Adrian Moretti (theneedtofeed) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2020-09-16 01:03:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | #april 2018, #group scene, aaron, adrian, mila |
Who: Mila, Aaron and Adrian
When: Evening, April
Where: Undisclosed location
Mila was trying not to panic. She had no idea how long she and Aaron had been driving, but it felt like hours. Of course, even a minute felt like an eternity when someone you loved was in danger. Or possible danger. Mila still wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, only that Adrian needed her help. Their help. Aaron had been the one to come to her with coordinates given to him by that man, Westin. Maybe he wasn’t a man at all, but Mila wasn’t going to dwell on that at the moment.
She had known something was wrong with Adrian, as she hadn’t heard from him in a while and he had promised that he would check in with her. It was torture to think that she might have lost her brother again after having just gotten him back.
Since she was feeling too frantic to do so, Aaron was driving and Mila kept glancing over at the dashboard to see how fast he was going. Not fast enough but she didn’t want to push him, even if her knee was bouncing nervously and her hands were clutched painfully together in her lap. Mila had no idea what they were going to do, or how they were going to do it, but she knew she needed to help her brother.
“Are we almost there?” Mila knew that was always an annoying question for anyone driving, but she was slowly going crazy. She needed something, anything, to reassure her.
Westin showing up in their bedroom in the middle of the night and waking Aaron up had been a terrifying experience. For a moment he’d been sure that the man or angel or demon or whatever he was had shown up to collect Aaron’s soul. He hadn’t forgotten their deal -- that if Westin saved Mila from the tunnel, Aaron would owe him a favor -- but it had happily sunk to the back of his mind. Between the bad death of his father, Jasper’s disappearance, the move and selling his trailer, and Mila’s pregnancy, there had been plenty of other shit to think about. But the promise he’d made cam rushing back the instant he saw Westin’s face.
Westin didn’t want his soul though, he was there to deliver a warning to Aaron. And GPS coordinates. Adrian was in trouble, and if Aaron didn’t go help him, he would die. That, and the warning to bring a gun, was all that Westin had to say. Aaron had dipped into sleep again, seemingly against his will, but when he’d woken up the coordinates were still clutched in his hand, so he knew it had been real. He’d hated to scare Mila like that, aware that stress wasn’t good for the baby, but he couldn’t just run out to take care of it on his own.
So here they both were in his truck, bouncing over the rough road that seemed to lead to absolutely nowhere in the deep woods. The GPS map on Aaron’s phone wasn’t showing anything at the coordinates he’d put in, but if that was where Westin had said to go, Aaron had to trust they would find something. “I think so, yeah,” he murmured to Mila as he glanced at the map on his phone. They were closing in on the little red dot that marked their destination. “So keep your eyes peeled.”
Mila didn't know what she was looking for. A building? A home? A field out in the middle of nowhere? And what if they were too late? What if Adrian was dead? What if the coordinates were his body? The thought made her nauseous and Mila pressed a hand to her stomach, trying to calm herself down. Adrian would be okay. That's why they were driving to him now. To help him. Mila kept her eyes open, squinting a bit into the darkness until the shadow of something ahead drew her attention. It was a building, but completely dark. If she didn't know any better, she would have thought it abandoned. But there was nothing else around, as far as she could tell. "There," she told Aaron breathlessly, pointing. "Is that it?"
Aaron had no idea what they were looking for either -- he’d had the same thought that they might just roll up on Adrian’s corpse, but Westin had said this would be where they could save him, and Aaron was holding onto that. He dipped his head to look up at the dark building as they pulled up to the front of it, his heart starting to jackhammer harder in his chest. “I think so,” he repeated in a whisper. Aaron pulled up to the front of the building, dread curling in his stomach. It was so quiet, it looked empty and abandoned, and Aaron was truly afraid of what might be inside. He put the truck into park and twisted to reach behind the front seats to grab the shotgun he’d stowed there. He had a pistol in his belt too. “Would you even listen if I asked you to stay in the truck?” he asked, not at all optimistic about that. But Aaron was very aware he was taking his pregnant fiancee into another situation they didn’t know shit about. What if this was the tunnel all over again?
Mila understood Aaron's trepidation and she felt some of it too, but there was no way she could just sit there knowing Aaron and her brother were both inside that building, facing who knew what. "I can't," Mila told him apologetically, even if he likely already expected that answer. "Besides, you might need me, and if I'm out here alone... who knows what's around. I'm safer with you." In her mind, that was true and not just lip service to make him feel better about her tagging along. "I can carry one of the guns, if you need me to."
Goddammit, why hadn’t they brought more backup. It was just that none of the rest of his family knew Adrian was even alive, much less in danger and time was of the essence. Aaron didn’t want to have to try to explain it all. He wasn’t even sure if his brothers would be any help here, so it was up to them. So he nodded his understanding to Mila. She was probably safer with him. He glanced down at the shotgun in his lap, then reached behind him to pull the pistol out of his belt. It at least didn’t have the kind of kick that the shotgun did. “Okay,” he murmured. “Probably best if you have this one. Those’re hollow point rounds in there, so just try to aim for the body mass, it’ll put pretty much anything down.” Aaron made sure the clip was seated properly, then offered the gun to Mila so she could take it by the grip. With another wary glance toward the building, Aaron climbed out of his side of the car.
