The Drache's mansion wasn't quite as huge as Thierry's, but that was okay, for the amount of time Thierry had lived he really should have owned the whole country, possibly the continent, by now, so the Draches could expect to have a smaller mansion. Nine limos had all left from Thierry's mansion at the same time, three of then carrying Delos, Galen and Illiana, as well as some of Thierry's guards, it was Thierry's theory that then the Night World wouldn't have as much likelihood of following the car Galen was in. The rest carried solely circle daybreak members who were willing to protect him with their lives. At the mansion, a few dozen-shape shifters already waited, all trained in combat.
And still Galen didn't care. He was numb, Jez and Morgead were both gone, could only be presumed as dead – the Night World had essentially won. What if they felt that gave them a chance to kill Keller? he couldn't cope with that, and now Circle Daybreak was being split up, all because he had been foolish enough to let Keller go into the hospital.
Let Keller? You think you could have stopped her? His mind argued with him, but it was no good. He felt somehow that he should have known what was going on. Now, he wished more than anything that he'd argued that day at the hospital, said he wasn't going to be backup. She would never have been taken away from him.
Even now, now that he had time to accept it, he couldn't stop the tears.
This was his entire fault.
David sat opposite Gillian's parents, next to his own. He had been sent home in a taxi and hadn't done a single thing to make himself look better. Getting out of the taxi, he had seen Tanya, a year older than the last time he'd seen her, her long hair glossy and brown. Now, she didn't do a thing for him, he realised how much prettier Jill was, how much nicer, how much…
"What's wrong, David?" she asked in a tone somewhere between malicious and gentle, he didn't understand how anyone could have such mixtures, but Tanya was the exception for that rule, a figurative witch, he walked up his drive, preparing to phone Gillian's parents from there and ask them whether he could come over, "Gillian and you broke up?"
He stiffened and she saw it. She laughed, "awww, poor Davie."
"She hasn't broke up with me," he said in a voice barely on the brink of audibility, "she's been kidnapped," without a word; he walked into his own house and phoned the Lennox's.
"What's happened to our daughter?" Mrs. Lennox asked, so calmly it was infuriating, as he tried to hold back tears, "if you've had an argument and you've left her somewhere, David…"
The Harman's had made both sets of parents believe that it was perfectly okay for Gillian and David to take off to Las Vegas to stay with her supposed distant cousins. Okay, so they weren't 'supposed' but if the Lennox and Blackburn families had been of their right minds, they wouldn't have allowed it. Ash, James, Thea and Illiana were not the most responsible types, they would have been thinking. They thought they were going to stay with a twenty-four year old cousin and her mother.
"We…" he paused, speechless, forgetting what he was supposed to say. Thierry had gave him his whole script on index cards, which he'd memorized in the car, now he entirely forgot and the words rushed out in torrents, " we were walking, sight-seeing, you know? I mean, we'd been in Vegas for a long time, but there's always something more to see, and…I'm not sure what happened. But we must have been mugged because by the time I woke up, my money was gone and… and…"
"David," Mrs. Lennox said, "where…is…Gillian…?"
He clenched his eyes shut, and – although he was lying – he felt the same sadness, "by the time I'd woke up, she was gone. We looked all over for her, but she wasn't in Vegas…"
Before him, the two parents seemed to internally collapse.
They had had to sneak into the hospital room. First, Eric had gotten them into Thea's, who was up for a little visitation; she was the medical witch of them all and helped them figure out what to do when they got in, "If she has been half changed," Thea said, raking through the bag of supplies they had brought with them and trying not to wince as her stomach muscles contracted, "then you'll need to use as Isis blood stone and combine all three of your energy's, it's the only thing powerful enough to even bring her out of the coma, never mind heal her."
None of them had even known that, and as they stood talking, Poppy realised what a terrible medical team they made, probably no better than the human system, they just weren't interested in that stuff. They had used their witch powers for combat, apart from Poppy, who just used her psychic powers and only vampiric powers in battle.
They stayed a little while until it was dark, inquiring about Thea's health, exclaiming about how she wasn't fat – or in their words, 'showing' – and berating Eric on how James was going to kill him. Then they left, supplies in hand, to sneak into Holly's room.
"Stay in Thea's room," Winnie hissed, stepping outside and muttering something underneath her breath, orange witch fire formed in her hands and she aimed, hitting the nearest security camera, "come on," then she lead the way to Holly's room, shutting the door behind her.
It had been easy, but they were going to have to work quickly.
"Okay, we'll all concentrate the stone on the whole in her chest, right?" Jeannette asked nervously, the other two nodded, and each put a finger on the stone, which they placed on her chest, it seemed to be going alright, until all of a sudden.
Beeeeeeeeeeeep, Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep, Beeeeeeeeeeeeep.
It was a sound they all knew from medical programs. Her heartbeat was going haywire, "what's happening!" Poppy screamed at Winnie, who was the best witch of the three.
"I don't know!" Jeannette screamed back, "but I think we should all take our hands of this thing!"
They weren't bothered about noise, and now Winnie yelled, "one…two…three…!"
They all leapt off the stone, only to hear a beep that never ended, buzzing through the room.
"We've killed her," Poppy whispered as the door burst open and in shot five uniformed security guards.
