The day had been fairly uneventful, both in the paranatural world and Max's home life. Most of the day was spent by Zoey's side, watching her fail at a wide array of video games and laughing at her when she miraculously (after the fortieth death) decided they were no longer worth her time. The afternoon had come and gone with as little occurrence as the morning had; Max had hardly noticed the birds turn to crickets and the spirits fall into lethargic behaviors.
The call had been unexpected- especially since the number lighting up his phone was unfamiliar. He'd answered it with caution, and continued the conversation with confusion when it was Berenice on the other end. How had she found his number? He hadn't remembered giving it to her. He didn't ask and she didn't willingly present the information, so he assumed Isabel was to blame. "I'm up to my neck in history papers. I have no idea how Richard did it." Max snickered. "I apologize. I've received word of suspicious activity in Mayview's woods. Since I am" Berenice paused, presumably to look over the piles of essays in stacks around her "indisposed… I was hoping the Activity Club could take a look?"
"Ed, you're coming with me. Max, Isaac, and Cindy- you three are together." Isabel was saying it before anybody else was out of the car. The car doors slammed shut behind her, but Isaac saw her eyes were in the trees. Isaac's gaze fell to Ed, who was sliding out of the driver's seat just as Isaac was moving to let Max out of the backseat. He seemed confused, scratching his blonde tendrils with a distant stare behind his glasses.
"Hey, Izzy? Mind repeating that? Your back's turned to us and it's kind of hard to hear you."
"What? Oh, uh, right." Isabel twisted around and coughed into her fist, her other hand falling to her hip. "Max and Isaac and Cindy- you three are together. Ed, you're coming my way."
Isaac flinched, fingers twitching at his legs because he was itching to say something. With the way things were going, him partnering with Max was not a fantastic idea. As it was, ties between them were pretty strained, not necessarily all by Max's fault. Placing the two of them in the wilderness with nothing but sweet passive Cindy was actually probably the worst possible thing to be done, let alone in a stressful situation like a breech in the barrier.
He was surprised Berenice presented the information without a struggle, considering the barrier was more or less a product and responsibility of the people Spender used to work for, but he'd been willing to help nevertheless. However, partnering with Max when things were still 'not great' between them was surely a mistake on Isabel's part.
Ed saluted. "Right-o."
Cindy sighed and nodded her head, her gaze (Isaac noticed) following Ed as he walked to Isabel's side. A small, devious grin inched across Isabel's face, and Isaac vaguely wondered why that must have been. She glanced from Cindy to Max to Isaac, eyes narrowed and daring, fingers tapping along her hips impatiently. She was bloodthirsty- anyone could see that. What else was new? "Any objections?" While Ed smiled from ear-to-ear and Cindy turned her head to the ground, Isaac's stare met Max's.
The reaction was immediate, a sudden pause of his heart and a rush of affection in his lungs, but then he saw the irritation on Max's face and his own anger bubbled up from the pits of his stomach. Max's brows were furrowed, his lips thin and his deep brown eyes blazing. His nose scrunched up and Isaac mirrored the movement, one hand clenched into a fist so tight he felt his knuckles turn pale. They both grimaced and, as they continued their heated glaring fest, raised their hands for Isabel to see. Isabel hummed, nodded her head, and smiled. "Alright then."
The hands that gripped Isaac's forearm and Max's wrist were freakishly strong and wholly threatening. They clenched the limbs with so much strength that Isaac was sure Isabel had the power to rip his shoulders clean off. Max froze in place, cold terror rising and overtaking the heat that'd been in his eyes before. Isaac's other arm flailed wildly in place, leaving him to grunt and whine without any compensation. "Listen" her voice was rough and unsettling, like a witch from one of the animes Isaac watched when he was a kid "I don't know what kind of beef you two have with each-other, let alone beef that lasts two or three weeks, but you two are going to get over it like you always do, got that?" They both nodded, and just like that she released them from her deathly grasp. "Glad to hear it. Let's split up."
Max and Isaac, Cindy had decided, were the most oblivious couple to ever walk planet Earth. That included every soap opera she'd ever watched and every cheesy romance novel she'd purchased on a whim some idle Saturday. They'd been doing nothing but arguing for two straight hours and she was being driven mad- mad enough to turn on her sandaled heels and march home.
She wondered why they hadn't hooked up yet. A small, tiny little voice in her mind suggested she'd simply misinterpreted their loose friendship, as they called it, but she needed only to remind herself that she was not the only person who thought they were romantic. She'd had several lengthy conversations with Isabel about the unbelievably, and she meant unbelievably, platonic relationship of their bickering friends. Even Spender himself had suggested that Max and Isaac "needed time to think" and that they'd "arrive at the correct solution to the problems" they were facing "given the opportunity". It was his own endearing way of keeping their noses out of it, but encouraging Max and Isaac to take the leap.