Mila took the gun and gripped it tightly. She knew how to shoot, sort of, but she never really felt comfortable around guns. She trusted Aaron though, and with any luck, neither of them would have to pull the trigger. Exhaling slowly, she followed Aaron out of the car, trying not to let her nerves get the better of her. If Aaron saw her hands shaking, he would probably take the gun. The door to the building looked closed, but as they neared it, Mila could see it was opened perhaps half an inch. Then she noticed the dark splashes of paint along the door frame, and some broken glass on the ground surrounding it. It only took her a second to realize that the paint was actually blood. "Be careful," Mila told Aaron, aware that he would want to go inside in front of her. Obviously he knew to be cautious about this, but she was paranoid that if she didn't say it, something terrible would happen. "I don't think we're going to like what we find in there."
“Stay behind me,” Aaron murmured as he reached for the door to pull it open further. He didn’t think the red stuff was paint for a second -- Aaron could already smell the coppery tang of blood in the air as they stepped inside. That bad feeling in his gut just spread further out, making his hands and feet feel cold and his heartbeat speed up. He saw the first body part almost immediately, a disembodied arm in the middle of the floor of what looked like a normal reception area to a nice office building. Aaron mentally cursed Westin for not telling them more details, like warning them of something that could rip people’s arms off. Or where Adrian even was in this place. Who the fuck knew how big it was -- it wasn’t super tall on the outside, but if TV had taught him anything, it was that a hidden building like this probably had layers and layers of basements. Not spotting any helpful directories anywhere, Aaron started toward the bank of elevators across the room, shotgun at the ready.
Disgust rippled through Mila's stomach at the sight in front of them. Immediately she felt nauseous, but she swallowed it down, her hands tightening around the gun. Maybe if she just kept her eyes on Aaron's back, she wouldn't have to see what was splattered around them. The smell though, it was even worse. Her shoe slipped in something wet but she stayed upright, closing her eyes and refusing to look down to see what she had stepped in. "Did Westin say anything about where he would be?" Mila whispered. She couldn't exactly start screaming for her brother. Not if there were people still alive - or something else wandering the halls. "What if the door was open because he's already escaped?"
Aaron felt painfully alert, like every nerve was on a meth bender, every muscle tense. He had the impulse himself to start yelling Adrian’s name, but he did not want to draw the attention of whatever had torn somebody apart. He had no idea what kind of fucking place this was where such a thing could even happen, or why or how they could be holding Adrian here, but Aaron couldn’t give it much thought yet. They had a mission, and Westin said Adrian would die without them, and he couldn’t let that happen. “No, he didn’t,” Aaron whispered back. “And I don’t know what then ... but we gotta look for him here first.” Once they reached the elevators, Aaron pushed the button and flinched when the doors slid open immediately with a soft ding. He stepped in and glanced over their number options. “Let’s, uh ... let’s start at the top? Work our way down? Or bottom to top ...?” He gave Mila an uncertain look.
The building itself didn't seem very big, but Mila had no idea where to start. Adrian could be laying unconscious somewhere. What if he was in some hidden room somewhere? What if Westin had been lying and they were walking into some kind of trap? That didn't make any real sense to her, but it wasn't like Mila was thinking rationally at the moment. "Um... top to bottom," Mila whispered. "We just need to move fast. I don't like this place and we don't know that we're alone." She felt so unprepared but for the gun in her hand, and even that didn't really make her feel all that safe.
He didn’t like the place either, and he was willing to bet they weren’t alone, and that was why Aaron was wishing like hell now that Mila had stayed in the car. Not that he wanted to leave her exposed and alone, but fuck, there hadn’t been slaughtered people all over the parking lot. Licking his dry lips with a tongue that wasn’t much wetter, Aaron pushed the button for the top floor. His stomach dropped and cringed when the elevator car started moving, and he took the moment to reach over and squeeze Mila’s arm. “We’ll find him,” he told her with more confidence than he really had. “It’ll be okay.”
Mila could only take comfort in knowing Aaron was with her. The building seemed abandoned, but that didn't mean it was. There could be any number of people, or things, hiding in the dark, waiting for them. Halfway through searching the second floor Mila began to feel her chest tighten as the certainty that this was the tunnel began to crawl to the surface of her mind. She would find Adrian, dead and mutilated. Something would come out of the dark and slaughter Aaron right in front of her. She would lose the baby again. At that point she gripped Aaron's arm for a few moments until she was able to breathe through the panic and refocus. This place was awful and she hated that Adrian was in there somewhere.
At the long end of the hallway was a white door that was ajar. She and Aaron approached cautiously but the fear radiating from her body seemed to vanish in an instant as soon as they were through and facing a glass wall. She saw the figure on the other side of the glass. "Adrian," she breathed, rushing up to the wall and pressing her palms against the glass. "He's in there."
