Quick chapter. Hope you enjoy!
Though it was well past midnight, Laurien's mind was racing. After running through the events of that night over and over in her head, she would emerge from her thoughts and need to relax the muscles of her face that had unconsciously become twisted in the expression of a tense scowl. She couldn't put herself at ease. She kept reliving that horrible moment when the arrow had been loosed. Her body had reacted more than her mind at that moment. The sensation of the arrow in her power's grasp, the vibrations of the force behind it quivering through the connection, it sent a tremor through her hand even now as she lay in the bed. It frightened her to her core that a piece of sharpened wood had been so close to taking everything away from them.
After their tea and chat with the Lisiewiczs, Laurien had checked in on the girls to find that both of them were thankfully asleep. Laurien dearly hoped that the events of that evening would not seep into Nina's dreams, creating all sorts of warped nightmares to plague her mind for nights to come. They'd had a previous incident a year or two ago, when Nina had found a fallen bird's nest during one of their walks in the forest. All of the babies were dead. Nina had remained uncharacteristically silent for the rest of the evening and had later woken in the middle of the night, sobbing uncontrollably at what her mind had created in her subconscious.
Laurien could sympathize, and she knew that Erik could as well. She wished that she could confidently tell her daughter that nightmares were less powerful and debilitating when you grew older, but both her and Erik were proof that the statement wouldn't be true. When they had officially left Ottawa behind in 1973, they would each have several nightmares per month. With so much more to lose after Nina was born, their subconscious torment multiplied.
Laurien was close to finally drifting off when movement from the other side of the bed jarred her into coherence. She lay still, listening to the sound of Erik rising from the bed and taking a careful breath as he tried to avoid waking her. Laurien frowned to herself when she heard the slight clang of his belt as he pulled on his jeans, and the rustle of his jacket as he shrugged his arms through the sleeves.
The dull clunk of his work boots against the hardwood flooring made her eyes snap open. Erik wouldn't put on his work boots just to go down the hall to the washroom. He had been waiting for her to doze off.
Kicking off the sheets, Laurien reached out with her powers and grasped the collar of his jacket. She yanked him back until his legs hit the bed and caused him to fall back onto the mattress. Laurien quickly scrambled on top of him, pinning down his body with her own.
"Laurien." He grunted, his hands gripping the wrists of the hands that held his shoulders as he looked up at her in alarm. "What are you doing?"
"I could ask you the same thing." She murmured, careful to keep her voice low, so as not to wake the entire house.
He looked up at her through the darkness with wide, confused eyes. "What do you mean?"
She scoffed, lifting the ring of keys from his jacket pocket with her powers before letting them fall upon the sheets next to his head. "Please, Erik. You excel at many things, but acting innocent is not one of them."
His feigned expression of confusion quickly changed to that of sullen frustration as he let his head fall back to the mattress. Laurien braced herself in case he suddenly attempted to throw her off, but he seemed too lost inside his own mind to do anything about his predicament.
"Your anger is evident. I can feel it burning inside you." She said, pressing a hand against his chest, sensing the festering heat beneath. "Tell me what's going through your head right now."
A vein twitched in his clenched jaw as he breathed hard through his nose. "Someone had to have told them." Erik stated with bitterness staining his words. "One of the men at the factory."
Laurien shook her head, her loose hair swaying above him. "That doesn't matter now."
"It does." He urged, gritting his teeth. "Doesn't it bother you that they betrayed us."
"Of course it does." She snapped back, a red hue surrounding her vision. "But we can't make this whole situation more complicated than it already is. When we left the States, we left all of that revenge bullshit behind as well."
"You and Nina almost died tonight." He reminded her, his voice wavering slightly. "I can't forgive that."
"You don't have to forgive them, just leave them be." She countered, before taking a deep breath. "Believe me, I'm as furious as you are, but we need to show our daughters that despite our anger and our past mistakes, we are still good people. If you do this, the world will have no sympathy for us. They'll only see the bodies and the distraught families of the men you've enacted your revenge upon."
Erik stared up at her for a moment before turning his head to the side, as if he knew that she was right. Laurien took the gradual slowing of his heart rate to be an encouraging sign as her words sank in. "Please, Erik." She pleaded, taking his face between her hands to direct his gaze back to her. "Don't make us the bad guys."
Erik took an uncertain breath, still somewhat shallow from Laurien's weight on his abdomen. He gave her thighs a quick squeeze with his hands, which she took for a somewhat begrudging concession. She nodded, before climbing off of him. She slipped off the heavy work boots from Erik's feet and banished them to the closet before crawling back into bed with him as he got himself settled once more.
She rested her head upon his shoulder, while wrapping an arm around his middle. "I love you. You know that, right?" She whispered, staring off into the darkness of the room. "I know that we don't say it all too often, but I don't want you to have a single doubt in your mind when it comes to how I feel about you."
