Bit of a warning this gets very dark in certain areas if you having a bad day you probably shouldn't read this today and probably come back when you're having a better day

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After that night, Alastor and the Cormiers had no trouble interacting, and it was easier for him to bring Harry into the picture more often than Alastor when he was with them. He had decided not to say anything about his inner turmoil, but he hid it all quite well, and the strange tension that he hadn't even realized was there because of their secret had vanished.

It was almost… well, it was nearly a happy home life. Every day, however, the line between Harry and Alastor became more and more defined as he was sent off to see Carmelita. The same boy that was so comfortable with the Cormiers and had shown so much compassion for his caretakers had no place in the Lundelville home, and Alastor had no place in a house full of love and comfort.

He began shedding and changing personalities as easy as putting on and taking off a heavy coat, and yet… and yet there were times when he found himself being more and more influenced by Alastor while he was Harry, as if the line was becoming both more defined and blurrier simultaneously.

It didn't alarm him too much - he considered it part of growing up, or at the very least having been toughened by the world he lived in and was stuck in. He thought everything was running smoothly and that he had it all under control - despite the fact that he found Carmelita being more and more frightened of him with each passing day, he had her under his thumb so long as he caved and gave her the affection that she so longed for every once in a while.

Harry started doing things that he typically wouldn't have done with the Cormiers. He wasn't sure whether that was because of them opening up to him or because of Alastor's charm and charisma, which rubbed off on Harry quite a bit but was one of the few things he couldn't complain about rubbing off on, and he allowed it wholeheartedly.

Mrs. Cormier started opening up about what her childhood had been like, full of children and dances and laughter, always laced with the mark of voodoo. Of course, she hadn't opened up about a lot of things in her life - it would've been blatantly obvious that she was not from here.

How it had all turned out in her childhood was never a subject they touched again, though Mrs. Cormier revealed to Alastor that after she had tried to bring her son back, she had never practiced voodoo again. "Why not?" Alastor asked, trying to dice everything just right for Mrs. Cormier's jambalaya.

It was a special occasion - Guidry's birthday, and as on all special events, Mrs. Cormier insisted on making jambalaya. Mrs. Cormier hesitated a bit as she beat up a shrimp. "It was too dark… using voodoo like that… voodoo supposed to be a natural thing, in touch with the spirits, nature, minerals, everything on this earth. But that kind of thing is too much to do with the darker part of voodoo, the shadows.

Pass me the cayenne - once I tried that, I found this… pull. Something was pulling me to consort with the shadows. I stopped doing even my little tricks, and I wasn't exactly in my right mind to be practicing voodoo.

After a while, that urge went away," she stopped, biting her lip. "I ain't even sure I can do it anymore." "How do you mean?" Alastor asked, frowning. "I mean, it'd make sense.

The spirits don't like that kind of nonsense. If they took away my… my connection to them…" at this, she strayed and suddenly shook her head. "It doesn't matter. I ain't gon' try it, anyhow." Guidry's birthday passed, as did winter (which was really a joke of winter - to Alastor, used to the English winter, it had barely been cold), and the three Cormiers had fallen into a harmony of sorts.

The first month they went back to visit the Guills, Adelaide still didn't come out of her room, but after the second, third, and fourth months, she could finally begin interacting with them again. Still, Alastor felt the wall that she had erected between herself and the Guills, and he didn't think it likely that it would ever fall, at least not for a very long time.

She seemed distrustful of everyone around her, and though with each month that she took the strangely therapeutic drug, she got better, there were certain things that couldn't be healed, couldn't bring back faith. Despite the birthdays and seasons that passed, Alastor could always see the same little girl she had been when he met her - deathly afraid of everything, jumping at her own shadow, waiting for those around her to die. He sometimes felt she was the only one who could see something they couldn't.

The first month they returned to the old Guills' house, a ceremony of sorts was held for Ren, a ceremony Adelaide couldn't even bear to partake in.

