#slenderverse oc

Sometime past four, Brooke’s phone buzzed on the table, the screen lighting up with a number Brooke didn't recognize. She stared at it, letting it ring three times before she picked it up, voice pitched low so it wouldn't carry down the hall.

"Who is this?" She questioned.

"You don't know my voice." A woman, careful, pitched just as low on the other end, like she was as worried about being overheard as Brooke was. "But I think you'll want to hear what I have to say before you decide to hang up." Brooke's grip tightened on the phone.

"Valarie?" A pause, longer than it should have been.

"I'm not going to confirm that. Phones aren't safe, neither is this call. I don't have long." A breath, unsteady. "I know where Lee is being kept. I can get you in to see him, tonight, before anyone thinks to check." Brooke stood so fast the chair scraped hard against the tile.

"Why would you do that? Who is this?" Her heart pounded.

"Because I've watched your brother get worse for two years, and I've watched you get thinner every month trying to hold what's left of him together, and I am tired of being one more person who stood by and did nothing to help." The voice cracked slightly before steadying again. "But I'm not doing it for free, and I'm not doing it out of kindness alone. There's a condition."

"Yeah, yeah. . of course, just name it."

"You come alone." No hesitation in that part at all. "Leave the boy home. Just you, and you tell no one where you're going, not even him, not until after. If Sean finds out I did this, it isn't just my life that's on the line, do you understand? I need to know this stays between the two of us until you're standing in that room." Brooke's eyes flicked toward the dark stairway, toward the room where Mo was finally sleeping, oblivious.

"He's not going to let me go alone." Brooke sighed quietly, pinching the bridge of her nose. She really didn’t have it in her to argue with him at four in the morning.

"Then don't ask him." Valarie’s voice had gone quiet, gentle and almost pleading. "You have one hour before this window closes and somebody notices Lee's guard rotation is short a person tonight. One hour, alone, or this offer doesn't come around again. I've already risked more than I should telling you this much." Click. The line went dead before Brooke could say anything else.

She stood in the kitchen for a long moment, phone still pressed to her ear, listening to the dial tone and the sound of Mo's steady snoring. Hesitantly, she set the phone down, reached for her jacket, and did not go to wake him. She grabbed the car keys off the counter and slipped into her boots before slipping out the backdoor.

The storage facility sat off a road so unremarkable Brooke had driven past the turn twice before she trusted the directions Valarie had texted her. Rows of metal doors, the kind of place that existed specifically so no one would ever think to look there. Unit 114 had a padlock that wasn't locked, just hung through the latch to look locked, and Valarie was waiting beside it in her plain black cloak, hood down, face drawn and old in the flat light.

"Ten minutes," Valarie said, not meeting Brooke's eyes. "That's all that I can get you. Not a second more."

"Thank you, Val."

"Don't thank me." She unhooked the lock, rolled the door up about two feet, just enough to duck under. "Thank me by never telling anyone that I did this." Brooke ducked inside, and the door rattled back down behind her, sealing the light out and leaving only the single battery lantern glowing in the corner of the unit.

"Lee. ." Brooke quietly called, staring at him in the corner. He lifted his head slowly, as if it cost him every ounce of energy he had left. Even in the poor light Brooke could see what nearly a month had done to him; the hollowed-out cheeks, the split and half-healed cut above one eye, the way his wrists had rubbed raw and dark against the rope holding them to the post. For a long moment he just stared at her. The look on his face went from confusion, to recognition, to something close to anger in a matter of seconds.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me." His voice was dry, but the anger in it came through anyway. "They send you? Of all the people they could've sent, they send you?"

"Nobody sent me. I came on my own." She retorted, examining him.

"Even worse." He laughed. The movement made him wince, his ribs were clearly not in good shape. "Decided to swing by on your own time. That's sweet, Brooke. Real. . oh, I dunno, sisterly of you."

"Don't start with me, Lee."

"Don't start?" He strained forward against the rope, causing it to bite deeper into his skin that was already raw. "You were in that first room. I may have had a bag over my head, but I know your voice. I've known your voice since I was fifteen. You stood there and let it happen to me."

"I wasn't the one doing anything." Brooke argued, anxiously cracking her fingers. She felt horrible. She couldn’t do anything, couldn’t try getting him out. This was like some cruel joke.

"No, but you just stood there, you just let it all happen. So, in my books you’re just as guilty." His eyes tracked her like she was the enemy, not the woman who'd walked in to help. "That's supposed to make it better? You just watched your brother's people beat the shit out of me, and now you want a thank you for showing up after, after who knows how many weeks?"

"I didn't come here for a thank you." Brooke crossed her arms, not bothering to kneel, not bothering to soften anything about how she appeared. "I came here because Mo's been losing his mind and going through every possibility to try finding you, and I figured somebody should tell you that before you rot in here feeling sorry for yourself."

"Wow, thanks Brooke, such useful information, delivered with love." Lee's jaw tightened, fury cutting cleaner through the exhaustion now. "Is that supposed to fix anything? You just show up, remind me that my brother's out there worried sick, and then what? You get to walk back out and let them keep me chained to a post for another two months?"

