I'm one of those people who has those days where I'm so in the zone and I'm writing and everything is perfect and beautiful and wonderful and I'm coherent and everything
but then
I remember I'm a teenager with teenage problems
then I'm in a literal slump for the next 39482309 years
For the longest second, Eli's at a full-blown state of shock.
"Hah," Adam snickers to himself. "I'm so funny."
"What are you doing here?" Eli asks, absolutely confounded. "I thought-"
"Eli, I'm not going back," Clare stifles a choked, sad sob. It doesn't even occur to him that her hair resembles a tangled bird's nest, or that it's minus ten degrees outside and she's only wearing a thin night gown- clad only in a sheer cotton fabric, the girl doesn't even shiver from the cold. Though he is quite cognizant that she appears to be a mess, he perceives it as immense distress if anything. Her eyes are large, frightened, and traumatized, shining from the thin film of tears that are so resilient, they don't even roll down her flushed cheeks.
She's doing a damn good job of holding it all in, and all the red flags come flying up.
"Clare," Eli whispers, remaining rooted to the ground. "What happened?"
Adam, suddenly realizing the gravity of the situation, clears his throat briefly to collect himself. "Yeah, um, I'll go get you a blanket."
Clare nods, murmuring a quick thank you as she hesitantly steps inside the house. Her arms are tightly wounds around her shoulders, and soon something in Eli clicks. He finds it in his feet to move forward and shut the door, sealing the warm temperature inside with a quiet close.
"I had a fight with my mom. Some things were said, and….she thinks that I'm being childish for having feelings," she explains, feeling the acid taste on her tongue. "And out of nowhere, they're suddenly telling me that they want to move, and-"
The loudest, most deafening sound cuts her off, and the door almost bursts open from the impact. Clare's eyes widen at once, and Adam scurries over to the windows and peers outside.
"Clare, I think it's your dad," he says frantically.
She rushes over next to him, making she was hidden behind the curtains before looking out.
"Oh my God, they're here!" she whisper-shrieks, ripping off her blanket Adam wrapped around her and making a bee-line for the coffee table. Attempting to push the heavy piece of furniture against the door, she shoves it with all the strength she could muster. "Adam, give me a hand!"
He darts over to her, and the table slides across the floor with a wince-worthy screech. Gritting his teeth, Eli hurries to snap all the blinds shut, thanking the Heavens that his car was safely stored in the garage. Hell knows what they might do to poor Morty if they knew their daughter is with him.
"Clare Diana Edwards!" a blood-curdling scream pierces their eardrums from through the admittedly thick walls.
So maybe they do know.
None of them stops what they're doing. Once the table is firmly pushed up against the wooden door, Eli grabs Clare's hand and runs down the stair, Adam at their tail. The door is practically about to explode at her father's attempt to push it open. What the hell he's using, they really don't want to know.
The basement is dark and spooky, the creaky staircase and collection of cobwebs making it a tad more than obvious that the floor was neglected by the two boys. Clare had never been in the lowest floor of their house before, and she finds that her feet are tripping all over the place from panic. As Eli expertly weaves them through countless boxes and other stuff strewn across the cold ground, Clare reaches out blindly and seizes Adam's wrist. The boy with the beanie is more terrified than he's ever been before, and so he holds onto Clare's hand as if his safety depends on it. It's his house, his friends- it would not be unreasonable to say that he's just as involved as either of the two.
"In here," Eli hisses, making sure Adam and Clare were in the room before locking the door behind him.
The only light that shines into the tiny storage closet is from the large vent straight above them, the very one that would lead them to the living room. Otherwise, they'd be in completely blackness.
"Eli, where are we?" Clare asks in alarm, evidently frightened by both the circumstances and their current location.
"Basement store room," he whispers. "We keep dried food and other stuff we don't care about in here."
The three of them fall into silence immediately after, ears strained to hear the continuous sounds of banging one floor above. Muffled angry scream could still be heard.
"I'm sorry…for showing up so unexpectedly. I'm sorry for bringing all my baggage here," she apologizes in a hushed tone, bowing her head. "I just couldn't be around my parents anymore."
He gazes at her- or at least, what he thinks is her- , so miserable and strained, he can't help but crumble in her presence. Even just being around her, he can feel the weight of the world slowly crushing her, and embraces her tightly in an attempt to comfort her. If only it was possible to transfer all the pain she's burdened with onto himself, so that she wouldn't have to hurt in this way.
"Don't say that, Clare," he murmurs into her ear. "Your shit is my shit."
"We all shares shits," Adam giggles in a sing-song voice, earning himself a smack in the back of his head. "Hey, now! I'm just trying to lighten up the situation here."
A small, quiet laugh escapes Clare's lips.
"Lighten," she repeats amusedly. "Because it's like, dark in here."
"Hah," Adam snorts, nudging Clare's ribs. "I get it."
An exceptionally thunderous bang sends them all ten feet in the air.
"You two are hilarious, really," Eli says sarcastically. "And of course, this is the appropriate time to be joking."
"We joke appropriate jokes at inappropriate times," Adam shrugs.
"We can't be tamed," Clare sighs.
"Unless you want us to joke inappropriate joke at appropriate times, then, well…"
"CLARE EDWARDS WE KNOW YOU ARE IN THERE," someone roars. "IF YOU ARE NOT OUT IN TEN…"
The light, joking atmosphere ceases, and they continue to drown in the intensity of the situation once again. Their smiles drop, and anxious frowns take place.