She supposed that she was just surprised it hadn't happened yet. In the six or so years that she'd known them, they were still fumbling around each-other in an awkward dance. It'd been cute at first, but every show had to come to an end.
"Great, now we're lost."
"Not my fault. You're the group leader, apparently." Max's voice was dripping with sarcasm, enough that Cindy could feel it coming off him in waves. Isaac must have felt something similar, because he grimaced and twisted around to jab a finger into Max's chest.
"Well you were distracting me with stupid tree puns!"
They were both silent, each of them with their own tell-tale scowls, Max and Isaac locked in a staring contest Cindy was almost scared to break up. There was nothing louder than her heart in her ears and the heatwaves in the air that echoed Isaac's frustration and Max's irritation. She remained as still as she could, for fear that the confrontation would get violent. She'd never seen the two of them break into punches and kicks and bruises and cuts, but she was unsure if they wouldn't. It was rare, but true, to be reminded that she didn't know them too well, even after six years. Their exasperation was her disquiet, and all she could do was sit still and hope she wouldn't have to drive someone's face into the ground.
Then, like the smart ass he was, a shit-eating grin reached from one of Max's ears to the other.
"Leaf me alone."
Cindy huffed in relief, but Isaac's face grew red. He pulled away from Max and screamed into the sky, hands clasping his short strings of hair.
Cindy fell to a tree stump, old and dying for years. She was more concerned about her vexation, though, and how absolutely exhausted she was of hearing her friends bicker like idiots. She began toying with the hem of her sundress. Her nimble fingers ran over the stitching, soft cotton against her skin almost calming to her.
They'd come to a stop in the middle of nowhere, a place at the very edge of the woods where the barrier laid only a few feet away. So far it seemed to be a dead end, and the closest thing to activity they'd seen all night was Isaac tripping over a small fairy-like family's residential log. Seeing Isaac plead for forgiveness from a sentient blade of grass with wings was funny, gut-burstingly so, but it didn't qualify as a successful mission. All they could hope for was better luck on Isabel's end.
"You are such a pain sometimes, you know that?"
"Like you aren't!" Max clasped his hands together and batted his eyelashes. "But you're Isaac! Everything you do is so good and pure! You've never made a mistake in your life, by golly!"
Isaac growled and clenched his fists, sneering at Max and digging his heels into the ground.
"At least I admit it when I do! I don't keep lying to myself and everyone around me!"
Max blinked, squinted, and slowly brought his head to tilt. "What, exactly, are you trying to pin on me, Isaac?"
"Guys! Shoosh!" Cindy waved a frantic hand, inching off of the seat she was beginning to find uncomfortable. The boys fell into another silence, auras growing at their fingertips. Cindy felt power sway in the palm of her hand, the other at her cell phone. Something rustled in the bushes across from them, slow as if observing them. She could see Max reach for his bat, tucked snuggly in the backpack he still lugged around. Isaac's hands popped with electricity, blue sparks bouncing and jolting in wait.
One spirit, purple and green with a body so human it might've been a ghost, took a step from beyond the shrubs. Its skin bubbled as though it'd been horribly burnt, and the stench it carried wasn't much better. Its eyes, which were in great number all along its neck and shoulders, blinked and cried ectoplasm. Max snorted in disgust; Cindy gagged. "Creepy and gross," Isaac mumbled "but nothing we can't handle."
And so they came to be surrounded by many, equally as disturbing spirits.
"Son of a…" Max reached down to grab the small wound on his upper arm. It was bleeding, but it wasn't as fatal as it felt. It stung like hell, and it ran deep, but he knew it was just his exhaustion talking. He winced and rolled to the side as another attack missed him by inches, a ghostly axe coming upon the grass with so much force that Max felt the ground shake. He swallowed and reached for his bat, gripping the handle in a weak hand. Adrenaline was good, but he was a little uneasy. His own blood was dripping down his arm, soaking the sweater he'd thrown on at the last minute. It was brand new, and part of him was a little disappointed he'd torn it so soon. Another part of him was giddy because the tear in the fabric made him look cooler.
"There's too many of them!"
He could hear Isaac cry from across the way, his blue eyes squinting as he struggled to keep his aura shields up. The small circle he made was breaking down all around him, and the panic he was feeling was all too evident on his face. A single side shattered, and Isaac used that hole to give his enemies a taste of lightning and rain. Two spirits fell to the ground, spurting water and trembling, but the others still persisted. Cindy took her phone and willed it into a blade the size of her thigh, taking another spirit and leaving Isaac an opportunity to escape.
Max came to stand and bolted in the direction they came, Isaac not far ahead. They both made a move to grab Cindy's arms, tugging her away from the spirits.
Strangely enough, they did not give chase.
