Chapter Text
Jr notices the fucker before you do, which is...a lil' bit unacceptable. Like yeah, sure, they're older than you are by virtue of the twisted branches of the Strider family tree that everyone at the mall-cafeteria table fell from, but you are the most dangerous here, the most capable even if you look like a preteen with hair dyed clashing colors and a band shirt that you stole from Hal and tied into a crop top to go with the neon pink capris D bought for you when you announced you were hot and didn't want to wear a skirt. You know you look like a baby furry—and you are! the cat ears ain't just cutesy, you're a motherfureaking bonafide hybrid and if anyone looked really close they'd see that the headband nestled in your curls doesn't actually connect—but you are also something more.
You're a monster, a special one. Something designed to fight and kill.
Which is why it's fucked up that you only realize the real and present danger when you notice Jr signing to Davesprite. Once you notice, though, you see that Liv and Seb are watching their sibling's hands just as closely; everyone managed to get clued in before you noticed something was fucky.
Shit. It's the mint latte, isn't it. Mint is too closely related to nepeta cataria, to catnip—hell, it's also known as catmint, isn't it? It's not as strong as the baggies of dried herb that the rest of your family takes turns bringing home from the pet store, but you're calmer than you usually would be, relaxed, off your furreaking game.
Eh, this isn't a combat situation. You're allowed to have that lil' taste of mint-flavored normalcy, even if it means that someone else spots the problem first.
What is the problem, anyway?
Jr's faintly luminous red eyes keep flicking to a certain spot, another table somewhere behind you. Turning to look would tip off whoever they're focused on; instead, you pull the straw out of your drink, drain the last quarter of it in one smooth swallow, and get to your feet to take the empty cup to the trash. Nothing to see here, just a kid who's got a lil' more respect for maintainance than some adults here, they just want to save some work for whoever has to gather up the garbage and dispose of it at the end of the day, right? That's all this is.
The guy's obvious. Maybe not to someone normal or someone human, but to you he has a metaphorical neon sign over his head—if you had to try to read those imaginary, illuminated letters, they'd say something like I AM WAY TOO INTERESTED IN UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN.
Bad news. You get all that from one glance, letting your eyes slide over and past him as you turn back to rejoin your siblings. Maybe if you had your shades down on your face instead of pushed up to sit atop your headband, you'd risk more, but as things are that's the most that you feel like risking. Can't have him catch on, after all.
Hey, you're a hunter. You know how to hunt.
Davesprite waits for you to sit down before pushing his half-eaten noodles across the table. "Want the rest of mine? Liv changed her mind about sharing halfway through." His hands stay on the table even as you nod and reach for the styrofoam container; with them, he says something much more important. Jr says he's been following us.
"You put spicy stuff in it and you know I'm not gonna eat that!" Liv protests, her nose wrinkling up. Her hands are on the table too, signing quicker than Davesprite's. Been watching us! Fucker. That last she directs at the creep at the other table, her middle finger jabbing at you (and him, past you) before she folds her hand into a fist.
"Picky, picky." Seb giggles and shoves gently at his sister's shoulder, his hands coming down as he ducks the swat she aims at his head. Not just us. Other kids too.
Hm. You deliberately suck down too many spicy noodles at once—enough to make yourself choke but just a little, you don't want to risk having him or anyone else come over here in some kind of panic—and use the cover of your own genuine coughing fit to sign a simple question.
Boys or girls?
Davesprite leans over past Jr to thump you on the back; Jr hunches down to be out of the way, twisting towards you a little so you'll be sure to see their hands. Both. More girls. He watches Liv and me the most.
Seb slides his water across the table to you. I vote for Liv.
At this point, you kind of need the water, which gives you a second to consider. If that fucker likes little girls, of course he's gonna be the most interested in Liv and Jr, even though the latter isn't actually a girl. You could probably pass for a girl today too, but you have a suspicion that you look a little older than this fucker wants. Because?
She'll talk, Jr signs. I won't.
That's fair. "Liv? Me 'n Davesprite have a couple things to go pick up; you wanna come with us, or go grab a handful of quarters with Jr 'n Seb 'n grab some stuff from the coin machines?"
"Coin machines." No hesitation. Excellent. Your little sister's one hell of a brave warrior already.
"Cool; meet you guys by the bathrooms in fifteen?" We'll follow you wherever he takes you and deal with him there.
Liv gives you a thumb's-up, and the five of you push chairs back and head down the correct halls.
That bastard follows your younger sibs, not you and Davesprite. You resist the urge to start stalking him yourself—patient hunters are the only ones who can catch their prey, and you really do have a purchase you need to make.
Seb's main talent is crossing more space in less time than anyone else would suspect possible; you're just coming out of the shop with one purchase in the bag Davesprite's carrying and the other half-fitted onto your hands when he dashes up to the two of you, blue eyes alight with the kind of excitement that means either Big Plans in motion, or ice cream. From the distinct lack of sweet milky goodness, it's got to be the former.
"How're we doing?" You keep walking while you ask, of course, following Seb as he backpedals spooky-fast back the way he came. "Jr's playing backup for her, right?"