Adrian knew they were coming before they even got to that door. He didn't know who, just that he could hear the heartbeats approaching, someone alive, someone scared or pumped up on adrenaline. He just really didn't expect to see those particular faces and his stomach dropped when Mila pressed against the glass. He was in a bad way, so sure he was going to die here, or be stuck here for an eternity as some incomprehensible monster. "Mila?" he whispered and he should be happy to see her but there was still something else in the building, something huge and inhuman, something that had barraged through armed guards and survived being shot at and now Adrian's little sister was right there and he couldn't make sense of it but he knew he needed to get her out of there.
He closed the distance between them, pressing his hands against the glass where hers were, glancing between her and Aaron in blind panic. "Can you open this?" he asked and wondered if she could hear him through the thick glass. "Button? Switch? Something?" A small part of him thought it might be too late, that she shouldn't let him out but she was never going to leave unless he physically dragged her out of there and while he knew that thing was on a level below them, how long would it really take it to get back upstairs? He pictured it in his mind, unwelcome images of Aaron and Mila taken out while he stared from behind the glass, unable to help, unable to do a damn thing.
“Holy shit,” Aaron breathed as Mila rushed toward the glass. His hand left the barrel of the rifle to reach for her for a split second, but then Adrian moved and got up and there was no mistaking that it was him. Aaron hurried forward himself, his eyes darting everywhere -- the small cell like room Adrian was in, the thick glass between them, what looked like a control panel on the wall next to the glass frame, the equipment here and there. What the fuck was this place? There was no time for those kinds of questions though, because Adrian looked like he was in bad shape. The harsh lights overhead made his skin look sallow and taut, like it was stretched too thin over him. There was blood running down from no injuries that Aaron could really see, but it was all around his tattoos. He looked awful and Aaron was already looking around for something to try to break the glass with when Adrian said ‘button.’ “The uh, there!” he said to Mila, pointing to the small control panel on the wall. “I bet that’s it.”
Mila was taken aback by how horrible Adrian looked but there was no time to stand there and ask questions. She wanted to get him out of there, into Aaron's truck and away from this place. There would be time to find out what had happened. Mila looked over to where Aaron was pointing to see the control panel. Without thinking she hurried away from the glass wall to press the button she saw there. Belatedly she realized she should have really thought it through in case the button triggered something that could hurt her brother, but Mila's sole focus was getting Adrian out of that room. There was a clicking of some kind before the door unlocked and Mila was able to breathe as she pushed it open. "Adrian," she breathed, relief palpable in her tone and expression.
Adrian's feelings were all over the place, too many of them mixed up for him to fully comprehend them or act on them appropriately. He was hungry, so fucking hungry, and everything was too loud and too bright. Seeing Mila was a relief wrapped in terror wrapped in anger because yes he was happy to see her and God he was happy to get out but she shouldn't be here in this horrible fucking place. "Mila," he breathed as he all but crashed into her to wrap his arms around her, not mindful of the blood or anything else. He needed to get her out of here, it wasn't safe. "What the fuck are you doing here? Are you crazy?" he hissed as he pulled back, staring at the floor next to him as he listened for that thing that was loose in there with them. "It's not safe, we have to go, we have to go now." They both had guns but he'd heard the gunshots earlier and knew they didn't do shit against whatever the hell that creature was. "Go go go go," he added urgently, pulling her with him and grabbing Aaron's arm. If that thing came barrelling up the stairs he'd put himself between them and buy some time but he knew his sister and how stubborn she was and there was no way he was going to let them all die here today.
Aaron didn’t need to be grabbed, especially with a shotgun in his hands, and he pulled his arm out of Adrian’s grip almost automatically -- or tried to, anyway. He was stronger than he looked, that was for sure. “Westin told us where you were and you needed help,” he said as he moved quickly along with Adrian and Mila. Aaron was assuming they would take the elevator back down, but Adrian seemed to know where he was going, so Aaron just followed. He wanted to ask more questions, ask what the fuck this place was and what they’d been doing to Adrian, but he understood the sense of urgency and he wanted to get the fuck out of there just as much as everyone else. Aaron just tried to stay vigilant, ready to blast anything that tried to get in their way.
Mila didn't care about the blood. She clung to Adrian, relief overwhelming everything else until he pulled back from her. There was no time to ask questions though, because he was frantic and clearly ready to get out of the building. "What's happening," Mila asked breathlessly, following her brother. "What happened to everyone?" It hadn't been good, whatever it was, but she had a morbid curiosity to know what her brother had been surrounded by. Had he been untouched because of that glass wall? Was there something else in the building with them?
