Still Just a Rat in a Cage [Summer, Seth, Tristan, Cynthia, London, Tanith]

[London DeMortei]

Seeing your house on fire is a pretty big deal.  Knowing that your wife and son are inside and under attack is even more extreme, so much so that London brought his beloved car to a screeching halt on the fucking front lawn and barely had it in park before he was out of the car and headed inside.  A dark-haired girl that he didn't recognize shot inside before he could get there, a factor that both worried and pissed him off more because all he could imagine her being was a threat.  There were two unfamiliar vehicles in front of the building, and he vowed right then and there that anyone there for nasty purposes was going to sincerely regret it.  The Jag was still running, and he wasn't paying attention to whether or not Tanith was going to follow him into his burning house.  He just...knew.

You weren't partners with someone, not the way he and Tanith were partners, without understanding certain things about them.  For starters, she knew that no matter what happened, London would take care of whatever she needed.  He'd done it with Taran on her behalf countless times, and he'd continue to with anything she ever asked.  He knew that he could trust her with his life at the drop of a hat and that she wouldn't betray or fail him.  He'd have died or killed for her, was piecing his life together and working with Carmine to fix the massive problems they'd been having for so long because he knew that it would crush Tanith to know the mess that was his home life and just how much of it was his fault.  Carmine still thought that he'd been sleeping with his last partner and had strong suspicions that he was sleeping with Korakas, he still thought she was a bitch and the mutual distrust and dislike between he and Tristan hadn't evaporated instantaneously, but there had been progress.  He was trying, and it was fucking working.  He hadn't appreciated Carmine as much as he had that morning before he'd gone to work in years.

Now, it was all literally going up in flames.  Inside the house, his nose was assaulted with blood, smoke, death and the smell of burning meat, and he could only pray that there was some lackey of whatever it was Tristan was tearing apart that was burning.  It was after his initial horror at the sight of his son ripping into something that had once been alive and seeing the pretty blonde girl with the wood sticking out of her chest that he realized what smell he'd first missed; Cynthia.  It was subtle at first, but then hit him like a freight train, like it was spattered across the room.  It was, thanks to Tristan.  His wife was nowhere to be found.

"Carmine.  CARMINE?!" he shouted, and maybe he should have been yanking Tristan off of the body he was mangling or helping the girl and the obviously vicious and protective cheetah to get their wounded friend out, but he didn't care.  Tristan looked battered, but he was alive and in no more danger than any of the people inside the building.  The other three could deal with their own problems, and he'd deal with his.  His wife, he had to find her.

"Carmine!" he called again, already turning deeper into the house and the smoke, searching her out as the heat increased.  Every bit of training for dealing with a bad situation and a fire taught him to go away from the heat, base instincts screamed at him that he was going the wrong way, but he could smell her, smell her fear, and he had to get to her.  She was alive because she couldn't be dead, because they'd been working so hard and they were going to be together until they were both old and crotchety.  She was alive because he didn't think he could handle losing another woman that he loved.

The smoke was so thick that he couldn't breathe, and he hadn't found her.  His next attempt at calling for her resulted in nothing more than a choke, but if the stench of blood and a strong hand grabbing his arm to yank him back the way he'd come hadn't hit him, he would have kept going.  As it was, he twisted around to swing at whoever had grabbed him and found Tristan's already bloodied face taking the blow like he hardly felt it so that he could keep dragging his father back.  London screamed his rage at him, swinging again, and that was when Tristan stopped just trying to pull him and lashed out on his own.  They couldn't actually argue, not with the thick smoke and the heat coming at them, but Tristan pitched him into the wall so hard that it cracked behind him, flames suddenly licking into the cracks, reaching hungrily for him.  They could fight, however, and London was so dead set on finding his wife that it didn't throw him any further over the edge than he already was that Tristan actually fought back.  All he cared about was getting Tristan off of him so that he could keep going, right up until his son yanked his face down close and somehow managed to scream at him through the smoke.

"SHE'S DEAD!"

[Seth Bellwood]

All things considered, Seth thought he was pretty well prepared for whatever he was going to bust in on.  The building was on fire, so as horrible as it was, he wasn't surprised by the smell of burning meat; as long as he could find Summer, he didn't care about any of the rest.  It was getting smacked in the face with the nearly overpowering reek of blood, fear and death that was just a little unexpected, if only because he'd never experienced it quite so strongly before.  It threw him off for a brief instant, but once he heard Summer's weak call for him, he was back to searching her out, though with a more panicked air about him.  God, she was so annoying and such a bitch, but he was scared to death for her right then, and even more afraid to find out where she was and what condition she was in.  For a few minutes, anyway.  It didn't take long for Gina to come running into the building shouting about the cops, and then just cursing and yelling for him.

That helped, giving him a loud, solid point in the smoke and heat to search out.  Honestly, his only saving grace was that he wasn't standing upright about then, because the smoke was burning his eyes, nose and throat badly enough that he probably wouldn't have been able to help anyone other than himself.  Considering the shape that Summer was in, that wasn't an option.  Unfortunately, staying in cheetah form wasn't going to help his sister much, either, but with a jaguar in the same room that was freaking the fuck out and the two cops hitting the scene, being a relatively small dude wasn't really smart, either.

