The sound of the gun is loud in the barn, and it echoes in the open space. Even with Emily's still ringing ears, she hears it from almost too close as Will lets off several shots at Kimblee's form in the doorway. At least one of them definitely lands from the way Kimblee curls up, but there's a clap, and then he's hitting the ground again.
Emily doesn't need to be pulled away, but Hughes is already yanking her to the side when the ground before them explodes. She catches a glimpse of Seaver yanking Will aside too, but the explosion is close enough to make her worry about Rossi. She wants to call out, needs to make sure he's okay, but it's not safe. They're behind a stall wall, but that's hardly safe.
"Kimblee knows the stone's here," Hughes says low but close enough for her to make out. "We can't let him have it."
"Why doesn't he just bring the whole barn down?" Emily asks in what she hopes is a whisper but she honestly isn't sure.
"Because he doesn't want to dig it out of the rubble," Reid says at her other side.
"LaMontagne hit him, I'm pretty sure," Hughes says, looking up. It feels too quiet in the barn, and Emily knows that's mostly her own hearing still not being right. She's not hearing the subtle creaks and groans of the barn swaying in the storm, the sound of the rain coming down through the hole in the roof. She's not hearing the quieter rumbles of thunder that the occasional flash of lightning indicates there should be. It makes the whole scene feel surreal, like some twisted nightmare. "Give me your gun."
It actually takes Reid saying, "What? No!" loud enough for her to hear to make her realize that she didn't imagine Hughes demanding a gun.
"You have the stone," Hughes says. "Give me your gun."
Emily can tell from the look on Reid's face that he absolutely does not want to give Hughes his gun, and she doesn't really blame him. You don't give unknowns your weapon, but she also knows that Hughes is unarmed against Kimblee, and he's the one in the barn who knows him best.
Pulling her own gun out, she shoves it at Hughes. He actually turns to stare at her for a moment, then his head pops up, and he shifts his grip on the gun to one that looks like someone who knows how to use one. Emily thinks she can hear Kimblee saying something, but she can't quite hear it.
Hughes's attention drops to them and he says, "Stay back. Stay low. Do not let Kimblee get the stone."
"What are you going to do?" Reid asks.
She doesn't quite catch what he says, and what Emily thinks she hears must be completely wrong because she'd swear he says, I need to draw him in.
Grabbing his arm as he moves to shift away from them, Emily shakes her head firmly. "Stay here," she says.
Hughes raises an eyebrow and shifts his eyes to Reid pointedly.
Reid must see it because he leans forward, closer to them. "I can help," he says, opening the hand holding the stone. The glow seems frighteningly bright in the near dark around them. Hughes shoves his hand closed, cocking his head as if listening again.
Even though she doesn't hear anything, she sees the moment Hughes goes on red alert. He lunges at them both, shoving them both down and to the side just as the side of the stall they'd been protected by blows up. Emily can feel fragments and splinters sting her arms and hands, but she manages to protect her face.
She's still coughing, trying to breathe through the dust and hay kicked up by the explosion, when Hughes gets to his feet, and starts to run. He shouts something that she doesn't hear, and she sees the muzzle of her gun flash, which, while probably not a bad idea, is probably not the best idea.
The whole barn sways, and there's yet another explosion, throwing more dirt and dust and hay into the air, blocking out what little light there is.
Emily has a heartbeat to wonder where the fuck Mustang is and what the hell he's doing before there's pressure in the air, and Emily would swear her ears pop. Her hearing still isn't perfect, but she can hear again.
"Come out, come out, Hughes," Kimblee singsongs. "You have a stone I would very much like." There's another small explosion, but these smaller ones aren't hurting her ears the way the big one in town, thankfully. "Don't worry, I'll kill you quickly." She doesn't know if she's imagining it, but Emily thinks his voice sounds a little tight, a little pained.
"I think that you'll have to have words with Roy about that," Hughes yells from somewhere closer than Emily would like him to be, and another explosion hits where he was. Emily swears that she can feel the whole building sway, which is more than a little unnerving.