"Well. . . I never said I had a way to get you out tonight." She muttered, her fingers digging into her arms.

"Then what exactly are you here for, Brooke?" His voice cracked, more from anger than weakness. "Because from where I'm sitting, this feels a lot like checking in on the trophy, making sure it's still breathing before you go back to playing house with your brother's cult."

"Watch it." She sneered.

"Or what?" He gave a bitter, humorless smile. "What are you going to do, hit me? Be my guest, get in line." Brooke's jaw tightened.

"You want to sit here and talk shit me for the next two minutes, be my guest. Won't change the fact that I'm the only person who's walked through that door for you since this started."

"Doesn't mean I owe you anything for it."

"I didn't ask for any sort of gratitude." She crouched finally, just to get level with him, her voice gone flat. "I’ve asked for nothing, actually. I came because Mo needs to know that you're still breathing, and now I've seen it myself, so I can tell him that much is true."

"Congratulations." Lee's glare didn't soften. "Mission accomplished." Outside, three sharp knocks against the metal door; Valarie’s signal, time already ran out. "Go," Lee said, tired, his head hanging down in defeat. "Before you get both of us killed." Brooke hesitated then stood, ducking back out under the rising door into the light without looking back, leaving him chained in the dark behind her.

The house was still dark when she let herself back in, the sky outside just starting to lighten at the edges. She eased the back door shut behind her, careful with the lock, and made her way up the stairs and down the hall toward her room. She began silently bracing herself for the conversation she didn't have the energy for yet.

Mo was still asleep on her bed, exactly where she'd left him an hour ago, one arm thrown over his eyes against the thin light starting to creep past the curtain, his breathing slow, undisturbed. Brooke stood in the doorway for a long moment, just watching him sleep. She eased the door shut behind her, making her way over to the bed and slowly dropping herself down. Mo stirred for a moment, muttering something in his sleep before rolling over. She sighed quietly, laying and staring at the ceiling. The conversation that would inevitably come wasn’t one she was prepared for.

Mo woke to the sun trying to get past the curtain and the warmth of someone beside him. Brooke had curled up into a ball, her back to Mo. She was still in her clothes with one arm tucked under her head like she'd given up fighting sleep at some point. He didn't ever remember her getting into bed. He pushed himself upright, carefully testing his ribs. He found she was awake already, her eyes open and staring at the ceiling with the stillness of someone who hadn't actually slept, just laid there pretending to.

"Hey." His voice was rough with sleep.

"Morning. ." Something in the flatness of her voice caught him off guard. He sat up, wincing, and studied her; new bags under her eyes, a tightness around her mouth that hadn't been there when he'd left the kitchen.

"You didn't sleep at all, huh?"

"No."

"Brooke." He shifted to face her. "Did something happen?" She was quiet for a long moment, jaw working, and then it came out of her fast, too fast, her words tumbling over one another like she'd been holding them back and had finally let go.

"Someone called around four, told me she could get me in to see Lee, one hour only. There was one condition, I had to go alone, nobody could know until it was already done or it wasn't just her on the line, it was everyone who's ever helped either of us, and I had an hour, one hour, so I went." Mo went still hearing this, his eyes locked on her.

"You what?"

"I saw him. He's alive." She sat up too now, arms wrapped around her knees, voice picking up instead of slowing down. "He's hurt, hates me and didn't give me anything useful to work with. No location, no schedule, nothing. He spent the whole time telling me exactly what he thinks of me, which is fine, he's not wrong about any of what he said. But I saw him, Mo, with my own eyes, and I didn't have time to wake you and argue about it!"

"You didn't have time, or you didn't want to?" Mo was fully upright now, anger cutting through the last of the sleep that held onto him. "Because those are two very different things, Brooke, and I think we both know which one it actually was."

"Don't do that."

"Don't do what? Point out the fact that you snuck out in the middle of the night to see my brother, the one I’ve been trying to fucking find, and didn't think I deserved a say in it?"

"I didn't sneak ou-"

"You left while I was asleep and came back before I woke up. That's sneaking, that's exactly what that word means."

"I made a decision because I was faced with a deadline!" Her voice cracked, sharp and fast. The exhaustion in her was turning her brittle. "You want to be mad at me, fine, be mad. But don't sit there acting like I owe you a play-by-play of every choice I make just because you're scared.” Brooke’s fingers dug into her legs as she stared, her breathing staggered. “I've been making choices like this my whole life, Mo. All alone, with worse stakes, and I don't need you telling me how it should've gone from the safety of my bed-"

"Don't turn this around like I'm the unreasonable one here." He spat, anger rising in him more and more by the minute.

"I'm not turning anything around, I'm telling you the truth! You don't actually know what it costs to walk into that room, you weren't there, you don't get to have an opinion about how I should've handled it!"

"He's my brother, I think you’re forgetting that part. So, I think I’m almost entitled to an opinion here."