She felt his head turn to look at her, and the world was quiet for a moment as she held her breath. His arm slowly shifted next to her, curling around her back and gripping her shoulder in a comfortable embrace.
"I love you more than you can ever know." He murmured, the angry heat in his chest melting into a simmering sadness as he held her close. "And because of that, I'm afraid."
Any possible words that could have been said died in her throat. She settled for holding him to her, allowing herself to close her eyes as she knew she would feel him if he moved during the night. By his own admission, Laurien knew Erik was afraid of losing her to external forces, but while Laurien drifted off into an uneasy sleep, she had the faintest revelation that she was scared of losing him to himself.
"Please, please, Erik. Don't do this." Laurien muttered under her breath as she tore down the road. She sped past a few cars who were taking their time and cursed loudly as a wave of anger flowed through her, tinting her vision red. He hadn't listened to her, and it felt like a punch to the gut. She thought that they had come to an understanding last night, but he was proving her wrong. They were supposed to be done with this all, this whole blatant and overtly public revenge spiel.
She took a sharp turn down the dirt road leading to the factory and floored the gas pedal, leaving a large cloud of dust trailing behind her car. As she approached the front of the factory, she immediately picked out their brown truck from the other workers' cars. Erik hadn't so much as shut the driver's side door, and as Laurien exited her own car and approached the truck, she noticed that the keys were still in the ignition.
She cursed again under her breath before sprinting towards the shut factory entrance. She slowed to a halt when a figure ran out from around the side of the factory. She recognized them immediately as Jeszie, their friend Anatol's girlfriend, who shrieked when she spotted Laurien.
"He's killed them!" She screamed, nearly knocking Laurien over as she fell into her arms, sobbing hysterically. "He's killed them all!"
Laurien's stomach plummeted, an ice cold wave seeping into her veins as she gripped Jeszie, trying to get her to her feet. "Who? Who killed them?" She asked, fearing the worst.
"That fucking blue monstrosity." The frightened woman cried, mascara beginning to stream down her face.
"What?" Laurien demanded, confusion joining the churning mess of emotions pooling in her stomach. "Where's Henryk?"
"He's still in there, but the other one killed the workers."
Laurien glanced up at the closed garage door of the entrance, feeling Jeszie's panic like thousands of tiny needles digging into her skin. Apparently someone, or something, was in there with her husband.
"Jeszie, get into my car and lock the doors until I come back." She commanded, trying to send some calming reassurance to the woman she was holding, but felt herself failing. "Do you understand me?"
The young woman nodded through her sobs, and once she disengaged herself from her, Laurien continued on her way to the factory.
She slowed upon approach and looked for the button to open the garage door, but only found a key hole. Glancing back at the car, she only saw the top of Jeszie's perfectly feathered hairdo as she had most likely slid down to the floor of the passenger side. Laurien turned back to the door and forced it up with her powers. The door slammed up with a massive clatter, revealing the factory floor and all of the machines. Laurien only got a brief glimpse of what she recognized to be Erik's flannel shirt before she was jerked back by the belt of her jeans. She hit the dirt hard, pain shooting through her left wrist as it was pinned at an odd angle between her hip and the ground. She flinched as a sudden bang echoed out into the parking lot, looking up to see that the garage door was shut again.
Gasping in pain as she gingerly pulled her wrist out from beneath her, she held her arm protectively against her chest as she used her other to help her get back to her feet. Against her better judgement, she advanced once again towards the entrance and pulled the entire door from its mechanism, throwing it to the side. She entered the factory, her eyes growing wide as she glimpsed a large violet orb for a split second before it suddenly vanished, leaving her alone in the dark and ashy factory.
Laurien moved toward where the orb had been only a moment ago, though there was no trace of it ever being there. Laurien's heart still thrummed in her chest as her eyes searched everywhere for some sort of hint of where Erik had gone, but there was none. She turned around, only to stop dead in her tracks when she saw the scene that she had previously neglected to witness.
Dozens of arms were sticking out of the concrete floor of the factory, twitching like they were alive. A strike of intense horror made contact with her stomach, causing her to suddenly feel the need to vomit.
She rushed towards one of the hands and for some reason she couldn't comprehend, she grabbed it. It was still warm and twitching. She released it and took a step back before using her powers to crack the concrete floor. She took out the chunk of concrete surrounding the hand and lifted it out of the ground. The block rose up and wincing to herself, she dropped it on a flat surface. It broke into a few large pieces. Luckily, the broken off pieces revealed the man, who Laurien recognized from Feliks' messy blond hair and the distinctive birthmark upon his chin. He was unconscious, likely from suffocating moments before, though as Laurien put her fingers to his neck, she found a pulse. She tried to clear his airways of the debris and rubble and began CPR, though with difficulty. With her left wrist screaming in pain, she attempted to press down on his chest with her one good hand, but it wasn't good enough. She was afraid to try doing compressions with her powers, worried that she might apply too much pressure in her panic and completely crush his thoracic cavity. She rhythmically pressed into his chest over and over with her one hand, putting her entire body weight into it as she sporadically glanced up at the other men who were still stuck in the concrete, their protruding hands becoming stiller one by one.
