July 29

Prosecution Lobby No. 5

11:25 AM

Niamh Wood

At this point, I was starting to think my anxiety was never going to leave me alone.

I shouldn't have been that surprised to think of that, if I was being honest. Of course I was stressed. The assassin was bound to get away even after everything we had done. Buddy had been freed from the suspicion of the case, but the one responsible for this was going to wind up at large. I knew how these assassins worked. Every other member of their group was already out there, and they were planning what they were going to do next. Of course they were. There was no break for us as long as those people were still after. We were just going to have to deal with that even if it made us want to scream.

And trust me, it did make me want to scream. I hadn't stopped clenching my jaw since the trial began, and even when I spoke, it was around a constant rock of anxiety that I was sure was going to drive me into an early grave if I wasn't careful. Then again, how could I even be careful about any of this given the circumstances? I would just have to deal with it no matter how annoying it was. No, annoying wasn't the right word. If this was literally a threat on my life and the lives of those I cared about, then it was far from being just annoying.

A knock came at the doorway near the entrance to the prosecution lobby, and I glanced up to see my extended family standing there. That was right. In all the chaos, I had completely forgotten that I had been trying to avoid my family since I had no idea what could even be said to them. Well, it ran a little bit deeper than that, but they didn't need to hear that part of the story. In fact, nobody needed to hear that part of the story as far as I was concerned. I would have been more than happy to just leave it in the past forever, never to be mentioned again.

I could already tell by the look in my uncle's eyes that he wasn't going to let me get away with that. He looked over to where Mom and Prosecutor Kalles were talking a few feet away, and I winced to myself at the realization that the two of them had been talking all this time, and I had barely even noticed it at all. I had been so caught up in my own thoughts that I hadn't even bothered to give them a second glance even though they were chattering to themselves. I shouldn't have been shocked that they were talking, but it still caught me off guard in a way I hadn't expected. Then again, just about everything was catching me by surprise today, so I really shouldn't have been that surprised about all of this.

"Hello, everyone," my uncle greeted. I thought briefly about what to call him, but I ultimately settled on not calling him by any sort of name yet. I didn't want to cross any boundaries, even if it was just through my internal monologue. "I was hoping I would be able to speak with Niamh for a brief moment. Is that alright?"

"Of course," Prosecutor Kalles nodded before glancing down to me. "Do you want to go?"

I hesitated, not wanting to talk to anybody right now after everything that had happened but knowing simultaneously that I wasn't going to be able to get away with this forever. This was probably going to be the best time to get it over with. That way, if I went home, I wouldn't be saddled with the anxiety that came with knowing I had failed to talk to them. I... I had to do this, no matter how much the idea made me want to be sick.

"Alright," I eventually forced myself to choke out. I took careful, rigid steps in the direction of my family, and my aunt placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. I had expected to jerk away from the touch, unused to being touched by anyone aside from my parents, but I found her hand to be rather... Soothing. Given how much had happened over the course of the day, I should have seen this coming. I was willing to take just about anything as long as I thought it might calm my nerves for a while.

"We'll be in the defense lobby, okay?" Mom told me as I started toward the door. "Come and see us when you're finished."

I nodded, and I allowed my uncle and his family to pull me away from the rest of the courthouse. My uncle seemed to know where to find a secluded room far from the rest of the chaos, and I was glad for it. I was tired of hearing all the noise of the people around me. The trial had already put me at my limit for sound for the day, and I needed a break. I was sure the others felt the same way even if they weren't expressing it.

Eventually, we arrived in a small room that I was sure was set aside for judges. My uncle probably knew about it thanks to my father who had worked as a judge in the time leading up to his death. I chose to not linger on it for too long, instead just watching as my cousin closed the door behind us. Harvey, was it? Everything about him seemed dark, and I could tell he had a lot on his mind when it came to this conversation. How could he not? I wanted to know what was going on too, not that I had any reason to think it would be about anything but my father's death. Of course they wanted to know what had happened that day. They were family to him the same way I was.