"And Sean is mine, and I have been managing what that means since before I knew either of you two, so forgive me if I don't need a crash course from you on how to protect the people I love." The words came out fast, cold and precise in a way that didn't sound like her. To Mo, it sounded like someone else entirely, some version of her voice sanded down and hardened into something Sean might have built. "You think showing up and getting punched in a gym makes you an expert on this family? You don't know anything, Mo, and I am so tired of managing your feelings about this on top of everything else I'm already carrying." The words hit like a slap, and for a second neither of them said anything at all, the silence ringing where the shouting had been. All Brooke could do was stare, her eyes glossing over with tears.

“Right, yeah. I don’t know anything, sorry." Mo's voice had gone quiet, hurt cutting through the anger now. "Sorry you gotta deal with me, right?" Brooke's face changed the moment it was out of her mouth and she had realized what she said. Something broke behind the edges, horror creeping in fast on the heels of whatever had just spoken through her.

"Mo, I didn't me-" She pressed a hand over her mouth, tears starting to fall. Whatever coldness had carried her through the last thirty seconds had drained out all at once and left something much more frightened in its place. "I didn't mean that. Oh my god. . I don't even know where that came from, I don't. ."

"It sounded like it came from somewhere real." Mo muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. It was far too early in the morning for this.

"I don’t know where it came from." Her voice broke entirely now, the anger collapsing into something rawer. "All I know is that’s exactly how my brother talks when he wants to end an argument instead of finish it. I just heard myself do it to you, I hate that I know how to do that.” She was crying now, angry at herself more than at him. "I don't really think those things, I promise. You're the only person who's walked into any of this and stayed, and I just said the ugliest things I could to make you stop looking at me like I did something wrong." She choked out. Deep down, she knew she did do something wrong but, that was a different conversation, one they could deal with later.

Mo sat with what she said for a moment, his own anger draining out, being replaced by something tired and aching that didn't have anywhere else to go. Then he reached for her. She let him, folding into him, careful of her bandaged shoulder, both of them holding on harder than either of them had probably meant to.

"I'm still mad." he said into her hair, quiet.

"I know, I deserve it."

"I'm still going to be mad in the morning."

"It is morning."

Sean finally unfroze. Whatever had short circuited in him at the sight of Brooke’s blood burned off, and was replaced by something furious. He scooped Brooke up almost bodily, one arm hooked under her knees, the other bracing her back, and when Mo reached to take some of her weight off him, Sean rounded on him with a glare that had nothing rational left in it.

"Don't touch her." His voice cracked with the force of it, hands trembling even as they held his sister tightly. "Don't you dare touch her, this is your fault. If she would’ve never offered to help you th-"

"My fault? It’s your fault for putting that thing in this building in the first place!" Mo shot back, already moving, shoving Sean toward the door since arguing and walking were the only two things happening at once. "Move, just fucking move, we can argue when she's not bleeding on the goddamn floor!"

"I know what she needs better than you do."

"Then move faster, dumbass!" Behind them, the low growl rose in pitch, the sound of claws clamoring on the gym floor sent both of them lurching the last few feet through the doorway without another word. The office was dark, one dead bulb and one still buzzing overhead. Sean laid Brooke down across the old desk with a gentleness that looked nothing like the man who'd just been screaming in Mo's face, both hands cupping the back of her head like she might shatter if it hit the surface wrong.

"Hey. Hey, look at me, not at him, at me. . ." His voice had gone quiet, urgent and low, entirely just for his sister, like Mo had ceased to exist in the room. "You're fine. You're going to be fine, I got you."

"Sean, the door, it’s. . it’ll get in. ." Brooke's voice was full of pain, but her eyes cut past him, to Mo, to the door they'd just come through, still hanging open with the speaker growling in the dark. Mo didn't wait to be told twice. He grabbed the nearest thing heavy enough to matter; an old filing cabinet, mostly empty. He drug it in front of the door, breath ragged and his ribs screaming for a break. Behind him Sean kept talking low and fast to his sister like the words themselves could hold the wound shut and stop the blood from flowing everywhere.

The filing cabinet scraped to a stop in front of the door. For a moment the only sound was the growl on the other side of it, muffled but still enough to be terrifying. The speaker was patient in a way that made Mo's skin crawl worse than if it had thrown itself against the door to try and get in.

"That's not going to hold if it actually wants to get in here." Mo said, breathing hard, turning to look back toward the desk.

"It's not trying to get in." Sean muttered. He didn't look up from Brooke. He had one hand pressed flat over the wound on her shoulder now, blood soaking dark through his fingers. "If it wanted in, it’d already be in here."

"Is that. . . supposed to be comforting or something?"

"It's the truth, fucker." Sean's voice was tight, clipped, all his attention narrowed down to his sister's face. She was pale, her eyes struggled to keep themselves open. “Hey, hey, Brooke? Just keep your eyes open, okay?”

"I'm. . here." Her words came out slurred at the edges. She couldn’t keep focused on anything, and the single buzzing bulb was hurting her eyes. “Here, just. . dizzy."

"That's the blood loss, not the wound, it's not deep enough t-" He stopped himself, jaw tight, and pressed harder against her shoulder, causing Brooke to whine in pain. "It's going to be fine. You hear me? Fine, everything will be okay."

