Part Four: Home Invader

Nathan throws the car into park, rolls up the three working windows and pegs the windshield shade in place. He and his sister step into the cold evening breeze, stuffing the key in his pants with one hand and carefully holding his delicate styrofoam atom model in the other. The windiness doesn't help anything either. He nearly loses all four of the element's electrons before he makes it to the porch.

He sighs out the stress of the day as he opens the front door, his sister following him inside where they meet their mother. She abruptly ends her phone call once they enter.

"That wasn't suspicious at all," Jennifer says sarcastically. Their mother replies with a nervous smile, thumping the power button on the mobile.

"You're not giving us away, are you?" Nathan adds with a sly smile. "I was just getting to like your cooking."

"Ha ha," she replies and goes to kiss her daughter. "How was school kids? I heard the whole area went dark all at the same time, I hope everything is fine now."

"It was only for a minute." Nathan replies, resting his model on the kitchen counter.

"Thank God too. The hospitals must have been chaotic."

The power doesn't usually go out where they live. It's usually pretty reliable throughout the whole year, cutting off only during bad storms and the such. For it do go out in the entire area like that is more than strange. Someone must have really messed up for it to have gone that bad.

Nathan sighs once more as he drags himself up the millions of stairs to his bedroom. It was only sort of cool to live in a two story house for the first time when they moved in a year ago. Now, the endless steps just add to the many dreads of his afternoons.

"Egh, what were you doing today?" Jennifer says trailing behind him with her nose pinched.

"It's not me," Nathan holds his hands up to defend himself. "I showered yesterday." His sister rolls her eyes and and disappears behind her room door.

He knows it's not him because he smells it too. It smells like sweat-drenched clothes mixed with mucky seawater. He swears that there's sewage buried somewhere in the unsavoury mix as well. He must really need to wash his clothes.

The door swings open and Nathan immediately feels a draft breeze past his arms causing him to shiver a little. The curtains blow about in the chilled dark room.

I thought I closed that. He moves to shut it when the glint of a green glow catches his eye from under his desk. "What's this?" He kneels under to pick it up, and notices how warm the thing is. It feels as a laptop would while it's charging. "It's warm?" The canister has a metal base with glass in most of the middle allowing for an emerald green electricity to clearly be seen violently bouncing around inside. He has either found the coolest phone charger in the country, or the coolest lava lamp in the world. Either way, he needs to show it to Katie. She loves things like this.

Nathan plops down onto his bed and reaches for his phone. His eyes suddenly widen at the icy feeling of cold metal pressing against the skin of his throat. He doesn't move out of shock at first, then because of what his captor whispers into his ear.

"You're going to keep quiet, and you're going to do as I say, got it?" Nathan doesn't respond right away. He couldn't even if he wanted to. A cat found his tongue and devoured it right before him then licked the blood off it's paws. He instead nods and doesn't move a muscle, staring straight forward into the darkness.

The voice speaks, "Stand up and put that on the desk. Turn around, and I'll show you how your insides look."

The only thing louder than Nathan's breathing is his heart pounding in his chest. He's never been robbed before, but he imagines if he would, it'd be by a group of thugs who would steal every valuable thing they owned, not by some girl in the dark in his own bedroom. He swallows a gulp larger than the silence in the room and does what she says. Standing now, he can feel the girl's arm on his shoulder. He's taller than she is, she has to be closer to him now to keep the knife on his neck.

Is this really happening? He considers trying to overpower her, but realises she might have a gun. It would really not be worth it getting shot over a fancy lava lamp. That begs the question as to why that girl is even in there trying to get that lamp, and also how the thing got there in the first place. Again, given the circumstances now is not the best time to question the logic of a home invader.

The knife pressing harder on his skin shakes him from his thoughts. "Over there, by the closet. Now." She's keeping her voice low. "Stand there and don't turn around or else." Without hesitation he moves, nearly tripping over something on his messy floor. Staring at the barely visible closet door, the room is silent for a few seconds, like she's trying to see if he'll do something. Finally, the knife moves from his neck and he hears light footsteps going back over to the desk and then to the open window.

