The Unfixing

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan wouldn't have needed Julian's nose to follow the trail of destruction Apollos was leaving. Part of him didn't like it, thought it was too convenient, but that part was getting shouted down by the rest of him, which was saying, Hunt him down. Make sure he never threatens the house again.

He chased the galloping wolf out through a narrow alley into a street in one of the neighborhoods he'd told the kids to avoid. The chain-link fence at his right hand shook violently as a huge bull terrier mix threw itself against the metal, screaming more than barking. Across the street, sitting under a garish streetlamp, was a rust-red Toyota pick-up truck. Aidan had seen it plenty of times in front of the House, often loaded down with lumber or plumbing materials.

Aidan reached down to lay a hand on Julian's flank. Last thing they needed was to charge blindly at Apollos's truck. "Woah, wait. Listen, Julian, if we see him, run home and leave him to me, understand?"

[Julian Davitt]

Julian snapped back at Aidan's hand, surprised and unaware that the hand was coming. Normally he wouldn't have reacted so strongly, but the smell of the man was powerful here. In the presence of such an aggressive and large creature Julian's instincts screamed out for him to be wary. The rest of Aidan's words faded into a quiet hum as his senses trained on the area around him. His nose twitched, and his head turned to where the smell was the strongest.

His ears were at alert, pointed forward; his tail drooped but hooked back up at the tip; hackles rose, and he started to growl, deep in his chest, a low warning rumble that carried through the quiet street.

Stay away, he growled. Stay away.

[Feral]

Feral could see Aidan and the wolf from where he hid across the street in the shadows. He knew he couldn't keep the wolf from smelling his presence. He didn't need to. But he did need them to get to the truck. It was all that was left of "Apollos Apatmos." Soon, it would be gone, and two of Anna's chosen ones along with it.

Come closer. You haven't found me yet!

[Jacob Foley]

By the time he hung up, Jake had expected to hear the approach of the ambulance, the phonecall had lasted forever and did little to bring him any peace of mind. All the while, he'd remained at Anna's side, barking orders to Scott and Ronnie, and did everything in his power to bring his sister comfort. He held her trembling hands in his and kept talking, words without weight which evaporated into the air the moment they left his lips. It was torture to him, the waiting, suffering every ounce of his sister's pain as if it were his own. And the worst thing about it was that he knew there was nothing he, or anyone else, could do until the paramedics arrived.

"Anna, listen to me," he said softly, "You have to be calm now. You have to relax. Listen to my voice. It is time to calm yourself. Breath, and relax."

His hand crept up to her face, fingers traced lines through clammy locks of hair, and he gently cradled the side of her head. It was everything in him not to succumb to his own sense of dread. He closed his eyes. If fear and pain could be shared vicariously via a psychic bond between siblings, then so too could serenity and love.

[Anna Fernandez]

Tess was in the room, pressing a towel to Anna's abdomen, but Anna was trapped in her own mind, staring out through her eyes and seeing nothing. Jake's voice filtered through her fearful haze with sudden clarity. "Breathe, and relax. Just listen to my voice, Anna. Be calm."

The giant's fist clenched around her chest slowly loosened, and her breath began to come easier, and then Anna looked up and focused on her brother's face. "Oh my God, Jake..." Tears sprang to her eyes, and she relaxed into his arms, trying to breathe as calmly as possible so as not to hyperventilate. Sirens started up in the distance, growing closer.

"I don't think it's as bad as it looks," Tess said softly, lifting the hand towel she'd put over the cuts and inspecting Anna's skin. "They've already stopped bleeding." She folded over the towel and pressed it down again, putting Anna's hand over it to hold it in place. "I'll go meet the paramedics."

[Julian Davitt]

His hackles were raised, but having Aidan nearby made him feel a bit safer - or perhaps less afraid.

The scent was strongest around the truck. Julian jumped forward, and then scooted back, but made his way closer to the vehicle with each second. Something was off though about the scent.

It seemed... stale, somehow. But it seemed to be what Aidan was looking for. He walked closer to the truck and looked back at the older man.

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan carefully laid a hand on Julian's shoulders, where his fur stood out like a forest. His eyes didn't leave the truck. "Wait here, Julian," he said, "and keep an eye out." Then he crossed toward the driver's side door. There might be some clue in the cab that could lead him to Apollos, and if nothing else, he could cut the ignition wires, make sure that bastard wasn't going anywhere for a long--

As soon as his hand touched the cold metal of the door handle he knew something was wrong. It was a side effect of his mutation that he had a sense for flammable materials, fuel he could use to power his gifts. And right now that sense was telling him that the truck was more... flammable... than it should be.

He'd just turned to shout a warning back to Julian when it happened.

[Feral]

KABOOOM!

The improvised explosive hidden under the car detonated. As though that weren't enough, Feral had bothered to remove the gas tank from under the car and soak the interior and as much of the exterior as possible. The tank was nearly full when he upended it into the vehicle: the entire ruined thing would burn a long while.

