WHO: Saoirse Mullet and Thomas McCormack
WHAT: Emma and Cristina are terrible people
WHERE: Some street. Some lonely, empty street.
WHEN: TODAY?
Saoirse curled her hands in her pockets as she walked, tilting her head down to let the rain slip off her hood and drop to the ground. Her coat was charmed to repel water, though that didn’t exactly matter when she had to look up to talk to Thomas beside her; the rain didn’t bother her that much. It was actually rather calming, though it was entirely possible that this ease she was feeling was from her lunch with Thomas and not the weather.
It had been nice, inspite of tackling the heavy topic of that which had happened to them a little under a year ago. And she felt better because of it, surprisingly, or at least like she was very much able to carry on with her life because she refused to hide, or be fearful that something could potentially happen at any moment. That wasn’t exactly a way to live, and she certainly wasn’t going to give anyone that kind of power over her.
But enough of that, she wished to think of happier things while they walked to an apparation point. Saoirse pulled her hand out of her pocket, and tugged her hood so that it better covered her face as she looked up at Thomas.
“A practice pitch at your house would be fun. You could have quidditch parties.” She scrunched her nose at her last words, already disliking them. Quidditch parties? That sounded awful. “Maybe just small get togethers instead. I don’t like the connotation of a party.”
“It’ll fill up the off season, that’s for sure,” Thomas said with a nod, his face nearly mimicking Saoirse’s look of disgust at the word ‘party.’ No, parties tended to get out of hand, and with
his plans for a practice pitch, well. It most certainly would not be allowed to get trashed because some drunken quidditch players decided to toss themselves through the hoops without their broomsticks.
Oh, he’d seen it happen.
He was trying to keep in touch with his team, as he thought a good captain should. Thomas had really come to enjoy the presence of the girls, as a group and on an individual basis, something that he had not been expecting or anticipating to be easy. It
hadn’t been easy, but the Arrows seemed to respect being a good player and sportsman over social tendencies that others might not find quite so easily ignorable. He got along best with Saoirse, Thomas liked to think, as their temperaments and quidditch ideals were similarly aligned. He also felt a bit protective of her, though he was smart enough to never admit that he felt that way to the strong-willed girl.
But, being kidnapped and torn from your lives together tended to put that sort of ties on a person. Thomas still felt aches of guilt that he hadn’t been able to stop their attackers from taking Saoirse, he was her
captain. He should have been able to do more.
“Kendall and I plan to start building when it gets warmer,” he said, daring to look up at the dark clouds, his face getting pelted with raindrops. It didn’t bother him much.
She hummed something of a response, and dropped her gaze back down to the ground. Thomas was looking for something to fill up his empty time? She felt like she had barely begun to experience it yet. That was untrue, of course, but with Howell, and then Nona, getting sick so quickly after returning from Istanbul, there had been so much to do that Saoirse had found herself still looking forward to that downtime that had still not quite yet come. And apparently wouldn’t, at least not yet.
Saoirse had been toying with the idea of offering her help with this construction (though, quite frankly she didn’t feel inclined to, and, it was unclear if this project was meant for only Thomas and his friend to partake in), when her thoughts were interrupted by a passerby ramming so hard into her that she stumbled back in shock. A pair of heavy hands caught her from falling, but the moment they started clutching her in a way she knew Thomas never would, Saoirse sharply jerked out of their grip.
Tottering a bit, her sight was restricted by her hood, and with the rain and her disbalance, it took Saoirse a couple of beats to properly restore an alert awareness of her surroundings. Out of instinct, Saoirse went to slip her wand out of her sleeve, but a chillingly familiar voice stopped her hand in its tracks.
“Might want to rethink that thought, mudblood.”
Her jaw tightened to spread a wholly steeled look across her face. She remembered that voice, she remembered that face---
him. Saoirse’s foot naturally pulled back, tipping to her toes for the beginnings of a quick turn-away, but the man scoffed.
“You’d leave your friend?”
Though her eyes never strayed from his guise, it still took Saoirse by surprise when, acting suddenly, the man crushed his hand around her neck and clutched it savagely. She let out a few low sputters, already beginning to feel the effects of lacking air while he dragged her along into the alley as well.
Thomas was pushed back as the assailant hurled his way between the two and he would have stumbled off the pavement and into the street if someone hadn’t caught him. The savior didn’t hold his title for long, as Thomas’ arm was twisted behind him so hard that it felt like his shoulder dislocated from its socket. He was stronger than whoever held him as Thomas used his strength to hurl them forward, but as their feet stumbled a sharp pain pierced his side.
He let out cry of anguish and the attacker pulled Thomas back into him, snarling angrily into his ear and applying more pressure to the knife he’d pressed into his side, “Keep moving and you won’t make it off the
street.”
His eyes widened at the threat, completely and utterly caught off-guard. Stupid, stupid, he should have reported the wand, he should have contacted Saoirse earlier, it---this was something that could have been prevented and needed to be stopped immediately. Thomas caught Saoirse’s eye, nearly shaking in anger and rage because this could
not happen again.
“
Run,” he mouthed to her, shaking his head as he continued to struggle. She couldn’t listen to the other man, she had to go---Thomas couldn’t hold back the shout at the blinding pain as he was pushed forward into the alleyway, but he continued to fight against the attacker’s hold. “Leave her---
alone!”
Thomas flung his head back and cracked the back of his skull hard on the forehead of his assailant. The man grunted loudly in shock, but Thomas didn’t make it far before there were more individuals coming up the other end. They were cornered and unable to apparate. This---couldn’t be
happening.