"Niamh, it's a pleasure to finally meet you properly," my uncle declared, spreading his arms in a gesture that felt much too grand for this tiny room. "We had been hoping to speak with you ever since we first heard you would be presiding over this case. I'm glad we finally have the chance to talk this way."

I nodded. "Yeah... I am too," I agreed. I glanced around the room, unable to hold back the awkward, stilted fear that came with my inner monologue. "Um... If you don't mind my asking, what do you want me to call you? I don't want to... Cross any lines."

My uncle just laughed jubilantly, and I was left to wonder how anyone could be this joyous in a situation like this. "You don't need to worry about that with us, my dear," he assured me, placing a comforting hand on my shoulder. "You can call me Uncle Conrad. Your aunt, Melinda, I'm sure would be fine with you calling her something similar. Harvey and Everett speak for themselves."

I nodded once again, not wanting to say anything in case I broke through their strange family dynamic somehow. My uncle was loud, much louder than I would have thought someone like him to be. He ran an important business, but he was more than happy to take up all the space in any room with nothing but his voice. I supposed that would have been a helpful skill to have, but for the time being, all I could think about was how overwhelming it was. I swallowed dryly, tapping one foot against the ground in a desperate attempt to rid my body of all its lingering traces of anxiety.

"Now, I believe we should get to the heart of the matter," Uncle Conrad said. He gestured for me to take a seat, and I realized belatedly that there had been a table in this room all along. How in the world was I a prosecutor if I failed to notice such important things in a room? Then again, I didn't usually behave this way at crime scenes. After all, my strange uncle and his worried family weren't going to follow me to every case I tackled.

"We would like to know how you've been doing over the course of the last fifteen years or so," my aunt explained as she sat down across from me. Aunt Melinda reached across the table and took my hand once more, and I realized again just how comforting the touch was. "It's been quite a while since we were last able to see you, after all. You, Harvey, and Everett were just toddlers back then."

That made sense. They hadn't seen me at all since my mother passed away all those years ago. I didn't remember any of them because of how long ago it had been, and I had admittedly been shocked to even hear I had other relatives. They hadn't looked after me when I lost everything else, and... Well, how was I supposed to know about that? I wasn't in a good position to find out about it.

"I... I went to live with my mother's sister after my mother..." I trailed off, unable to choke out the words. The tapping of my foot grew thunderous and anxious, and I couldn't tell if I wanted to run into my family's arms or run out of the room to escape the constant overwhelming and suffocating feelings that came from being here. "A-Anyways, I lived with my aunt and cousin for a while after that. My aunt started to get sick though, so she sent me and my cousin off to live at a boarding school. We were there for a long time, and... Um... Long story short, I wound up here."

"You don't need to elaborate," Uncle Conrad told me, and I could already tell he knew about the truth of what had happened at Ashbrook. Of course he knew about it. He ran a company dedicated to gathering information. If anything, it would have been more impressive if he hadn't been aware of that going in. "We already understand what happened... And I'm glad you're alright after all that."

"Am I?" I asked before I could hold the words back. I flushed and clapped my free hand over my mouth, embarrassed as could be. Where in the world had that come from? I mean, I agreed that I couldn't exactly be called 'okay' after everything that had happened. My life had been a damn disaster from the start, and even after finding security at Ashbrook, that one virtual reality simulation had changed everything for the worse. Now, I had no idea what I was supposed to do with myself. Life was only continuing to fall apart more. Zach was gone, and then I lost my father and my left eye. Now, I was sitting here and facing a group of assassins out for my blood. What about that could be okay?

"It's alright, sweetheart," Aunt Melinda assured me. Her voice kind of reminded me of a mother bird trying to soothe her babies. I felt my stomach flip. She reminded me a lot of my aunt, the other one who had taken care of me and Zach before her sickness got worse. I swallowed back the nerves, not wanting to think about something so depressing when I was already dealing with more than enough. I couldn't get distracted now. I deserved better than that, especially when I was talking about something so heavy.