"You keep saying that." Mo muttered as crouched on Brooke's other side, tearing off his sweatshirt without thinking twice, balling it up and pressing it against the wound alongside Sean's hand, ignoring the way Sean flinched at the contact like Mo's touch might do more damage than the claw had. "Doesn't make it true though."

"I don't need you telling me what's true about my own sister."

"Where's a real bandage, Sean? Gauze, anything? Does this office have a first aid kit or did the Speaker eat all your emergency supplies too?" Mo asked, blood already soaking through the sweatshirt.

"There's a kit in the bottom drawer, and I don't need you talking to me like I don't know how to take care of her."

"I'm not talking to you like anything, I'm asking where the kit is so we can try to he-"

"Bottom fucking drawer!" Sean's voice cracked, angry. For a second the two of them just glared at each other across Brooke's woozy, half-focused stare, both of them shaking, both useless in different ways.

"Both of you. ." Brooke mumbled, eyes drifting, "for the love of god, shut up." Mo yanked the drawer open and stared at the kit. He grabbed it, tearing it open with hands that weren't as steady as he wanted them to be. Gauze, tape, nothing that felt nearly enough for how much blood had already soaked through his sweatshirt and onto the desk beneath her.

"This is a school first aid kit," he said, disbelieving. "This is for, oh I don’t know. . scraped knees, not a fucking gash across a shoulder."

"It's all that we have." Sean's hands hadn't stopped shaking the entire time, tremors running through fingers that were trying, and failing to hold steady pressure to the wound. "She's not going to die. She's not, I've seen worse."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better about this situation?" Mo scoffed, fishing out the tiny gauze wrap and throwing it over to Sean.

"I don't care how it makes you feel." Sean didn't look up after catching the gauze. He didn't stop working, taping gauze down with hands that kept slipping. "I just care about her."

"Then maybe start caring about the fact that your freaky ass cult is the reason she's bleeding on a desk right now." Mo's voice had gone low, full of anger. All the fear from the last ten minutes changed into something meaner. "Maybe start caring that my brother's chained up somewhere in the dark because of the same thing, and instead of telling us where he is, you're too busy playing devoted brother for the first time in who fucking knows how long because she’s hu-"

"Don't fucking finish that." Sean's head snapped up, eyes blazing, something violent flickering behind them despite the tremor still running through his hands. "Don't you dare use her to get to Lee. Not right now, not while she's bleeding because of you."

"Because of me?" Mo scoffed.

"Stop." Brooke's voice, weak but sharp enough to cut through both of them. Her hand found Mo's wrist, fingers cold and unsteady, leaving blood behind. "Stop it. Both of you. I can hear you, you both know that, right?" She swallowed, throat dry, eyes struggling to hold on both their faces at once. "I'm not dying nor am I going to, so both of you can stop talking about me like I am." Sean's jaw tightened. For a moment, something resembling guilt flashed across his face, fast enough that Mo almost missed it. He smoothed the last strip of tape down with hands somewhat steadier, as if his sister's voice alone had done what nothing else in the room could.

"Lee's alive." Sean said finally, quietly, not looking at Mo, still focused entirely on the bandage under his hands. "That's all I'm giving you tonight. Not because you asked nicely, because she did." Sean finished taping the last of the bandage, checked it once more with a gentleness that looked almost unfamiliar, and then stood, putting distance between himself and the desk like proximity had started to cost him something he couldn't afford anymore. The tremor in his hands hadn't fully settled. Up close he looked wrung out in a way that had nothing to do with the last hour alone.

"I need to go deal with what's happening out there," he said, nodding toward the door, toward the gym and the thirty members who'd just likely seen their leader carry his bleeding sister off the floor. "Before anyone decides tonight means more than it does."

"Sean." Brooke's voice was still thin, but her eyes had sharpened, fighting through the wooziness to hold his. "You said Lee’s alive. . I need more than that before you walk out that door." Something shuttered behind Sean's eyes, the brief crack from mere moments ago sealing back over.

"I gave you what I could give you tonight without it costing more than either of you, or I, can afford. That's it, that's all that you get." He looked at Mo, and for once there was no anger or irritation in it, just exhaustion. "Get her somewhere safe. She needs stitches, there's an urgent care not that far away. Take care of her." Brooke's expression didn't change, not enough for Sean to catch it, but Mo felt her hand tighten briefly against his arm. Then Sean was gone, shoving the filing cabinet out of the way, his footsteps fading in the gym.

Brooke pushed herself up on the desk with her good arm, wincing. She waved off Mo's hand when he reached to steady her. "I can sit up. I'm not made of glass."

"You lost a lot of blood, just let me help."

"I'm aware." She let him help her anyway, once she'd made her point. She swung her legs off the edge of the desk slowly and carefully. Her face was still pale, dark circles pressing in under her eyes. "We need to go. Now, before he changes his mind about letting us leave."

"The uh. . urgent care," Mo said, already thinking ahead, already cataloguing the drive. "You okay to go there, or should I find something closer?"

