Disclaimer: I don't own The Hills Have Eyes.

Thanks to vamplova21, Berry's Ambitions, and Little Pink Neko (I'll have to get used to this name change, Marina, lol) for your reviews and support. I really appreciate it and I hope that y'all enjoy this chapter!

Edge
Chapter Seven: Plan of Attack

Lizard slammed himself into the rocking chair, a mess of blood and sand and desperation. Sweat poured off him in rivulets, running in his eyes, his face a marred expression of anger, disbelief, and self-torture. He looked up at his father, who stood over him with a menacing expression on his face.

"Son," he began calmly. This calm, rather than any kind of anger his father had ever shown, was enough to get Lizard feeling uncomfortable. Anger he could deal with; the strained, forced composure he could not. "Start from the beginning."

"It don't matter!" Lizard shouted in response, desperately trying to rise and leave the house. "It don't matter! They got Ruby."

"Sit down," his father scolded, taking a hand and shoving his son down into the chair. Lizard winced as Jupiter's fingers came into contact with his now open wounds.

"Like hell - "

"You will," Jupiter stated firmly, "sit down."

"We have to go get 'er," Lizard began. This was the obvious statement. There was nothing in the world more important than retrieving Ruby from the mines, saving her from a fate worse than death. If he knew Hades - and they all did, unfortunately - then they knew what could possibly happen to one of their youngest family members if they waited too long to act.

"You ain't going nowhere until you're better," Jupiter replied. "Now. What happened?"

"Goggle an' Pluto were still headed this way. You an' Big Brain an' Cyst were out there. Big Mama was upstairs gettin' Venus and Mercury settled. I was the only one down here with 'er. With Ruby." Lizard stated the events in a clinical, detached tone, but anyone that knew him could distinguish the raw anger in his voice. "One of 'em - Letch. Letch. That bastard. Second fastest next to Chameleon - came in through the door. Just barged in like he owned the damn place - "

Jupiter started to growl.

"Hit me over the head. I didn' know what was goin' on. Next thing I know…he took Ruby."

Everyone was crowded around Lizard at this point as if he were the teller of some awful, ill-fated bedtime story.

"I tried," he said, his voice an agonized moan. "I tried."

Pluto gave a muffled whimper of sympathy in the background.

"Lizard, I never doubted that." Jupiter kneeled at his son's side, looking up at him. "If anyone was gonna give them hell, it was gonna be you."

"I would, if I could get outta this damn chair."

Everyone looked at Big Brain, whose voice had penetrated the serious bubble of the room. Lizard felt like throttling him, but he held himself back. His wounds had reopened. Blood, sticky and wet and alien-feeling, seeped through the stitches that Ruby helped create.

Ruby.

Lizard lifted himself from his chair, standing on wobbling legs, but was resolute to not let it get to him. He couldn't let his weakness show or his father would think he wasn't up for the rescue mission.

And oh was he up for it.

Lizard glared his father in the eye. "What you think we should do?"

"Come up with a plan."

"A plan?" Lizard snarled. "D'ya know what they could be doin' to her right now? While we in here plannin' shit, they're gonna be - "

"Lizard!" his father spoke up. "We rush in there now, without our heads, without a plan, we'll all be killed. And then Ruby ain't got a chance."

Lizard sneered, but didn't protest. Jupiter had a point, though he wished he didn't. There were so many things buzzing around in his head right now that he didn't have time to put them in order.

And so they planned.

Jupiter had a very analytical mind; Lizard liked to think that he inherited that one trait from his father. As he watched his father motion and start to plan out things, he wondered distantly what would happen without him, without their patriarch, and then dismissed it.

The plan was a simple one. There were several entrances, usually with one person on guard near each one. Sometimes would be a lapse in the security, other times there would be no way in. They would scope out the area and determine where the weakest areas were. Jupiter, Pluto, and Cyst would confront the area of most resistance, where Hades no doubt had most of his sons guard. Goggle would then sneak through the place left naked and unguarded by their efforts. Being the quietest and smallest, Goggle would easily be able to maneuver his way through the mines and find Ruby.

"Wha' about me?" Lizard protested, clenching his fists. He still refused to sit down, wanting to be in the midst of all the planning.

"You stay here." Jupiter glared at him.

"Why?" he asked, drawling. He felt tiredness seep into his bones, but he tried to rail against it.

"Look at you." The patriarch jabbed his index finger at Lizard's frame. No matter how much he wanted to deny it, Lizard knew that his father had a point. But he wanted to be out there, fighting, saving his sister, slashing at that damned other clan's throats. He wanted to be fighting. Everyone knew that Lizard was the most skilled…

"Easy pickin'," Cyst gasped from the back. Lizard found himself resisting the urge to hit him just to show how much of an easy picking he was.

"'xactly," Jupiter replied, satisfied.