It wasn't very different from how Alastor had seen certain people bury others. Still, the difference was that they had no body to mourn, not even a casket or box to pretend that Ren was there, so they spoke to the wind, to the spirits, burned a bunch of food and flowers right at the edge of the swamp, looking over their shoulders to check for gators, and then they all took some weird drink that the Cormiers explained to Alastor as a 'funerary drink.' It was the same form of drug they usually took but diluted.

It was probably just a special drink in name. Alastor made sure to take little; that time, as if the drug knew what to do, he saw Ren. He was lying down in a glowing meadow, the acne scars and hard lines that had populated his face now smoothed over by death, shutting his eyes as he turned his head towards the sun like a delicate flower. Alastor lay right beside him, the grass in the otherwise empty, lush meadow pricking at his forearms and back.

Ren's position wasn't unlike the one that he had seen in the white-haired boy, but the situation and Alastor's feelings were still completely different. He looked at Ren's peace, and though he didn't want to break it, he knew he wanted to speak to him.

Maybe he even thought he was meant to - for what other reason had the drugs (or the spirits) brought him beside Ren? "What happened to you?" He asked. Ren's head turned over to Alastor, and though he seemed surprised to find him there, he wasn't phased by it at all. "What happen t'everyone. What'll happen to them next," he said, shutting his eyes again, and as he accommodated himself in the grass, he looked as though he were sinking into it.

Alastor's heart thumped. "Who's them?" He asked, his pulse too present in his throat. "I know who you are," Ren told him, completely ignoring Alastor's question. "Who's going to… to-" "To what? Can't be too much of a shock, now, Harry. Alastor. Whatever you go by, nowadays. Death touches all of us," he said he turned his head again to face Alastor. "You look like the kind of person that don't understand it. Death don't have to be dark or horrible," he said, waving his hand around, gesturing vaguely to the sun-kissed meadow before them.

For some reason, the comment about his name struck Alastor badly. "Didn't you die violently?" He asked bitterly. His Alastor was really showing now. Ren paused at that as if he had been deeply disturbed. He looked over at Alastor, appalled. "I don't need a demon like you to interrupt me right now.

You leave, or I will," he said, the first hitch in his seemingly serene state showing. Alastor hesitated. How could he leave this place? He was debating what to do when Ren suddenly sighed and began sinking into the ground, fast. Flustered, Alastor propped himself up and tried to help Ren remain above the ground, but his face was calm when he saw the man already deep in the rich earth. "Leave me here. It's better than where you'll end -" but his words were cut short when the earth began to cover him, entering his speaking mouth and muffling it. He didn't seem disturbed by it, but Alastor was horrified.

He fished around, trying to find Ren's arm, his finger digging into the ground, trying to somehow pull the dead man out. He grew into despair as the shadows of sunset began to pool around the meadow, and it seemed that only a minute had passed between sunset and the darkest of night.

When Ren's face was no longer visible, he began to paw at him, trying to keep at least the tip of his nose outside of the ground. He brushed off the falling earth from Ren's face, but when he uncovered it, it wasn't Ren's face but Guidry's that loomed below him.

Alastor leaped back with a scream of surprise, but when he jumped, his back hit an earthen wall, and he found that in his despair to get Ren, or Guidry, or whoever it was that was being buried out, a deep grave had caved beneath them. He couldn't look around him for much longer before a curtain of dirt fell on top of him, and he was buried together with them.

With Alastor's birthday coming up, Mrs. Cormier had begun pestering him on what he wanted as a present. The first time she asked, he had answered that the blue suit had been more than enough for infinite birthdays to come, and Guidry had agreed with him wholeheartedly. Mrs. Cormier chastised them both, but she let it drop.

For a day. The next time she asked, Alastor insisted that he was alright and wouldn't be needing any presents - besides, Harry was still a somewhat new addition to the family, and there had been a few hiccups in his stay (namely vomiting on Guidry's pillow, which had resulted in a battle trying to get Guidry to let Harry keep on sleeping in the house).

