10

You clamp down on any nerves or anxiety that might threaten to creep in with a flex of mental willpower and immediately reach out with your mind sense for the girls. More people are crowding towards the fence to get an eye on what's going on so you let yourself be pushed away and cast a look over the backyard. With only the light by the back door the shadows are deep this far back in the yard. You get a feeling that a mind you're familiar with is farther back and you move that way, looking in the clumps of people that have formed and are nervously milling around. The short form of Susan is getting jostled by people not even paying attention to her and you take three long strides before curling an arm around her shoulders. She jolts and looks up at you from behind her glasses, eyes a little wide and panicky.

"Do you know where the other girls are?" you ask, leaning down to block out the noise.

She frowns, "The kitchen? They wanted water and left me out here."

Shifting your grip down to her hand, you jerk your head towards the door. She laces her fingers in yours and slips behind you to follow in your wake. Someone's standing on the small concrete patio craning their head to look over the fence and you shoulder them aiside and draw Susan after you.

Inside you can see a crowd of people pressing in and talking about some guy who's been shot, a confusing babble of voices telling people to put pressure on things or bring ice packs. Instead of trying to join the crush you weave past a couple off gawkers and make it in to the kitchen, still sheltering the smaller girl behind you. There aren't as many people in here and your eye is drawn to Savannah's pale blonde hair at the other end. As soon as she sees you she waves you over with a wad of paper towels in her hand. "Have you seen Susan?" she demands shrilly.

The named girl comes out from behind your coat and tries to hug the southern belle, but she holds her off. "Soon-Yi's done been shot, I got blood on me! We got her in the garage, ain't no-one in there yet."

Susan freezes at the mention of blood but you tell Savannah to show you the way and prod the brunette down the hallway. The garage is packed full of boxes, six girls, and you. You take a moment to stick a quick notice-me-not on the door—you'd use a muggle-repeller, but you're not sure how far the effect would leak, you could end up causing problems with the girls trying to leave via the garage door.

The girls have Soon-Yi sitting on a ratty couch and are hovering around her while she presses a huge wad of blood-soaked paper towels onto her right arm. You gently move Karen and Sierra aside and kneel next to the Korean girl who seems unresponsive when you call her name. You assume it's shock, her eyes are open and she's breathing, but her pupils have shrunk down to pinpricks and she's staring off into the distance. Reaching out gently, you turn her eyes to meet yours and try to silently cast Legilimency. It fails, as does your second attempt. You allow a bit of urgency to creep into your thoughts and push the next time you cast.

You connect and push into her mind. You still don't have sufficient skill to get a perfect reading of what she's thinking, but there's a repeating theme of 'samchone Jaehyun can't find out'. A bit more prodding and you figure out that's her uncle, who happens to do bookkeeping for the Ruby Dreams casino—Lung's casino. Fuck, what is this, does everyone in this fucking town know someone gang related?

Pulling back from her worried loop, you give her the mental equivalent of a smack on the nose to get her attention. "Soon-Yi!"

Finally her eyes focus on you and she blinks rapidly. "Magic Han-James! You have to get me out of here, if my uncle finds out what happens I'll get pulled out of school!"

"Whoa, slow. Can I look at your arm?"

She shifts her right arm a bit, wincing and sucking air in through her teeth. Gently lifting the sleeve of her shirt you swallow as the metallic smell of blood hits you. The entrance wound isn't huge, but there's a bloody divot as thick around as your thumb slowly oozing blood down her bicep. You softly cast the diagnostic spell and disguise it by checking for an exit wound. The spell returns the information that she's lost a bit of blood, but not a major amount and there is a foreign body in her arm, all what you expected. It doesn't seem to have hit any major veins or arteries, there's muscle damage but she seems to have escaped a broken bone as well.

The gunfire that has been present in the background draws your attention as an explosion sounds and something—shrapnel?—rattles against the garage door. Your eyes sweep the garage again and you notice a side door leading out hidden behind some boxes.

You have all the spell knowledge needed to fix Soon-Yi up—gently summon the bullet out of her arm and heal it—or you could immobilize her arm with Ferula and get her back to campus first. The magic would be pretty obvious though, or you could use the entrancing enchantments you know to distract everyone while you fix her up. You could bunker down and throw up a shield and hope no more stray gunfire comes your way. None of the girls look like they're going to be any help. It's time to make a plan.