There were too many things assaulting Adrian's senses and his brain seemed to be struggling to make sense of it all. Westin had sent them and that wasn't comforting at all nor could he grasp what it really meant, especially now when the smell of blood was so much stronger out here in the hallway, human blood, human meat everywhere. His stomach twisted with a sick yearning and he tried to focus on only the thing that really mattered right now; that thing was moving slowly down below them and he worried that it would go the same direction as them and manage to cut them off. "Quiet," he whispered shakily. "It's... downstairs. I can hear it, it might hear us." It moved slowly for now, unhurried and Adrian might not have heard it as well if it didn't keep breaking things. He could hear its heartbeat though, so much slower than his own, so much slower than Aaron and Mila's and... that one extra heartbeat that was entirely too fast and faint for him to make sense of it in the moment. "Stairs," he whispered, not wanting to risk the elevator. "We need to move fast."
Aaron was dying to ask what ‘it’ was, but considering the aftermath they’d already seen ... he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. At least not until they’d gotten Mila far far away from this place. Adrian and him too, of course, but all Aaron could think about at the moment was Mila and the tiny life growing inside of her. He was glad they’d come, because Adrian had needed their help, but goddamn did he wish it had just been him in this building. He let Adrian lead the way to the stairs since he had no idea where they were, just staying vigilant to the area around them, his grip tight and sweaty on his shotgun.
Mila hadn't seen anything lurking downstairs, but she and Aaron had chosen to search the third floor first, so that was probably why. Was something really down there waiting for them? Her own hand was sweaty around the gun she held and she wasn't sure how precise a shooter she would end up being should she have to use it. As much as she was trying to be brave, Mila was scared. Scared that something could hurt Aaron, or her brother. Scared because she was putting her baby in danger. If they didn't all make it out of this building in one piece, Mila didn't know what she would do. Mila stuck close to Aaron, trying to resist the urge to grab his arm and cling to him. They made it to the stairwell and Mila tried to keep her footsteps light on the steps. "Can you tell where it is?" Mila whispered to Adrian.
Adrian was trying to make sense of the layout of the building. He'd been so certain he was underground and now he felt disoriented going further down. His instincts all screamed at him to go up but his instincts weren't exactly his own right now. "One level down," he whispered back and it still felt too close to the stairs and he had no idea how fast it could go if it wanted to move faster. He stubbornly pushed himself in front of Aaron and Mila once he knew where they were headed, that creature hadn't cared about him and he didn't know if it was because of the glass or not but there was no way he was letting it rip his sister apart in front of his eyes. The door opened outwards into the stairwell and in a fit of panic Adrian gripped the steel handle and pulled it until it snapped and he could twist it around to keep the door from opening. It might buy them some time, unless this creature was strong enough to break through it too. The urge to yell at Aaron and Mila to keep going was so strong he had to bite his lip to remind himself to keep quiet as he ushered them further down the stairs toward the ground floor. The exit signs hummed too loudly and it was hard to tell if they were being quiet enough or not when Adrian could hear everything too clearly. He got behind them once they were past the second floor, again putting himself between them and the creature but he also had no idea where the hell they were going.
Even though they’d found Adrian, Aaron felt more scared on the way out than he had on the way in. Probably because Adrian himself was scared, and he was strong enough to bend that door handle in a way what Aaron would’ve thought was impossible with bare hands. He had no idea what was really going on, but he was more focused on trying not to die and protecting Mila than anything else at the moment. They got the ground floor with Aaron in the lead, and he opened the door of the stairwell just a crack so he could peer out for a moment before they all barrelled through it. Aaron held his breath and listened, but it was as quiet out there as it had been when they’d come in. Since Adrian seemed to have a better sense of things, Aaron looked to him for approval before he opened the door wide enough to slip out. Everything was still and quiet, and he motioned for Mila to follow him as he hurried toward where he thought the lobby was, and the front doors beyond it.
Mila was pretty sure she hadn't breathed until they were in the lobby and she could see the doors leading outside. She couldn't hear anything but her heart pounding in her ears. It had been a long time since she had felt this kind of fear and she wished she could cling to Aaron, or Adrian, instead of the gun in her hand. Mila looked over at Adrian, who looked gaunt and sickly. "You need something to eat," she whispered to him. Would he be okay until they were away from this place and could find him some food? She had no idea. "Are you going to be okay? We're a long way from the highway, Adrian."
Adrian shook his head quickly that no, he wasn't going to be okay, he wasn't okay now but he was too scared for Aaron and Mila to really focus on how everything hurt and how hungry he was. It didn't help that he could smell all those dead bodies and the only thing stopping him from ripping into one of them was that he couldn't do that in front of Mila. "Car's out front?" he whispered. "Go wait there, if anything comes out that's not me you step on the gas and go. I'll be okay. I'll find you." He wished he knew where his room was so he could go get his clothes and the pile of beef jerky he still had there, hell he wished a lot of things but right now all he could focus on was getting his very soft humans out of there and finding something for himself to eat.
Aaron had remembered in the vaguest way that Adrian was cursed or not quite human anymore or something, but the scant few details he’d known had left his head, especially at that moment when they were obviously in danger. He looked confused and alarmed when they started talking about food and Adrian told them to go outside. “Wait, there’s no time --” Aaron started, reaching for his arm. The withering look that Adrian gave him stopped that protest right quick. Aaron reached for Mila’s hand instead, worried she might try to go with Adrian. They all needed to get out, but Mila most of all. “Come on,” he murmured, turning to hurry with Mila out the doors and toward where he’d parked. “What the fuck is he doing?” Aaron asked her in a whisper once they were out. “Food?”