Alastor told her he considered Harry his birthday present, and Guidry again agreed with him. Mrs. Cormier shook her head at the both of them, realizing she would never get an answer out of Alastor. Still, Alastor knew that she had been picking up quite a bit of overtime on both her afternoon and evening shifts and that she would likely want to use some of that money to buy him a nice present.

He was already feeling a bit guilty about bringing the cat home, and he didn't want either of the Cormiers to go through any extra trouble. He was thinking over what he could do for the Cormiers to thank them for anything as he headed over to Carmelita's, and he was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he did a sloppy job at truly disconnecting from his more emotional side in preparation for his afternoon with the she-devil. As a result, when he arrived he was unusually flustered and irritated, on edge and ready to assail the world.

Unfortunately, she hadn't invited him for one of her tea parties that afternoon, during which he would've listened to the news of grisly deaths and pretended it was Carmelita that had died. Instead, she received him in her usual torture chamber, a look of excitement in her eyes.

That wasn't a good sign. Everything that excited and pleased Carmelita made Alastor miserable. "Alastor!" She greeted as if surprised he had come. She beckoned him to sit beside her, and he did as he was indicated, like a good little pet. She greeted him with a wet, sticky kiss on his cheek and then held his hands, nearly trembling from the excitement. "I have the most wonderful birthday surprise for you!" She squealed. "My birthday isn't until Friday, though," he told her teasingly, smiling, but the dread was accumulating deep in the pits of his stomach. Carmelita tsked at him with a laugh and shook her head. "I know, I know, but I have to tell you now.

Because the present will be on Friday," she said, wiggling her eyebrows. "Oh, you didn't plan a party or anything, did you? There's really no need, and I don't-" "I don't want to hear a bunch of no's from you, Ally, dearest," and though she said with good-naturedly (or as good-naturedly as a wretch like her ever got) he could see the fiery irritation in her eyes. It was best not to get her annoyed at trivial matters if it could be avoided, so he shut up. "And in any case, it isn't a party. It's something much better than that," she said, standing up and pacing in front of him. Alastor sat at the edge of the lounging chair, fighting against the urge to start tapping his foot with impatience and a bit of fear.

He really hadn't been able to master himself well before he arrived here, and he mentally chastised himself for it. "You remember how I told you papa has a good friend up in New York? Well, he said he was going away on a business trip, or something like that, and his apartment will be empty for two weeks - two whole weeks!" She exclaimed, jumping up. "Carmelita-" "Don't interrupt," she snapped, her face morphing into that of a demon's and then immediately restoring itself back to its usual fake sweetness. "So, as I was saying. I begged papa to let me go, and to… take you with me," she finally concluded, batting her eyelashes sweetly at him. "It would be two whole weeks, dining at the best New York has to offer. We would be completely-" "Carmelita-" Alastor began again, the desperation increasing in his voice.

This couldn't be happening. "-completely alone to do whatever we wanted. Oh, it's such a treat-" "Carmelita!" Alastor finally bounded up from the chair, and stared her down. "I won't be going to New York with you," he sputtered with a bit more violence than was probably wise for him to use. He wouldn't be able to take it, he knew he wouldn't.

Even completely detached from himself, he barely refrained from killing her or himself just by going to her house every other afternoon.

Two whole weeks of them alone? No, he couldn't take it. Besides, the Cormiers would never allow him to go, and he wouldn't allow himself to go unless he really planned on snapping, and god knew what would happen if he did. "And why not?" Carmelita pouted, her lower lip trembling wildly, and despite her pity act, he could see the growing anger in her eyes, that same childish tantrum quality that she always had but magnified so intensely because she was an adult. "I… I can't," he simply said, his mind racing with believable reasons as to why he wouldn't be able to go, but he couldn't come up with a single one at such short notice. He felt a darkness closing in on him, deep panic burrowing itself into every little crevice of his being. "Well, I think you're being a little ungrateful right now.

