Diego's screams and Lila's dissuasions barely registered in my mind as I darted across the floor, eyes trained to the stained and crusty carpet. When we rushed Diego back up here, I'd tried to insist on helping treat the wound, primarily as a means of distraction, but I'd proved to be too frantic to even open the sleeve the gauze was held in, so Lila swooped in and took over, leaving my mind to race. We'd been back for quite a while at this point, and there was still no sign of Five, causing my stomach to lurch.
I genuinely remained torn between whether I did the right thing or not. Obviously, saving a life, and Diego's life at that, took precedence over someone that had a few scratch marks, but the mere realization that I had left Five behind—a person I mentally promised I'd do my best not to lose again—chopped up my breaths into little fragments. Did he even know we'd left, or was he still waiting for us? Did Dad go back and find him, and…
I shook my head, trying my best to cast away the worst-case scenarios that brewed.
"What happened?" I heard Diego groan, his eyes fully open and bouncing around. I stopped just for a moment to glance at him before resuming my slightly comforting movements.
"I found you collapsed on the ground with a stab wound on your abdomen," I explained, my voice trembling. I was already on edge, and the image of Diego splayed out on the ground, slowly getting soaked in dark red liquid certainly didn't help with my nerves. "Lila helped me get you back here."
For the first time since we left, I circled back to my previous confusion. It most certainly wasn't a coincidence Lila just happened to show up at the right place, meaning she definitely came after us.
"Were you following us?" I asked, halting my steps so quickly I stumbled a bit.
"Uh, hey, how about a little gratitude," Lila shot back. "If it wasn't for me, he'd be dead." She turned her attention to Diego momentarily. "That's twice now, by the way." Her set of forceps clinked against the tweezers, which somehow seemed to snap Diego completely awake.
"Where are my clothes?" he demanded. "The hell are my clothes?" He attempted to sit up, starting to grow restless, but Lila wasn't having it.
"I said, don't move!" When Diego wouldn't calm down, she pressed whatever she was using to cauterize his wound deep into it, causing him to cry out before collapsing again, his eyelids fluttering shut. "There, that's better."
The sound of energy whooshing causing me to spin around on my heel, eyes wide with hope. Sure enough, there stood the youngest member of our family, expression no more miffed than it normally was. The adrenaline crashed down fast, forcing me to sink down into the chair perched on my right.
"Oh, thank God," I breathed, my hands slowly dragging down my face. Five cast his eyes to me for a moment, but quickly redirected them over to Diego, who had fallen unconscious again.
"Oh. He isn't dead," was all he said upon returning.
"Disappointed?" Lila taunted, a mischievous grin illuminating her face.
"Oh, to see you? Always," Five quipped. My senses quickly came back to me, and I sat up straight, casting my brother a glare.
"Five," I cautioned, though I didn't really feel like I had the right to reprimand after leaving him behind.
"So much hostility in such a tiny package. Did you cut yourself shaving?" Five pressed a spare sheet of gauze to the three scratch marks on his neck, but thankfully, no blood soaked through. "I could teach you to shave like big boy."
"No, I just ran into an old family friend," he sighed, glancing down at the gauze to check for any lingering drops of red liquid.
A snore from behind Five caused him to step aside, revealing Elliott passed out in the chair we'd left him in, still held down by all the bonds Diego had tied.
"You didn't untie him?" I raised an eyebrow, casting a confused glance at Lila.
"Was I supposed to?" She didn't sound the least bit sorry, but I shrugged it off for now.
Confident the bleeding had stopped, Five made his way over to Elliott and set him free, then proceeded to shake him until he woke up. He appeared confused for a moment, but after a while, he just eased right back into the way he was when I first met him, taking the time to fix himself another bowl of cereal.
Realizing I had my chance, I got up from the chair, and, ignoring the shaking in my legs, made my way over and set a hand on Five's shoulder. He remained with his back facing me for another moment, then turned and cast his eyes up to mine. A thousand different apologies and explanations ran through my head and tried to force themselves out of my mouth at the same time, causing me to freeze up; it was as though I could genuinely feel the wheels in my brain getting stuck against each other. A few stutters and choked sobs got out, but other than that, we just stood there in an awkward silence.
Five seemed to catch on to what I was trying to say, and in a rare moment of letting his guard down, he moved my arm and pulled me into a hug, which I eventually was able to return. There was something so indescribably reassuring about it—providing that last little bit of confirmation that he was here, alive, and mostly well. The scratch marks would go away soon.
"I'm so sorry I left you behind," I finally whispered. "When I found Diego, I panicked, and then Lila showed up and started ushering me away, and I just…" I took a breath, attempting to calm myself. "I promise I didn't do it on purpose. I… I got scared."
