InsaneJournal

The search for Dominic had been a fruitless one so far, even with a metamorph's enhanced senses in on the hunt. Honestly Deacon had been surprised, and not in a good way, when Harper had come up empty. The three of them -- Deacon, Molly and Harper -- had done a full circuit of the grounds, more than one in fact, and turned up nothing. In the end it had dropped to just two of them again after Harper had needed to leave; Deacon hadn't begrudged her that necessity, had simply nodded his head when she'd told him she was going back to the mansion. Now it was just the two of them again, walking around in the failing light, ignoring everything inside the school in the hopes of finding Dom. Every time they completed a circuit with no trace or sign, Deacon would insist they go round again. And again. And again. Over and over and over they walked the perimeter only to come up empty-handed and for the big Intruder the frustration was starting to show.

His father couldn't be missing. It was absurd. It was laughable and maddening enough as it was that Chris had up and disappeared, one of the Brotherhood, the last person Deacon had expected to fall victim to this... whatever it was. Having one of his parents vanish as well was completely unacceptable. With every fresh circuit of the grounds he checked Molly was still with him to the point of being obsessive, and not subtle about it either. He would stop and look back at her, pause and engage her in needless conversation to check that he wasn't just imagining she was still with him every step of the way. It wouldn't have been the first time someone had vanished from beside a partner and Deacon was determined not to fall victim to such tactics himself, or more to the point, have his mother snatched away from under his nose. That was not going to happen.

It was getting progressively darker, the sun inching closer and closer to the horizon and stealing the light away from them and their search but it wasn't the first time Deacon had hunted in the dark. True, Harper was a much, much better tracker than he was but such skills had been drilled into him in his time with the Brotherhood and those weren't things that just slipped away; it was like riding a bicycle, or at least that was what people in this time and place would say, just another strange analogy that Deacon for one did not completely understand or see the point in. He picked his way through the trees with more quietness and agility than a man his size ought to have been capable of, but by now the landscape was all but etched into his brain; he knew where he was going because he had walked this route countless times already in the space of god knew how many hours in search of someone he knew to be missing. Deacon just couldn't accept that as fact though. Dominic Petros was not missing, had not vanished without a trace. That wasn't good enough.

Stopping suddenly almost had Molly bumping into his back in the spreading shadow and the breath paused in his lungs as he looked around. Quietly at his back came his mother's voice, "What is it?"

His own voice dropped down in a hushed whisper, he said, "Wait here," before moving ahead several paces to look around again, even sweeping a searching gaze upward to the looming branches overhead. Nothing.

The sound came behind from him without warning, ragged breathing and running feet, the crunching of dead leaves and snapping of frail branches. Molly's sudden gasp of surprise. The sound of hands grasping material.

Deacon turned without hesitating and charged the short distance back in the dark to tear the figure away from Molly, grabbing them tightly with one hand until he felt bones creak and then he swung at their face, fast and heavy. Molly's shout fell on deaf ears, Deacon's body running on autopilot; his mother was in danger and needed protecting. She couldn't be taken too. There was no way.

"Deacon, stop!"

The body hit the ground heavily, warm flecks of blood sprayed over Deacon's balled fist as he stood, loomed in the dark, over the hunched figure as they lay motionless on the ground beneath him. Breathless and pale, Molly ran in and pushed Deacon aside, triggering an unbidden memory of that moment so many months ago in the street in the city when the car had hit his mother's friend. Deacon blinked, brow furrowed in a frown, his ears clearing to hear Molly's tripping gasps of shock and disbelief and her thin voice as she spoke hurriedly, "Oh god, oh god-- I told you to stop!" Her eyes turned up, catching Deacon's immediately and then he looked past the pain and angry grief on her face to the body she had rolled over.

Dominic's face was covered in blood.

Stumbling back with a ball of ice forming in his chest Deacon shook his head, mouth dry and bile rising up the back of his throat. Molly rose, breathing harshly through gritted teeth, hair flying almost wildly around her young face as she came at him. "I told you to stop!" she cried and grabbed at him aimlessly, clutching for his jacket, the collar and sleeves. Then suddenly she wasn't grabbing for him anymore, but swinging, swift and sharp blows, messy with anguish and fury, shapeless shouts ripping out of her throat. Deacon tried to stop her, tried to grab at her hands, but she was stronger than he was. There was no changing that, no denying it. She always had been and always would be, despite his size and hers. She started to scream, raw and raging and with one solid hit Deacon found himself on the floor, no breath in his lungs and his chest burning. Those screams broke and turned into sobs, piercing and agonising and he heard more than saw her knees hit the ground beside Dominic's body. She curled inward, long limbs folding around herself like a cocoon and Deacon moved towards her.

Through the sobs he heard her voice. Stay away from me.

A different kind of pain that he didn't understand lanced through his chest then, and he remained down, staring at his mother's buckled frame, the way she shook in her sadness. Deacon didn't realise it but his head was shaking, mouth open in the silent beginning of an apology he didn't know how to word, the first sting of tears of regret in his eyes. It didn't make any sense. Five minutes ago everything had been uncertain but he had understood enough. Now his father lay dead and his mother was crying and telling him to go, just go, get away, it was his fault. All his fault.

The shadows hugged in, the dark of the night black like ink, choking and suffocating like a thick, smothering blanket. It shattered like weak glass under a single blow and Deacon sucked in a ragged, heavy gasp as consciousness slammed back into him with the force of an anvil, merciless and unceremonious. His lungs and heart worked madly in overtime and a hundred conflicting sensations raged inside his confused body as his brain whirred frantically to make sense of what was happening. A bed. A tube in his arm. Get it out, he had to get it out. Shaking and fumbling, weak and aimless his hand swung around from the side of his body and clutched at the tube, tugging and then tearing it out completely. Blood pooled and ran in little rivers, unfelt and ignored. Deacon was still panting, uncomprehending and thoroughly bewildered and one thing led to another, frustration and then anger building. He tried to move, to get up, stiff and ineffectual limbs failing him and then the ground was rushing up to meet him. When he hit the floor a tremor raced out in all directions with his body at the epicentre, rattling furniture and toppling the pole for the IV he had torn away, fracturing the glass in the nearby window and splintering the bedroom door out of its frame. The shockwave ebbed and faded, leaving him lying on the floor feeling the worst he could ever remember feeling in every single way.