I'm offering you the nicest present, and you're refusing it?" She asked, appalled. "Yes, I-" he tried to ignore the fact that he had been called ungrateful, but his rage was growing together with his panic, and in the mess of it all, he told her the dumbest excuse. "My… my guardians wouldn't allow it. They wouldn't let me go off to New York by myself." "Your guardians?" Carmelita asked, her voice wavering funnily at the word 'guardians', as if she thought it was funny, talking with the voice one would use if you were coddling a baby.

She moved closer to Alastor, took him by his coat, and stroked his chest. "You wouldn't be alone, and you would be safe with me. And as for those ugly little niggers, I can take care of them in a heartbeat for you." Disgusted, Alastor pushed her off. "No, it's not just - it's not just the Cormiers," he said, trying not to hurt her for how she was talking about the Cormiers. "It's me. I don't want to go to New York. Not for all the fancy dinners in the world." He didn't know how he could've thought that would make matters better for him or the Cormiers.

Carmelita stepped back when he pushed her off, and by then, she had completely lost her 'sweet' persona. "It's those disgusting, filthy inhumans you live with. Those niggers are poisoning you against me!" She whined, looking around her like she was a feral animal, ready to tear her curls out. "Don't call them that!" He snarled at her; it took every ounce of strength in his body not to strangle her right then and there. "Don't call them what? Filthy niggers? That's exactly what they are," she spat at him, walking towards him, so she says it right in his face. "And you're just another dirty nigger at heart, too." At that point, Alastor couldn't refrain himself.

He punched her in the face. Hard. Carmelita stumbled back theatrically and fell back onto the lounging chair, clutching her jaw. She whimpered there for a second as Alastor stood watching her, his eyes wide, realising what it was that he had just done. After a moment, she flipped back the mountains of hair that had fallen on her face and spat onto the chair.

It came out red. She steeled her sights on him, and when she did, he say a face that looked like hell on earth. "Even if you didn't want them to be gone, I'll make sure they die. I'll bleed them all dry and feed them to all their other nigger friends. I'll feed them to you," she spat, her words muffled by the blood coming from her gums, her jaw already changing colour and inflaming. "Get out! Get out!" She howled, resorting to screaming without words, wailing as if she had just been shot. Alastor fled.

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I'll make sure they die. I'll bleed them all dry and feed them to all their other nigger friends. I'll feed them to you. I'll make sure they die. I'll feed them to you. Feed them to you. Feed them to you. As Alastor sprinted back, he had to stop for a moment even in his hurry to vomit in a side street, not unlike he had done the first time Carmelita had really touched him inappropriately. In both instances, he had, of course, upset Carmelita. But it had been nothing like this. This was on a whole other level, and this was it. The worst possible thing that could've happened - that he could've done. He couldn't stop her words from reverberating in his brain, the images of what she described popping up without his consent,, making him feel like he would go insane if he couldn't expel them soon.

Aside from that, his mind was racing, but even he wasn't able to fully say with what content it was racing with. He could only know how he felt - and that was sick, afraid, and completely and utterly panicked. He could see a million situations going down in his brain, all of them ending with the Cormiers dead and him alone, watching them being killed. His visions might have been correct after all - the Cormiers lying buried in the ground? Carmelita would put them there herself.

That was if she didn't hack them into little pieces. He contemplated the very real possibility that she would kill him as well - and if she hurt the Cormiers, then he hoped with his whole heart that he wouldn't outlast them very long. After all, if they died, it would be because of him. Solely because of him.

He vomited in the street a second time during the run, the people milling about in the street stopping to look at him funny, but he could care less at that moment. He had to get back home and warn the Cormiers of what would happen.

It'll happen to them next - that was what Ren had told him right before Alastor had seen Guidry's face buried in that grave. How could he have been so blind, so oblivious as to what would obviously eventually happen? How could he let things get this way?

How could he have let his guard get down around Carmelita with all those thoughts he had been having of his happy life with Cormiers? He had been a fool, he had been blind, and that had brought death on the lot of them.