To his left, Nathan sees the light switch next to the room door. A thought passes through his head. No, that's stupid, that's a stupid idea. You're an idiot, Nathan. He looks away, then it calls to him once more. He tosses the idea around and hates himself for what comes of it. You're such an idiot, Nathan! With a slam, he hits the light switch and spins around in the room which they can now see each other in. He doesn't even believe his eyes at first, then questions all sense of reason and sanity left in the world.

The two pink eyes of a cloud-tattooed girl look back at him from the window sill, just before her long, blue braids vanish down to the garage roof and off into the night. Nathan stands speechless for a moment, still trying to bring himself to what the hell it was he just witnessed, then he scrambles into his pocket to get his cell phone.

"You were held up in your bedroom by a young girl in a video game costume?" The police officer stands over the open car door with a pen and notepad in hand, and nearly laughs through his teeth at Nathan as he snarks. The Evans house is lit up in the night by flashing red and blue lights from the silent state trooper car parked in the front lawn.

"Yes! Well, no," Nathan explains, "She wasn't really small. She was about this tall." He holds his hand up to his forehead, "And she had a knife."

"She had a knife?!" his mother exclaims. "Oh my God," she glares at the officer, "And you're laughing at him?" She walks up to him with a finger pointed towards his nose. "My son could have died in there! What the hell is wrong with—"

"Ma'am," his partner says, seemingly rather annoyed with the whole situation, "The best we can do is have a search party out in the morning 'n have a look see if we find your girl."

Although his mother's reaction is a more accurate representation of what he should be feeling, he is grateful, to say the least, that the girl did not cut him a new one back there. It would be rather embarrassing to have them explain to the rest of the family how another Evans man died. He'd hardly be known as a man to the rest of them then. At least his dad went in a construction accident. That's the most manly way to go in this century, just after a well placed Lux ultimate.

A car growls up the street-light-lit road and skids to a halt just beside the police cruiser. A frantic look is on the face of the man who gets out of the driver's seat of the expensive sports car. He stares at the police officers, and then at Nathan and Jennifer before hurrying to their mother's side. Nathan glares the man down, trying to figure out what business he could possibly have there.

"I came as soon as I could, Rebecca. Are you okay?" He locks eyes with Nathan and then his sister, "Are they alright?"

Jennifer eyes the stranger head, to toe, to head. "Who's this?"

"You know this man?" one of the officers ask, resting his hand on his baton.

"Yes."

"No."

The mother and children exchange looks with each other after their simultaneous response.

He goes to remove the stranger from the premises. "Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to leave, this is a crime scene investigation."

"Officer wait!" Rebecca gets between him and the man. "He's not trespassing, I called him here." Seeing no good alternative, she goes to face her children. Her blue eyes rest on her children's as she speaks with a sigh. "Nathan, Jennifer, this is Desmond…" she pauses, "He's… we've been dating for— well, a while."

"What?" Katherine exclaims with raised, groomed eyebrows and a mouth full of Cheerios. "There is no goddamn way I could go to sleep after that." She scoots over at the cafeteria table for another student to sit beside her.

"Yeah," Christopher adds. He runs his hand through his shoulder length blond hair, "Held up in your room and found out your mom's sleeping with some guy, all in one night."

"I didn't say she slept with him, Chris," Nathan defends.

"Well I mean, come on," Katie says as she takes another spoonful. "They were dating for a while, they weren't writing each other poetry the whole time, I can tell ya that." She smiles and wipes a stray white drop of milk from her brown skinned cheek.

All too often Katie's cold words collide the wrong side of people, usually either Nathan or her her better half, Chris. Sure, he's used to it by now, but that doesn't mean they don't sting. It's her personality and one that Nathan tolerates because Chris tolerates.

If she weren't dating his best friend then there could be a chance be them being friends. Her attitude may be less than appealing at times but her skills in the jungle are second to none. If not piercing his body with her words, she's saving it from enemy ganks or Karthus ultimates or tower dives. Life in the bottom lane would be much harder without her around, that goes without question so her insults are usually given a pass. Besides, she makes Chris happy. That's all that matters, right?