"I... Um..." I stammered for what felt like an eternity before I sent them a sad but desperate smile. "Would you like to talk to me about what life has been like for the rest of the family since I left?" I didn't say that I was worried about why they hadn't come to help me after I lost my aunt. Zach and I had been happy at Ashbrook, yes, but we were also on our own. I had been sure I was going to be alone until I met Mom and Dad, and even that had all come down to chance.

"We've been running the business," Harvey said bluntly. Of course that was what they were going to say. The business must have consumed much of their lives over the course of the time I was gone. They had gathered a lot of information over the years, and that would have involved a lot more work than I could have ever imagined.

"Yeah, that... That makes sense," I whispered, suddenly wanting to shrivel up into the floor like a dying weed. That was what I felt like; a weed, an intruder. Even if they were technically my family, I didn't feel like I belonged with them. I doubted I would ever feel like I belonged at this point.

"I'm sorry we weren't able to take you in after you lost your maternal aunt," came the gentle voice of Aunt Melinda from across the table. "We had been thinking about it at the time, but... We ultimately decided it was safer if you were away from us for a little bit longer."

There was something I hadn't expected them to talk about. I opened my mouth and closed it again a few moments later, unsure as to what could even be said in response to that. "I... You thought about it?" I asked carefully.

"Of course we did," Everett chimed in. "You're family, and that means we had to at least offer try to help you... But it was too dangerous for you to come back so soon. Your father had you sent off because he wanted to stay safe away from the eyes of the Emsthorpe family, and if we had taken you in, that would have squandered his plans."

"I'm sorry we had to leave you on your own for so long," Aunt Melinda went on. "We didn't want to abandon you, but it was for the best if we left you alone for the time being. Now that you're older, it feels safer to talk to you openly. We didn't want to risk putting you in that danger when you were a child, especially when the assassins of the Emsthorpe family were still trying to target your father."

"They spent a long time searching for him," I murmured, sinking into my seat a little bit more. The assassins wanting to target my father was the reason for my mother's death. I hadn't even been able to see my own father for years because of all this, and when I was finally able to see him again, it ended with his death and me ending up blind in one of my eyes. Even now that my father was dead, the assassins still seemed to have it out for me if the trial was anything to go off. They were desperate to get their hands on anything about me... And the case at Ashbrook was just more evidence of that.

The room fell silent for a long time, and I realized a little too late that I had walked right into the subject I had been hoping to avoid from the start. I winced inwardly as Uncle Conrad took a step toward me. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked cautiously. At least he was giving me an out if I didn't want to discuss it. At the same time, I knew I wasn't going to be able to get away with this forever. Too many people had been asking about it recently, and I was going to have to deal with it sooner or later.

I glanced around, searching halfheartedly for a way out of this, but I already knew I wasn't going to find anything. Instead, I just let out a heavy sigh and stared down at my hands where they rested in my lap. "He wanted to speak with me after all our years spent apart. The assassins found out about it, and their leader... At least, I think it was their leader... He attacked. By the time the day ended, my father was dead, I was in the hospital, and the man behind it had gotten away. I couldn't even testify when it went to the courtroom. What could I say? I couldn't remember anything about what happened beyond getting my eye cut open."

"You don't need to think about it too much if it would stress you out," Everett pointed out. "Besides, we know everything that happened, at least in the vaguest sense. I'm just glad you were able to get out of that."

"Why?" I asked before I could hold the word back. That was seemingly all it took for the floodgates to tumble open, and tears started to well up in my good eye. "I can't tell you anything about the one who killed a member of your family. I barely remember that day at all. You hadn't met me at all until today. I don't know what to do about any of this."

"You don't need to know what to do," Uncle Conrad chimed in. "We're here for you no matter what happens. If you want to talk to us, the option is there. If you would rather not, then you can do that as well. If you ever decide that you want to get to know us a little bit better, we would be happy to have you over."

I hesitated, glad the topic had changed away from my father's death, before I nodded. "I think I would like that," I murmured. "It's been a long time since I was last around any blood relatives. I would like to get to know you... Just..." I knew I was looking more and more pathetic the longer this dragged on, but I couldn't bring myself to calm down. I took in a careful breath before the words tumbled out. "Before anything else, I need to know for sure that you don't blame me for what happened with my father's death."

