Wake Up ||ONC 2021|| GxG

14. House Go Boom

Esme could now add catch scratches to her list of injuries for the day. Teebs was having a hell of a time digging his mini daggers into her arm as he fought to get down. She knew what he wanted was to get back inside where his cozy window seat was. The problem was his window seat was spread across the front lawn with the rest of the house.

So, she let him continue to claw at her, pulling her face out of the way when he tried to swipe at it. Nevaeh had an arm around her to keep her on track as they ran through backyards after Easton. He hadn't let them stop moving since they'd launched themselves out the back door, flames licking at their heels.

He finally slowed down nearly a block away, swaying on his feet. When he straightened himself, he headed straight for a shiny black car parked half in a nearby garage. He looked over it front to back and then busied himself at the driver's door. Blood had leaked through the bandages on his side but he hadn't moved to do anything about it.

"You better not be doing what I think you're doing," Esme scolded. The door popped open and he turned to face her. "You can't take people's cars like that?"

"How would you like me to take it then darling?" He slid into the front seat and unlocked the back doors.

"You shouldn't take it at all," Esme argued, but she followed Nevaeh into the back seat and let go of the still angry cat once the doors had all closed. He bolted out of her arms and into the hatchback instantly. Small yowls and hisses came from his chosen hiding place under a pile of canvas shopping bags.

"I feel that I should remind you of your auto theft earlier," he said. The car slid smoothly into the alley, crunching the loose gravel underneath as it surged forward.

"That was an emergency," Esme countered.

"And this isn't?"

They both fell silent after that as he wove in and out of the growing traffic around them.

"So, where now?" Nevaeh asked.

"Classified," Easton answered.

"That's it!" Esme shouted. She leaned over the center console and pulled the emergency brake. The car jolted to a stop, sending her further into the front seat. "You are going to stop with this secret shit and give me some answers, now."

"Are you insane? Haven't we had enough car crashes today?" Easton sputtered, trying to push her hand away. Instead of moving her at all, he was pulled towards her by the collar, her free hand gripping the fabric in her first. His face contorted in pain when he was forced to twist in his seat.

"I have been grabbed, shot at, crashed into and exploded and yet somehow your sneaky ass is still the most annoying thing here," Esme said flatly. Cars honked around them, but she only dragged him closer to her. "Answers."

"Fine, now sit back and stop trying to be a one-woman traffic cone," he ordered. Once they were moving again, he shrugged his shoulders and sighed. "What do you want to know?"

"I... am not sure." Esme clasped her hands in her lap, twiddling her thumbs. So much had happened between her outburst at the bar and now the questions had moved from an orderly queue to a raging mob. They tumbled over each other, each vying for the spotlight without actually stepping into it.

"All this and you don't even know what you want to know?" Easton scoffed.

"Give her a minute," Nevaeh snapped. One of her hands rested on Esme's back rubbing small circles. It gave Esme something to focus on and she started counting each full rotation of her hand from her lower back to her lower ribs.

"My name is Esmerelda Cates, right?" she finally asked.

"Yes, ever since you changed it from Ester Mays. Most of us choose a new name once we enter the agency. Usually, it's something a bit more different from our birth names but you've always had trouble letting go," he explained. "But that's not much of a problem since we go by our agency number anyway."