"We're not going to a doctor at all."

"Your shoulder needs more than a little first aid kit, Brooke." Mo protested, helping her stand from the desk.

"It needs cleaning, real dressing, and stitches, I know. I can do that myself if it comes to that. I've had to fix up worse." Her voice was flat, controlled. It was the kind of control that told Mo she'd already made this decision before he'd finished his sentence. "Sean doesn't hand out helpful information for free. Not anymore. If he's pointing us at a specific place it's because someone there already knows to expect us. It's a safety net." She let him help her stand, legs weak. Her jaw tightened through the wave of dizziness that crossed her face. “I'll handle this at home."

"You're in no shape to be stitching yourself up."

"I'm in exactly enough shape, just let me do it." She started for the door, slow but steady, waving off his hand a second time. "I've had worse nights than this one." Mo didn't push again. There was something in the set of her jaw that told him this wasn't a fight he was going to win, not tonight and certainly not with her still awake and standing out of sheer stubbornness.

They made their way out past the gym. It was empty now, the cloaked figures had dispersed. They made their way out through the double doors into the parking lot, where the one working streetlamp buzzed the same tired rhythm as the lights they'd left behind. Neither of them looked back at the building. Mo helped her into the passenger seat, took the keys from her shaking hand without asking, and pulled out of the lot, away from whatever was still lurking there and toward the house.

The kitchen light over the sink was the only one Brooke would allow on, and she worked under it methodically, laying out gauze, antiseptic, a curved needle and thread from a kit that lived in a drawer specifically for nights like this. Her hands had steadied by the time she peeled back the makeshift bandage. Mo made himself watch instead of looking away, not because she hadn't asked him to, but because turning from it felt like one more thing he owed her not to do.

"You don't have to stay and watch." she mumbled, not looking up, threading the needle with a steadiness that seemed to cost her everything she had left.

"Too bad." She didn't argue. She just nodded once and got to work. Mo sat across the small kitchen table and watched her stitch her own shoulder closed by the light over the sink, silent except for the occasional sharp breath she refused to turn into a sound. As she worked, tears welled in her eyes and were blinked back each time they threatened to fall.

By the time she was done, taped and bandaged clean, the shaking returned to her hands. Her body ached. She washed the blood from her hands at the sink, movements slow with exhaustion, and didn't sit back down.

"You should sleep." Mo said from the table, standing and making his way over to her.

"I'm not going to sleep." She said it simply, drying her hands on a dish towel. "Every time I close my eyes tonight I'm just gonna to see that thing's face, or Sean's hands shaking, or you crumpled on the ground. I'll sit up and just. . think. That's what I'm going to do until the sun's all the way up, and there's no use arguing me out of it."

"I'll stay up then."

"No." She said it gently, but it wasn't a request. She nodded toward the hallway, toward the room they'd shared the night before. "You got hit in the ribs and the face tonight, Mo. You need to sleep. I need to sit somewhere and think. Just go to bed, please." He wanted to argue. He was too tired to make it stick, he nodded in defeat.

"Wake me up if anything happens, or if you need me," he said instead. "I mean it."

The school had been closed for who knew how years, the sun-bleached sign still bolted to the chain-link fence out front. The mascot was a faded cartoon bobcat missing half of its face due weathering and time. Somebody had left the flagpole up, a torn and discolored flag waving in the soft wind, the rope ticking softly against metal.

"Wonder if we can get an education here." Mo joked. this time Brooke didn't tell him to stop.

She'd changed before they left the house, of the jeans and sweatshirt she'd worn all day, into her velvet cloak. It was nothing like the plain black ones Mo had already seen. She'd done it in front of the mirror without a word of explanation, and Mo hadn't asked, because some part of him understood already that this wasn't out of vanity. He knew it was to seem as if she was falling back into line, as if she was being obedient and submissive.

"Do you really gotta wear that?" he asked, quietly, standing in the doorway watching her.

"I do." She responded, jumping slightly. His voice startled her but she hadn't turned around. "If I walk in there without making an effort to make it look like I’ll listen and obey, it makes both of us a target before we're through the door."

Now, standing at the edge of the parking lot with the building in front of them, she looked exactly what she needed to look like. Untouchable, composed. She belonged to the Family, but was walking in of her own free will. At some point during the ride, she’d reached over to grab his hand. He hadn’t said anything about it, didn’t want to bring it up or make it known he could tell she didn’t want to do this. Instead he just held onto her hand and drove, quietly.

"Last chance." she mumbled, not looking at him, eyes on the double doors propped open at the end of the sidewalk, light seeping out from somewhere deep inside. "You can still stay in the car, I won’t be offended."

"No, I can't." Mo responded, following her gaze towards the metal doors.

"No," she agreed, softer. "I don’t think you can, just thought I'd offer."

The gym still had the painted bobcat on the far wall, partially covered now by black cloth that hung from floor to ceiling. It looked more tacky than if they had just attempted to paint over it. Overhead, the old fluorescent panels buzzed and flickered, one of them flickering in a broken rhythm that made the whole room feel like it was breathing. There were no candles, no warmth to the light at all, just that flat institutional glare, and thirty-some people in plain black cloaks sitting beneath it.