Feeling a surge of fear for her brother, Mila realized it was probably for the best that Aaron grabbed her hand, because she might have tried to go with him. They were so close to getting away from this place that she couldn't bear the thought of something happening to him when safety was only a few feet away. "He needs to eat," Mila answered breathlessly. She looked back at the building as they headed quickly toward the truck. "I don't know if they were feeding him, or how long he's been stuck in there with everyone else dead. Should we... call the police? I mean, those bodies..." Would someone else happen upon the scene? Would whatever was inside, lurking, kill whoever else showed up? Mila wasn't sure but she felt desperate now to get as far away from the building as possible.
Adrian felt no less afraid even when they did as they were told and headed outside. What if there were more creatures out there and he was sending them to their deaths? He couldn't hear anything but that didn't mean much. He made quick work of finding what he needed, forcing himself to overlook all the available meat all around him as he searched for something that he could eat in front of Aaron and Mila. He was in luck, there was a cafeteria on the ground floor with a fully stocked kitchen and there was obviously meat on the menu soon. He grabbed it to go, relieved for the first time that it was better to eat it raw than not when he was in this state. On the way out he grabbed someone's jacket too though that was more for modesty's sake than to keep warm. He was finding it hard to think straight, all the information available to him rushing through his head in flashes, like little fireworks going off and he could act on some and not others. The most prevalent thoughts that didn't actually go anywhere were that he was hungry and he was in pain and he could still pinpoint where exactly above him that creature was lurking.
He felt like he could breathe again when he rushed outside and found the truck was still there and Aaron and Mila were unharmed. He crawled in the back, the door barely closed when he was tearing open the food packaging. He didn't need to tell them to go, they were just as eager to get out of there as he was.
Aaron had told Mila that he didn’t know about the police, it didn’t really look like something they could help with, but they would check with Adrian when he got back, not if. And it seemed to take an interminably long time, but Adrian finally did rush out of the front doors and make a beeline for the truck. Aaron was glad to have an extended cab that could fit all of them comfortably inside. He was ready, jamming on the gas as soon as Adrian was in the truck. He peeled out of the parking lot and back onto the road through the woods that had led them there, glancing nervously in the rearview mirror every few seconds to check to see if anything was following them. Aaron gnawed on the corner of his bottom lip as he drove, full of questions he wasn’t sure how to start asking. Now didn’t seem like the best time anyway, Adrian seemed intent on stuffing his face with what looked like raw meat. Aaron’s stomach churned a bit and he rolled his window down halfway.
Mila could only breathe when Adrian appeared and climbed into the truck. The smell of raw meat made her stomach churn and she brought a hand up to her mouth to try and keep from losing whatever was left in her stomach. It wasn't that she found it disgusting, but the smell was apparently something the baby didn't agree with. Once she was sure she wasn't going to puke in Aaron's truck, Mila glanced back at Adrian, though she couldn't keep her gaze on him for too long without being drawn to the meat, and that would just make her want to hurl all over again. "Are you okay?" she breathed, thankful for the bit of fresh air from Aaron's window. "Do we need to try and find a doctor?"
Their disgust wasn't hard to pick up on but whatever shame or pity Adrian might have felt for it was buried under a ton of other more confusing and hazardous feelings. They were so weak, so fleshy, of course they were disgusted by his food even if it felt natural to him right now to shove bloody ground beef in his mouth. They'd have liked it a lot less if he'd brought a whole human leg out here he thought and it both amused him and filled him with despair thinking those things. He grunted the affirmative to Mila's question even if he felt far from okay. Everything hurt and he could feel the skin around his nails had little tears in it now which in the light of other things bothering him shouldn't be a big deal but it was anyway and it hurt. Everything was just too damn tight. His remedy was there though and he dug into the food, curling in on himself in the backseat, glad for the stupid jacket hiding some of him away from the world. It wasn't enough to make him well again but it was enough to take the edge off and soon enough his thoughts started clearing and everything that had happened today took on a different hue. The darker thoughts gave way and shame and fear bubbled to the surface along with the clarity of the things he'd seen and heard. That monster should have been the main thing he was concerned about. It wouldn't take it long to get out of that building and then what? Would he ever sleep again? But the main event in his head was the fact he'd heard three heartbeats when Aaron and Mila arrived. He couldn't hear it now but it was so obvious to him anyway. "Are you okay?" he asked, looking between them. Did Aaron know Mila was pregnant? Should he bring it up? His sister was pregnant and she'd come to this godforsaken place to rescue him anyway. He wondered momentarily if this was all just some crazed hallucination as he turned into a monster in his cell but it felt too damn real for him to entertain the thought.
