Who else looooooves when their computer restarts twice for no reason, and they lose all their writing twice? No one! Fuck you, Windows.
As usual, please review, and thanks for reading! Last chapter was all light and fun, so time to get serious...
I woke up to a burning smell. My first thought was that the Institute was burning down. Luckily, the smell wasn't like burning wood, but rather burning meat. Bacon, I realized. There was a loud metallic scraping, and then clanging as if someone was raiding the kitchen. I jerked up, the noise grating my ear drums. Had someone gotten up to cook? Or was someone trying to rob us… and cook? Knowing our group, the second option was more likely. No one would be nice enough to cook for anyone else, except for Sylynn, but I was guessing she was horribly hungover after last night.
I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, willing the blurriness from makeup residue out of my eyes. I pushed myself off the couch and into a standing position, wincing as I heard a resounding crack from all my joints. I suppose I deserved that from sleeping on such a tiny couch. The shuffling and clanging in the kitchen stopped, and I realized by stretching I gave myself away. It was too early for me to feel panicked, though I knew I had to arm myself against a potential threat. I surveyed the room, looking for something. My eyes landed on the silver cutlery set out perfectly on the immense mahogany table occupying the room. I went for a knife, and my vision blurred over.
Oh fuck, I thought as sudden dizziness clouded my head. Head rush Tara, you're fine. I fumbled around blindly for the knife, finally clutching it in my hand as I regained my balance. My stumbling was just more clues for the intruder, but I was too dazed for the threat to truly sink in. In my half-asleep state, the only motivation I could muster to investigate was thinking this motherfucker woke me up, he's gonna get a knife in the back for breaking in and wrecking my sleep.
I dragged myself to the door of the kitchen, an area just off the antique-decorated dining room. I peered around the doorframe. I held the knife behind me, how I remembered I was forcefully taught in the nightmare training sessions when I was younger. I peered around the corner. There was a dark figure, standing between one of the many prep tables of the kitchen (the kitchen was also designed to accommodate masses). It was a dark figure, hoodies and sweats hiding its form. A sword dangled lazily from its one hand.
The wretched aging floorboards gave me away. The figure whipped its head around, and I jumped into an attempted defensive position, blade at the ready.
"Oh my fucking God put that down!" Seth yelled at me, his eyes going wide. "I do NOT trust you with that!"
Oh. Not an intruder. I slowly lowered the knife. "To be fair, I don't trust you in the kitchen."
"Yeah, well it's noon, and no one's cooked for me yet." He shrugged, lifting the sword as if it weighed as much of a badminton racket.
"And you have your sword why...?" I asked, taking note that his weapon that he held as casually as a pen was etched with the design of his family ring, and a large "A" forged out of metal at the hilt.
"I couldn't find the knives to cut bacon," he explained. I'm surprised his answer wasn't for the hell of it.
"Right. Love having the residue of ichor on my breakfast, the way it burns your throat form the inside out; mmm." I snapped back sarcastically.
He raised his hands in surrender. "Well, SORRY. Just don't eat it the- Shit!" he yelled, dropping his sword as a pot of water across the room stated to boil over. I did not want to know what he was attempting to cook in that.
"Okay… try to not burn down the place, will you." He didn't acknowledge my comment, having burned himself trying to move the pot. He had moved to a sink across the room where he stood running his hand under cold water, making a constant AGHHH sound while shaking out his hand. "Your girlfriend is where, I might ask?"
"Upstairs," he pointed up with his free hand. I turned down the heat on the burner, and got ready to heave myself upstairs.
***
After washing my face, I found Vesper first. She was in the training room, as expected. The loud thud of axes and things hitting targets made her location very obvious. She was an early riser, but how bored had she been to come down here, rather than watch mundane movies?
"Hey," I called after she had finished throwing her set, and gone to pull the weapons out of the wood, each exactly on target. I wished I could do that. She looked back at me.
"She lives!" I smiled. "Did you come to tell me that there's crepes ready downstairs?" She asked hopefully.
"Ha, no. Seth's tryna cook downstairs, but I don't think anyone wants to eat that." She snickered in agreement. "I came to get you for a breakfast with everyone. I'll make you crepes if you'll come."
"Fine. Hold this," she said abruptly, dumping the weapons of iron and adamas in my arms. I stumbled, and she laughed at me, taking them back before dumping them on the wooden floor beside the door. "You have got to let me train you. Look at these! Skin and bone!" She exclaimed, gesturing to the sticks I used for arms. I rolled my eyes, and she escorted me out of the room in a headlock to gather the others. I got one glimpse of the pool- the only sort of training I did. The water cleared my head, and no one had ever forced me to swim. I looked back longingly.