He had insisted on keeping his humane side, keeping Harry, and in doing so, he would lose the people that were actually anchoring him to everything that was good and human in his life. He should've known that there would be no peace for the Cormiers, not as cursed as they were, not as cursed as Alastor was. He had always known that there was something infecting their lives, but he had never been able to pinpoint it, and it wasn't just this shitty little town with its horrible people.

It was them. It was him. He felt he would never be able to be happy, to be loved, without it turning into a catastrophe. But he would be damned if he didn't try his hardest to save them. Maybe he was already damned. He arrived at the shop panting, finding Guidry lounging at the front desk calmly, Harry snoozing soundly at his feet. The moment he saw Alastor barging through the door, took in his overly pallid appearance, and the fact that he couldn't have been over at Carmelita's for more than five minutes, he jumped up, alarmed, fear already settling into his composed appearance.

The composure wouldn't last long. "Alastor, what happened, my boy?" He asked him, walking over to him and propping the weak kid up, helping him over to the chair where he had previously been sitting. Alastor was desperate to tell him everything at once, but when he tried to speak, he immediately ran out of breath, and it wasn't just because of the run - it felt like the wind had been knocked out of him like he had been punched repeatedly in the gut. "Alright, alright, calm down, now," Guidry said soothingly, going over to the bathroom to get him a glass of water.

Alastor's lack of speech was driving him crazy. He felt he was losing his mind, that he was throwing away precious time that he needed to save the Cormiers. He gulped down the water Guidry had brought him, tried to regulate his breathing, and immediately started speaking. "I punched Carmelita." "You did what?" "I- I punched her. Guidry, you have to get Mrs. Cormier. You need to go fetch her now.

We have to go right this second, I-" "Whoa, whoa, hold your damn horses for a second. Who's goin' anywhere?" "We have to go. She said she would… she said she would kill you," Alastor pleaded with him, thinking better than to describe the very graphic way Carmelita had told him she would get rid of the Cormiers.

He didn't tell him she wanted to feed them to him. Guidry froze at Alastor's words, looking at him as if he had told him the world was ending. In some way, it was. "Please, Guidry, you need to go get Mrs. Cormier. I would've done it myself, but I- I don't know where she's working right now. Please!" He exclaimed, leaping out of his chair and grabbing Guidry by his shirt. Guidry gently set him back down. "Alright, alright, I'll get her.

You stay right here, alright? Don't you go nowhere, and don't you let anyone in here that ain't us, you got that?" Alastor nodded feverishly, eager for Guidry to go get Mrs. Cormier so that they could get the hell out of there. Guidry settled the boy down, changed the sign on the door to 'Closed', and left. "Guidry!" Alastor called right before he shut the door. "Please hurry."

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Alastor paced up and down the shop, nervous and anxious for the Cormiers to get back. He didn't know how far away Mrs. Cormier was working, but it wasn't more than five minutes before he started to get worried. Sneaking peaks out the store window, hoping to see the growing figures of his guardians or a police officer or death itself, he kept imaging what could happen. What if Carmelita had already told her father? What if they had already plucked the Cormiers from the streets and had taken them to jail?

But jail was the least of their worries. No, they couldn't get caught, not for a single second. If they fell into Carmelita's clutches, they were dead. They had to leave. Now. There was no alternative that didn't involve leaving or death. Fifteen minutes later, he spotted them coming up the street, looking around them as if they were afraid of someone chasing them, and with good reason, too.

Alastor suddenly wondered whether he shouldn't have started packing up their things as he waited for them, but it was too late now. "Alastor," Mrs. Cormier sighed as she saw him, immediately pulling him into a hug. Alastor sighed and allowed himself a moment of relief at seeing her before pulling away. "We have to leave this place. We have to leave right now," he said desperately, looking from one of them to the other. "I just don't understand, Al. What happened? Guidry said you punched the Lundelville girl?" "I- yes, I did, and I'm sorry, but we-" "Why would you do that?" She asked, a dark expression clouding her face as she clutched his head in her hands. "I… there's no time, alright? I'll explain it all later when we're safe." "You will explain it right now, Alastor," she said, removing her hands and looking at him severely.