"I know," Five assured me, a tiny smile inching its way onto his face. "You did what you had to." I laughed a little at the words so commonly thrown between the two of us over the years, when an idea popped into my head.
Quickly, I moved away and started to rummage through Elliott's cabinets, until I got my hands on two of the three items I'd been looking for. I could see Five attempting to peek over my shoulder every now and then, so I pressed the jar and bag I'd procured against my chest as I practically sprinted over to the fridge and removed the loaf of bread resting inside. By now, I was sure he caught on to what I was doing, but I appreciated his patience as I slathered everything together as quickly as possible, creating two—very messy—peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches.
"Would you accept a peace offering… even though I already apologized?"
I held one of the plates out to Five, which he gladly took, and we both plopped ourselves down at the little table Elliott had set up in his kitchen. I'd only taken one bite, but the globs of peanut butter and dense marshmallows were already practically gluing my mouth shut.
"Hold, please," I managed to say, holding up my pointer finger as I scrambled for a couple glasses and the carton of milk. I could have sworn, somewhere in that mess, I heard my brother let out the tiniest laugh, but it could have just been my imagination. "Jesus, I forgot how rich these things are when they're made right."
"They're definitely filling," Five admitted. "Perfect for a midnight snack."
"All we're missing is a deck of cards. Although… I am way too drained to focus on any sort of game right now." My brother's eyes started to glaze over again as he chewed, prompting me to lean over slightly, falling into his line of vision. "You okay, kid?"
"Hm?" He shook his head, bringing himself back to reality.
"You're trying to think through something," I stated. "Your eyes always move to the right when that happens." Though he scoffed, I still managed to make Five smile.
"Doomsday is coming in eight days, we're still missing four of us," he sighed, setting the second half of his sandwich down, "and I still have no clues as to why it happens."
It certainly wasn't as dire as the first time around, but that didn't make any of the circumstances less foreboding. In a sense, stopping the end of the world was what Five lived for, but this sort of thing took time, and he never really had much patience.
"Hey, we're going to figure this out." For now, it was just a nicety—something I said to put his mind at ease. But I wasn't just going to let it stay at that. "You said you know where Luther is, right?" He nodded, finally picking the snack back up to take another bite. "Maybe he's found some of the others. At the very least, he probably knows where Allison is." Five seemed no more reassured, so I reached out and lightly squeezed his forearm. "And, if nothing else, you've got me. And I know I'm just one person, but I'm always going to try my best to be your biggest supporter. Whatever you need me to do—within reason—I'll do it." Five hesitated again, likely trying to find the right words, before speaking.
"We can't stop it unless we're all here. And all we can do about that right now is wait."
I chose not to say anything about it, but I knew deep down, he also just wanted to see his family again. It was pretty clear to me that a large part of always chasing the apocalypse was because he just wanted his family to be safe, but none of us would catch him dead admitting that out loud. Maybe it was just obvious to me because we were blood, but I read him like an open book written for very dumb children.
"Well then, we'll wait."
Eventually, Five got up from the table and went to go check on Elliott, leaving me on my own. My eyes drifted around the strange dentist/television sales hybrid of a residence, still not really clear on which one had been Elliott's career. He seemed far too unstable to be a dentist, but then again, he also didn't really appear to have the people skills necessary to sell televisions. Of course, we didn't know him before recently, so maybe he'd changed a lot.
As my eyes moved over the living room, I spotted Lila sitting in the cushioned chair, picking at the polish on her nails. I'd said I wanted to get to know her better, and now was a pretty good opportunity to do just that. Taking care not to seem to eager, I got up from my seat at the table and wandered over to her, moving one of the cushioned chairs so I could be a little closer. Once I plopped myself down, she moved her attention to me, offering me that heartwarming smile.
"Your brother's a bit of a shit sometimes," she whispered, her eyes darting around to make sure she wouldn't be overheard.
"Which one?" I joked, causing her to chuckle. "Yeah, Five's not exactly the warmest person, but, believe it or not, he cares a hell of a lot about his family. Even those of us that don't really seem to listen." Luther appeared in my mind, and for a second, I felt a pang of sadness.
"Speaking of which… Diego said there's eight of you?" Lila's eyes widened, mystified, as I nodded. "That must have been dreadful."
"Actually, it wasn't all that bad," I shrugged, surprised at myself. "Five and I usually spent most of our time together, since he's technically my real brother, but I had others to lean on when I needed them." I expected Lila to cut in with something else, but she just continued to smile at me, silently encouraging me to keep going. "Some nights, once we knew our dad was asleep, Five, our brothers Klaus and Ben and myself would sneak out to this donut place in town called Griddy's and just eat… usually until one of us puked." I found myself laughing as I spoke. "Sometimes, when I just needed a break, I'd go into our sister Vanya's room and listen to her practice violin for a while. And I'd even find myself hanging out with Diego, or Luther, or Allison when I really needed different company."
