AN: More to come soon!
-
The first thing Emory's sleep-drugged mind registered was that she was cold. She curled deeper beneath the sheets instinctively, while her mind struggled to understand why it was cold. Shouldn't be. It wasn't winter quite yet, and the heat was on in the room. And Michael was big, and always warm.
Emory's eyes snapped open.
Michael was always warm. And the bed was cold. Which meant that Michael wasn't here.
Shit.
Emory bolted upright, threw the sheets off her legs and stumbled to her feet. The room was still completely in order. He'd left the clothes she bought for him untouched in the Wal-mart bag. But his scrubs were gone.
She looked at the clock. It was 10:43. Shit. How long had he been gone? Why did he leave?
Emory stopped. Everything in her stopped. Her heart, her mind, her breath…
He'd left her. He'd used her for his own pleasure and then he'd left her.
She sat down on the edge of the bed, numb and cold, staring blankly at the worn blue carpet. Her hair fell down over her face in wild black tangles.
Michael had left. He had changed his mind, changed his choice. He wanted to see Bonnie more than he wanted to be with her. He wanted to carve a path of blood through Haddonfield until he found his sister.
Emory smiled. Tears blurred her vision, stung her eyes. She fought them. She would not cry. Even when Jack had killed her parents, she had not cried. She sat up straight, brushed her hair out of her face, and took a deep breath. Despair clawed at her, aching to consume her mind entirely, but she fought that, too. She would not give in to weakness. She would not sit idly by and do nothing. She would not let Michael abandon her.
Her parents had not had any choice in leaving her alone in the world. But Michael had made his choice. He had chosen death.
So be it.
She knew exactly where to find him.
-
"They stared at me like a row of Chrstimas puddings!" Loomis fumed, hurrying down the steps of Knox College. He squinted in the mid-day sun. Beside him, the Dean of the English Department was vehemently assuring him that he had, in fact, done a stellar job. Loomis smiled inwardly. This was going well. With any luck, he'd be able to transition smoothly from a working psychologist to a touring lecturer, capitalizing on his most famous patient.
He was congratulating himself on this first step towards fame when his phone rang. Anxiety twisted in his stomach.
He wasn't sure why.
"Yes, hello?"
"Sam, it's Marvin." A pause, as the name registered in Loomis's mind. He felt like someone had stuffed cotton into his ears. His vision tunneled. He didn't want to hear what was coming next. "He's out. Michael is out."
A moment's hesitation, while his brain registered what his ears had heard.
"What?!"
-
It was cold outside. Emory shivered slightly as she walked out to her car, and cursed herself again as she slid into the frigid leather driver's seat. The bimmer hummed to life at her fingertips, and she tried to take pleasure in the fact that at least one object of her affection still returned the sentiment.
She drove carefully, under the speed limit, despite the fact that her blood hummed with fury and despair. She tried to ignore the fact that she kept seeing him behind every tree, in every shadow, taunting her. Mocking her.
Emory grinned again, but there was no joy in her. There was only grim determination. He would not get what he wanted, not anymore. Not after what he'd gotten from her. She would do whatever she had to.
She pulled over a block away from his old house and walked in the biting autumn air down the sidewalk, half-expecting him to jump out at her at any moment. But no, that was stupid. He wouldn't dare come near her now unless it was to kill her, and he wouldn't do that until it was dark. She wasn't sure how she knew this. She just knew.
She walked around the back of the house and felt a jolt of adrenaline as she saw the back door standing wide open. There was a part of her that begged silently that he would be in there, waiting for her. Waiting to pull her into his arms and smile with his eyes. She smothered that part of her with ruthless efficiency and stepped into the house.
It smelled old, like years of dirt and mildew. When she squinted into the darkness, she could see a trail moving through the dust. Shuffling footsteps. He hadn't walked like that at all when he'd been with her.
In fact, he'd stripped himself of all signs of his fugue catatonia when she'd helped him escape.
And yet she could see the pattern, the dragging footsteps. It was as if a part of his mind had taken over and forced him into that coma-like state.
A cold shiver crawled over her skin. If Michael was in the grip of something like that, she was committing suicide by trying to interfere with his plans.
But there was nothing else she could do.
"Michael!" She hissed into the darkness. Nothing. Not the movement of his feet, or the gentle rush of his breathing.
He wasn't here.
Emory's shoulders fell slightly. Sadness threatened to consume her, a raw, hungry force at the edge of her awareness, waiting for the instant she let her guard down.
But she couldn't. She straightened, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes.
He would want to see Bonnie, and inspect her family. See if she was happy and healthy. If the Strodes did not meet his criteria for good parents, he would kill them the first chance he got.
Emory reached into her lab coat pocket and pulled out her keys. She had to get to Bonnie's parents before Michael did.