It dawned on him that this was the first time he had really displeased her. "Please, she… she said she would kill you," Alastor begged, holding her hands in his. "Now, why would she say that? You 'bout the most patient kid I ever met, so why would you punch her, Alastor?" "Molly," Guidry warned as her voice began to rise. "No, Guidry! I been having a feeling for a long time now that something been going on.

You told me to calm down, but I know that girl did something to you, so what did she do, Alastor?" Alastor panicked at her words. He had thought of many possible outcomes to what he had done, but he hadn't considered this.

He had never wanted them to know what Carmelita had been doing to him all these months, and he already had a wall prepared if it should ever happen. "Please, mum, let's just go," he pleaded, feeling that that was his last resort to avoid the truth. But Mrs. Cormier only shook her head at him, looking like she was close to tears. "I ain't going nowhere 'til you tell me what she did to you." He had no choice. If he wanted them to be saved and stay alive, he would have to sacrifice his secret and tell them.

It mortified him, but in his desperation, the whole truth came out, right down to her wanting to take him to New York and the ensuing fight. The whole story couldn't have taken more than two minutes to tell, considering that he didn't want to tell them any details or anything more than what was strictly necessary.

Still, Mrs. Cormier had to sit down as he spoke, and she had gotten so pale so quickly it was a wonder she didn't faint. Guidry lingered over the reception desk, his head in his hands, incapable of facing anyone. When Alastor was telling them what had happened to him, the most terrible silence settled over them. His growing desperation and certainty that they had to leave town drove him to near madness as he watched the two people he cared about most falling apart.

The shame he felt as he watched their reactions was too much for him to bear, and he knelt before Mrs. Cormier with tears in his eyes as he clutched her hand too tight. "I'm sorry," he choked out. Mrs. Cormier snapped out of her stupor and looked at him with bewilderment and pain.

It somehow made him feel even worse. "Why would you apologise?" She asked softly, wiping the tears from his face with her thumb. She stopped talking then - she clearly didn't want her voice to break any further as she spoke to him. "We were the ones that failed you," Guidry said darkly from a corner, his face still in his hands. Then, he suddenly raised them, and though he looked pained and as if his features had been distorted with grief, there was something else in his look. Anger. "I'll kill that little bitch.

Her and her entire family," he said, bringing his fist down of the desk. Alastor leaped up. "No, no, that's insane, Guidry. I'm fine, okay?" He said, fighting to keep his voice from wavering. "We just need to go. Let's get out of here, we don't need to see them ever again, let's just go." "Why didn't you tell us before?" Mrs. Cormier suddenly burst out, clearly contained in her own despair to the point where it seemed like she hadn't really heard them speaking. Alastor looked from one sad face to the other and found that he lacked the words. "I… I didn't want to upset you, knowing it would spark problems. Problems like… like this," he stuttered, but try as he might, he couldn't bring himself to tell them a reason that wouldn't wound them further.

It was as if he was consistently hurting them, and he couldn't help himself. What could he tell them? That he had developed a more detached persona that had thought they would've been able to wield Carmelita for a long time? That he felt he could've been able to gain control of the situation by letting the violence seep into his very pores?

He wouldn't even know how to begin explaining something like that, and besides, they really didn't have any more time, and the lower the sun sank on the horizon, the more he felt they were running out of time to save them like the night would bring with it all its creatures. "Please, please, let's go. Let's get out of here before they… before they come to take you," he begged, looking from one numb, tragic face to the other. But what he saw there just made his overwhelming dread increase.

He didn't know how his body was taking this anxiety and feared that he might collapse at any minute. "Go where Alastor? You know we can't leave town," Mrs. Cormier told him darkly, wiping her own tears away with some violence.