"They find the Jinx girl yet? Did she hurt you?" Chris asks.

"Not yet. Said they'd call us tonight about it. And she didn't hurt me, but she could have. She had a knife."

"What kinda of person spends their time robbing houses cosplayed as a league character?" Katie asks, a contort of disgust on her mouth. "That's like a whole new level of crazy."

Nathan's been wondering the answer to that same question all night and all morning. He could barely sleep because of it. It wasn't money that the girl demanded or revenge she sought, it was that green electric energy in the canister she wanted. Even more troubling, he's never seen anything like it in his life. He hasn't the slightest idea as to what it could be. It could very well be a cool lava lamp, or a phone charger, or it could be a nuclear bomb, the purpose of it even more frightening than the cold knife that was against his throat. Though, it seems he will never know. For the better perhaps.

A police cruiser is parked in Nathan's spot in the driveway when the siblings arrive home the evening after school. He's only slightly ticked off that they chose to park there, but more eager to find out about their progress with the crook.

The two officers from before are inside the living room speaking with their mother. Desmond is there too. She holds a worried expression on her face while speaking to them, and it only gets worse when she sees her only two kids. Desmond also apparently seems to be interested in their safety as he listens intently as well. It makes perfect sense of course. It's a no brainer to try and get on their good sides for their mother to like him more. Though, whether he's genuinely interested in their well being or just their mother remains to be proven to Nathan. He doesn't seem like a terribly horrible person at the moment, but that doesn't appear to be nearly enough for Jennifer, given the gross frown on her face whenever she sees the man. The circumstances of his reveal don't help his case either. He would have to go above and beyond to prove worthy of his mother to Nathan and ten-fold for his sister's.

"Any progress?" Nathan asks hanging his keys up. The officer that was talking sighs with his hands on his belt, suggesting that he doesn't want to repeat himself.

Desmond follows behind Rebecca as she approaches her children. "They haven't seen any sign of her anywhere, so that could either mean that she's gone out of the city, or that she's lying low and waiting until she can hit someone again."

"Hit us again," Jennifer adds.

"And so we recommend," his partner says, "That you should change your locks, fortify your home, maybe consider arming yourselves."

"We are not going to buy a gun," their mother snaps at the officer.

"I'm sorry ma'am, it was just a—" He sees the look in her eye and backs off before things get messy.

"I already have one," Desmond states. This brings about a surprised look from Rebecca.

"Is it registered?" one of the officers ask.

"Of course."

"I didn't know you had a gun," she finally says to him.

"I didn't think it was important until now."

"Didn't think it was important? Well when would you think it suitable to tell me that?" The anger in her voice is starting to raise now.

Desmond turns and looks her straight in the eyes. "Becca, the last thing I want is for you, or them to get hurt. I'd rather die than see anything happen to you, you know that." He faces Jennifer. "I know I'm… unwanted for now but that doesn't change what you are to your mom. You're important to her so you're important to me, both of you. Maybe now is a chance for me to show you what she means to me."

For a while the house is quiet. Not a sound, save for the news channel playing low on the television behind them. Now Jennifer and Nathan are able to see part of what he really wants from them. If he truly does want to show them what their mother means to him, then he at the very least deserves a chance to do it, Nathan knows that much now. It is yet to be seen what his more critical sister thinks of it.

Once they're done talking and the officers leave, Nathan goes up to his bedroom. Katie, Chris and himself are supposed to play a few ranked matches today. He pauses at the threshold of his dark room and turns the light on this time before entering. No one else is inside. He checks the closet and under his bed, just in case.

Too many losses later, he and his friends log off and he decides to go to bed to end the long day. He's had a lot to think about recently. He needs to sleep.

Jus as he's about to fall asleep, he hears something. The creaking of his room door closing cuts through the quiet of the room. The light flicks on and Nathan shoots upright to meet the end of a knife inches away from his face.