Finally! It feels like it took me so long to complete this one. :P Thank you so much to everyone who's reviewed, followed, and favorited so far! Cookies to all of you! I try to respond to all of you, but if for some reason I don't, it's probably because I somehow lost the email and never replied, so I'm sorry if that happens. XD Just a disclaimer for the future, haha. Anyways, go on and read it! Kisses to you all! :3
"Hey!" Sam's fists collided with the door repeatedly, but he may as well have been trying to walk through a brick wall. No amount of yelling on his part was going to let him in or stop those assholes. He beat on it one last time and cried out in frustration. The stairs had never been shorter; he threw himself down them and propelled into the kitchen. But, after yanking open some drawers, he reminded himself that a knife wasn't going to get him very far. Not when Michael hadn't been able to defend himself with it.
He sighed in exasperation and ran into the living room, where his eyes leveled in on the fireplace poker. It had been recently sharpened by his grandpa, who seemed to insist on keeping everything extra dangerous in the house.
Sam lifted it, and it was much heavier than he presumed—but he could handle it. When he turned around and made a move to go back up the stairs, his bedroom door opened and out stepped the two men—with Michael tossed over the brunette's shoulders. Sam raised the deadly poker and was about to warn them that he was skilled and dangerous and would hurt them. Except, much to his surprise, the potential weapon was taken out of his grasp from behind him.
He reeled around and looked up at the tall blonde behind him. And, like the other two, Sam recognized him instantly. The only thing the man was missing was his stoner sunglasses.
Now Sam was fucked.
He backed out of the man's vicinity, farther into the living room. Thankfully, the man's focus seemed to be on David and the guy carrying Michael. "He got away," he said, and experimentally tapped the poker against the stairs. It took little effort on his part, but it left a big dent. Sam gulped. "What's up with him?" The tall blonde moved out of the way to allow the other two (well, three including Michael) through.
"He's dead," David informed him. His eyes went wide.
"I thought he was just knocked out or something."
"So did we," the brunette deadpanned. He swiftly walked to the door, as if Michael's weight was nothing to him.
"Wait, where are you going?" Sam found his voice again. Anger worked its way back to his heart, replacing the sorrow for now. For a moment he had been afraid of these men—fearful of his life. But now, quite honestly, he didn't give a single care what happened; he just didn't want his brother's body taken away for God knows what purpose. A small voice in his head told him that these men weren't his attackers at all and were trying to help in their own way, but a much larger voice told it to screw off.
His question went unanswered; the men kicked open the front door (so it was opening again?) and filed out onto the porch. But really, did Sam expect them to respond?
He followed close behind, but when they left the porch, he stayed. There was his mom's car—still running and empty, like it had been before. Where was she? Could he now presume that she was probably dead, just like Michael? Sam tried to speak again (something that would have been pointless anyways) but this time he choked.
Am I alone?
"How convenient," David the Asshat leered as they approached the parked vehicle. "We'll take him," he ordered the other blonde. "You stay here and keep watch." The brunette laid Michael across the back seat and David opened the driver's side door.
"Sure thing." The tall blonde backed away from the car. He turned on his heels to face the porch, where Sam stood stiffly. Three car doors slammed before the car made a U-turn and sped down the long dirt driveway. Sam heard the car accelerating down the road, and then he didn't hear anything other than the sounds of crickets somewhere in the tall grass outside. A hundred questions floated around his mind, but one stuck out over the others: How could he have let them leave?
Sure, he wasn't going to run out screaming and try to tackle them to the ground—because what would that do? But how could he have stood there? It was as if he couldn't move his legs, no matter how hard he tried. He just couldn't bring himself to do anything about what was happening. Maybe it was the anger that had ebbed away when his mind slowly came to rationalize the situation (if that was possible, given what had happened), letting the numbness from before return. Or maybe, deep down, he knew something that he wasn't allowing himself to accept, and that part of his mind was keeping him silent and stuck. No, it had to be the former. Yes, that was it.
"You okay?"
It took several moments for Sam to realize the blonde was speaking to him. He shook away his thoughts for now and, as a small but satisfying form of reprisal, ignored the question.
Despite the chilly wind, the unnamed man didn't seem the least bit bothered by the temperature. He wore a netted shirt beneath an unzipped jacket, shamelessly exposing his front. Well then. Maybe Sam was so thin he couldn't stand the slightest bit of cold. But then he noticed that he couldn't see the man's breath when he exhaled, and his cheeks weren't flushed like a regular person's.
Something was very wrong with this man—he could feel it. It was hard to describe, and completely unlike anything Sam had experienced before, but there was a very strong vibe that screamed different. No, not different.