He shot around Summer's body, putting himself between her and the two newcomers with a snarl and a nasty show of teeth, daring one of them to try to get past him while he considered how the hell he was going to get Summer out of there, but it took the male cop rushing into the building, regarding him with total disinterest and whispering some name that was unfamiliar to Seth for him to realize that the two of them really didn't seem to give a flying fuck about him, Summer and Gina.  The female might have cared more, but she seemed extremely interested in Tristan the jaguar (which was smart on her part) and her partner.  To Seth, that meant getting his sister the fuck out of there.

He shifted fast, eyes flicking up and down Summer's torso, trying to get a grip on whether or not he could move her without putting her in even more danger.  Maybe.  "Jesus Christ, Summer," he hissed, glancing up at Gina for just a second like she might know what the hell to do about an injury like this, but she'd been calling for him.  HE had to deal with this.

"Fuckfuckfuck," he muttered, sliding his arms under Summer to scoop her up as gently as he could.  He wanted to yank that chunk of wood out of her, but he was afraid that would just make her spray blood everywhere, and they really couldn't deal with that kind of medical mess in a burning building.  They were on a tight schedule before the building came down around them, so dealing with it outside was a better idea.  "Hold on, Summer, I'll take care of you.  I promise, just let me get you out of here."

Really, he couldn't have said whether he was talking to Summer, or just talking for his own benefit, but he was up and headed for the door as quickly as he could move; being a cheetah, that was pretty damn fast, even in human form.

Fresh air was fantastic, great gulps of it to ease some of the burn in his lungs as he glanced back and hoped that Gina had followed.  The lost shotgun hadn't even occurred to him and wouldn't until he needed it next unless Gina had scooped it back up before leaving, and now he was glad that they'd left the keys in the truck.  "She has to stay alive long enough to heal, and I don't know if that'll happen without help," he told Gina, already intending to set himself and Summer up in the back of the truck while Gina drove.  There was no way they'd all fit in the front, and wasting time wasn't a good idea.  He just wasn't sure where to go.  Home?  Would his parents know how to deal with this?

"Fuck."

[Summer Bellwood]

 Summer was not in good shape, but she did feel a little better when she heard Seth. She felt worse because the girl calling for him had pretty much fallen on top of her, but at least she had the good sense to move. She reached a hand up, for Tristan, because she couldn't see or hear him anymore, but it was her brother who came to her rescue. He was yelling at the brunette, the brunette was yelling back. Summer felt a tremendous pain in her side, but she looked down only long enough to know that she didn't want to look down anymore.

"Where's Tristan?" she asked meekly, surprised at how weak her voice was. They either didn't hear her or they completely ignored her, because the next thing she knew there was a "One... two.. THREE" count and she was being pulled off of the thing that had impaled her. She yelled because it hurt, and tried feebly to swing at them because they were making it worse. Thankfully, both Gina and Seth were able-bodied, and they managed to get her all the way to the truck without much more trouble.

"Where's Tristan?" she kept asking. They still ignored her; or so she thought. Gina climbed into the back with her, keeping Summer stable as Seth tore ass down the road.

"Take her to Pyrige. I know it's far, but trust me, it'll be worth it. There's a guy I work with who can help."  Seth looked crazed. "He's a healer!" she shouted at him. And then, "Why does your sister keep asking for Tristan?"

[Tanith Korakas]

 God-damned mother fucking... Tanith's thoughts were fueled by worry but came out mostly in angry bursts as she ducked flaming beams and exploding appliances. Who ran into a burning house? She wagered it was nothing she wouldn't do for Taran, but at the same time, this was a wash. There was nothing left; no people. The scent of death was heavy to her, mostly because she was a raven and that was kind of her gig. She watched as two figures carried a third from the house, and shied away from the remains of a fourth - a vampire, by the scent, because there wasn't much of it left to identify gender, age or anything else.

"LONDON!" she finally screamed, putting her hands to her mouth. She inhaled a thick plume of black smoke and broke out coughing. Her damned bird lungs couldn't keep up with this for much longer. She stumbled against a chair that hadn't yet burst into flames, dropping to her knees on the tile of the kitchen floor. She could see legs, but her vision began to dot. "GET OUT OF THE FUCKING HOUSE!"

She felt the room tilt sideways, and then there was a massive shattering noise and she was on the grass. There were sirens and lights and she was coughing like mad. She rolled over and pushed herself up onto her feet, narrowly avoiding a collision with a uniform.

"Whoa, ma'am. I need you to get over to that ambulance and get checked out. You're lucky - that man got you and his son out of the house before it went up completely. What were you even thinking, going in there?"

"I'm fine - I'm Detective Korakas, NYPD. I need you to - "

"Listen detective, no offense, but you really need to just go get checked out. Go, sit over there. Go. Sit. Over there. Sit. There. Go."

It took a while, but Tanith finally was ushered to the back of a bus, where she sat and coughed up soot while politely ignoring the emotional moment London and his kid were having. She was a little to crispy to be bothered by being the third wheel for the moment. She filled the gap by placing a well-deserved call to her chief, to whom she reported with as little gory detail as possible what had transpired and suggested that they get all police who could be associated in any way with Midnight off of the streets now.