"Oh come on, food first, swim later," Vesper said, ushering me up the stairs.
About an hour later, we all sat at the dining table. It was the first formal breakfast since the disruption in our everyday affairs. It was happy enough, our group had come down laughing as we attempted to haul an ever-complaining Sylynn down the stairs. Vesper and I had woken everyone up. When we pulled back her hungover sister's curtains, she had hissed and rolled off the bed like a vampire. As we sat at the table, everyone shared stories form the bar. Sylynn simply sat in her chair with her head buried in her arms, groaning and clutching a cup of coffee. Others told her story for her, we had to clarify what had passed before we could start planning for Tuesday.
"On a scale of one to ten, how tiered is everyone?" I put in to the conversation, over a mouthful of bacon that I had remade for myself. A chorus of answers rang back, mostly complaining why I had woken anyone up. Jacques just gave me a look: seriously? He must have slept terribly, we found him collapsed in the entry way after I'd walked past him twice, oblivious. Tuning out of the conversation again, I did what any teenager did. I pulled out my phone.
I opened Snapchat, and started giggling at the images Sylynn had sent me. There was us, trying to get in through the door, an absolutely dysfunctional mess of a team. There was everyone on their way upstairs, a video of Seth laughing as he carried a tiered Mae upstairs against her will, Daniel laughing as he and Vesper tried to get a very intoxicated Sylynn to follow suit. I must have already been sleeping by then, given I was not in any of the photos. By process of elimination, I concluded Skylar was taking the pictures since she too hadn't been in any. I didn't question my conclusion she had taken the phone from excessively bubbly and clumsy Sylynn. If Skylar wasn't a child of the Nephilim, she'd be a child of Hermes. The awkward angles of the pictures was questionable, but I didn't think too much about it.
Then there were a few of just the stairs, with the sky getting lighter through the windows of the dining room on the left with each shot. You could tell time was passing, us having gotten in at three in the morning, the sun must have started rising not soon after. I was a little confused why Skylar would snapchat me a picture of the Institute's deserted staircase, but hey. It must get really boring having insomnia and being the only one awake, so I didn't question her entertainment choice. I clicked through the images.
Then there was one of me sleeping. And another, and another. All from different angles. I had to admit, I looked ridiculous with my messed up hair and makeup smeared across my face. Then there was another, with the caption disposable. That stung. It was like salt on a fresh wound. I was reminded with every successful mission how I wasn't needed, and had told Skylar exactly how I felt when the clouds rolled over in my mind. Why would she poke at me like that?
"Okay Skylar, was this really necessary?" I asked, swiping down to pause the stream of photos and looking up.
"What?" she answered, breaking of conversation with Jacques and Seth. She looked down the table to my spot at the very end. She registered the look on my face, and how I held up my phone accusingly. Rushing over, she came behind me to look at the screen. "What did I do now?"
"Disposable?" I supplied. "That's just rude." I pulled out a screenshot of the snap and showed her. I looked to her for an explanation. The look on her face was offended.
"Dude… that wasn't me."
I believed her. So my next logical conclusion was that Jacques had managed to figure out snapchat, which was unlikely, but possible. It would make sense- he was collapsed in the entryway, he probably had Sylynn's phone passed to him, and gotten bored so decided to creep me out. I called him over too.
"Care to explain your weird fetishes?" I asked, showing him the picture. "Any particular reason you wanted to insult sleeping me?"
He looked at the picture through his glasses. "What…what are you talking about exactly?"
Rolling my eyes, I opened snapchat, and tapped the purple square beside Sylynn's name. A video of Jacques playing with my hair, with the caption oblivious played as the three of us watched. I was about to turn to Jacques for an explanation, but an image of him sleeping in the entryway showed up.
Hold up. My mind drew a blank as the curveball showed up.
A video of someone playing with Jacque's hair played next, again the caption was oblivious.
"Hey, was that you?" He turned to Skylar, smiling. "I was gonna punch you for that."
Skylar smiled back, oblivious of my confusion. "No, it wasn't me. Ask them," she gestured to the table of who she thought were potential suspects. Only, they weren't suspects. They had been in the prior images, and Skylar didn't know that yet. They couldn't have done this.
A chill went down my spine, as things refused to add up. I stopped the video. I quickly got Jacques and Skylar's attention, and explained what I'd seen. I spoke so fast and was so nervous I tripped over my own words a few times. The two of them quickly lost their joking attitude. I could see in their eyes they were searching for a rational explanation. When neither of them came up with one as fast as I'd like, I called everyone else down to where I sat at the head of the table. Well, Sylynn didn't move, being wasted and all.