Saoirse grappled with the man’s grip, finding that her prying and forceful fingers were no match against his locked fist under her jaw. Water began to form in her eyes as she gasped for air, and, for a second, before a metallic glint caught her eye, she wondered if he thought he would suffocate her here, on the street.
Well, that was certainly not going to happen, she thought fiercely, and without hesitation seized the knife dangling around her attacker’s belt to, with one hand, quickly ram it into his side. Having turned around to address his companions, he fell the ground with surprise and let out a gurgled noise of pain. Saoirse stumbled too, a natural reaction to finally being able to regain her breath, and caught herself by resting her hands on her knees.
The others that had joined them were quick to react, but before their feet could make another splash against the ground, she pulled out her wand. With a few quick cracks most of the group was immobilized with a Freezing Charm. Well, all but one, really, who she looked upon coldly as he snarled behind Thomas.
This would
not be happening again, she was
not going to experience what they had experienced again, and quite simply, she refused to be torn from a normal existence because some people decided to make it so. Breathing heavily, Saoirse, from her spot a few feet away from Thomas and his captor, pointed her wand toward the pair.
“Release him,” she said heavily, still having not fully caught back her breath.
Thomas would have been ridiculously and utterly proud of Saoirse’s performance if he had seen it. He’d whipped out his wand as well, facing toward the attackers coming from the other direction. They began to descend on them and while he wasn’t the best of duelers, his mind was racing for spells that would shoot these heathens to oblivion.
“
Stupefy!” he shouted, sending one of them flying back and landing in a collection of rubbish bins. The others jumped away and Thomas embraced for a retaliation spell, but it never came. He threw his arm up to send another vicious spell down the alley way, but faltered at the words tumbling out of his next victim’s lips.
“If you ever want to see your
Rose again, you better shut it!” the man snapped. Thomas blinked, mouth dropping open in shock. Rose? Did they---
“Don’t you dare say her name again,” Thomas snarled, jabbing his wand into the man’s throat. He would
kill---
“How about Kendall’s?” a voice from behind him. Thomas turned quickly, but that had been an emotionally charged mistake. Not a moment later something hard and heavy hit him squarely in the back of his head, sending him down to his knees. His wand went skittering down the alleyway and Thomas tried to blink the stars out from in front of his eyes.
“Saoirse---” he tried to say, she needed to
run, but---if they had Rose, or knew where---Thomas managed to lift his head even though the movement wracked his brain with tremors of great pain. He gritted his teeth. “Don’t
hurt them!”
She had been inches away from wrapping her fingers around Thomas’ arm when the deep voice she thought she had put down spoke over the chaos.
“We’ve had some time to get to know you two.”
The knife clanged to the ground, and Saoirse’s eyes narrowed as she watched the man rise up and emerge from the crowd, holding his side as he walked slowly. She and Thomas were surrounded now, not that it mattered when you could disappear into thin air with a crack, but at the very least this small collection of assailants had moved back to make space between them. She kept her hand hovering over Thomas’s form, having already knelt down to his level and effectively completely ignored his pleas for her to flee.
“If you want to leave, then go,” the man said huskily, obviously in pain but unwilling to submit to it. “Plenty of mudbloods and unworthies to go around. We don’t need
you.” His sneer made Saoirse’s toes curl, and she thought of how just seconds ago the names of Thomas’ friends had been thrown about. She knew what was coming, where this man was going, but that didn’t stop her from feeling surprise and anger when he got there.
“Your
best friend finally came back home, what a pretty house you’ve decorated. And there’s a nice new boy in your life, isn’t there Saoirse? What were their names again? Nona and Ho--”
Saoirse shot a warning hex at his feet, effectively stopping him from stepping any closer or speaking further. Her lip curled up rather savagely, to which elicited a few inappropriate laughs.
“If you don’t come with us, then we are going after them.” He shrugged slightly, as if it being the most simplest of matters. And, Saoirse supposed she should have weighed the potential of this bluff more heavily, but with the introduction of the people they cared about into this mess, it became much harder to think clearly. Think or do anything, really, except hand over her wand and go away quietly.
Saoirse bent further to look at Thomas, her drenched hair cascading to create something of a veil of privacy. Her hood had long fallen down, her face exposed to the rain beating down. “We have to go with them,” she said sadly, weakly.
Thomas’ jaw was clenched, but nodded slightly, barely making the motion. He knew that they were in no place to bargain after what these people had done to them before. The fact that they
knew their friends’ names was enough to send his heart into palpitations. He was not a foolhardy person; Thomas would not wager a risk against Kendall or Rose being hurt because he did not follow the demands of these...he didn’t even know what kind of mission they were on. The man had called Saoirse a mudblood, but Thomas had a magical bloodline. There must be some sort of agenda that he wasn’t seeing, and maybe this time around, instead of putting up a tremendous fight, he could--
they could---use their logical ways to get out of it.
He stood, using the brick wall to help himself to his feet. Hunched, Thomas glared hard at the apparent ringleader, the pain in his side now throbbing badly. He ignored it, however, and put his arm around Saoirse’s shoulders. They were in this together, but he was her captain and that meant something to him.
“Don’t fucking touch her again,” he growled, sure that he would not be able to contain himself if this man laid his finger’s on Saoirse again. As logical as he was attempting to be, his threshold for this sort of conduct was already running
rather thin.
The man smirked, holding his hand to his side. The knife she had stabbed into his side and Thomas’ threat seemed to be adequate enough to simply cause him to point in the direction he wished them to head.
“We’ll see about that,” the man let out, shoving Thomas in the shoulder to get him to move faster. Biting his tongue, Thomas forced the man’s voice into his memory, promising himself he was
never going to forget it.