Aaron was mostly focused on driving and trying to ignore the wet sounds of Adrian eating raw meat in such a hurry. Maybe it was gross, but if that was what he needed to do, that was what he needed to do. Adrian had been surviving on his own for so long with whatever this affliction really was, Aaron wasn’t going to question his methods. The question made Aaron look over at Mila, much more concerned with her than himself. “Yeah ... You okay, babe?” he asked softly. He knew she hadn’t been hurt, since he’d been right there, but that didn’t mean she was mentally or emotionally okay. All of that had been scary and potentially triggering to her issues, and Aaron wanted to make sure she was coping just as much as Adrian.
Mila nodded, turning her gaze back to the front. She still felt a little queasy but it would pass. "I'm fine," she said, giving Aaron a small smile though it didn't last very long on her lips. "Adrian... what was that place? Did they take you there?" He hadn't contacted her in a while and now she knew why. He had been locked up like some animal. What if they had never found him? He looked terrible even now and she wasn't entirely sure how to help him. They would take him home and go from there, she supposed, but Mila wanted to know they wouldn't have anyone on their trail.
Adrian had gone there willingly and saying so made him feel like an idiot so he wasn't exactly eager to admit to it. "I thought they could help me," he admitted. "They did before, they gave me the tattoos that, you know, it slows it down. They had doctors on staff, I guess... I mean I hoped they followed some ethics code." He went quiet, trying to work through all the crazy shit that had just happened and let it sink in that he was safe for now. He'd been so hungry, he'd thought that if he went down that road again there would be no turning back but his mind was his own again and even during - he hadn't wanted to hurt Aaron and Mila. Yes, he'd wanted to eat the corpses that littered the building but by then they were just meat. "Westin sent you?" he asked then, the realization sinking in. "You owe him another favor? Who did he talk to?" God he didn't want Mila involved, he and Aaron were already mixed up with the man who probably wasn't a man at all.
Aaron still wasn’t totally clear on what Adrian was. He hardly remembered the conversation in the stairwell at the hospital during the fog, that felt like a lifetime ago. But now didn’t seem like the time to ask. He’d been trying to get help, which was probably good, but it seemed like he’d gone to the wrong people for it. Locking him up in some observation room with no food didn’t seem very helpful. His questions about Westin put that bad-nervous feeling back in Aaron’s stomach, and he flexed his hands on the steering wheel a bit. “He talked to me,” he said, glancing at Adrian in the rearview mirror. “He didn’t say anything about another favor, just woke me up and said you needed help or you were going to die, then gave me GPS coordinates on where to go. Then he was just ... gone.” The lack of a favor made it even more confusing, really. Why would Westin care if Adrian died? Maybe because he still owed him. Who knew.
Mila didn't like the idea of Aaron or Adrian owing anyone any favors, especially a man who had someone known how to get her out of that tunnel. She didn't like that the man showed up and disappeared at will. But... she couldn't deny that she was grateful that he had last night, because Adrian might have died without the help. "I don't like that," she muttered, turning to look out the window. "Somehow I don't think the favor he'll be asking for is something like... asking you to help him move on a Saturday." Considering Westin Somebody had more or less helped Adrian and Aaron rescue her, and now they rescued Adrian. It was a big, jumbled mess in her head. "Adrian, what were they trying to do to you? Why were they starving you like that?"
It was a small relief to hear that Mila didn't also owe Westin a favor but the mere thought of the 'man' made Adrian feel uneasy. Mila was right, he wouldn't want anything good when the time came to collect and Adrian knew better than to deny him whatever it was he'd want. It was very much a later time problem and he was too damn tired to allow himself that extra worry especially when Mila asked him a direct question that he could only really guess the answer to. No, he knew exactly what they'd wanted to see and the thought turned his stomach. "They were gonna let the curse run its course," he told her, crumpling up the plastic from the meat between his hands. "For science, I guess. See what I turn into if they don't feed me. I don't know. I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't shown up, I don't even know what that thing was that escaped. It was- I don't know what it was but if everyone was dead then I would have just..." He fumbled for words and while he didn't want to reach out and touch Mila without washing his hands first, he leaned his head against her seat. "Thank you."
Aaron wasn’t sure if that thanks was meant for him too, but he tried not to care. Westin had come to him because he’d come to him before, Aaron felt sure, and he knew about the family connections. He’d done the driving and everything, but that wasn’t much, he guessed. Adrian was safe and with them now, that was what mattered. The idea of some scientists holding him and experimenting on him with something so dangerous put a bad feeling in his gut, but Aaron didn’t comment. He just wanted to get them home and Adrian cleaned up and settled so they could get some actual rest. Even if that whatever-it-was escaped, at least it would escape into the middle of the goddamn woods.
For science. Destroying whatever was left of her brother for science. It was infuriating. He would have died in that place. Or turned into... whatever it was he was cursed with. Mila was silent, but she brought her hand up to press it against Adrian's cheek. Westin had come to Aaron, giving him directions... something inside that building had killed all of those people. Had Westin known that was going to happen? Had Westin been responsible? Who was this man anyway? Every time Mila felt like life might be settling into something normal, something happened to remind her that it was anything but. Mila glanced over at Aaron, feeling intensely grateful for him. He had risked his own life to help her brother. "You have to stay with us until we can figure something out," Mila told Adrian.