"Anyone know what happened to Sylynn's phone last night?" I asked them.
"Doesn't she have it?" Vesper questioned. Thanks captain obvious.
"No, but her phone has been sending me snapchats of you," I indicated the five who had been in the picture, "on the stairs when we first came in, then later pictures of me and Jacques sleeping."
Everyone thought out the problem in their heads, coming to the same conclusion I had at first. Insommnia, hadn't been in the photos: the logical suspect was Skylar. Everyone looked at her accusingly.
"It wasn't me!" She exclaimed, raising her hands as if to show she was unarmed.
"That doesn't make any sense," Vesper muttered. Again with the obvious.
"I'm well aware it doesn't make sense!" I shot back at her, getting annoyed in my frantic state, already feeling the ropes of anxiety and panic wrap around my lungs. I took a deep breath to clear the frenzy out of my mind. "Okay, I haven't watched the rest, but we're all gonna watch and just see who this was. If one of you isn't 'fessing up 'cause this is some grand prank on me, I will fucking strangle you." I finished, remembering when the group had played along to trick me into thinking that Skylar had started slitting her wrists. That was cruel. I hadn't slept for a few nights because I simply didn't know what to do, which was horrifying. I always had ideas and answers, but then I was lost and left to fretting. I never got angry really, and Seth and I were always the ones joking around and were never serious. But if I was serious about something, you didn't joke about it.
I opened the stream of photos. Another picture of Jacques was the first to surface, this time with the caption disposable. Okay, so the insult had not been tailored specifically to me.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Jacques said, though no one acknowledged his comment. We were all focused on the next video, one of the person starting up the staircase. There was a picture of the landing that lead off to the second floor, where the training room and pool were. Then there was a picture of the third floor, where all the bedrooms were, though most were empty.
A video popped up, and I rushed to push the volume to the max, everyone silent as we desperately listened for any sign of who this was. A thought popped into my mind which I immediately regretted thinking. What if this was Gennaia's killer, scaring us for fun before we all got killed? Was the food we were eating poisoned? Were there traps set in our own home we didn't know about?
Another video. The person turned into the first room on their left in the long hall. We all knew, as every room of the Institute was familiar to us (except the newly discovered basement, of course) that it was Mae's room. The video stopped as the person stepped over the threshold. A photo of Mae appeared, lying on top of the blankets, completely passed out. In the darkness her hair was the same dark colour as her runes. The scars and marks that twined around her arms and neck- strength, accuracy, angelic power- gleamed in the moonlight as if warnings to the intruder. Another image of her from a different angle appeared, with the caption the first to go. I heard Mae shift her weight behind me.
There was a video as the person moved onto the next room. Seth's. He too was asleep in the next image, sword shining on the floor as his arm dangled off the bed, fingers inches from the blade. Another picture of him, the second to go.
Vesper's room was next. There was no one in it, which was odd. The person simply moved in to Sylynn's room, across the hall. There the twins were both sleeping. Sylynn was in an awkward position, as she probably hadn't moved since Vesper and Daniel had dumped her there. There was an image of her too, fairly close up, with the caption the third to go. The camera moved to Vesper, who sat slumped against her sister's bed on the floor. The fourth to go.
The next image was Daniel, the person wasting no more time on videoing their travels down the hall. An image of him sleeping, with his parabatai rune on his arm standing out. My hand went to my own rune, on my ribs. A small spark of sadness came up inside me as I remembered it was nothing more than a scar now, a visual reminder of what I'd lost. The next image of Daniel had the caption, as predicted, the fifth to go.
The next image was of Skylar. She was fast asleep, which I hadn't been expecting. The image of her was solid evidence that no resident of the Institute had done this. That all of us had been photographed, watched, and taunted by an outsider while we slept. The caption on her picture was the last to go.
The stream of photos ended, and I blew out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. Before I could look up at everyone's horrified expression, another snap came in from Sylynn. I glimpsed over at her, just in case it had been her this whole time and she was sitting at the table watching our reactions and laughing. Instead, she was in the same positon she had been in, her head resting on her arms.
"Should I?" I asked, looking back at the faces of varying degrees of unease behind me. Mae nodded, her eyes unfocused and her chin resting on her hand.
It was an image of us, gathered at the end of the table around the phone. Exactly as we were. This image had been taken now. The caption was read:
See you Tuesday.