Snippet #2812614

Icarus’ words only served to make Cerys’ blood run cold. If Red Witch’s life was in danger, that also meant that the rest of them could be as well. She was about to speak up and reveal what she’d learned, but then his phone began to ring. At first, she rolled her eyes, expecting it to be a false alarm. But the glimpse of the screen made her stomach twist.

There was a flurry of activity as Malfyre managed to connect his phone to their laptop, and the view confirmed Cerys’ worst fears. A hostage video, by the looks of things. The robotic way she was speaking confirmed she was being fed lines, and she just nodded as Gemini commented on it. It just made it all the more obvious when Red Witch suddenly broke away from the script and yelled at the two villains not to listen. Gemini’s arm on hers made her jump, but she didn’t tear her eyes away from the screen. It went black, and Cerys let out a shaky breath she hadn’t realised she was holding, managing a small smile at Gemini’s apology.

There was a flurry of outbursts and people talking over one another, but Cerys couldn’t help but notice that Icarus was frozen, practically rooted to the spot. Everyone else seemed to be leaping into activity, giving answers, trying to figure things out, but he was just still staring at the screen. She glanced away as Gemini turned into their male form, the shift happening without her noticing despite the fact they were standing right beside her. He seemed to get some semblance of order on the proceedings, getting people to chip in with anything that could be helpful. Aboleth had heard a train. Malfyre began discussing what they’d seen and what it meant. They mentioned that they had some details on where they were, but said it would be a few days before they had concrete evidence. Icarus almost seemed to snap to attention at that, and turned his attention to Malfyre. Cerys braced herself on seeing how his posture shifted from one of shock and emptiness to one of anger. She didn’t know much about Icarus, none of the heroes really did, but she knew that if someone like him got that angry, it generally wasn’t good.

Malfyre’s comment about not yelling at them went straight over Atticus’ head as he stared at the screen, all of his worst fears being confirmed. They had Lucy. She was being held hostage. He could see shadows in the background, presumably guards of some kind. For a few horrific moments, Att thought he was about to see his dream repeated, just from a different angle and too far away to help.

And then Lucy began to speak, her tone flat and her words not her own. Telling them to get out and stop looking, or else. They knew they’d been at the gala. Of course they did, with everything that had happened, were they even surprised? He could see Lucy stopping, beginning to think. She yelled for him and Piper not to listen, that it was a trap, but all that really seemed to sink in was the struggle that ensued and how quickly the video shut off. Somewhere in his head, he could still hear the echo of the gunshot from his vision. Malfyre walked away, going into one of the corners for a moment, before coming back.

Even as the heroes sprung into action, he was frozen. Were they already too late? Had they already killed Lucy for her insolence, for trying to warn them? Maybe he shouldn’t have let her storm off like that, he shouldn’t have called her a bitch like that, he should have gone after her-

It was only when Malfyre began talking that Att’s attention was drawn back into the room. He just about managed to catch his phone and shot them a glare as he did so. They were discussing at length everything they’d seen and what it meant. Everything they were saying seemed promising, right up until they mentioned it would be a few days and not to do anything stupid. Her tone made something snap inside him, anger rising to the surface and replacing the numbness that had been there only moments before.

“No.” The word came out forcefully and almost without him meaning to. “This might just seem like another mission to you but in case you forgot, they are going to kill her in the next few days. And after that, it’s probably sooner rather than later. So we don’t have a few days for you to sit around on your ass and figure this out. Put your fucking ego aside, stop treating this like a game, and help us now.” Malfyre’s downright flippant and patronizing attitude had somehow released all the anger he was feeling, but he didn’t care. It needed an out, and they were a convenient target. “Or else give us the fucking locations and we’ll deal with it ourselves. We can’t do any worse than you taking literal days to try and figure out where she is, because she’ll probably be dead anyway.”

“And… there’s something else.” A female voice said, and Atticus turned to look at Artemis. “I was on a run this morning when I overheard people discussing… well, discussing Red Witch. And they seemed pretty confident in the fact that you and Gemini were there last night, and… they were looking for evidence that there were others in attendance. They were going to look at our movements last night to try and identify us to confirm which of us were there.” She glanced at Gemini. “And by the sounds of it, they’ve already gotten evidence I was there. If they can confirm you guys were all there as well…”

“We could be direct targets,” Att finished, sighing. She nodded.
“I’m guessing that they only name dropped the two heroes they knew for sure were there, so directly threatened us. They don’t know for sure about the rest of you. Yet.”
“Yet,” Att echoed. He turned back to Malfyre. “So. Do you think that they’ll just ignore that knowledge, file it under “for future reference”? They probably won’t use it, they’re clearly the type of people who will do exactly what they say so why would they go trying to kill us?” He snapped. “Now you know that your life is probably also directly under threat, are you going to actually help by giving us that information now so we can do something sooner rather than later?” He asked, staring straight at them.