"Fucking hell." She huffed out between ragged breaths. "Come on, Feliks. Please."
She went on for what felt like hours, becoming progressively hysterical as her friend seemed to refuse to breathe. She was close to reluctantly stopping, when an abrupt rattling gasp caused her to cry out in relief. Feliks coughed, and Laurien quickly turned the man on his side to prevent him from choking. She gripped his arm tightly to steady him, wanting to reassure him with words, but none came to her as she turned away from him and finally vomited.
Her half-digested breakfast and recent cup of tea came up, burning her throat and mouth as she heaved. Once it subsided after a few suffocating moments, she turned back to Feliks, who was breathing shallowly, but was mercifully still alive.
"What happened?" She asked tentatively, not exactly expecting an answer.
"Magda?" Feliks' eyelids fluttered before he grimaced, shifting his arm which was bleeding freely. Laurien eyes widened in horror as she realized that he was missing several fingers from one of his hands. Most likely a casualty of her cutting up the concrete around him. A wave of guilt overwhelmed her as she stared at his hand for a moment before grabbing a nearby rag and wrapping it as best she could to stop the bleed.
"Henryk came to kill us for what some of the men said." Feliks finally said, his voice hoarse. "Someone else tried to do it themselves."
"Christ, Feliks. I'm so sorry."
"How are the guys?" He asked before getting caught up in a fit of coughing.
Laurien hesitated before answering, wondering if she should tell the truth or not, but the faint sound of sirens came within earshot, prompting Laurien to glance up in renewed panic at the entrance of the factory. "Wait here." She said, before getting to her feet and sprinting out towards the cars.
She reached her car and quickly opened the driver's side to reveal Jeszie hiding near the feet of the passenger side. "Jeszie, Felik's is badly injured, I need you to stay with him until an ambulance comes."
The other woman looked up at her in shock. "I can't go back in there."
"Please, Jeszie." Laurien begged, but the woman shook her head vigorously.
An idea rose to the surface, prompting Laurien to run back into the factory. She gently lifted Feliks with her powers and brought him outside, away from the disturbing scene inside. She glanced back at her car and saw Jeszie staring at her with wide eyes. Laurien gritted her teeth in anxiety at having been forced to expose her powers, but this was a necessary situation. She carefully deposited Feliks on the ground and beckoned Jeszie over, and to the woman's credit, she ran over quickly.
"Wha- What are you going to do?" She asked uncertainly.
Laurien shook her head. "I'm not supposed to be here." When Jeszie didn't move, Laurien pleaded with her. "Can you take care of him?"
Jeszie nodded. Laurien noticed that the other woman's entire body was shaking uncontrollably and Laurien suddenly hated herself for leaving her. Making a split second decision, she pulled Jeszie into a hopefully comforting embrace.
"You're going to be alright, I promise." She stated calmly, feeling the tremors of the woman's body. "I'm so sorry you had to go through that."
Jeszie sobbed into her shoulder as Laurien held her for as long as she could risk. "You're going to be okay." Laurien repeated as she grasped her shoulders. "Take care of Feliks for me, alright?"
Jeszie gave her a small teary nod, and when Laurien released her, she knelt down beside Feliks, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.
The guilt and horror were still sending painful shocks shooting up her forearms as Laurien got into her car and drove back up the dirt road leading away from the factory. She took a shallow breath as she saw police cars driving the other way down the road, and when one tried to block her from continuing any further, she swiftly turned the car back on its original path with her powers, allowing her to pass unimpeded.
Once she was sure that she out of sight, she turned into the forest neighbouring the factory. When deep enough inside, she stopped the car and sat in the driver seat, her knuckles white as she gripped the steering wheel with her one good hand. Laurien stared at the expanse of trees before her, the trees sticking up out of the ground, their limbs spread out like desperate fingers, reaching for the sky. Her vision quickly becoming blurred as tears overwhelmed her and left her sobbing uncontrollably in the car.
Whoops. Well, there it is.
It's strange. I first read some very favorable reviews for Dark Phoenix, and then I read some awful ones. I really didn't want to get my hopes up for this one, but the trailers made it look quite good. I don't know, I'll probably just need to go see it for myself.
How are you guys liking the story? Anything rubbing the wrong way? I'm always open to suggestions. I've already applied some of the ones that you all have suggested for future chapters. Should make things very interesting, with perhaps a new event occurring between Apocalypse and Phoenix... We will see.
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed this chapter, and please leave a review!