"No, no, no they're going to do it again," Clare whimpers, curling up in a ball against Eli's chest. "Ouch!" she yelps, ripping away and rubbing her sore cheek.
"What are you talking about?" Adam inquires worriedly.
"No," Eli says after eyeing her in the dim lighting. He shakes his head, mouth falling open. She doesn't even have to explain, and it all clicks for him."No, no, no, you don't mean…"
A long pause ensues.
"She and my dad like to take turns," she finally admits. "When I don't do exactly what they say, they get… angry. They don't think about it, and it just…Eli? Eli, what are you…"
His breathing is suddenly rapid, more heavy and laboured with every pained word she says. His body had this sort of instinctive reaction where when it registers Clare's pain, the horrible things she had to abide, he goes into a panicked, angry, shocked, sad kind of mode. It's a pretty intense reaction, but honestly speaking, he knows he can do much worse. He's fiercely protective of Clare, so there is a lengthy list of things that can happen to her that would drive him into a conniption- the one that would elicit the most violent reaction from him isn't something he has to think much about. The thing about Clare, is that she's strong. She's the type of person who can look at something she's deathly afraid of straight in the eye, and move straight on forward without the slightest bit of faltering. She's a fighter. She's good at persevering, in spite of the many things that shaken her to the core. No, Eli's freaking out doesn't have much to do with her incapability of holding onto even the worse situations, it's the fact that he's so utterly dependant on her , it scares him to think something awful can happen to her. Her susceptibility to illnesses to due to her delicate stature and horrendous living conditions doesn't help much, either, and it was just natural for him. Natural to take on the role of the protector in their relationship. Natural to completely flip out when he hears that his one of his greatest fears is becoming a reality.
"How many times?" he utters out, squeezing his eyes shut.
She hesitates.
"Clare, tell me," he begs.
"A lot," she says in a small voice, clutching her blanket tighter. She eyes him carefully, and now seeing his distraught state, it's her turn to break a little. "Eli, please don't beat yourself up because of this. This is something I have to deal with on my own."
"Hold on a second here," Adam says, holding Clare's elbow to divert her attention towards him in the dark. "Clare, I'm not expert, but I'm pretty sure that qualifies as child abuse. You can report this kind of stuff."
"Do you think I haven't thought of that yet? Adam, if child services find out, they're going to take me away. Far, far away from both of you," she says, face contorting in pain. "Either way, I lose."
"Oh," he says quietly.
"How could I have not known?" Eli murmurs to himself, buying his face into his palm. "Clare…I don't know what to say. I'm so sorry."
"Hey," she says, gently holding his chin. "We move on, remember?"
"Hey guys, do you hear anything?" Adam suddenly says, perking up his ears. It doesn't matter to him that he's cutting right through another love-dovely moment. He's grown accustomed to it.
The banging had ceased, as the yelling did as well. For a short second, it seemed as if they had left.
"It's quiet," Eli notes, wrinkling his nose.
"Do you think…they left?" Adam says hopefully.
But while the boys loosened up quite a bit, Clare remains as tense as ever, eyes refusing to blink and mouth in a stiff line. She doesn't breathe.
"I don't hear them. Maybe I should go out and investigate," Eli mumbles, starting to fumble for the door knob.
"Clare, we know you're in here."
Eli freezes.
Adam curses violently in an undertone.
Clare sucks in a ragged breath.
"If you ever try to run away again, it'd be prudent of you to remember not to leave the back door open- but let's be realistic now, you won't be escaping like that again. You are in a massive amount of trouble, Clare Diane, and when we find you…"
Helen sounded eerily calm, bordering deadly. It was…mocking, and as it she was treating it like a game.
Assuming that they had already searched the entire first floor, and that Randall was searching up in the bedrooms, they were getting frightening close. And it being so silent, the sound of their hearts pounding could be heard a mile away. They cup their mouth and nose to lessen the sound of their breathing, clammy hands almost trembling against their faces.
Clare grips Eli's shirt with one of her fists, feeling quite literally that they're in a life-or-death situation.
"We're gonna die!" Adam whisper-shrieks.
Eli gives him a look he can't see, and creaks open the door just enough so that he could see her figure moving about. Even at that slightest sound, Helen whips her head around in their direction, sending Eli in a near cardiac-arrest when her beady eyes zeros in on them. Sweat dripping down his temples, he endeavours to minimize any more sound coming from their closet.
She advances, her footsteps as light and soundless as feather.
Shit.
"Father," Clare prays desperately in an undertone, breathing into Eli's ear. "Have mercy on us all."
Another few steps are taken towards them.
And this would probably be the worst time to think about Clare's faith, but Eli does. He does, and for a fraction of a second, he considers praying to a God he doesn't believe in.
Two, maybe three steps remain.
Maybe it won't be that hard. It'll just be like talking to himself.
She stops, reaching for the doorknob.
But then Eli thinks against it, and he does something so impulsive and stupid, he deserved an award in the Hall of Fame for idiocy. Impeccable timing, really, something that would make Bullfrog look like a brilliant genius. With great, sudden force, he shoves open the door, thinking that if he was going to get caught anyway, he'd at least make it seem like some of it was intentional.
And so he whips the door right open, smashing Clare's mother square in the face.