"A hoard of spirits?" Berenice seemed puzzled, if not indifferent. "I see. I'm sorry. I thought it was a threat of much smaller significance. Perhaps I should reconsider my source of intel. Am I to assume that the rest of the club is alright?"
"Yeah" Max mumbled, but Cindy could still hear him. His phone was blaring on speaker phone, but the friendly voice on the other end, as much as Cindy disliked Miss Guillory, was a much needed comfort. Max reached up and massaged the bridge of his nose. "Yeah we're okay. Isabel and Ed haven't shown up yet."
"Please give me a call when that changes." They could hear Berenice shuffling on the other end, as if moving papers around. It was safe to assume she was still grading history papers, as Cindy swore she heard Berenice mutter "so stupid" under her breath. "It's odd. I assumed that the possible force behind Richard's death was of greater mind. I didn't even think it might've been because he was overwhelmed."
"Oh no," Isaac stood from where he'd splayed his body across the trunk of Ed's car. He was still trembling; Cindy saw it in the shaking finger he pointed down at Max's phone. She supposed he'd been the closest to death, being surrounded like he was. Even from outside the circle, it'd reminded her of something akin to a zombie horror movie. Only thing was, those spirits were probably worse. They all deserved their own horror games, each one frightening and appalling in their own vile way. "No, there is definitely a bigger brain behind all of this. Those things wouldn't chase us when we bolted. So, unless they somehow figured out how to cut the brakes in Ed's car, which I hope and pray isn't reality, they weren't there to kill us."
"They were a message." Cindy had come to a similar conclusion, but saying it still felt odd. Their lives might not have truly been in any danger, but it'd certainly felt like it. She raised a hand to her chest, where her heart was still thumping wildly against her ribcage.
Berenice was quiet for a moment, and they heard the shuffling papers come to an abrupt halt. Dead silence cut the line as their small group waited patiently for her response. She exhaled on the other line, and the papers began shifting again. "I'll have to look further into this. Somebody at the Consortium" Cindy and Max spared a panicked glance at Isaac, who seemed confused by their glances "has to know something."
Max's stare lingered on Isaac before falling back to his phone; Cindy noticed. "Right. Keep us posted."
"Have a safe night, kids- are you kids? Have a safe night."
The connection cut and Max slipped his phone back into his pocket with a sigh.
Isaac fell back against the trunk, one of his arms falling across his eyes. He mumbled some excuse about his head hurting, but she could see the redness of his cheeks.
Another thirty minutes had passed by the time Isabel and Ed returned from scouting their neck of the woods. Isabel had her cell in one hand and was gesturing to the car with another. Ed was nodding in response to whatever it was she was saying, reaching to the loop of his belt to get his keys. "Start the car" Cindy figured Isabel was saying "it's late and it's a school night. We should get home soon." When Isabel heard Max's ringtone feet away from her, she turned a startled eye to the threesome she'd left. Max was leaning against the trunk Isaac laid on and Cindy had found a nice spot of grass under the wheel of Ed's car, a place her legs wouldn't get too itchy. Her eyes met Ed's and the air had left her lungs before she knew it'd been shallow. Isabel wasn't quite as relieved.
"What are you guys doing here so soon?"
Ed gave Cindy a smile and a wave, walking over to the back of his car to mess with Isaac's hair before he got the chance to look. He reached down and took a blade of grass, running it along Isaac's forehead. It was slapped away by a blue hand, Isaac's aura flaring when his annoyed gaze met Ed's amused smile.
"Long story," Max rubbed the back of his neck.
Isabel approached cautiously, eyes grazing the cuts and bruises all over Max's exposed skin. It was with a gentle hand that she reached out to touch the deeper one, the one right below his shoulder, but he winced and pulled away from her. Isabel frowned and glanced Isaac up and down, then Cindy. "What the hell happened?"
"Well," Cindy huffed and glared up at Max. Isaac would have gotten a hefty scowl, too, but he couldn't exactly see her from where he was sitting. "To start off, we got lost because Max and Isaac wouldn't stop arguing."
"Isaac's fault. I was just being myself."
"Well maybe 'yourself' wasn't the thing to be in the middle of a mission?" Max pulled away from the trunk to meet Isaac' icy blue eyes, an eyebrow twitching. Isaac pressed his palms to the metal door below him and came to sit up, raking his hands through his hair to get rid of the leaves Ed had surely been placing strategically through his spikes. "Maybe it wasn't your fault that we got swamped with baddies, but it's completely your fault that it took us an hour to find our way back to the car, and totally your fault we got lost in the first place!"
"What, because you can't keep your eyes on the road?"
"Excuse me?"
