H U R R Y
Shit was
hitting the fan. Narkisa heard Corinne screaming Niall's name and sensed Raphael calling her at the same time. She paused, not knowing whether to go towards the yelling or towards his beckoning, but he broke into her thoughts, issuing a solid
NOW to her. She was unable to resist, and her muscles flexed for a moment as she dwelled, then spun on her heel and
sprinted through Midnight, running to where she knew the cells were. She slid to a stop in front of the elevators, and when she realized they were both up several floors, she hissed.
"Fuck it," she said, flinging open the massive doors to the stairs. Fucking narrow pieces of shit, she nearly fell on her ass a few times as she raced down, nearly slamming directly into Raphael as she came skittering around the corner. "Fuck!" she yelled in surprise, jumping back from him. "You scared the fuck out of me! What is going on!?"
He reached out, his hands firmly planted on her shoulders. "Listen to me very carefully. I need you to try and beat Cerberus to wherever he's going. Just - just get on the road, I'll give you the address as soon as I have it." He glanced over his shoulder as he heard noise coming from the other way. "Fuck," he hissed to himself. It was Stefan's voice. He didn't know which side he'd be on, but he wasn't going to keep her around to find out.
"Raph, what the
fuck is happening?" his bloodbond asked again, and this time when he urged her to leave, she slapped his hands off of her. "No! Look," she said, dropping her voice. "Corinne is upstairs freaking out, and I think - I think she fucking killed Verity," she said, her voice shaky with adrenaline.
"
It's happening," he said, and for a moment, she didn't know what
it was, but then she looked past Raphael to Stefan and watched as he hit the bars of a cell, hard.
"Is this a fucking jailbreak?!" she asked, her accented voice shrill.
Raphael closed his eyes, tipping his head back for a moment. "Listen, Narkisa, just
go, please," he urged her. "Get there before Cerberus. I'm
pretty certain he's on our side, but I don't trust anyone at the moment. Kill him, if you have to," he said, dropping the bomb on her.
"I -
what?" she barked. "Whose side are we
on?"
"A little help here!" Stefan called.
"For once in my life, the
right side," Raphael told her. "I know he was told to retrieve an asset, but I don't know if he's going to retrieve an asset or to
kill an asset. Narkisa, do not let him do anything stupid. Get there first, see if you can get the asset back here. We need a particular kind of firepower I think only this one can bring. Can you do it?"
"Yeah," she said, completely beside herself. "Yeah, I can." She turned to leave, but felt him hook her arm and pull her back.
"If we get out of this, Narkisa, you're free. I promise. No tricks. I'm done. We're done."
She looked at him for a moment, a look of confusion, and then horror crossing her face. "What? No - Raphael, that - that can
kill me, I'm as fucking old as dirt. If you release me, I'll just turn into dust!"
"Then I'll turn you!" he argued. "I don't care, just - we're running out of time,
go," he commanded.
She stared at him for a moment longer, and then turned, running back for the stairs. SO many fucking stairs. She busted out through the door, avoiding Raven Guard killing eachother in the hall, and headed for where the vehicles were kept. She grabbed a handful of keys off the rack, pressing alarm buttons until one close to her chirped, then ran to it, dropping the other keys on the ground as she did so.
"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck," she chanted, backing out of the drive recklessly and dumping the car onto the street.
Why were they in the middle of fucking nowhere?
Of course we are, she thought bitterly. Couldn't traffick people through an establishment on the corner of a busy street, now, could they? She sped down the road, hitting some railroad tracks hard enough that it shook her teeth. "Whoops!" she said, to nobody.
She didn't know what direction she was supposed to go, so luckily she had picked the right one when Raphael sent her the address. Mentally, of course - it would've been too easy for him to text it so that she could just select the navigate option. She tried to drive and punch the address into the GPS, nearly hitting another car while she tried to do so. "Fuck!" she yelled, swerving into the shoulder and then around the car before she slammed into it. She pushed the talk button on her phone and yelled the address into it, relieved when it chose
this time to understand her.
Since Cerberus had had a detour, Narkisa beat him to the address. She got out of the car, unsure of what she was walking into, and walked
quickly up the stone path to the rather posh home. She looked around once she reached the door step, realizing several things: it was late, it was dead quiet outside except for her vehicle having just nearly taken out their mailbox, and she
didn't know whose house she was at. How to approach this? She settled for knocking timidly at first, but she heard no response from inside. She tried again, this time harder, and finally resorted to
pounding on the door with her fist.
It flung open at
that, and she lept back, absolutely having not expected that. A very large man stood in the doorway, and he looked
annoyed.
"Can I fucking help you?" he asked, though it was more like a low growl.
"Uhh... it's happening?" she said, hoping that he'd know what she meant.
She heard noise from behind the door, and saw him look away for a moment to argue in hushed tones. After a few more seconds, the door was
pulled open more by something behind it, and Jillian stuck her head out into the cold.
"Narkisa?" she asked, confusion on her face. "What is it, what's wrong?"
"She said "it's happening"," the man replied.
"Oh," Jill said. "OH!"
Behind them, Cerberus' SUV pulled into view, and it
did successfully take out the mailbox. The window rolled down, and the man shouted over someone in his passenger seat. "Beat me to it, I see," he called.
"Yeah - there was some doubt about where you fell in all of this," she called back, now completely ignoring the seething Triste and the confused historian.
"The right side, girly," he chuckled.
Whatever or
whoever was next to him began clamoring about in the vehicle, and she heard the sound of Cerberus arguing with him about 'that's what a fucking seatbelt does' before the door opened and a man fell out, tangled up in - the seatbelt. He was yelling something about Layla, hanging like a fish in a net helplessly while Cerberus had to go and untangle him.
"What the bloody fuck is going on?" Narkisa breathed.
"That's precisely what I'd like to know," Gareth snapped.