Monstrous ➙ Theo Raeken

|35|

Clarissa felt her body wearing down as they moved through Eichen House. Every twist and turn screaming at her muscles as she held Corey tightly to her.

Her little brother had barely woken up, his breathing ragged and pained moans leaving his lips every time she jostled him against her side. He was getting progressively worse and Clarissa felt a stab of fear inside of her heart that he might not make it out of the building alive.

She couldn't lose him again. Not after the last time and with each ragged breath she felt her hope for his health decline. She couldn't even heal him, her own ability to take away pain temporarily unavailable as her own body struggled to head itself from the head wound she had received.

"Josh." Clarissa struggled out softly, her body still weak from the attack against her. She paused against a wall, her arms weakly struggling to give out as Josh moved away from supporting Corey. "We need to find somewhere to hide until Theo can come help us."

"Theo isn't coming for us." Josh snapped heatedly, turning his eyes away from the dark hallway towards the auburn haired girl that looked dead on her feet. "He might come for you but he won't come for the rest of us."

"We're his family." Clarissa stuttered out softly, her heartbeat increasing at the thought of being stuck in the building for longer than necessary. "He'll come for us."

"I have a family." Josh mumbled acerbically, rolling his eyes at the naive tone that Clarissa had adopted. "Theo isn't a part of it and if you think that he's coming for us, you're not the leader that I thought you were."

"Theo is a part of my family. I don't have much of it anymore and I can't keep losing people" The auburn haired chimera commented firmly, her hand moving her blood coated hair away from her eyes warily. "People that I care about have a tendency to die on me and I refuse to let Corey be added to that list. I lost him once and I won't do it again. Get us to a safe place."

Josh nodded slowly, his eyes squinted in observation as Clarissa smoothed a piece of hair against Corey's clammy forehead. She could feel the fever that tainted his skin, his shivering sending sparks of horror up her spine.

"You guys have one twisted family." Josh declared quietly as they moved away from the wall, quickly and quietly so that they could be undetected by the staff that would be roaming the halls. "I guess I just don't understand the unwavering loyalty to Theo."

"Not many people do." Clarissa mumbled softly, running her fingers through Corey's hair to offer him some sense of comfort. "God, my head is killing me."

"I think that thing hit the edge of your brain because it looks like some of it is leaking out." Josh mumbled softly, his eyes looking over the wound that had yet to heal on her head. "You're stubborn enough to not go brain dead when someone drills into your head. Good to know."

"Hey." Clarissa started to snap a witty retort towards him only to be shushed the second she opened her mouth. Her eyes widened comically at the boy as he shot her a glare, shocked that he had shushed her. "What?"

"Do you hear that?" Josh questioned softly, pausing as if he could hear something in the distance. "The electric current?"

"Eichen House is on a Telluric Current." The auburn haired teenager whispered, her eyes narrowed in suspicion as her ears tuned into an abnormal sound. "Jennifer Blake, a druid, who wanted to kill all of us taught us that. She was a real piece of work if you ask me."

"No." Josh murmured, his face breaking out into a beaming grin. "That sounds like Malia and Kira. She's the one who can control electricity right?"

"If they're down here then something went wrong." Clarissa declared quickly, her own smile turning into a frown as she focused on the sounds of their panicked voices. "It wasn't part of Stiles' plan."