The Plans of Mice and Men

When she heard the tires in the driveway, she knew Themis had arrived and her heart soared, she was saved.

Deici had turned towards the noise, and she used this distraction to reach for the backdoor, opening her mouth to scream. He was on her before she realized what had happened. He covered her mouth and teleported away before she even got a word out. It was bright, too bright and felt like she was weightless, her skin was burning, itching, it was unbearable and then it was gone.

The weightlessness was gone, her feet once again on solid ground. She tried to blink away the lights still dancing in her eyes from the sudden flash, and as they started to fade, she recognized where she was. She tried to keep the tears that stung her eyes at bay, but they betrayed her and slipped slowly down her flushed cheeks. It was dark and she could see the silhouettes through the glass window, their laughter drifted out to her. "No!" A low moan escaped her throat, and Deici placed a finger against his lips. "Now, now kitten let's not be foolish, again." His words stung as she remembered Arcadia's lifeless corpse. She watched silently as her sister Anna and her family set the table for dinner, Oliver her husband and their twins Ava and Octavia were just feet away. She looked down and knew that he had been here before, they were at the foot of the tiled driveway just out of reach of the beam thrown from the security light. "Let's take a walk."

As she turned away towards the woods that flanked the property, she realized she still had her handbag slung over her shoulder. Her eyes widened as her mistake sank in, then closed slowly in disappointment and frustration. She placed her journal with all the information she had gathered in her bag, intent on giving it to Themis when he arrived. She had had no intention of staying long enough to thoroughly explain what had happened, and the journal would bring him up to date while she and Arcadia fled. Nothing had gone as planned. She had not even been lucky enough to drop the damn bag, leaving it to be found when he had whisked her away. Everything had gone his way. How, how had this happened? "That's far enough," he said from behind her. "I have a few questions to ask, and I expect honest answers, or your family is as good as dead."

"Who was that at the cabin?"

"A detective I met at the hospital, I called him and asked him to meet me there."

"Why?"

He already knew why, that was not what he was asking. "To give him this." She reached into her bag and took out the journal. This bastard knew everything.

"Good, I thought you were going to lie or spout drivel." "Who else did you contact?"

"No one."

"Who else have you told?"

"No one." It never occurred to her to lie to him, not with the lives at stake. She knew he would not hesitate the eliminate them.

"Infuriating, isn't it?" She looked at him unsure of what to say. "You walked away from her so long ago, never looked back, never called, not even a postcard. Yet you would die before you let me hurt her or her family. Poor Arcadia. I guess blood is thicker than besties, or is that bitches."

The fury that had been extinguished by grief and failure blazed to life and she threw herself at him hoping to gouge out his insufferable silver eyes. He side-stepped and she fell to the ground jarring her hip and bruising her palms. "What? The truth hurts." He said as his eyes danced with glee, watching her roll onto her back, the flame turning to an ember as the reality of what she caused sank back in. "For what it's worth, you were going to die anyway, Arcadia was your collateral damage because you couldn't keep your mouth shut." He pulled the gun from it holster on his side.

Ayla stared at him, tears running down cheeks. He just sighed like he was bored, like he didn't just kill her best friend and had a gun in her face, like her anguish was beneath him. "I'll be seeing you in hell!" She spat.

"Is that really it? Are those really your last words?" he lowered the gun seemingly quite disappointed. "No self-righteous spiel about how I'll get mine," he looked at her closely. "I mean...even Arcadia had brave last words, other than her screams and whimpers of course." Ayla knew he was trying to get a rise out of her, and she would not give him the satisfaction.

"I just have one question." She spoke. "How did you find us; how did you get to her?"

"I'll answer when we meet again," he raised the gun faster than Ayla could have possibly reacted and pulled the trigger.

BANG!

He walked over to her body and removed the chain around her neck containing the second tracker, took her bag and walked back to the driveway.

A second later he was gone, two minutes later the animal sounds returned to the woods.