Max crossed his arms and tilted his head to the side, lips twitching into a sly grin. "Maybe if you would stop taking yourself so damn seriously, you could talk to me like a normal human being." Cindy watched with growing interest as Isaac's face lit into several different shades of red, his lips quivering as he struggled to compose himself. He leaped off the trunk of the car so that he was standing face-to-face with Max, bodies five feet apart. His expression spoke volumes, with his furrowed brows and scrunched-up nose, but his quavering voice gave away so much more.
"I'm sorry, when did I become the one who wasn't talking? I seem to remember that you're the one who's kept his mouth shut about us for two months!"
Ed cracked up and Cindy audibly gasped, a dirt-covered hand over her mouth. Isabel's jaw dropped and she looked around to see if anybody else heard what she just had. Max's face grew three shades darker than Isaac's, his arrogant grin falling like dead weights and his eyes widening above his barred teeth. A quick glance around the group verified that everyone had heard it, and from there his expression grew darker. "Isaac-!"
"Oh," the laugh that came from Isaac was a miserable as Max's grimace, and twice as hair-raising. "I'm sorry, you didn't want anyone to know, did you? Not like you told me that."
"Isaac, that's not it-!"
"Why don't you just go ahead and say it, then?" Isaac waved his arms around, motioning to the rest of the club. Max didn't seem to notice; his dim eyes were locked firmly on Isaac's flaming ones. "Just say that you regret it!"
"Isaac, shut up! I'm trying to tell you that I don't-!"
"Clearly you do! 'Cause everyone here seems surprised! And I know you haven't said a word about it to me!"
"Okay! Alright!" Max brought his hands up in mock defense, aura threatening to build higher than the top of his baseball cap. "You wanna hear me say it? Fine!" Isaac balled his fists and tensed up, as though getting ready for Max to land a physical blow. When it hit, Cindy knew it must have felt like one. Max didn't even take a deep breath before he said it. "I regret everything about that night! I wish it never happened! If I could do it over, I wouldn't do it again! The thought wouldn't even cross my mind!"
When the words finally lay thick on the air, and the reality of the situation caught up to everyone, Cindy noticed how deathly silent everything was. Isabel and Ed were stuck glancing between each-other and the argument, mouths so open mosquitoes were landing on their tongues. Her expression must not have been much different, because her mouth was quickly becoming dry. The wheels in Max's head seemed to be turning, as though he couldn't quite figure out exactly what he'd just said. Rather, he looked shocked the words had ever left him- that his own outburst could cut him so extremely. He was stuck in place, unmoving and unresponsive, teeth falling at a distance so that his own lips could part in bafflement. Isaac, though, Isaac looked the worst. His face was ghostly pale, skin so white Cindy would have thought him sick. His eyes were whitish, too, and wide as the moon above them, so big that there wasn't an inch of emotion for him to hide. His lower lids twitched, as though he was fighting rising tears- he certainly looked like he was.
In seconds, agony turned to rage, and his aura flared yards above his head like a wild bonfire they'd forgotten to mend. He balled both his fists and led one swinging into Max's face, sending him flying onto his back like he was nothing but thin glass. Cindy could see Max shattering between space and land, shock etched on his face. It happened in slow motion, Max falling backward and Isaac flew toward him. The result was a shockwave they couldn't feel, disbelief and dread and confusion mingling into something nobody there had felt in a long time.
Max landed against the grass and dirt with a thud. "Isaac!" Isabel's tone was a warning one, but Isaac didn't look like he had any hits left in him anyway. Where there was once rage and pain, there was enervation and detachment. It was there for all of them to see, and it was with bloodshot eyes that Isaac swallowed hard and spoke.
"It's official, then. You and I are done. I just wish you'd said something sooner instead of wasting both our time."
Isaac turned around and stalked off in the direction of the suburbs, body still trembling as his silhouette vanished under the shadows of trees and bushes. Cindy crawled over to Max just as Isabel bent down, both reaching helping hands to his arms. It was with no aggression that he brushed them off, body so limp he could hardly bring himself to stand. The tip of his cap might've covered his eyes, but it couldn't hide the way he gritted his teeth. Isabel offered a humorless laugh. "Wow, that was, uh, a confrontation. You gonna be okay?"
"I'll be fine." His voice was tougher than he was and they all knew it. "Let's just get home. Please."
The three of them watched without a word as Max carried himself to the back of the car, opened the door, climbed in, and shut it weakly behind him. They glanced at each-other, Cindy setting a shy hand on Isabel's shoulder. She wasn't sure if she was asking for comfort, but Isabel gripped her hand back anyway.
Ed blinked, glanced at them, then the car where Max was sitting, and then in the direction Isaac had staggered off to. "So…" His voice was unusually casual. "Five bucks says Max was the seme."
Isabel blanched, squinted at him, then sent a spectral fist as his arm. Ed snickered and rubbed his arm where it hit.