Oracle

Chapter Twenty One- I Was Wrong

You didn't get shot by the milkmen. So who did they kill?

"You, in the culottes, and you," Sir Reginald pointed to Cass, "A word."

Cass stood at the table, holding onto the edge for balance so hard her knuckles turned white. She knew that Five and their father must be staring at her but she pushed it out of her mind and focused on her breathing. A long deep breath in. She held it until the room stopped spinning. And a long deep breath out.

"Cass?" Five asked softly, taking a hesitant step towards her, "Are you?"

"Fine," she said, breathing out through her nose, "I'm sorry but I can't stay," she said, looking at her father and nodding once to emphasise her point. Something she had picked up from him, "Diego's going to get killed by a hitman if I stay," she explained.

Sir Reginald frowned.

"Oh!" Cass said, "You know, vision," she said, tapping the side of her head. Sir Reginald nodded once to indicate he understood.

"Wait, wait, wait," Five stammered, holding out his hands to get Cass to back up, "Diego's going to die?"

"Not if I stop it," Cass shrugged. Five sighed.

"Fine," he said and made no further attempt to keep her there. Cass brushed a stray orange peel from her shoulder from when Vanya had made the fruit platter explode and headed to the now empty elevator.

"Those fucking milkmen. I swear to god..." she muttered to herself, remembering all those other times the same hitmen had caused them grief.

The others had only been gone for a few minutes. Diego couldn't have gone far, Cass reassured herself as she waited for the elevator to reach the bottom floor, tapping her foot impatiently to give her something to do instead of stress.

"Come on, come on," she mumbled under her breath, watching the arrow go round slowly, pointing to floor 6, then 5, then 4, "Come one, why are you going so slow?" floor 2, 1, "Finally!"

Cass was out the door before they'd even opened all the way, squeezing herself out in her haste to save her brother.

Cass ran out of the building, throwing the doors wide and letting them clatter against the walls. She scanned around as she ran down the steps, nearly missing Diego in her hurry. Once she had spotted him, she wasted no time in running over.

He was standing by a car. A nice once, very expensive with blacked out windows. She couldn't see who he was talking to but she was sure it wasn't the hitmen. They were still using a stolen milkfloat.

"Who was that?" Cass asked. She had stopped running once Diego's conversation was over and the car pulled away, "What did you just do?" she asked again as Diego walked past her.

"Shouldn't you know?" he grumbled. Cass ran after him, grabbing his arm to stop him from walking away from her. He was still angry from his confrontation with their father,

"Not if it wasn't supposed to happen," she explained, "What did you do? This isn't what I saw."

"I did something we all should have done back when we were at the house," Diego shouted, shaking his arm free of her grasp, "We should have told mom she could do better."

"Wait," Cass said softly as Diego began walking away. He stopped and turned to face her, "So that wasn't a milkman?" Cass asked, her breathing catching in her throat as her mind raced trying to piece everything together so that it made sense. But she just couldn't. Diego was supposed to die. The hitmen were supposed to kill him. Her body felt conflicted. Like the vision she had seen was both true and not true. Diego was alive. But the hitmen had killed someone, she could feel it.

"What?" Diego asked, sounding slightly annoyed that Cass was making no sense. But she was more annoyed.

"You didn't get shot by the milkmen..." she said, stating what little information she knew was correct, "I was wrong. But I was right...They did kill someone. So... who did they kill?"

*

Cass ran up the stairs of Morty's Television and Radio, closely followed by Diego and Luther. She threw the door open, not caring that it clattered back to smack Luther in the face. She didn't even notice, she had already ran into the kitchen by the time Luther had made it to the doorway.

Cass couldn't shake this awful feeling that had rooted in her stomach. It felt like it was spreading, like it was taking over her whole body. She knew something terrible had happened. And it was her fault. Her stupid vision that she had trusted to be right. But it wasn't right. Of course it wasn't right! She hadn't had a proper vision in months and she just believed this one. How could she have been so stupid? Whatever the consequences were, they were her fault.

Having checked the kitchen and found nothing, Cass dashed across the apartment to check the bathroom while Luther crossed her path and checked the living room.

"Shit..." he said, sighing deeply like he was deflating. He covered her face with a hand.

"What?" Diego called urgently, having heard Luther. Cass hadn't, she was still in the bathroom, "What is it?" Diego asked again, coming to stand next to Luther but as soon as he did his question was answered, "Oh."

Luther slowly turned his head to look at Diego.

"Who's going to tell Cass?"

Diego sighed and closed his eyes.

"Who's gonna tell me- Elliot!"