She turns to look at Reid. "The stone?" she demands as low as she can. When did Hughes grab the stone?
Reid shakes his head at her, and holds out his hand. Even between his closed fingers, she can see the dim red glow. That glow is going to feature in her nightmares, she can just tell . At least it means that Reid still has the stone and that he can use it if he has to, so what is—
Right. Hughes is being a decoy. Why is he being a decoy?
I need to draw him in, he'd said. Why?
Kimblee said that Mustang is useless in the rain, which means…
The pieces come together, and she swears her brain would be thinking better if she probably didn't have a concussion—because if she didn't before, she'd be really surprised if she doesn't now—but if Mustang is useless in the rain, he needs somewhere dry to be effective, so Hughes wants to draw Kimblee into the barn in the hopes that it'll allow Mustang to come in and be actually useful.
Except there's been no sign of Mustang.
There's another shot from somewhere farther away, but Emily can't tell if it's Hughes or not. She hopes that it's Will or Seaver, that Hughes isn't trying to combat Kimblee alone.
A couple more quick explosions wrack the barn, and she hears roof boards shatter against the column in the floor, which makes her absolutely sure that the whole structure is swaying.
"We need to get out of here," she tells Reid. "And we need to get Rossi out of here."
He meets her eyes, a flash of lightning illuminating his face, or just the whites of his eyes, enough to see them, and Emily does not like what she sees there. It reminds her of what Reid looked like when he was on Dilaudid, when he was he was a functioning addict. He's used the stone and is acting like an addict who has just had a fix, which means that she can't rely on him.
Deliberately, Reid sets his spare hand on the floor. The red glow spreads from his other hand across the floor and back up the walls, jumping around them like red lightning, and she wants to cover her head and protect herself from it, but it doesn't touch her. It seems to dance around her and climbs up the walls, and it seems like the whole structure firms up, stands straighter somehow.
At least it does for a minute before Kimblee blows out another wall. She thinks she hears another shot go off, but she's honestly not sure if it's a shot or another crack of wood, and then Kimblee is standing in the opening of the stall they're in.
The stone glows through Reid's fist, illuminating them both, and Kimblee looks like some sort of villain in a horror movie, except this isn't a movie; it's terribly, horrifyingly real. Kimblee grins in something like glee.
"I've found you, little would-be alchemist…" he says. "Now, give me the stone." He holds out his hand, an array drawn on his palm in marker that looks smudged and imperfect.
Reid draws back, holding the stone close to his chest, the glow growing stronger by the moment, throwing off light that makes the whole scene feel utterly unreal.
There's an odd click sound that's just on the edge of her hearing, for an instant, Kimblee's expression goes from one of near ecstatic joy to abject terror.
And he bursts into flame.
The heat is intense, the flame so bright that she has to shield her eyes, but Kimblee's screams Emily can hear far too clearly.
Kimblee falls back, trying to cover his eyes, shrieking at the top of his lungs in a way that Emily has only ever, ever heard from the desperate and dying. She hates Kimblee, is terrified of him, but this is not a fate she'd wish on anyone.
The flaming ball of humanity drops to the floor and tries to roll, but the sawdust and wood just starts catching fire themselves.
Emily has smelled burnt human flesh before, but never this fresh, never while it's cooking from a living person's bones. Both she and Spencer gag with it.
The fire jumps, brighter, hotter, bigger, and Kimblee falls blessedly silent. None of them have dared to try to get close enough to put out the fire, and the final plume catches part of the framing on fire.
"Everyone needs to get out!" Mustang yells.
"Can't you put it out?" Hughes snaps back. "Prentiss and Reid were back there!"
"I can get us out!" Reid calls back, his hand lighting back up. He puts his spare hand on the wall behind them. Before Emily can yell at him, it blows out, away from them.
"Go! We'll meet back at the car!" Hughes yells. The fire is spreading rapidly, and Emily can tell that it's not safe to stay inside.
"But Rossi!" she yells.