"Of course not," Harvey of all people said firmly. His arms were crossed over his chest, and even though he looked intimidating, I knew he wasn't trying to frighten me. "You couldn't have stopped Augustus Emsthorpe on your own. There's a reason he's managed to escape everyone's reach for all this time. You didn't have a way of pushing through him, and that's fine. The fact that you're alive at all is what matters most to me."

I didn't know why those words made me want to cry, but before I knew it, tears were streaming freely down my cheeks. "Thank you," I murmured. I stared down at my hands as they fidgeted anxiously against one another. That was one good thing about having one damaged eye. I didn't need to worry about rubbing away half of my tears since there was no way for them to fall to begin with.

"Of course," Aunt Melinda smiled to me. I glanced up to meet her eyes, and she gave me a gentle look that told me everything was going to be alright even if I was so afraid that wasn't going to be the case. "I take it you would prefer to go back with your other family for the time being. This has been a busy case for you, and I don't want to take you away from that."

I nodded. "Would that be okay?" I asked. "If you had other plans, I don't want this to ruin them or anything..."

"Of course it's alright. We're not going to force you to stick around here or anything," Everett assured me with a wave of one hand. "You should go and have fun with them. We're going to take Buddy back home and get him to calm down. It'll probably be a few days before he can go back to working at Interpol after all that, and given how much of a workaholic he can be, he's going to be stressed about it."

"As long as us dealing with Buddy's bad habits doesn't mean having to put up with Neptune, that's fine with me," Harvey muttered with a roll of his eyes. I couldn't hold back a light chuckle under my breath at that. I didn't know what Neptune had done to get on his bad side, but I was sure it was going to be a question for another time. At the moment, I was glad I just didn't need to worry about letting them down after the disaster this case had been.

"We'll leave you to your celebrations then," Uncle Conrad declared as he gestured for the rest of his family to follow him to the door. "If you ever decide you want to come and visit with us, you know where to go. We would be more than happy to welcome you in. All you need to do is say the word. Until then, Niamh." He gave me a jubilant wave, and the rest of his family followed suit before leaving.

As soon as I was alone, I practically collapsed onto the table in front of my, a sigh pushing its way free of my lips. I reached into my pocket, glad I had thought to be prepared with a small pocket pack of tissues before I left the house this morning. I started to rub at my nose and good eye with everything I had, knowing I was going to leave the skin raw if I wasn't careful but unable to bring myself to care. As long as I could leave all of this in the past, it was going to be fine.

I was distantly aware of Nevada's presence a bit closer to mine in our shared mind, and I could tell she was trying to figure out what to say when it came to comforting me. She wasn't the best with emotional matters either, always preferring to try and cheer others up rather than letting them sit with their feelings. Nevada and I had been getting along better than we had originally, but this was still one thing she didn't know how to handle, and I knew it would be a while before she was fully equipped to take care of it too. Still, it was fine with me. As long as I could consider that conversation over, I was considering this a victory.

I was going to have to go back to the rest of the group soon enough, not that I knew what I was going to say when the time came. We still had a lot of work ahead of ourselves. The Emsthorpe assassins were planning something if the mentions of this strange Night of Calamity were anything to go off. I had no idea what any of that meant, but I was at least feeling a little bit better about it now that I had spoken with what remained of my blood family.

My stomach was still twisted firmly in a knot, but I felt... Happier. I hadn't realized just how much of a weight my father's death had on my back until I started to talk about it. I hadn't even realized that I had blamed myself for it until the words forced themselves out of my mouth. Of course there was nothing I could have done to fix it. That would have been impossible for someone at my size fighting against a fully grown man. Still, the guilt had been eating me alive all this time, and I was glad it was finally gone.