Flustered, Alastor started pacing, the gaze of the Cormiers bearing on him. "Then we go to the Guills, hide, just go. We're sitting ducks here," he told them, but they only shook their heads at him as if he were being a foolish child. His heart froze. "We can't go to the Guills and just bring 'em trouble.

What happens if they find us there with them? Wouldn't be past them to… rope them into it all," Mrs. Cormier said bitterly, shutting her eyes and looking like she had just tasted something horrible. Alastor wanted to contradict her, but Carmelita's words resurfaced in his brain. I'll bleed them all dry and feed them to all their other nigger friends.

He was running out of pleas, out of ways to get them out and into safety. "Then let's try to get out of town. Let's try anything. Anything," he begged, kneeling before Mrs. Cormier once more and taking her hands, squeezing them even harder than he had before as if the pain would get her to see reason. "No, Alastor. We'll stand our ground. This is our home. I ain't getting chased out of it," he heard Guidry say, and Mrs. Cormier nodded slightly. Alastor looked over at Guidry's steady, unwavering frame and knew in a single, heart-breaking moment that Guidry wouldn't change his mind. "Please," he begged Guidry despite what he knew in his heart to be true. "They'll kill you.

They'll kill Molly!" He screamed, standing up and heading over to Guidry. "Don't you remember what happened to the Robinsons? There's no way they won't kill you!" He yelled right into his face, taking him by his shirt and shaking him, but Guidry's face remained unchanged. He wasn't telling him anything he didn't already know. It was like he was resigned to die as if he had suddenly decided that death would be best for all of them. How could he think like that?

How could he let all of them die when they were a family? "They…" Alastor sputtered, "they'll kill me," he argued weakly, but he knew that there was no use in any argument that he could pose. Guidry had already thought of everything, had possibly been aware of this path that he would take even before knowing what Carmelita had been doing to Alastor.

Unfortunately, Alastor's last words had an undesired effect. Mrs. Cormier snapped out of her miserable numbness and suddenly looked him dead in the eye. "Like hell, they will," she gasped. "They won't touch a single hair on your head ever again. We might not be able to leave, but you can." She shot a decided, steely look at Guidry, and he suddenly nodded at her with an understanding that Alastor couldn't comprehend. "What? I-" but Guidry had suddenly grabbed him by the armpits and started dragging him up the stairs. "What are you doing? Let me go!" He thrashed against him, but despite Guidry's generally wiry physical state, he was still much stronger, and Harry was just a kid, barely even seventeen.

Halfway up the stairs, Alastor remembered he was far more powerful than just his physical strength, and he caused Guidry's hands to sear as he manhandled him. Guidry jumped back with an exclamation of pain and immediately called Molly, who was just a few steps behind him. She put her hands on Alastor's chest, and the moment she did, he lost consciousness. He couldn't have been out for more than three or four minutes, but it was too late when he regained consciousness and realized he lay strewn on his makeshift bed.

The Cormiers were already looking at him through the other side of his open door, tears in their eyes. Alastor slowly rose, feeling groggy but remembering their current situation in a second. "What did you do?" He asked, fear and anger making his voice tremble terribly.

He slowly began to walk towards them, but something held him back the moment he reached the doorway. He stumbled into something like an invisible wall. He put his hand to it, and it felt like a real thing. He looked to the Cormiers. "Please don't do this. Please, let me out," he begged, trying to keep the tears from coming once again, especially at seeing their heartbroken faces.

They shook their heads and pursed their lips. Mrs. Cormier held her hand out to where Alastor was propped against the invisible wall. "We love you, Alastor. You'll lead a beautiful life, and you'll get outta here - go to the Guills for help.

Whatever money we got is in the empty tomato can on top of the kitchen counter." Alastor couldn't believe that she was speaking to him so matter-of-factly. "Please don't do this," he repeated because he really didn't know what else to say, didn't know what angle to play to get them to listen to him, to try and save themselves in any way possible. But whatever he might've said to them was now long gone because they all heard the sound of the downstairs window being shattered at that moment.