Dangerous.
Images of black eyes and fangs flashed in the back of his mind as he remembered what had happened before he had passed out, and he quickly took a step away from the blonde man, even though they still stood a good ten feet away from each other. Sam didn't know why he hadn't noticed those vibes before, when he had been standing even closer to his man in that little jewelry shop.
"Hey," the blond said, furrowing his brows and taking a step closer. "Are you all right?"
Sam's eyes rolled in the back of his head and his legs gave out. He didn't even hit the ground before he was completely sucked into his spiraling vision.
Chalk on the blackboard, a ticking clock, the scratching of pencils on paper. Sam checked the time, but the clock was fuzzy—out of focus. He couldn't make it out, no matter how hard he tried.
He looked around him, at all the other teenagers sitting at their desks. He had a pencil in his hand and a notebook opened up, with half-written notes already in it. He set the pencil down, by will—and that's when he realized, with a start, that this vision felt like it was in real-time.
Did I just decide to put the pencil down?
The only thing that indicated to him this was a vision at all were the occasional blurry details—such as the time, what his notes said, and the name tag on the teacher's desk. But he was interacting and thinking—something that had never happened to him before.
It was like a dream, detail-wise; things weren't as clear as something happening right that moment. But it was an interactive dream, and what's why it felt so real. Sam could see the faces of the kids sitting around him, including their expressions, the texture of their hair, the color of their eyes.
Sam felt like he should look for something. Why else would a vision be as peculiar as this? He needed to find something, or someone. So he started watching the people in the room and the objects lining the bookshelves and the teacher's desk. Nothing stood out to him, and he recognized no one.
The ticking of the clock got louder. Out of nowhere, a dead, icy feeling crept through his chest; he wondered if that meant something was about to happen, or if that was the extended vision talking. He gripped the edges of his desk and watched the windows and door for whatever he was waiting for. His heart thudded heavily and loudly in his chest and for what felt like a whole minute he waited.
The door opened, just like in that quick, fleeting vision he had had in that diner. But this was different. He didn't wake up from his vision as soon as the door opened; Michael wasn't there to snap him out of it. Not that his mind wanted him to come out of it just yet, it seemed. There was something he needed to see first.
It was a person. A man, though Sam had to look twice to make sure. Or a boy. However you wanted to look at it; he seemed young. Very young. Possibly only a year or so older than Sam—or maybe he just looked younger than he was. At first Sam thought he was going to be joining the class, but the boy made no move to do so.
He was smaller, with a feminine lithe to his shape and very curly blonde hair that was pulled back in a ponytail; curls hung around his face and lay on his shoulders. Sam couldn't believe he was describing a male this way, but he was very lovely—beautiful, even. The way he stood was elegant and confident, demanding attention from everyone in the room.
He received all of the attention they could give him.
The boy's eyes made contact with Sam, who swallowed when the boy smiled at him. But Sam couldn't see his eyes—not in detail, anyways. It was like his vision wasn't allowing him to. It was frustrating because he could see every other detail very clearly, from the boy's very curly head to his leather boots. It caused Sam even more annoyance when it was obvious the rest of the class was affected deeply by the boy's eyes, whatever it was about them.
"I'm kidnapping you, Sam," he said with a knowing smile. Sam looked around and was troubled by the trance that the teacher and other students seemed to be in.
I don't understand. What am I supposed to do?
What was the point in this? Was he supposed to decide whether or not to go? Was he required to trust whoever this was and just follow his lead? Was there something big he was missing?
"Sam." It didn't come from the boy, or anything concrete. It was an echo in the room—in his head. He felt stupid for looking up, but he did it anyways. "Sam…"
He felt a jolt and was shoved forward in his chair by an invisible force. Someone was calling him back.
"Wait!" he shouted. "I don't get it!" Whoever it was, they couldn't hear him; he felt the shove again. It physically hurt when he fell out of his chair and smacked the ground roughly. And then he was being pulled out of the vision after what felt like an eternity of sitting through it.
Coming out of this one was different than others he had experienced. Instead of snapping out of it abruptly, he was slowly being pulled out, until he was witnessing the classroom scene and feeling the surface his real body was laying on at the same time.
"Sam?" The voice was much closer now, and Sam knew he was getting to the point of waking up.
When he opened his eyes, his vision was very unfocused; he could make out the blonde guy he had last seen and an older man with glasses looking down at him, a little too close for his liking. He lifted his head to attempt to sit up, his head spun, and they were the last things he saw before he passed out cold.