I had been avoiding thinking about my father's death for all this time. It had just been too much for me to bother with. The trial had been swept under the rug quickly because of... Well, just about everything it entailed, but I was glad for that too. It meant I hadn't been forced to confront the ache when the pain was still fresh and dangerous. Now, I was in a better place to deal with it even if I sure didn't feel like I was in a better place. I had talked with my family about it at long last and told them what was bothering me. That had to mean something, and even if it wasn't a perfect solution to my problem, it was a step in the right direction. Besides, nothing would ever be an immediate solution for everything I had been dealing with as far as the Emsthorpe assassins were concerned. It was something though, and I was glad to have finally managed to move forward just a little bit.

For the time being though, I pushed myself away from the table and got to my feet. I stretched my arms high above my head, not realizing just how stiff I had gotten until my muscles strained and groaned in protest. I sighed and looked toward the door. Part of me wanted to stay for just a while longer to touch up on my face and make sure nobody could tell that I had been crying, but I shoved that thought out when I realized just who I was going back to. Mom wasn't going to care if I was crying. She would want to help me, not judge me. Prosecutor Kalles was someone to trust too, not that I could really put a finger on why. I just knew it instinctively.

Before I could reach for the doorknob though, I felt arms wrap around me. No, it wasn't necessarily a person touching me, but rather, the phantom sensation of someone else being there with me. I closed my eye with a smile, glad Nevada was offering care in the best way she could. She had always been much more physically affectionate than me, and while I had never thought much of it before, I was glad to know that now. Even if she couldn't be there with me physically, she still had her own ways of offering comfort, and I wouldn't have given it up for the world.

There was still a lot I didn't understand, but it was at least a step in the right direction. The assassins would be gone soon enough. All of us would make sure of that. Until then, we would look after each other with everything we had. That was what family was for, and now, I had two amazing families who I knew I could count on no matter what.

July 29

Amaya Apartment

12:15 AM

Sky Amaya

The rest of the day came and went as was to be expected. When night fell, Felicity and I both bid one another goodnight and turned in, heading off to our separate rooms for the remainder of the evening. At the time, I had smiled to her, pretending my mind wasn't racing and screaming at the thought of everything I was keeping out of her reach. Felicity either didn't notice or didn't mind, giving me a wave of her own before closing the door to her room.

In the three hours since then, I hadn't slept a wink. I was going to have to talk to Felicity soon about everything. She was getting more and more suspicious as the days went by, and I wouldn't be able to avoid the truth forever. I had been trying to hide it for too long anyways, and all of that was about to come crumbling down. If she had to set foot in the Council of Six headquarters again, then everything was going to break and collapse. I wouldn't be able to defend her from that.

But I could tell her the truth before it all started to crack. That was probably the best thing I could do for her at this point, as much as I hated to admit it. She needed someone to walk her through this, and suddenly remembering everything through a sudden, violent flashback would have been too much. I didn't know how I was going to tell her, but I knew I was going to have to say it sooner or later.

I was scared of opening up though. I was terrified, especially given the Emsthorpe assassins and their recent spike in activity. I didn't know what their son was planning or why he had been absent all this time, but I had an awful feeling about it. The Night of Calamity was just another layer of terror to put on top of everything else, and my stomach twisted at the mere thought of it. They were readying themselves for something massive, and all we could do was sit there and wait for it to happen.

It was just a matter of time before this Mattie Grange character broke out of prison too. I knew better than to think the police would be able to keep a grip on her for too long. The Emsthorpe assassins always had a plan along with at least three backup ideas in case something went wrong. They were readying themselves to right this wrong and then turn it against us. As soon as she broke out of prison, the floodgates were going to crumble, and everything was going to change.

In other words, I was on a tight time limit as for how long I was going to have to sort through my thoughts and what I was going to tell Felicity. As I continued to stare at the ceiling, I realized I wasn't going to be able to fix any of this as long as I just dreaded it without taking action, so I sighed and swung my legs off the side of the bed. I reached for a notebook and started to jot down just about everything I was going to need to say, though I was vague enough about it that Felicity wouldn't know what it meant at a first glance. She could be a bit nosey, and I didn't want her to learn everything because of something like that.

She deserved better than that, and honestly, so did I.

TURNABOUT BUSINESS

END

typed very fast because anxiety

-Digital