Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
A/N: I apologize for taking so long to update, I'm not used to commitment :)
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When Brigitte woke up, light was streaming through the windows from outside. She pulled herself up, the muscles in her back creaking, and pushed the hair out from her eyes. Sam had moved himself to his bed sometime during the night, and she took that as a sign that he was feeling better. His mouth was open at a weird angle and his hair a disarray. He hadn't bothered to change, and his clothes were as wrinkly as ever.
He gave a sudden, unexpected snore and Brigitte gave the closet thing to a smile for the first time in days, before pulling on her boots and bag, bulging from the weight of her junk. She then fumbled through his drawers (which consisted mostly of numerous amounts of pot) before coming across a pair of sunglasses, ones with giant lens the covered half of her face. Brigitte glanced back at Sam for a second before placing them on and moving towards the door, gripping the door handle. She opened it gently, trying not to wake him, and closed it softly behind her.
It was a surprisingly sunny day in Bailey Downs, so she didn't look too suspicious in her glasses as she exited the Greenhouse, passing by the various plants, dew clinging desperately to their leaves. She exited the area like a normal girl asking the local doper for some pot, not the sister of a vanishing murderer. Brigitte turned the corner and caught a sudden glimpse of cop cars and students grouped around the school, murmuring insistently to each other. A newscaster was here and there, clad in fancy suits and solemnly gesturing towards the building. A couple of officers were asking students questions, she noted, and the doors to the school remained locked, even though it was well after the first bell.
Oh crap. They had discovered the bodies...people were probably already saying how Ginger had been in the office last. This wasn't good, this wasn't good at all.
Brigitte shoved her hands into her pockets are hard as she could, and pasted by silently, heading towards the direction of her home. She though she could check if maybe her parents had returned from wherever or if Ginger had left any missed clues behind. And maybe she could find her pictures and stuff, just in case she couldn't return home for a while. It didn't seem like a good bet. She figured she could crash at Sam's until she figured out what to do. It's not like he would care and she could focus entirely on finding Ginger without parental interruption.
She walked the rest of the way to her house in quiet contemplation. It was a quiet day in Bailey Downs, and she assumed most of her chipper neighbors were just now watching the news, covering their kid's eyes from the grisly scenes of blood and gore. When something rare like this happened in Bailey Downs before that night at the playground, a younger and more innocent Ginger and Brigitte would have gathered around the screen, hoping to catch any glimpse of the horror.
She remembered a car crash a few years back, of a mother and her daughter. The newscaster had filmed brief scenes of the wreck, a smoking pile of metal and rubber. It had been close outside of the high school, and Ginger had begged their parents to let them walk down there. Then flames erupted over the screen and the newscaster jumped back, the camera jiggling as they ran from the fireball that had been the van. The next day Brigitte read that the family had died immediately from the explosion and Ginger had groaned.
"I can't believe we missed that," she had said.
Brigitte turned the corner onto her street, lost in thought, until she smelled the smoke. She looked up and saw it had collected itself into the brilliant blue sky...directly over her house. Then she heard the sirens. She turned around wildly, gaping as a large fire truck and ambulance sped past her, parking on the sidewalk next to her driveway.
Brigitte began to dash towards her home, her mind filled with fear. She could be wrong, she attempted to persuade herself, maybe it was her neighbor's house that was on fire. Her boots clicked madly on the pavement. People were gathering outside of their houses, still in their morning robes, cris-crossing their arms firmly around their chests, worried expressions clouding their faces. Brigitte slowed down as she came to stop in-front of the charred house that had been her home for so many years.
Fire-trucks blared their horns, as hoses were bring dragged from everywhere, beams of water sprouting towards the thickening flames that covered the roof. Red lights flickered off the remaining windows and Brigitte could only gawk as her room was devoured by fire. The efforts of the firemen were useless, she could tell by their grim faces. Brigitte collapsed behind a truck, sinking to her knees. The words from her mom in the van echoed painfully through her head like a banging drum, filling her with despair. Had her mother been so convinced that her daughters had deserted her that she played a last course of action before driving into the black abyss of where the fuck she had disappeared too, abandoning her family? She didn't even want to think about what had happened to her father. This was insane, she thought as the minutes trickled by, how could her mom had done something so stupid?
After a while had passed, and Brigitte couldn't take any more of the horrible feelings she was experiencing, she crossed the street towards the exhibit to say a final goodbye to the house she had shared with her parents and Ginger. The place where they had worked strenuously on the death tapes, the last displays of anything they had ever experienced close to ignorance. The house where Ginger had thrown her lace-trimmed cake at her mother on her eleventh birthday and Brigitte had tried to resurrect her dead turtle when she was seven. The place where she had carried her sister from the park that fateful day and gathered the monkshood not long after.
Memories...
Brigitte approached the caution tape carefully, secluding herself behind an empty fire truck. She peered from afar into the downstairs window, a fresh billow of smoke rising menacingly from it. A sudden rumbling echoed through the neighborhood and firefighters began yelling harsh commands at each other. Brigitte inched farther for a closer look, her feet skimming the neatly cut lawn of her house and fire burst from the windows, sparkling the sky with embers.
Fireman emerged from inside the house, running frantically from the fearsome flames engulfing the vicinity. They barely escaped when the roof caved in, and Brigitte tripped backward from the sound of the explosion, covering her ears as she hit the ground. She coughed violently, smoke filling her lungs. I was an idiot, I shouldn't have gotten so close, she scolded herself. Her knees were bruised and dirty and she felt a sudden, sharp pain in her stomach. A soot-covered firefighter heard her coughing and, quickly crouching towards her, pulled her back fiercely, twisting Brigitte's arm by accident as he pulled her away from the rubble. She reacted in a sudden burst of uncontrollable anger.
"What the fuck do you think your doing," she growled threateningly. A cloud of dark hair covering her eyes, which flashed red. Her hands balled into fists, her fingers digging so far into her hand she could feel blood trickle slowly down her wrist.
The firefighter took a surprised step back and Brigitte relaxed at the frightened look on his face. Whoa, she wondered, what the hell happened there? He was just trying to keep her away from danger, and she had lashed at him like an, like an...animal.
Suddenly, the firefighter roughly grabbed her shoulder, and tore her away from the scene, forcing her into the street. He pushed her back, his beady eyes bulging in his pudgy, red face and her thick hands firmly planted on each side of his body, giving her a look that meant hell.
"Get the hell out of here. What do you think your doing? The rubble could have landed farther than expected and killed you. The last thing we need is a snot-nosed teenage prick like you getting us sued. Now leave or I'm calling th police!" He yelled, spittle hitting her on the cheek.
Brigitte mumbled an apology, and then sprinted towards Sam's place. Her bare feet hit the ground with deafening speed, and a chill set itself up her spine, twisting into her veins. She thought she could feel the virus making its way through her body, poisoning her mind with thoughts of murderous rage...she thought she could even feel a knob pressing hard against her back...perhaps her teeth were even beginning to sharpen...
The monkshood wasn't permanent.
