Dead as hell

He tries to half-crawl away from the house, and sees his dad doing the same—when everything behind him explodes. The shrapnel flies out everywhere, and a chair leg impales itself into the ground a few feet from him. He stays completely still on the ground, listening to the sounds of fire popping and snapping merrily from somewhere behind him, and it takes him a second to realize it’s his own pant leg. With a shout he rolls over and starts patting it out.

She stands in the wreckage, watching them all silently. This is enough and now there is only one place left for them to hide. Smoke begins to dance from hr skin and she disappears seconds later.

He watches the fireballs shoot toward him and he scrambles to get away from them. They explode in the wall behind him, and he feels his feet go flying out from under him. His body does a somersault through the air and meets the ground with his back. He jumps on his feet again and looks at Chavelle with bright, glowing blue eyes. Tlalli sounds in his head, and he makes a leap out the window. Landing on the ground with a roll, he meets sweet, fresh air and grass. Well, fresher air anyway.

She laughs as he falls and laughs when he flees. It has been years since she's killed a werewolf, years since she's felt the familiar slowing of a heart in her hands. There is no way that she is letting either of them get away. Fire gathers around her body, orange light gleaming off of each flame. Her head turns up towards the roof, a spell leaves her lips, and it all explodes. Pieces of the house fly up, some fly out towards the gathered ground. Through the smoke, the witch stands, flames flicking from her body. "You should have killed me." 

He leans over his dad, trying to throw him over his shoulder when Chavelle rounds the corner again. Luciano’s eyes dart to the fire dancing in her hand to her smiling, cackling face.

She watches his dad fly out of the window and it's hard to contain another bout of laughter. The downfall of the Rios-Amador family would be their inability to leave family behind. People were tools meant to be shaped and used, no sense in treating them as anything more than that. Chavelle raises her palms slightly and the orbs of fire raise, spinning like small tops. "Here it comes" she says in a trill voice, almost like she is singing a song. Each other rockets through the air, one going for his head and the other flying towards his leg.

A Castro. A lot of things make sense now. But he doesn’t have time for this. He grabs the chair he’s standing next to and hurls it in her direction. Not even checking if it hit, he runs down the hall, following the scent of his father.

She continued to smile and the chair burst into flame before it had the chance to touch her body. Fingers move down to her side as she thinks of a way to deal with the two of them. Her smile widens and she moves after Luciano, fire parting a she walks. Upon arrival, she notices that father and son have been united -- now would be the perfect chance to take both of them out. Fire sparked to life in the palm of her hands and she laughed at the top of her lungs. "Nice to see you again Mr. Rios."

Luciano decided that today he would pick up the last of his and Renata’s things from his parents’ house. Having nothing better to do, and not wanting to keep putting it off, he left the Vaduva mansion. As he turns onto the street mom and dad lived on, the sight of their house smoking and burning catches his eyes. He stops his car, the brakes squealing under his foot, and he pulls it up to the side of the house. Shock punches him in the gut and he stares for a few seconds, trying to make his mind believe what he was seeing. It’s the wrong house, I’m at the wrong house, he thinks. But nope, there are the rose bushes he’d come to recognize so well, and the nice red door that seemed so inviting. He can see that the paint around the windows are blackened, and the air around the house is hazy. Already there are a few people gathering across the street, pointing and anxiously speaking into their phones. As he gets out of car and steps onto the sidewalk, his ears pick up on something: his dad is yelling from inside the building. For an ugly second Luciano considers pretending to not have heard anything at all.

"Oh. Now that is interesting." She stands up from her position in the tree and watches as the child run towards the house. Chavelle tries to remember his name -- Lucino? Lucario? It's something useless and mundane, she is sure. When she sees him reach for the door and pull back, a loud laugh escapes her throat. She had always known wolves were incapable of understanding basic things, but she is surprised to see that he couldn't even figure out a door knob was hot. The wolf heads towards the backdoor and a spell leaves her lips -- tendrils of smoke rise up from her body then she vanishes as if she was never there. Teleporting feels like being stuffed through a keyhole, but she accepts it in order to appear on a counter in the Rios kitchen. Fire roars to life from behind him and blocks the exit and she offers him a dark smile. "Welcome to the fun, Lucinna."

— She froze. Something both ice-cold and white-hot stilled her joints, flitted through her thoughts; Chavelle’s voice tore straight through her, sounded constantly against her ears: stop, stop, stop and it was all Renata could think to do. The Wolf nagged at her consciousness, their teeth bared, their eyes glowing; Renata felt panic rise to her chest — rise further, still: hot and sticky as it clung to her throat. What was happening to her? Why couldn’t she move her arms, her legs — why couldn’t she muster her voice, manage any words? At instinct, her body trembled; at instinct, anger crashed against her thoughts, her heart as it hammered — rage and madness were all that she knew: rage and madness and a taut bundle of nerves, growing big, growing steady. As Chavelle stepped back, Renata felt the weight of the moment lay heavy on them — it pressed down hard, squeezed the air from her lungs, left her standing feeble. Breathe. Move. Fight — she needed to fight — why couldn’t she fight? Had she stayed with her parents, would she be able to fight now — would she have won by now; have earned the safety of Raul, of Luciano, of her family? Some part of her itched to know — but a much larger part was frozen in place, eyes fixed forward and waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting.