Feral smiled and stifled a laugh. He would chuckle over his good work later. He wondered how Anna and Jake were doing at the house. There was no time to return to the House and find out. He needed to leave for the time being. He would return though. He was not yet finished with Anna and her so-called "Redencion House."

[Julian Davitt]

Julian couldn't sense anything for a few seconds. Everything was still flashing, and the ringing in his ears was persistent. He tried to stand, but fell with a soft yelp and a whine.

Slowly, things became clearer. He'd been thrown back by the blast, tumbling into a fence. Nothing felt broken, but his world, while no longer spinning, was still unstable.

He picked up his head and looked for Aidan, blinking a number of times to help clear and keep his swimming vision from making him sick.

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan braced his hands in the air and pushed against the flames with all the strength he could muster. He managed to slow the expansion of the blast to something marginally less than lethal, and for one critical moment the fireball bulged and warped against an invisible barrier, like a candle flame under a glass hood, and the flames engulfing the truck flashed blue and began to recede--

It was only a moment. The flames rolled back on themselves and surged outward again, angry and yellow, and Aidan was flung backwards by the shock. Bits of burning wreckage floated down and clattered into the street, and Aidan lay senseless in a twisted heap on the pavement as blood seeped from a gash on his forehead.

[Anna Fernandez]

An explosive noise from the street rocked the House. Anna flinched, and Jake's arms tightened around her reflexively as her room lit up from outside. Teens were yelling and running down the hallway, and she could hear Tess screaming something from downstairs.

"Go," she said to her brother, who was visibly torn about staying at her side or going to see qué demonios was going on. "Jamie can protect me." The girl was standing in the doorway, her newly cast arm clutched to her chest. Anna beckoned her inside the icy bedroom with one hand while the other still pressed the cloth to her stomach.

Outside the sirens were getting louder.

[Julian Davitt]

Julian couldn't move for the pain that was rippling through his body. He transformed, feeling the muscles reworking and fixing the damage he'd gotten, though the pain was still there, and he was still marked, and bleeding profusely.

Shirtless, with a newer pair of jeans on (they had only gone through a couple transformations), and barefoot, he pushed himself to his knees and staggered over to Aidan. Sirens were wailing through the night, and people were looking out their windows to see what was happening.

Julian was a stranger to the House, still, but he knew all about keeping away from police and rangers.

He picked up Aidan and staggered away, grunting as he stepped on a shard of a beer bottle he'd managed to avoid as a wolf in an alley. Used to pain, the teen continued, grimacing and leaving a small bloody footprint on the dirty concrete.

They'd travelled a bit of a distance, but following the trail back was made easier due to the mess the man had made.

He hoped someone was waiting for them, because all Julian wanted to do was sleep. As soon as Aidan was safe, he'd turn back into a wolf and settle under someone's bed (it reminded him somewhat of the pack's den), and sleep until he wasn't tired...

[Tess Abrahams]

There were rules about situations like this. Nothing concrete, it wasn't as though there was a step-by-step guide to handling home invasions with a side of maliciously vindictive persecution, but there were principles. They were born out of necessity and even though the broad bulk of them were familiar rote to only a select breed - firemen, soldiers, photojournalists - there were a solid handful that were simply common sense.

For instance: never run toward an explosion.

Tess knew, she knew, that it was stupid and irresponsible, just like she knew that the chest-rattling tremors hadn't been a coincidence and that there was something else being borne along with the acrid stench that clung to the faint breeze.

"Stay here and wait for the paramedics!" Tess hollered at Ronnie as she clattered out the back, the screen's hinges shrieking at the violence. "Don't let anyone in unless they've got a badge, got it?"

She didn't wait to hear an answer, just tore across the lawn and into the alley, running toward the inky black smoke that was rising pitch-like above the neighborhood roofs. Without even realizing it, a mechanical sort of instinct had taken hold of her mind and was winding loose, jagged thoughts into a tight spool, preparing for the worst.

Because Aidan wasn't in the house. Aidan had plunged down the darkened streets and then there had been an explosion and Aidan wasn't in the house because where there was smoke, there was fire. The shock of it would be the dangerous part, so Tess needed to lean into the hit first, absorb the blow so that it didn't knock her clean out.

The strategy worked precisely until the dim outline of a hunched figure, staggering beneath the weight of something (someone, she corrected) distinguished itself from the shadows. All the air in her lungs evaporated and Tess stumbled, one foot catching on the back of the other and pitching her forward in an awkward hobble. She only just kept herself from falling, then burst forward again in defiance of the utter inability of her lungs to draw an inhalation.

"Is he breathing?!" Tess pulled to a sharp stop beside Julian, one hand coming to brace against the boy's shoulder while the other pressed against Aidan's face, pale beneath dark smudges of dirt. Julian wasn't in much better shape but he was at least upright and conscious, which gave him the advantage.