"I don't know what to do now," Adrian admitted and Mila's touch made him want to cry, like that sudden gentle connection melted away the last of his resolve to be strong. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine what his next step could be but there was nothing. He didn't have a car anymore, he was out of money, his clothes were somewhere back at that facility and there was no way he was going back there. The last hope he'd been clinging to about getting any sort of better had been ripped from him so what was he going to do now? What could he do? Maybe he had to come back in an official capacity, maybe it was safe now that the people who had been looking for him were dead. He could go talk to the police, tell them half the truth and throw in some lies to make it less unbelievable. The thought of his parents finding out what he'd become was too much though, they were so religious, his mother especially might think he was some kind of demon and maybe he was. "Aren't you staying with mom and dad?" Did Aaron still have that little place in Seaview? Was Mila staying there now? He couldn't imagine her there, she hadn't wanted to go anywhere near the place and he couldn't blame her.
“We bought a house,” Aaron told him, glancing in the rearview mirror again. “Well, I mean ... more like Mila bought a house, my credit is shit, but we’ve got space now and it’s not at Seaview. And your parents don’t come over much since we’re living in sin and all that.” He smiled faintly. Aaron almost said they could put him up in the baby’s room for now, but he realized that Adrian didn’t know their good news, and he wasn’t sure if now was a great time to tell him. Aaron glanced over at Mila, deciding to leave that up to her, if she wanted to. Maybe after they got Adrian home and cleaned up and comfortable. And fed some more, if he needed it. Aaron had some good steaks in the freezer, he was already thinking about taking them out to thaw. “We’ll take care of you while we figure out what to do next, man,” he murmured.
"We bought a house," Mila corrected, looking at Aaron before glancing back at Adrian. Maybe her credit was better but Aaron was helping pay for it, among all of the physical labor that went into getting it fixed up. It was their house, no matter whose name was on the deed. "And we have a spare room you can sleep in, okay? I don't want you to worry about that." Like Aaron, she wasn't really sure if she ought to tell Adrian that the spare room was going to be for a baby. They hadn't started to buy anything for the nursery yet but Mila had framed the first ultrasound to place on the fireplace mantle downstairs. It felt like an odd time to break that kind of news, but... everything was odd today. Mila shifted a little in the seat so she could see Adrian a bit better. "We're having a baby too. Mom and dad don't know yet, but... that'll explain the pre-natals in the bathroom and stuff."
Adrian smiled, even as he felt choked up and his nose started burning. "I could hear the heartbeat," he said quietly and hoped that wasn't too damn creepy for them to hear. It was in fact very weird to get good news right now, it felt like it shattered the last of his resolve and, added to his already jumbled emotions, it was just too much. He wiped away a stray tear with the sleeve of his stolen jacket and let out a shaky little laugh. "I didn't wanna... say anything, damn... I'm gonna be somebody's uncle." He didn't know if he'd be around for that, or if he should be around for that, but there was something so good and pure about babies, they were a hope for the future and he could so easily imagine Mila holding hers. "I'll try to get my shit together before it's born, you'll have enough on your plate," he said though he didn't know how to even start doing that. It didn't matter, he could focus on the good thing for now. "You're gonna be awesome parents." It was so normal and beautiful and god damn it, he was still crying.
It wasn’t creepy for Aaron to hear -- it was kind of cool, actually. Aaron had heard the heartbeat through a machine when he’d gone with Mila to the doctor, he thought it would be super awesome just to be able to hear it, that quick flutter of life. The obvious emotion in Adrian’s voice made Aaron’s own throat feel thick and tight. It was such a world of difference from the way his brothers had reacted at the news of the first pregnancy, all of that negativity and judgement. Adrian sounded happy for them, moved even, and Aaron reached out to snag one of Mila’s hands and gave it a squeeze. Adrian was the first person besides her to say that he would make a good parent, and it made his chest ache in the most bittersweet way.
It was startling to know Adrian had heard the baby's heartbeat, but not creepy. In a weird way, it was comforting to Mila, who still worried on a daily basis that something terrible might happen. She smiled at Adrian, grateful for his support. They both knew their mother would be happy but also... disapproving, given Mila wasn't married yet. But that would come soon too, she was sure of it. Her fingers tightened around Aaron's hand, because she knew how important it was for him to hear that he would be a good dad. Mila knew it was true, but he had so little support from his own family. "We'll help you," Mila promised him. "You're going to be okay, Adrian. We'll do whatever we need to do. I want you to be healthy, I want you to be able to be a part of their life, okay? Just... please don't leave again."