She stumbled backwards when the woman finally froze and something that was the love child of a laugh and cry came out of mouth. Chavelle wiped the blood away from her nose before taking deep breaths to calm herself down. Death had never been that close to her before and she would make sure that she never felt that cold grip around her neck again. Now that she was calm, she straightened herself and took slow steps towards the werewolf. A grin appeared on her lips as she threw her arm backwards, just as Renata had done minutes before, and brought it forward with a harsh slap against her face. Immediately, she took a step back in case there was any sign of retaliation. Nothing. That meant it was perfect, that everything would go as planned now. "Renata," she started quietly. "Kill your family and start with your little brother." The words felt like sweet honey leaving her lips. It was only fair, after all, Raul had killed Roland. 

She forced herself to be faster, to be stronger and angrier and mightier than Chavelle; she forced herself to think of Raul, of Luciano and of the safety they needed — the safety Chavelle and her family had torn from them, would keep tearing from them if Renata didn’t end this here and now and for forever. Faster, stronger, angrier, mightier — if she willed it, she would be it. Drawing close, Renata threw back her arm — her claws out — her mind fixed on blood, on the empty space of skin at Chavelle’s throat — she would end this now, she had to —

Mind control was not simple, it never had been and there was the continue thought in the very back of her mind that it would fail. You do not fail, she heard her mother say, if you fail then you are no longer welcome here. She could feel her heart beating in her chest at the thought and she knew what needed to be done. The Rios family would be taken out by one of their own. She started the spell was Renata grew closer, eyes slowly darkening in color as the spell progressed. Blood trickled down her nose as energy began buzzing through the air, she could see images of her life flashing, but it would all be worth it. One clawed hand moved backwards and a small burst of energy shot from the center of Chavelle's forehead and right at Renata. "Stop," she command breathlessly as the spell came into effect. She took a step backwards and began praying that everything would be successful.

She stumbles back and away from the wall of white-hot heat, feels her heartbeat hammer loud and louder still at the sight. Dizzily, Renata forces herself backwards — she turns on her heels, hurries away, feels the weight of smoke and ash and fire rest heavy on her frame; she knows little about fire magics — or fire in its entirety, she realizes, when she notices the tear in her pants and the pain that flares beneath it. Finally, she skids to a stop where the fire can’t touch her — where she hopes the fire can’t touch her — and she bites back a growl at the ache in her joints. The Wolf gnaws at her consciousness, slowly, angrily, mad at the way they’ve become so weak — if she hadn’t strayed from her parents, would things be easier, now? Would the burn mark be gone, would her heart be calmer, be stiller? I don’t care; it doesn’t matter. I don’t need them. We don’t need them. She howls, again, and it hangs in the air — and her eyes blaze blue, her claws shift outward, her rage swells and bursts in her chest. Stronger — they have to be stronger — they have to be the strongest — for Raul and for Luciano, they have to win. As the flames die down, the Wolf picks up: quick as possible and ignoring the dull ache in their leg, they run forward, again and against the thick smoke around them. Fast. Faster. Fastest. Eyes on Chavelle. Run, run, run.

The fire died down and she closed her mouth, licking at her chapped lips. Fingers cracked as she tried to gather the energy required for another spell -- breathing fire took time and it was supposed to end her opponent. There was going to be a lapse in time where her magic was useless and Chavelle cursed herself for starting off a fight with something so strong. Renata was advancing, quicker than she would have liked and she was running out of options. Ideas bounced around in her head until one stuck -- a grin appeared on her lips and she stood there silently, waiting for the attack that would come. "Prove how useless you are, Renata."

Anger sings beneath her skin, burns and bubbles beside her blood — a howl readies itself on her tongue, loud and hoarse and waiting. Renata keeps her eyes trained on Chavelle despite the fire that burns about them, that sits upon Chavelle’s open palm and dances there for a moment, two, until it takes to the air and Renata forces herself out of the way. She feels its heat sear the air, tastes the smoke sitting on her tongue; she knows she needs to move — knows she has to do it fast — so she lunges forward and at Chavelle, feeding on that anger, that need to protect her family — and she lets loose that howl.

She's studied werewolves for most of her life and she often wonders if they realize how predictable they are. Flames roared to life in front of her body and the witch took a few steps back in order to put distance between them. The woman raised head slightly, before she began to mutter a spell. "Respiro fuego," said said in the first language that she learned. Burn marks began to appear on her clothes and her eyes shifted, the pupil slanting until they were reptilian. When she opened her mouth, a blast of fire erupted out and flew towards Renata. 

At that, she laughs — harsh and short-lived, she smiles for a moment after. “That’s funny. You think you stand a chance against me? Cut the crap, then. Fight me.”

There is a shift inside of her when the werewolf makes demand. Chavelle doesn't understand who Renata thinks she is, but she'll be sure to remind the young girl of her place. "Remember," she says as trees in the area catch flame. "You asked for this." A ball of fire appears in the palm of her hand and she sends it flying towards her foe.

Rolling her eyes, Renata steps forward. “I don’t have time for this,” she says. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave my family alone. And if you don’t — I’ll kill you. Make your choice.”

She smiles in return. "You can try to kill me, but you won't get very far. I could use a new fur coat, I suppose."

"No need to waste time casting spells or any other nonsense. I’ll go in, knock him out, and bring him out. Just be ready to move when I bring him out."

"Okay."

"How do you know the youngest pup is still the weakest link? He could have grown some since the last time you crossed paths."

"If he has, I'll still be able to take him out with you."

"If you require my assistance, then yes, I will lend you a hand."

"Okay, great, we'll start tomorrow."

"What would make you think that I do?"

She rolls her eyes. "So are you going to help me or not?"