At the center of it all, on what had probably once been a stage for elementary school assemblies, stood Sean. He didn't look like a monster. That was the first thing Mo noticed, and it landed like a blow anyway. However, up close under the buzzing lights, something was wrong with him that hadn't come through on the phone. His hands wouldn't stay still, his eyes moved a half-second too fast, tracking things that weren't there, and there was a sheen of sweat at his hairline despite the cold in the room. He looked like a man running a fever, or coming off one.

"Brooklyn." His voice carried easily across the gym, warm in a way that made Mo's skin crawl. "You made it, and so did our guest."

"I brought him because you asked me to," Brooke said. Her voice didn't shake at all, not once despite the situation. Mo had no idea how she managed it. They had no idea what they were walking into here. "Let's get this over with, please, Sean."

"So eager." Sean muttered as eyes shifted to Mo, and something in them sharpened, curious and calculating, though his fingers kept moving against his own sleeve. "That phone call took nerve." He stepped down from the stage, making his way towards the two. "I want to talk to my sister, alone. You'll wait here."

"Uhh. . yeah, not happening." Mo said, moving to step in front of Brooke.

"That wasn't a request." Sean's tone didn't change. Two of the cloaked figures nearest Mo shifted, and he understood very quickly exactly how little say he had in the matter. "Brooke. Five minutes." Brooke's eyes found Mo's, and for just a second, her perfectly held together composure cracked.

"It's fine, I’ll be okay." she said, though it clearly wasn't. "I'll be right back."

"Brooke."

"Five minutes, Mo." Her voice hardened, yet her gaze stayed soft on him. "Let me handle this." He watched her follow her brother through a side door into what had probably once been an office. The moment it shut behind them, the two cloaked figures closed in on either side of Mo, hands firm on his arms. He understood that whatever was about to happen, it hadn't been waiting on Sean's permission at all. They were just waiting for Brooke to be out of the room.

The office still had its old fluorescent panel overhead, one bulb dead, another buzzing into the silence of the office. Sean shut the door behind them and, for a moment, just looked at his sister, the warmth from the gym draining slowly out of his face.

Up close, without a crowd to perform for, he looked worse. Younger, somehow, and unraveled at the edges. Brooke noticed everything; his restless hands, the way his weight shifted from foot to foot like standing was tiring for him. Brooke's jaw tightened at the sight of it, and a familiar grief moved across her face before she could stop it.

"How long has it been since you stepped away?" she asked quietly, stepping towards her brother.

"I don’t get to step away." Sean's voice had an edge of defensiveness that came too fast, too raw. "The Speaker, it’s a part of me, I understand things, I can’t just st-" He stopped himself, pressed the heel of his hand briefly against one eye. "You wouldn't understand. You never let yourself go far enough in to understand."

"I understand just enough, Sean. I understand that my brother isn’t who he used to be." Her voice cracked on the words, more sorrow in it now than anger. "I understand that you look like you haven't slept in a week, and I know exactly why, and it terrifies me, it always has."

"You brought a stranger into our house." He said it like it hurt him to say, jabbing his finger at her. "After everything I've done to keep you safe, you let a stranger through the door like it was nothing, and now look where that's gotten you."

"He's not a stranger, Sean! You know who he is!" Brooke crossed her arms, fighting back tears. "And I didn't let him in because I was careless. I let him in because I'm tired, I am so tired of being the only one of us who still remembers what we were like before all this, what life was like before we were bowing to some eldritch being." Something flickered across Sean's face. It wasn’t quite anger, not right away, it was something closer to hurt.

"You think I don't remember?" Sean spat, glaring now at his sister, his little sister who he’d do anything for, the one he held up on a pedestal.

"I think you remember it the way you remember everything now, through whatever bits and pieces the Speaker doesn’t corrupt." Her voice dropped. "I followed you into this, Sean. You remember that part, right? I didn’t want anything, nothing else, I just wanted my brother. I followed you because I wasn't going to let you just disappear into this alone, and I have spent every year since then watching you disappear into it regardless." Sean flinched, like the words had physically landed a blow. For a moment the restlessness in him stilled, and he looked, briefly, like the brother she was still trying to hold onto; young, uncertain, scared of something bigger than himself.

"I never wanted you to follow me into this, but what could I do, huh?" he said, quiet now. "I wanted you safe. That's all I've ever wanted, and every year it gets harder to remember how to do that without the Speaker's help, and I hate that, Brooke, I hate what it's do-" He cut himself off, jaw tightening, and when he spoke again his voice had hardened back over, defensive. "It doesn't matter. None of it matters if you're going to keep bringing fucking strangers in without warning."

"He's not the threat here though, Sean." Brooke's eyes were wet now, but her voice held steady, as steady as it could that was. "You are. You’re the threat to yourself, and I don't know how to keep saving you from that. I can’t pick though, I cannot be forced to choose between helping my brother or helping Lee’s brother here."

