing the sleeves of his shirt up, exposing his forearms. Of course, not that Sadie was looking. But she heard his request and she almost reached out and pulled Carter's shoulder, but with the way he was rocking, holding his arm in a vice grip, that would be impossible. Sadie crawled behind Carter and slid her hands under his squirming torso. She heard his pleading to let him go, and it hurt her, it did, but she heaved him up, trying in vain to ignore his startled cry of pain. She couldn't.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Carter. I'll make it better, promise." She urged, trying to blink back the tears that were threatening to fall. Carter was gasping for air as he curled into a ball around his arm, his back pressed against Sadie's chest. "Gods, Walt, hurry up. He-." Her voice broke with Carter's dry sob.
Sadie kept both hands holding Carter's shoulders, keeping him upright as Walt crouched down beside them. "Carter? Carter, okay, I'm so sorry. I am so, so sorry. I'm going to pick you up, okay? I understand if you want to kick me or something; I want to kick myself, too, but we're just taking you to the infirmary, promise. No more amulets today."
Sadie flashed him a look, one that said: I'd kill you if you even thought about it.
Walt swallowed noisily, and made eye contact with Carter. He slowly slid one arm under his knees, which was hard, because he was curled into himself so tightly, and put his right arm around his shoulders. And with one clean jerk that his Gym teacher would've been proud of; he had Carter off the ground.
Sadie watched as Walt picked up her brother, marveling at the way it seemed so easy for him to do; it really wasn't all that surprising, her big brother wasn't all that big. Sure, he was sort of tall, maybe five-six, but he was still laughably scrawny. Now, Sadie was almost grateful for that.
Carter didn't seem to like the movement. His breathing hitched as he was pulled up, and he whined pitifully, tears falling down his cheeks. Sadie stood up and sternly said, "Hurry up, Walt. And be careful."
He nodded and hefted Carter up higher, starting to speed walk to the infirmary. "Carter? I really don't mean to push you for anything, but I bet it'd be more comfortable if you put your arm around my neck."
Carter wiggled his arm out from where it was trapped against his chest and flung it over Walt's shoulder.
"Walt? No- more- backlashes, 'kay?" Carter breathed, his forehead pressed against Walt's neck.
"No more, Carter. Definitely no more."
Sadie kept pace with them and added, "Oh trust me, that's the end of backlashes. And when Carter gets fixed up," she looked at Walt, "you're going to tell me what the crap happened back there.
Sadie threw open the doors to the Infirmary, startling Jaz, who was bent over something on a desk, studying it silently. Her head flew up and she stared in shock at Carter. She jumped up and ran to an empty bed, signaling Walt to put Sadie's older brother down.
"Oh my gods, what happened?" She exclaimed, wide-eyed as she gently put her fingers on the top half of Carter's arm; Sadie's brother squirmed away in pain, whimpering and curling tighter into his ball on the bed.
"Walt is an idiot, now fix it." Sadie spat out, glaring up at Walt, who awkwardly coughed and looked at Carter in remorse.
Jaz bit her lip and turned away, rummaging through a cabinet, "I think… I might know something that can help. Or fix it, at least. It's a pretty simple spell, if I could only find it in this mess." She pulled out a dangling necklace and grinned with glee. "Got it!" She wrapped it in her hands and strode over to the bed, showing it to Sadie and Walt. "I think it was made way back, you know? I was researching some lore on it, and apparently there was this magician who constantly had people coming to him with broken bones. Well, he got so frustrated that he made th-."
"Jaz!" Sadie shouted. "I really don't mean to interrupt your nerd fest, but my brother is in some serious pain and it's killing me. So could you please help him?" Jaz swallowed silently, deflating under Sadie's desperate stare.
"Sorry." She coughed, and flicked her hands nervously over Carter. "He needs to be still for me to do this."
Which Carter obviously wasn't; he was rocking back and forth, struggling not to start sobbing and breathing deep, heavy gasps of air. Sadie didn't waste any time swinging her leg across the bed and sitting behind Carter, wrapping one arm around his waist and wrenching his good arm away from the injured one, locking it underneath her. Carter fought wildly, struggling to protect himself. Sadie really didn't like injured animal effect.
"Carter, Carter, stop. Stop, stop, stop; it's Sadie, I swear to God we're not trying to hurt you. I know, we usually don't do these cuddle moments and stuff, but you have to stay still. Jaz is going to fix it but you have to settle down!" Somewhere in her mind, Sadie was thinking that how her voice just sounded, was probably a lot like how her mom had sounded. At least, she hoped so. Carter seemed to have heard her and reduced his violent squirms to just shivers. "Jaz, hurry it up."
