a guardian.

Police weren’t her favourite people, and neither were shady government agencies that had massive, suspicious, headquarters in relatively small towns. Yet, here she was walking into the suspect looking building of her own accord. She’d been asked to come in and though she doubted this boded well for her, she wasn’t in the mood to be shoved in the back of a paddy wagon and dragged down here. No one knows about that night, no one knows, she told herself as she walked in. 

More or less as soon as she got in, she was given a speech by some agent, one which almost made Arlo roll her eyes. Solid, and agency that isn’t doing anything, great, she thought bitterly as she waited for the woman to finish her piece. “Well, thanks for the spiel, but I don’t really care. I was asked to come in?”

Madeline nodded as the woman came into the conference room. “Please, have a seat,” she said. Madeline sat down and flipped her notepad to a blank sheet of paper. “Thank you for coming in at such a short notice, Arlo.” She motioned for a couple of her other employees to leave them alone. “I’d like to talk to you about what happened over the last six months.” She folded her hands in front of her as she looked the woman straight in the eye. “It has come to my attention that you were in a relationship with Spencer Peterson around the time that he broke his sister, Mercedes Delgado, out of federal quarantine and then fell ill himself. Could you please elaborate on the extent of your relationship?”

Sitting from one of the many desks in the SSRA office, Addison watched everything around her. She was beat. She worked her ass off nonstop, and for what? There were no results, so she found herself just sitting around with her feet up on the glass surface, ungracefully chewing on the cap of a pen. Lazily, she watched a disgruntled citizen march out of the office. “Have a nice day,” she sardonically commented. And as the chair swiveled, she noticed her aunt was free, for once. Without pause, Addison popped out of her chair and into Madeline’s office.

“Hey Auntie,” she began, leaning against the door frame. “I haven’t seen you around the apartment in a while.”

Madeline sighed when her niece came into the room. Ever since the plague, she’d neglected her most important job, being a guardian for Addison. “Addison,” she said with a small smile. “I’m sorry. I have been busy with sorting out the federal quarantine and keeping the supernatural from getting...more or less revealed but it seems that did not happen...because of the...” She moved her hands in the air to signify the rifts that had opened up. “The rifts are what some people are calling them. And, we’ve lost some of our own, making paperwork difficult. In light of these events, I’ll be closing down operations for a while. I don’t think we’ll be moving any time soon either.”

“Currently, the SSRA will not be taking anymore cases or looking into cases that are open. All cases will be put on hold while we recuperate. I will put out more information within the coming days. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

I should just follow the bloody curfew, the warlock thought as the makeshift hunting party stared her down. There didn’t really seem to be any logic to how they picked their targets, but tonight she seemingly was on their list. Arlo slipped her hand into her back pocket, her fingers wrapping around her closed butterfly knife. Just as she was about to strike a lady came up with a gun. Using the momentary distraction, she swung at the closest of the three, her fist (holding the closed metal knife) colliding squarely with his cheek. Quickly she turned and elbowed the second in the nose, before grabbing his shoulder and yanking him down to knee him in the stomach, forcing a wheeze from him. Arlo groaned slightly as the final guy managed to get a hit on her, so she faked as though she was going to punch him, and then kicked up between his legs, watching him crumple to the ground. Picking up her bag that she had dropped, the warlock faced the woman with the gun. “Thanks for the distraction.”

“What are you doing out here past curfew?” Madeline asked. She wasn’t concerned about the men she’d just taken out. She turned around to kick one of the men in the head when he started to move. She collected their weapons and walked after the warlock. “You look like you’re headed somewhere. I’m sure you can take care of yourself, but I’m not letting you walk alone,” she added. Madeline dumped the weapons in a nearby trash can and put her own gun in its holster. She glanced around to see if those men would come after them again. 

A couple of bad puns, alcohol and a punch to the face later, Genevieve was being cornered by a group of men she obviously shouldn’t have fucked with outside of the bar. She had been slightly irate from her previous encounter with hunting parties, not to mention she energy level was low due to lack of fresh blood. She was about to let her fangs loose and go out kicking and screaming when a blonde woman put herself in between Genevieve and the hunting party. Surprise, the vampire let out a small gasp for effect, taking a step closer to the woman as she thanked her. “Thank you, bless you, I…they’re accusing me of being sick- t-this is my first time out of the house in weeks.”

Madeline glanced back briefly over her shoulder and nodded. “It’s alright. I’ve got you,” she said. She faced forward with her eyes locked on the hunting party. She didn’t use her powers very often, but now seemed like a good time to use them. “I have backup,” she told the men. “If you don’t leave, they’ll be here in seconds.” The men didn’t believe her. They started creeping closer. Madeline closed her eyes for a second and when they opened, “a group” of her people came bounding from around the corner and had their weapons pointed at the men. “One last time or we shoot,” she said. The hunting party started to evaluate their odds and they were sorely outnumbered. Still, one of the men tried to make a move, and Madeline’s people were on it. They crowded around the men and engaged in a fight while Madeline grabbed the woman’s hand and pulled her away from the fray. “Are you alright? What’s your name?” Madeline asked as soon as they were in a safe zone. 

The papers were crumpling under Addison’s grip. Was Madeline seriously considering moving? How long had she been thinking this? Before she could tumble down into a pit of endless questions, her aunt addressed her. The young witch’s mouth opened and then shut again. Finding out that more and more of her associates were dying and not being able to do much was draining all of her energy. “Chamomile, please,” Addison finally conceded before tossing the destroyed papers aside. “When were you planning on telling me? Or were you even planning on telling me before purchasing a place?”

Madeline opened up their cabinet with a mass selection of tea. She pulled down her niece’s favorite and put the tea bag in the filled cup before setting it on the table. She got herself a cup of green tea and wrapped her hands around the warm mug as she sat down. “I was going to tell you as soon as I decided if it was best for us to move or not. I still hadn’t decided yet. I figured I would have your input before I made a decision.” Madeline took a small sip of her tea. Still too hot. “I was thinking we should move to a real home instead of keeping the apartment. This place is large for the two of us and it’s getting expensive when half the time we’re not here. When the quarantine was lifted, I thought we could look at smaller homes and perhaps buy one.”

“I see you found the brochures for open houses.” Madeline looked at the pamphlets and then to her niece who was grasping them tightly. “I was going to bring it up to you earlier, but the CDC placed the quarantine and we had larger issues at hand.” She turned around to turn off the stove as the kettle whistled. “Do you want some tea and we can talk about this?” she asked. She realized she hadn’t talked to Addison much when Holden moved them to Massachusetts. He’d found something strange about this town and he was right. And that was what may have potentially destroyed him.