"Then don't." Something desperate showed through in his voice. "Walk away from him tonight. Come home, let me protect you the way I'm supposed to as your big brother, the way I promised you I would, back before-" He stopped again, breathing hard. His eyes went distant, unfocused and chasing a thought that wasn't his own anymore. When he refocused on her, his voice had gone flat and cold. "Five minutes are up, Brooke."

"Sean." She caught his sleeve as he turned to walk away. For just a moment, the fury dropped out of her voice entirely, leaving something younger and more frightened underneath it. "Please. Don't hurt him tonight. Whatever you're planning in there, please. I am begging you." Sean looked down at her hand on his arm for a long moment, something almost like grief showing across his face.

"You still don't understand, do you?" he said softly. "I'm not the one you should be begging tonight. I stopped being the one in charge of what happens a long time ago." He gently pulled his sleeve free of her hand. "I just try to make sure it doesn't cost more than it has to."

By the time Brooke came back through the side door, something in the gymnasium had already shifted. Mo was on his knees near the center of the room, one of the cloaked figures gripping his hair, forcing his head up, and there was blood at his lip that hadn't been there five minutes before.

"Mo-" Brooke started forward, and a hand closed hard around her arm, holding her back. Carol’s hand, tight and firm.

"You'll watch." Carol said quietly, not unkindly, which was somehow worse than if she had been cruel about it. "That's the price of bringing him here, dear. You don't get to look away from what it costs." Sean crossed to stand in front of Mo, crouching slightly to bring them eye to eye. Up close, under the buzzing lights, his hands were shaking again, and his voice had gone almost soft, it almost had a tinge of pity.

"Where's Lee?" Mo spat out, blood in his teeth. He refused to look anywhere but straight ahead, right at Sean. "That's all I want. Tell me where he is and I'll walk out of here and you'll never hear from me again. Hell, I won’t even speak to Brooke."

"Nah. . . I don't think that's true." Sean tilted his head, studying him with an unsteady kind of focus, like he had to work to keep Mo in it. "I think you'll keep looking no matter what I tell you tonight. I think that's just simply who you are." He nodded, almost to himself, and straightened, swaying slightly on the way up. "Which is a problem I intend to solve permanently. But,” he glanced past Mo, to Brooke, to the fury and terror openly showing on her face now that the mask had finally slipped. "Not tonight. Tonight, I just wanted you to understand something."

He crouched again, closer this time, voice dropping low enough that only Mo could hear it.

"My sister followed me into this," Sean said, grabbing Mo’s face to make sure he looked at him. "Not the other way around. Everyone thinks I built this for her, I didn't. She chose this, chose to follow me. But now I don't know how to be worth what that cost her, so I keep her close instead, because it's the only way I know how to try." Something desperate flickered in his eyes, gone as quickly as it came. "You should have asked her what that costs before you dragged her into your search too." He straightened, nodded once to the man holding Mo's hair, and stepped back. "Let him go," Sean muttered. "He's seen enough tonight."

Sean turned now, fully facing toward his sister. He could feel the lecture rising in him, his shoulders tense now, as he made his way towards her.

"You want to be angry with me?" he said. "Fine, be fucking angry. But understand what you're asking for when you beg me to let this go." He gestured toward Mo without quite looking at him. "Lee was my best friend, Brooke. Before all of this, before any of this happened. He was my friend, and I’m sorry for what I’ve had to do." His voice cracked, thin and raw under the lecture's surface. "I don't get to have friends anymore. I traded that a long time ago for something that actually keeps its promises. And if I don't get to have that, then you don't either. That's not cruelty, it’s just how it is now."

"How it is now?" Brooke's voice broke entirely as she questioned her brother, all the composure she'd carried earlier finally giving out all at once. "Sean, are you hearing yourself? You're describing a punishment and calling it fairness."

"I'm describing balance."

"You're describing loneliness, and you're trying to force it onto me as well!" Tears were running now, she didn't bother wiping them away. "I don't want balance. I don't want the Speaker, I don't want this building, I don't want any of it. I want my brother back, the real one. The one who used to sneak me dessert at night when we were little, the one who-" Her voice gave out completely. She pressed a hand over her mouth as if she could physically hold the rest of it in. "I just want you back, Sean. That's all I have ever wanted. I didn't follow you here for the Speaker, I followed you here because I was scared of losing you, but I’m losing you anyway." It all spilled out anyways.

For a moment, something in Sean's face disappeared, the anger and lecturing gone out of his voice entirely. He opened his mouth like he might say something to meet her there. Then his eyes unfocused again, chasing something only he could see, and whatever had almost surfaced sank back under.

"He's seen enough tonight," Sean said instead, quieter now, and it wasn't clear anymore whether he meant Mo or himself. The grip released. Mo swayed, caught himself on his hands against the gym floor, and Brooke didn't wait for permission this time. She wrenched free of Carol’s hold and was already moving, dropping to her knees beside him before anyone could think to stop her.