Jaz nodded her head and closed her eyes, a glowing rune appeared in the air, and then the amulet started to shake, Jaz picked it up and pressed it against Carter's arm. He whimpered and tossed his head back, digging into Sadie's shoulder. The spinning of the rune increased tenfold and even Sadie could feel the heat radiating from the amulet; then everything came to a head. Carter screamed horrifyingly loud, any control Sadie once had was lost and he wrenched from her grasp, ducking over his arm and protecting it. His head was almost pressed to the mattress, and tears sprang to Sadie's eyes when she heard his desperate sobs for it to stop.
Jaz pulled back and opened her eyes, gaze heartbroken as she listened to Carter cry. "Jaz, did you fix it? Please tell me you fixed it. God, why is he still so-." She leaned over him and pressed her hand on his back, unconsciously rubbing circles into it. "Carter, come on, you got to let us see it. Let me see it."
Carter drew in a heavy, wet breath from where his head was hidden and pulled the previously injured arm out from under his chest and let it fall limply from the bed. Jaz crouched down and tenderly picked it up, noticing that the bone was perfectly in place and now only a nauseatingly deep cut was visible. She one-handedly reached over and opened a drawer and pulled out a roll of white bandage. Gently as possible, she slowly wrapped it and then set it next to Carter again.
Sadie was hunched over her brother; Walt had long since collapsed into a chair, his face twisted in guilt, and Jaz was standing motionlessly over the bed, face white and drawn. "I think I remember how the amulet fixed it," Jaz whispered, the tremor in her voice clearly heard.
The room was silent, Sadie was busy calming Carter down, but Walt spoke up. "How?" He said, voice cracking.
"It snaps it back into place."
Sadie visibly flinched. Carter was slowly relaxing underneath her; the once aching sobs were now reduced to whimpers and shaky gasps of air. Sadie swiped her eyes (she didn't cry) and put both her hands on his shoulders and tugged, testing him to see if he could sit up. He pulled up an arm and sloppily wiped the tears off his face, sniffling heavily. Sadie reached down and slid both hands under his chest, pulling him to sit upright, but he didn't stop there. Carter kept falling backwards, sagging into Sadie with an exhausted sigh. She didn't even push him away for being touchy. Sadie just unfolded her legs and leaned against the wall, pulling her floppy limbed, exhausted big brother with her, and listened to his deep, recovering breaths.
His damp cheek was pressed against her shoulder, and his arm was tossed around her stomach, bony shoulder digging into her side, and black hair tickling her cheek, but Sadie snorted in quiet affection and grabbed the blanket that Jaz had recently spread over them, tugging it up to Carter's shoulder and loosely flopped her arm around her older brother, listening to his noisy breaths settle down into the relaxed rhythm of sleep.
"You're lucky you're cute, Carter."
She looked over at Walt; he was slumped in the chair, face buried in his hands, shoulders tense and fingers rubbing his hair. He must have noticed her hard stare, because he shakily returned her gaze, eyes wrecked with guilt. "God, I-. I didn't mean for this to happen, Sadie. God." His voice broke on the last words and he dug the heels of his hands into his eyes.
"What happened?" She said slowly.
Walt took a deep breath and stared out the window. "He was teaching us some stuff about defense, and then we got free time. To practice with what we knew… I found it just sitting on the floor in some corner and I thought I'd try it out. But when I did something went wrong, it must have backfired, because one second he was watching me and the next he was in the air, spinning into the wall. God, he hit it so hard, for a second I thought I'd killed him. Sadie, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for any of this to happen at all."
Carter mumbled something incoherent and shifted, his forehead pressing against her neck. She couldn't blame Walt. It wasn't like he had tried to hurt her brother, and watching his bone snap back into place had to have been torture enough in itself. Sadie rolled her eyes at Walt and grumbled, "You're lucky you're cute, too."
Her heart galloped in her chest when she saw red start to creep over Walt's ears.
Sadie's scrawny little brother was sleeping on her; Walt was sitting a mere two feet away, and Jaz had awkwardly dismissed herself from the room.
Maybe it wasn't such a bad day after all.
"Oh, Walt?"
He craned his neck and looked at her. "Yeah?"
She smiled sweetly. "You ever hurt my brother again I'm drowning you in the toilet."