For a while, I'd gotten lost in the little slivers of light in our childhood, but the shadows always came back, and without a second thought, I launched into some far more personal information.
"But then Five went missing, and I started to pull away because I just blamed myself and didn't know how to deal with it, and then Ben died, and… those of us remaining just didn't feel like there was much reason to stick around longer than we needed to. By the time we all started to move out, we'd all become so apathetic or angry at each other that we stopped talking. It wasn't until Five came home that I started to ease back into my old self."
The swirling memories finally started to die down, leaving me feeling guilty as I offered Lila a sheepish smile.
"Sorry, I feel like I've just been talking about myself."
"I don't mind," Lila shrugged. "It's nice to hear at least a few positive things about your family." I rolled my eyes a little, unsure of what I expected from Diego.
"What about your family?" I inquired, moving to match Lila's posture. "I'd assume you grew up in a smaller household?" Her eyes shifted downward for a moment, as though trying to process something, before they met mine again.
"Significantly." Despite her expression a moment ago, she still managed to laugh. "My parents… they died when I was little, so another woman took me in." I sucked in a quick breath, suddenly regretting that I had asked.
"Lila, I'm so sorry," I quickly apologized. "I didn't know—"
"No, Mina, it's okay," she assured me. "It happened a long time ago." I nodded, encouraging her to go on. "My mum wasn't exactly the most conventional woman in the world, but she helped me through all the biggest parts of my life." The warm smile returned to her face once again. "When I came out to her, I didn't know how she was going to react because, you know… people around here aren't exactly the most accepting of… someone like me. But once I got the words out, she scooped me up into a big hug and told me it didn't matter to her who I loved, and that she still loved me just as much as she did before I told her. I got lucky. Nothing else seemed to bother her, either. I'd see and hear things that felt so real to me, and she'd always be the one to calm me down." I raised an eyebrow, the glaring issue catching my attention.
"Then—if you don't want to talk about this, that's totally okay—how did you end up in the sanatorium?"
"Neighbors kept talking in her ear, and it got to her." Strangely, the question didn't seem to affect Lila at all. In fact, she barely missed a beat. Still, there were more important things to be said. Taking a leap of faith, I reached over and brushed away a couple of stray tears that slipped out of her eyes.
"Well, if it's any consolation… I don't think you're any stranger than every other person on this planet." I thought back on her story a moment, and an issue of my own past came swimming back. "I never told my dad I'm gay," I admitted. "He's such an old fashioned man… I was afraid of how he'd react. So, the first person I came out to was Five, and honestly, I wasn't really sure what I was doing, and I didn't even know the term 'lesbian' back then, so I may or may not have just said 'I like girls' really quickly, and then ended the sentence there." Both Lila and I broke down laughing, recognizing the humor of the moment. "But when the awkwardness passed, he just hugged me for a really long time and said he still loved me. Pretty much the same thing happened with the rest of my siblings.
"I got lucky," I acknowledged. "Sometimes, I feel bad because I know there are a lot of other people out there who don't get the same warm, welcoming response I did, but… I can keep pushing and fighting, and that way, I'm helping them."
Right as Lila opened her mouth to speak again, Five came stumbling into the room, his eyes filled with a new sense of hope. Though part of me felt bad, I immediately turned around and looked up at him.
"We have to go," he stated curtly. Annoyed with his lack of curtesy, I rolled my eyes and prepared to chew him out.
"Five, I'm in the middle of a conversation," I scoffed.
"I know where Vanya is."
I felt my heart stop for a second, trying to fully process that Vanya had survived her apocalyptic surge and was here. Relief quickly flooded in, leaving me gasping a little bit before I shot up in my chair. Excitement had completely taken over me, but that didn't completely eliminate the realization I was about to abandon Lila. I righted myself, turning back to face her, and sunk back down into the chair.
"Lila, I feel really bad, but I—"
"You don't have anything to be sorry about, Mina." She laughed before reaching out and grabbing my hand for a second, providing a comforting warmth. "Go find your sister."
With that last little bit of reassurance, I followed Five into Elliott's conspiracy room, finding him sitting in front of a few monitors. One of them was lit up, showing what looked to be a swirling pattern on a radar.
"What exactly am I looking at?" I asked, turning my eyes back to my brother.
"Sound waves," he answered with a slightly giddy smile. "I can't jump there, but based on the coordinates, if we go now, we should be able to get to her by morning."
The solution had been presented right to me, probably because Five had already thought about that before he came over to get me. Elliott even had a pen and a pad of paper ready for me. I scribbled down the coordinates displayed on the screen, assuming I could probably match them with some sort of map that was most likely in the car. After double-checking they were correct, I slipped the piece of paper into my pocket and turned to Five.
"Let's go get our sister."