Adrian took a deep breath, unable to speak for a moment while he composed himself but fuck, he couldn't promise that. If he got worse, if he thought for a second he was a danger to his family and if he was truly unable to die, he'd go somewhere far away while he still could. "I don't want to leave again," he said finally, his voice thick with emotion. He needed to get his shit together somehow or he'd bankrupt them in no time with the amount of food he needed just to stay sane. The smart thing to do would be to change his identity and move on, get a job somewhere under a new name and try to hang on to dear life but that involved leaving. "I hoped they could - I don't know - give me stronger magic or something, something to make this easier." He and Toby had talked about witches living in Point Pleasant but it was all guess work. He supposed he could ask Toby who he was so sure was a witch but that would mean confronting some stranger to ask if they could do magic. He wasn't so sure that would go over well. "You don't know any witches, do you?" He let out a wet little laugh at that, wiping at his eyes again.
Aaron had no idea what the future looked like for them, but he knew they would do all they could to take care of Adrian. He needed that, he definitely didn’t need to be in a place like the one they’d just left. The question about witches made Aaron glance warily over at Mila. “We do, actually,” he said. Just thinking back to that night made his stomach churn, and he was sure it wouldn’t be comfortable for Mila either. She hadn’t actually been herself then, and that had been shortly before she’d tried to kill him. “They came by uh, before Mila disappeared.” He didn’t like talking about that time in front of her, worried that reminding her of it all would get her stressed out and that was bad for the baby. “We can try to get in touch with them again, maybe they can help.”
It was difficult to disguise the discomfort Mila felt at the question, but she did her best. She had very little memory of the night Caius and his wife came to see her, aware that the Other Thing had been the one communicating, not her. But now she worked for the man, and his father, and maybe that would prove to be beneficial beyond her paycheck. "I work for one," she murmured. "Two, actually. I can talk to him, Adrian. If he can't help you, maybe he knows someone who can. It has to be better than whatever it was they were doing to you in that place. Maybe they can make your tattoos stronger."
It had been a rhetorical question at best and Adrian was a bit taken back by the fact they actually did know witches. His life was just so different from what it had been five years ago when he only just barely believed in ghosts and only because he worked in a supposedly haunted hospital. "I think anything would help at this point," he mumbled, feeling a little shocked at the revelation but also like he shouldn't be. This was just his life now, weird shit happened, monsters were real and he was one of them so why wouldn't Aaron and Mila know witches as well. "Guy I worked with suspected there might be witches in town but he didn't know for sure. When did our lives get so crazy?"
Aaron felt like an idiot for a brief moment -- of course Mila now worked for the D’Onofrios, duh. It was just so difficult for him to mentally connect Caius the witch to Caius the businessman, and whenever he thought about Mila’s work he thought about Caius’s father first, who owned half the town. Also a witch, apparently, but Aaron had never seen him work. All of it was indeed crazy, and Adrian’s words made him chuckle a bit. “I think they always were, we just didn’t see a lot of it,” he said, glancing in the rearview mirror. Aaron let out a heavy sigh and rolled his shoulders a bit to try and get them to relax. “While you been gone, my nephew disappeared into some ... portal between worlds, made by his girlfriend, who can do that, apparently. ‘Cause he and a bunch of other people were like ... poisoning everybody, from the fog.” Aaron paused, then muttered, “My dad, he’s gone too.” ‘Crazy’ didn’t even start to cover their lives anymore.
The conversation had gotten dark, but she supposed that was to be expected, given where they had found Adrian. "I think once you see the crazy, it's everywhere," Mila murmured. "But we'll do whatever we can to help you, Adrian." They couldn't bring Jasper back... and they definitely couldn't bring Aaron's dad back either, though she was sure everyone in the Lucas family would much prefer Jasper return than Joseph. Mila thought of Westin but pushed it aside quickly. The people she loved owed that "man" far too much already. She looked over her shoulder at her brother again. "Are you feeling better? Now that you've even? Should we stop and get you something else?"
Aaron could have continued to say Godzilla had risen from the ocean and eaten half the marina and it wouldn't have surprised Adrian. At this point none of this phased him though hearing that Aaron had lost family was a punch in the gut. Where was Westin to fix that? Or did they owe him too much already? He patted Aaron's arm with the sleeve of his coat since his hands were still filthy, at loss for what to say about all that, then nodded at Mila's question. "I'm better," he said and then smiled sheepishly. "Wouldn't say no to a burger though." He didn't really like that aftertaste of raw meat in his mouth and the more human side of him could do with something a bit nicer. Not to mention he was still hungry - though it wasn't at dangerous levels anymore.
Aaron didn’t want to dwell on the losses in his family either. They hadn’t lost the one in the backseat. Adrian was family to Aaron now, and that was what he needed to focus on. He was glad he’d heeded Westin’s warning and came out to the middle of goddamn nowhere to find his brother in law, and as scared as he’d been for Mila the entire time, he was glad she was there too. Picking up burgers for all of them was an easy task in comparison, and Aaron nodded with a little half smile. “We’ll grab some on the way home,” he said. He wasn’t hungry yet, his stomach still in knots from it all, but he knew he would be eventually. They could all think about next steps later when they were settled, for now Aaron was just glad this hadn’t turned into yet another fucking tragedy.