[Julian Davitt]

"Is he breathing?" a young woman cried, coming to a stop next to him and resting a hand on his shoulder. Julian would have shrugged (a gesture he was becoming very familiar with as time wore on), but Aidan's weight and his own pain and exhaustion only allowed him to look on as she pressed a hand to Aidan's face.

He was getting even more tired. He continued to walk toward the House, this time with one very worried person in tow.

"Anna," he gasped. "Help."

[Jacob Foley]

For a moment of agonising uncertainty, Jake stood frozen, pitching glances between Anna and Jamie. Gone was the blazing orange glare which had illuminated the entire neighbourhood and shaken him to his core, gone were Aidan and Julian and Tess, and gone, seemingly, was the intruder who had left his sister traumatised and bleeding in her bed. Still, the thought of leaving Anna under the protection of a ten-year-old girl did not sit well with him at all. Mercifully, that was when the paramedics arrived, the piercing wail of sirens bled into the street as the ambulance pulled up, splashing bright blue light through the window.

"Anna, the paramedics are here, you're safe now," he said, wearing a pained look of regret as he departed, "I'll be right back!"

By the time he raced down the stairs, the paramedics were already at the door, he paused only to direct them to his sister's bedroom then sprinted down the street in the direction of the explosion. His senses snapped awake and, rising above the wave of panic and confusion all around, he detected Tess's anguish like a beacon in a storm. Within moments, he turned into the alley knowing exactly what to expect, and yet...

"Jesus," he uttered breathlessly, and rushed forward to relieve the staggering teen of his burden, "Okay, Julian, we got this, buddy."

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan stirred as his weight was transferred from one person to two, and his eyes fluttered open, glassy and unfocused, before shutting again. He muttered something unintelligible as he was hauled in through the front door and set down gently across the couch. His skin was flushed and hot - not febrile, but actually hot, like the side of an oven after a long day of baking.

[Anna Fernandez]

After Jake ran out, the paramedics were coming up the stairs, led by a breathless Scott. He gathered up Jamie to keep her out of the way while the men went to work on Anna. She tried to explain what had happened, and they were very concerned about her stomach and the state of the baby. A doppler was found and when the baby's heartbeat filled the room Anna let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

[Julian Davitt]

Jake's words didn't register in Julian's mind. He saw Jake's face, his lips moving, forming words and blowing them toward him like gusting clouds before a thunderstorm. Jake was afraid, he was angry, he was tense.

Julian tensed and nearly snarled, the emotions in the air around him soaking in through his nose and his eyes and his skin like he was a frog in an acid pool, desperately trying to get out, to breathe, but everything around him was choking him, pushing him; he couldn't breathe.

Jake moved to help with Aidan, and the slight lessening of weight was appreciated, but Julian made sure most of the young man's weight was still on his shoulders. It wasn't often he could fail in his responsibility to help his pack, and have them survive. The guilt and distancing effect it had on him slid easily over his mind and his eyes. It had a lot of practice.

Julian sat down heavily the second Aidan's weight was off his shoulders, and he felt hungry, sick, and exhausted all at once. His arms felt weird, like rubber, but they burned as if he'd been using them to climb and run all day long. His legs were much the same, and the jeans he wore were burned through in a couple spots.

Jake and Tess focused mainly on Aidan, and he watched, simply breathing, hearing the cacophony of voices swirling around the house, wanting to change but not having enough energy to do so.

"Momma," he whispered.

[Anna Fernandez]

The towel was peeled away from her wounds, and one of the paramedics said, "Too late."

"What?!" The calm Anna had been trying to hold onto shattered. "Too late for what!?" The temperature dropped again, causing everyone's breath to fog up.

"No, no, it doesn't look too bad - you'll be fine," reassured the man as he and his partner readied sterilized bandages. They exchanged a look, and Anna stared at them, trying to figure out what was going on. "We'll transport you to the nearest hospital for a full evaluation - with the baby we can't be too careful."

[Aidan Fox]

Unconsciousness wasn't sleep. You didn't wake up rested or refreshed, and usually you found yourself in a position you never would have chosen on your own. If you were unconscious, it was because your body had absorbed more punishment than it thought it could take, and it only bothered to wake you up when it was satisfied things weren't going to get worse.

The first thing Aidan noticed was the sharp pounding in his head that matched time with his heartbeat, and shortly afterward there was a dry burning in his throat, the kind you felt while running a marathon. Voices floated through the air somewhere above his head, but he couldn't tell whose they were or what they were saying. Lying back and pretending he was still out sounded like a real good idea at the moment - maybe he could even steal a few minutes of honest sleep.

And then memories of the night hit him with the force of a car bomb. He tried to curl upright from the couch where he was lying, but every joint in his skeleton protested the idea.

"Augh! Shit..."

He lifted one hand to his forehead, hoping that maybe with a little pressure he could prevent the imminent explosion, and his fingers encountered butterfly strips stretched over a sticky wound.