There was nothing I could do.
Christoff ran, staggering, disoriented. He reached the hallway, and walked right into Andy’s waiting attack. A jab with the taser.
The kid was barely a teenager.
Eva’s kick hadn’t taken out Kathryn, or Callan for that matter. That wasn’t how it really worked. One well-executed blow didn’t usually knock someone out, and when it did, it often came with brain damage and long-term impairment. It did, if done right, essentially take them out of the fight.
Eva thrashed Kathryn, blow after blow, until Kathryn fell and made no motion to get up. She stepped back to assess the situation, saw Callan trying to struggle to get up on all fours, a crawling position, and stomped on his shoulderblades. His already-bleeding chin collided with the floor.
Leaving only Roxanne.
I couldn’t act without cluing Roxanne in, and I wasn’t sure there was much I’d be able to do, even then.
“Please,” Roxanne said, eyeing the boarded up window. “I’ll tell you where the others are.”
“Do,” Eva said.
Roxanne scrambled to get away from the older girl. Like Christoff, she moved straight for Andy.
“They’re upstairs somewhere.”
“That’s not clear enough,” Andy said.
“Please. I don’t know anything more. Tie me up, but don’t hit me,” Roxanne said.
“I’ll zap you,” he said. “You-”
With a knife or a letter opener, Roxanne stabbed him in the groin.
There was a metal on metal sound. Andy backed away, stunned, but unbleeding.
“Stab my fucking brother!?” Eva screeched.
Her foot collided with Roxanne’s face, full force.
Again and again, she kicked the fallen girl.
I watched, silent, as Andy eventually managed to wrestle Eva away.
“Upstairs,” he said. “We have a job to finish.”
11.08
Eva panted, head hanging, while her brother stood between her and Roxanne’s bloody form. He was breathing hard too, though he’d put in only a fraction of the effort in stopping Eva than Eva had put into thrashing Roxanne.
Andy continued to hold one hand up, as if warning Eva off, while he dropped to a kneeling position. His hand went straight to Roxanne’s. She didn’t move or offer any fight as he plucked the blade out of her hand. He slid it into a pocket, then checked her pulse, holding her hand.
“No more than three, and the mirror creature?” Eva asked.
“Shh,” he said.
Eva put her hands on her hips, bristling a little.
“Okay. She’s alive,” he said.
“I know she’s alive,” Eva said. “If I’d wanted to kill her, she’d be dead. I didn’t want her dead, so obviously…”
“Okay, Eva,” he said. “Okay. We did that alright,” Eva said.
“Yeah,” Andy said.
“We should move. You just said something about upstairs?”
“The hard part can wait, we need to secure things. Help?” More metal jingled. I saw a glimpse of handcuffs before the ratchet sound of handcuffs marked Roxanne being handcuffed to the radiator.
Eva bent down and with one hand on Callan’s collar, one hand on his belt, she slid Callan toward the radiator that Roxanne had been handcuffed to. I heard the ratchet of the cuffs closing on Callan’s wrists.
Ellie proved more problematic.
“Please,” my cousin managed.
“Do what I say, you’ll probably live,” Andy said, his voice calm, “I promise you, there’s pretty much nothing you can say that’s going to convince me to do anything different from what I’m doing, and if you try, you might tick off Eva. You’re better off being quiet.”
Ellie turned her head slightly in Eva’s direction. It was like she wasn’t willing to look directly at Eva, but probably had more to do with soreness and burns.
He grabbed her hand, and she struggled up until the taser appeared. The fight went out of her. He ordered, “Crawl. Cuff yourself next to your cousin.”
It didn’t take long for Ellie to obey, using the offered handcuffs. Andy checked the cuffs.
Eva was busy sliding Kathryn’s limp form over to the radiator as well. One of Kathryn’s eyes was already swelling, and I suspected I could make out blood in the corner.
It made for pretty cruel and unusual punishment. A collection of Thorburns stuck in close proximity to one another? Damn.
“How’s the…” Eva paused, eyeing the still-conscious and semi-conscious Thorburns. “..Thingy?”
“The thingy is…” he started, fishing in one pocket. He retrieved an emerald-colored ball, somewhere between a baseball and a softball in size, holding at an angle so none of the defeated Thorburns could see. “Basically unchanged?”
She frowned. “I thought she said it wouldn’t last very long.”
“It’s not supposed to,” he said. “It’s gone a little darker.”