"I'm goin'," Lizard insisted. He didn't care if he died in the process. He would help his family get Ruby back. It was partially his fault that she had been taken, anyway… He couldn't just let that go like it meant nothing. And if anything happened to Ruby and he was just sitting here as if he were as good as dead…

"It's okay, Lizard," Big Brain spoke up, consoling him from the background. "You'll get used to hanging out with the women soon enough. I did."

A thwacking sound. Big Mama must not have liked that comment too much. Lizard felt his marred lip curl into a smirk at that. Though he couldn't see her from this position, he knew what that felt like. Big Brain certainly deserved it.

A light bulb clicked on in Lizard's mind. He bit his bottom lip and clenched and unclenched his fists to keep himself from barging in on the conversation again. If he was going to get away with what he had planned, then he needed to be as unnoticeable as possible now.

The plans were finished. Simple but effective, Lizard believed. If everything went according to plan, then they would have Ruby back soon enough. Today, tonight even, if things went swimmingly. And Lizard had every intention of being in on the rescue mission. It was required of him. If anything, he needed to be the one to carry Ruby back to safety. An irrational big brother complex, he supposed.

Everyone broke off then, going their separate ways. Pluto and Goggle had to go get their weapons, while Cyst talked with Jupiter. Cyst finished what he was saying and then walked off, following Lizard's brothers out the door.

That was when Jupiter fixed his glance on his son.

Something akin to ice water threaded through his veins. That look was never good. Lizard set his eyes, defiantly, on his father's face. "Wha'?"

"I know what you're thinking, son," he said.

Of course he did.

"You take after me more than you know," Jupiter continued, the twang to his voice apparent. "And I know what you plan on doing."

Lizard stared at him defiantly.

"Don't."

That was all his father said before turning and leaving the room.

Night was falling quickly. It always seemed that way to Lizard at least. He hobbled to the window and gazed out of it, listening as slight bits of conversation met his ears. He would certainly be watched, that was for sure, if he knew his father at all. The oncoming dusk was enough to make him want to leave this confined space. Really, his injuries weren't that bad. Really, he could make his way to the mines and not get killed. Really…

His mind was set.

Lizard walked up the stairs, hobbling as he went. Really, the pain wasn't that unbearable. He'd had worse. He really had…

He passed the door where Big Mama was tucking in the two children for the night and headed to the bedroom that he usually inhabited. Right across the hall from Goggle's room and a neighbor to Pluto's.

If he was going to make everyone think that he wasn't going, he'd have to play the part. At least for a while.

Lizard moved to the bed and sat down, propping up a few pillows and leaning against them as he watched the sunlight leech out of the surroundings. Usually, he'd be against a night strike, especially on someone's home turf, but he knew they had little to no choice, considering what kind of person Hades was and what he was likely to do. Nothing was off limits to him, nothing at all.

The shuffling downstairs went on for a while, and then was punctuated by some murmured voices and then the door shutting as the group went out on their rescue mission. The television turned on, Lizard could hear the static.

And he waited.

With much difficulty, he made himself sit still. He leaned over to glance out his window to see the group begin to walk in the direction of the mines. With a hand, he wiped the matted, dirty strands of hair that were splayed across his forehead. Idly, he wondered what happened to his hat. He'd have to go look around the cliff bottom where he fell. Or something.

Adrenaline was still coursing through his veins. The tiredness from before, brought on by his wounds, was completely gone and replaced by something more primal and foreboding - the desire to kill.

Lizard rose from his seated position, not able to stay in one spot for much longer, and saw the small dots in the distance that were his family. The sun was setting behind the hills, bathing everything in an orange glow. They wouldn't notice him if he left now. Not at all.

Good.

Resolute, Lizard turned and clutched his spiked belt in his bloodied fingers. Anyone not up-to-date with the goings on would probably think he'd already been in a battle for his life. He turned to his dresser and pulled out a few other knives from the last drawer. All the guns had been taken by the other rescuers, leaving Lizard with the knives. Accurately thrown, they could certainly cause death. Anything could, really, if used in the right way.

He sighed and hooked a few along his belt as quietly as he could. The house was quiet but for the television. Sound carried.

Lizard walked to the door, prying it open, trying to mute the telltale squeak it always made when opened. He peeked his head out of the door, feeling like an idiot for doing so, and noticed that no one was out there. Big Mama was likely still with the kids, and Big Brain couldn't get up the stairs without help.

Moving out of his room, he started to walk quietly down the warped boards of the stairs, feeling the reassuring weight of his weapons at his waist, wanting desperately to put them to use.

No one had called out to stop him. He was feeling particularly self-satisfied as he passed the main living room.

At least, until Big Brain called out, "I wouldn't do that, boy."

Lizard hated being referred to as boy. Almost like an irritated cat, his shoulders rose of their own accord, and in his irritation, he spat, "I'd like to see you fuckin' stop me."

Without waiting for a reply, Lizard threw open the door with much more force than necessary and stepped out into the dusk-tinted desert.

End Chapter Seven.