"Hey, look at me, Mo. . Are you okay?" She asked, her hands hovering over him, shaking and unsure where it was safe to touch. Blood was still beading at his split lip. There was a darker bruise already rising along his jaw. "Can you stand? We need to get you up, we need to-" Her voice caught, and for a second the fear underneath the urgency came out. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I never should have let them do this. .”

"I'm fine." Mo's voice came out thick, unconvincing, but he got a hand around her arm anyway, grounding himself against her. "I'm okay, Brooke."

Across the gym, Sean stood apart from everyone, arms wrapped tight around himself, his hands still shaking. There was something unreadable and unraveling moving behind his eyes as he watched his sister kneel on the floor, holding together a man he'd just made very sure they both understood he could hurt whenever the Speaker decided he should.

"We're leaving," Brooke said, low, urgent, already angling them both toward the doors. "Right now, Mo, come on. ."

"Wait." Mo planted his feet, swaying but upright, and looked past her to where Sean still stood apart from the crowd, arms wrapped around himself, staring at the floor now like he'd forgotten anyone else was in the room. Something reckless was flowing through Mo’s mind, the adrenaline and pain mixing into one. "No. He doesn't get to just stand there."

"Mo, not right now. . ." But he was already moving. Three unsteady steps put him closer to Sean than any of the cloaked figures seemed prepared for. Before anyone could grab him again he swung. There was more weight behind it than skill, all fueled by anger. It caught Sean across the jaw and sent him stumbling back a step, more from surprise than force, and for one suspended second the entire gymnasium held its breath.

Then hands were on Mo from every direction, hauling him back, and Sean straightened slowly, touching his jaw. He didn't give the order Mo braced for. He just laughed, short and startled. It almost sounded delighted.

"There he is," Sean muttered. "There's the brother Lee talked about."

"Let him go." Brooke demanded sharply, trying to pull the hands off of Mo. "He's hurt, he's not thinking straight, and you got what you wanted tonight already. Let. Him. Go." Sean studied his sister for a long moment, the manic edge in him falling as quickly as it had risen. He nodded once, and the hands released Mo again.

"Everyone go." Sean said, waving his hand. "Give us the gym." They filed out slowly, figures moving toward the doors. Carol hesitated before she followed, casting one unreadable glance back before the doors swung shut behind the last of them. Then it was just the three of them under the buzzing lights, and the bobcat watching from behind its shroud. Brooke rounded on her brother, some of the fury from the office bleeding back into her voice.

"Was that supposed to prove something? Letting him hit you?" Brooke quietly sneered, staring at her brother.

"No." Sean rubbed his jaw, and when he looked at her, something had flickered in his face. It wasn't softness, just a crack too tired to be held shut. "I deserved it."

"Sean. ." Brooke’s voice softened.

"Don't." The crack sealed back over fast, his voice going hard again. "I said I deserved it. That's all you’re getting out of me."

"That's not enough anymore." Brooke's voice cracked, pleading now. "Let Lee go, this can stop tonight." The temperature in the gym dropped so fast Mo felt it in his teeth before he understood why. Sean's whole body went rigid, head snapping toward the dark hallway out past the doors, and whatever control he'd been holding onto broke apart all at once. His hands began shaking again, worse than before. His breathing had gone quick and ragged, eyes darting with a jittery energy that had nothing sane left in it.

"No. . . no, it’s not supposed to-" He didn't finish. He grabbed Brooke's wrist hard, too hard, and hauled her toward the side door, moving fast and wrong, more animal than brother. "We're leaving, we're leaving now."

"Sean, you're hurting me!" Brooke cried, twisting against his grip, trying to plant her feet and look back at Mo. Sean didn't slow, he didn’t seem to hear her at all, muttering something low and frantic under his breath that might have been an apology or maybe a prayer.

The fluorescent panels overhead popped, one by one, plunging the room into a darkness broken only by the faint glow from the parking lot through the propped doors. And in that darkness, low and wet and vibrating in the base of Mo's skull, came the sound he'd hoped never to hear again.

It didn't crawl through the doorway this time. It was simply there, already among them, folded into the shadows. Sean yanked Brooke sideways, cutting close to the stage in his panic to reach the side door, and the Speaker's head turned, fast, tracking the sudden motion the way a predator tracks its prey. A claw lashed out, not deliberate, not aimed, just reflexive, like the way a dog snaps at something too close. It caught Brooke across the shoulder and upper arm as Sean dragged her past.

She screamed, short and sharp, and went down hard on the gym floor, blood already dark against the black velvet and pooling on the hardwood floor.

"Brooke!" Mo ran towards her, ignoring the ache in his ribs. Sean had frozen completely, staring down at his sister on the floor like the sight had short circuited whatever panic had been driving him, hands raised and shaking, uselessly, in the air. "Come on, dude, get her up!" Mo snarled, shouldering past him without waiting for permission, dropping to his knees beside her. Brooke's face was white, her hand clamped over the gash in her shoulder, blood seeping dark between her fingers, Her eyes were open, darting around the room She was horrified.

"I'm okay, I’m okay." she gasped, obviously a lie. "I'm okay, just get me up, we nee-"