"We've got him, Em!" Will yells back. "If you and Reid can get out, go!"
Emily hates the idea of leaving them, but she knows they don't really have a choice, so she follows Reid out into the rain.
It might be pouring outside, but the barn on the inside is very dry, and the fire is spreading quickly.
"Why isn't Mustang stopping it?" she yells at Reid.
He shakes his head. "I don't know," he calls back.
"Can you stop it?" she asks.
"I don't think so!"
Emily grabs his arm. "Let's check the car!"
The car, it turns out, is going to be a nonstarter. She can't believe she forgot that it was blown up, but getting here feels like it was ages ago. They can't stay out here, though.
"The house?" Reid asks as Seaver and Will come out carrying Rossi. Close behind them, Hughes comes with Mustang in a fireman's carry, which explains why he couldn't stop the fire.
"The house?" Seaver calls as they get close, echoing Reid's thoughts.
"The house," Emily agrees. She goes to help Will and Seaver, but Will waves her off toward Hughes, while Reid goes to open the door.
Before she can touch Mustang, Hughes says, "I've got him."
There's really no good way for her to help him while he's using a fireman's carry, so she goes ahead, going straight to the kitchen to see if there are any useable first aid supplies. She remembers the blood on Seaver's hand, and she has no idea what shape Mustang's in. She finds an actual first-aid kit in a cabinet, and it even appears well-stocked. She also grabs a couple of paper towel rolls from beneath a sink that are still in plastic.
When she comes back into the living room, Rossi has been eased onto the couch. Mustang is laid out on the floor, a throw pillow supporting his head. Emily stops in the doorway and stares for a moment at the ruin that appears to be the left side of Mustang's face.
Hughes sits on the floor next to him. "Can I use those to clean him off?" he asks, then blinks tiredly at her, and pulls her gun from behind his back. "Also, thanks for the gun."
She hands the kit and a roll of paper towels to Seaver, then goes over to Hughes and hands him another roll, trading it for the gun. "I'll see if I can find a bowl of clean water," she says, turning and rushing back to the kitchen, eager to have something to do.
Slamming the third cabinet closed, she startles when Will comes up behind her.
"Calm down, Emily," he says, calm and gathered, like he usually is. Emily wonders if it ever pisses JJ off.
"How's Rossi?" she asks.
He shrugs. "We don't know," he admits. "But it's lucky that the utilities are still on here," he says, running the sink. The water runs clear, which is a relief.
"We need an ambulance," she says.
"Yup," Will agrees. "Is this place old enough to still have a landline?"
Emily's heart lifts before she remembers, "Tucker shut it off after his parents died." She sighs. "We might just have to wait out the storm." She opens another cabinet and finds a couple of large mixing bowls, pulling them out, relieved that they're clean. She pulls them out and hands them to Will, who fills the first.
"Looks like," he agrees.
"Do you know what happened to Mustang?" she asks, almost reluctantly.
He shakes his head. "His face was messed up when I saw him come in. He seemed barely conscious. Passed out I think as soon as he was sure Kimblee was dead."
Licking her lips, she tries to forget the smell, forget the screams. They echo in her ears.
"We owe him our lives," Will says softly.
"I know," she says. And she does. Reid might have been able to hold off Kimblee, but he probably wasn't skilled enough to defeat him. Kimblee would have killed them all, and then he would have been nearly unstoppable. "I don't want Reid to have the stone," she says, looking for clean rags to go along with the bowls of hot water.
Will doesn't question her assessment. "Yeah," Will says, turning off the water. "I can understand that." They stand there for a moment as Emily pulls out a handful of kitchen towels that look clean. They stare at each other, silent. Emily wonders if Will hears Kimblee's screams too.
"Maybe Seaver can hold onto it?" she suggests.
"Good idea," he agrees, picking up the larger bowl. He takes half the stack of towels, while Emily takes the other bowl, and they brace to go back to the living room.
Thunder rumbles above their heads, but the light remains consistent. It's something at least.