"Yep!" Seb's nodding in time with the rhythm of his feet, fast enough that your brain's struggling to come up with a song that'd match the beat. "He saw us ditch her, he moved in, Jr said they'd text if shit went sideways but so far everything's fine—"
"How long?" Davesprite asks, pulling his orange shades back down over his oranger eyes. He sounds perfectly calm, not even a lil' excited; you don't think you can match that tone right now.
"Ten minutes. Come on, slowpokes!" And with that, Seb spins on his heel and starts in with that speedwalking slowrunning shit that's all you can get away with in the mall without getting stopped and questioned and maybe having your parents called (unacceptable); you follow right on his heels, with Davesprite right beside you.
The glance you got in the cafeteria was just barely enough for you to get a taste of your prey's lifeforce. Keeping the ethereal smell in the forefront of your mind during the time between then and now is difficult, even for you; things like that are slippery, easy to lose with even a little bit of time or distraction, and you've had plenty of both. If you weren't you, it'd be impossible, but you're motherfureaking superhuman and you have enough of the memory of the scent left to pinpoint exactly which vehicle you need to stake out in the crowded parking lot.
Davesprite and Seb and Jr are back by the entrance, of course, waiting for whichever adult answered the phone call back to the safehouse to show up and pick them up. You're betting on an ETA of maybe twelve minutes from now, by which time you'll be long gone from the passenger-side footwell in the front seat of this stupid rusty blue truck that smells like awful things.
(You're not even going to think of the kids that left the scents and traces that you can sense. Nope. Not doing it.)
Your wings want to spread. You will them back under your skin; this space is too damn cramped for that. Your claws want to come out, and you let them even though you can't spare enough concentration to make sure they don't pierce the fabric of your new black gloves. Eh, it's not like you'll be keeping those past the next...eight minutes, anyway...
Ah. Voices, muffled through metal and rolled-up windows. No words that you can pick out, but you still know your sister's voice; she's doing amazing, shaky and sniffly like she's scared out of her mind over losing the kids she's supposed to stick with. You can just imagine big teary eyes under lavender ponytails, the way she's gripping that fucker's hand like she's the one being led to the slaughter. His voice you've never heard before, but you still recognize it—there's a way that adults talk when they think you and your siblings are just kids. Soothing and condescending at the same time, like they can't imagine that you can hear that shit.
You tense up and tighten your grip. When the door opens...
There. He's got Liv's hand, of course he does, he wouldn't let her slip away now, but she's smart—she's as far off to the side as she can get, out of your way when you explode out of your hideyhole. Fuck, you'd give a finger to know how he sees you, in this moment—an avenging angel in shades of chartruse and mango? Something out of an anime, complete with shitty fifty-dollar katana that you paid for with an emergency credit card, the kind that doesn't leave records, and Davesprite wiped the clerk's memory of ever having existed? The motherfureaking killing machine you are?
It is a mystery and will remain one, because his eyes go wide—you see your gleeful sharptoothed smile reflected in his pupils, ringed by blue more faded than Seb's—and then he lets go of Liv's hand and tries to raise his arms in defense and it's too late because you're already on him, blade biting and drawing back and biting twice more before he hits the ground with you on top. There's blood on your face, in your mouth, you can taste him dying already even though he's got another full minute before he'll bleed out, and it's—
Fucking purrfect.
You leave the sword in him, replacing a significant part of his anatomy in the most fitting bit of symbolism you can think of. The gloves were fucking soaked; you left little red smudges all over the interior of his truck as you searched it after, but the tokens he took from the others—the ones before Liv, the list he meant to add your sister to—you're very careful not to mark, when you take them out and lay them neatly around his head like a halo.
(You don't count them. That'd hurt too much. You may be a ruthless killing machine, but you're also just a kid, and there's a limit to what you can consider without crying.)
The gloves go into one of the few trash cans placed in the parking lot itself. They might be found, or they might not; it's not like they can be traced to you. Even without them, it's obvious what you've been doing and if you had to go back into the mall the amount of blood on you might be a problem, but luckily you don't have to, because as you consider the best route between parked cars you hear a horn beep.
Ooh. That's D's. And when you slide between two almost identical white trucks and out to the aisle, it's the kidhauler minivan that's waiting for you, with one door already open for you to pounce through.
"Holy shit, Davepeta—"
"I'm not getting it on the car, don't worry!" Actually, you're already stripping off the ruined shirt as Liv pulls the door shut behind you—shit you have got bloodstains on your sportsbra. Those aren't coming out. "Anybody fill you in yet?"
"None of y'all even told me there was something to be filled in about!"
"Cool, we can do that on the way home then! Let's go; I need a shower."
For a moment, D doesn't comply with this (in your opinion) very reasonable request. Then he groans, leans forward to bonk his forehead against the steering wheel (this is why the horn doesn't work; Hal disabled it after the third time Dirk or D attracted unneeded attention through cranial means), straightens back up, and hits the gas.
Easy peasy. You fucking rock.