NEIN (girlxgirl)

| 09 |

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A N G S T

(Adj.) Anxiety, or any kind of fear

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NATASJA STOOD outside in a daze, flashbacks attacking her brain in such quick successions she was numb. The rain had stopped, allowing her a clearer view of the looming dark shape before her. When had the house burned down?

"Natasja!" A loud whisper sounded. It was Aspen.

"What are you doing here?" the green-haired woman whispered harshly, clutching her bleeding arm. Natasja was still in a slight daze, the sight of blood only further pushing her mind into the hole she's falling into. "Where's Kael-- fuck! Get her out of here! Now!"

When Natasja took too long to respond, Aspen slapped her across the face, hard.

"I need you to focus, right now, do you understand?" Aspen was heaving, blood scraped on the side of her head. Just as she finished speaking, John came into view, running from the back of the burnt house. He was waving his hands, a panicked look on his face.

Retreat! He signed desparately. The following hand motions were much too panicked to be decrypted, but they got the general idea: run.

Just as they got in the car, gunshots came and shattered one of their windows. Aspen growled as the tires squealed and she drove them out, missing the rest of the bullets by some miracle. Natasja was on the floor, both hands pushing Kael's head down on the front seat as much as possible.

"Stop, I can see my vagina," Kael was muttering. "Lemme up."

"Shut up, Kael, you're blind." Natasja's heart was beating fast and hard against her chest, adrenaline tingling her limbs. She looked around to see John cowering as well, a gun clutched in a blood-soaked hand. It all happened in mere seconds. As a police car whizzed by, Aspen's grip on the steering wheel only tightened even more. Those gunshots had definitely woken up the entire neighborhood.

"They're not very smart," Natasja breathed. "Way to keep on the down-low. The police will catch them now. They basically alerted the entire block."

"Or they're smart enough to do just that," Aspen cracked her neck. "We're not dealing with ordinary people, Nat. These people want Kael, and they want her bad. We have to keep her out of sight."

"But the police—"

"Like I said," Aspen looked at her from the front mirror. "These are not ordinary people."

"Well then, you better start talking." Natasja has had enough of secrets.

"Let's wait for Kael to sober up first, shall we?"

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"What on earth is she doing now?" Natasja groaned from the living room area of the mansion as the sounded of clattering filled the silence. Aspen and John had gone upstairs to wash up and fill in the brothers of the situation, and so that left Natasja down here to babysit.

The redhead padded barefoot to the kitchen, where she spotted a very determined, very drunk, Kael Maddox trying to fix herself a bowl of cereal.