Freaks

13(Continued)

A/N~ The basement^ (w/o the windows)

He goes to the first door to the right of the hallway and unlocks it with a key. They walk down the stairs, one by one. The basement looks and smells like the rest of the house. The theme is the same, only the floors are concrete and there's a sound playing inside, giggles.

Andrew stops just a few steps away from the bottom step. Harper sees what he looks to, only a few arms lengths away, a little head full of brown curls is faced away from them on the small couch. It's Landon, he laughs at cartoons playing above him on the TV, being the only color she's seen so far. He sits unbothered by all of their presence.

Andrew turns around to all of them, "See the child's fine." He looks around the room, "He has entertainment, a place to sleep, a place to clean himself up." He faces Malakai at his left, "I don't see a problem, do you?"

"Yeah. He's not with his family. He needs to go home."

Andrew takes a long, tiring hunk of air into his lungs through his nose and lets it out of his mouth. In a weird minute, he steps more to his left and grabs Malakai by the shoulder, twisting him around to face everyone else. A gun derives from his belt and points hard on Malakai's hair while his free hand holds him up.

Malakai's eyes shrink shut, trying to not be scared. Everyone else is tensed up with freaked faces.

Aster, to the right, tries to step in to stop Andrew but he pushes the gun farther on Malakai's head and holds up his shoulders, "Don't move."

Alice is the only one who's not as worried for Malakai because, at this point, she'd let him die. But it's her time to shine, she steps the way Aster wanted to and takes out her gun again, almost identical to his, "Let him go."

Andrew's face immediately drops its guarded expression and he watches the hole of the pistol, "Alice, where did you get that? Put that down."

"No. You put yours down first. Let him go. Now."

Andrew sets his hand off of Malakai's body with his eyes only on Alice. Malakai scampers away from them. Alice moves quickly to hit the gun out of his hand and it slides across the floor. And Aster runs around the couch to carry the kid out of the aim of her gun.

"Alice." He raises his brows, putting his hand flat up in the air, "Alice, I let him go."

She keeps the gun pointed at his face, her arms completely stiff and straight, controlled with her finger sitting on the trigger.

Uneasiness locks over his face, now he sees it's no longer about letting Malakai go, "What are you doing? Put it down."

"I can't do this anymore, dad." She says and her voice breaks again.

He shakes his head slowly. Everyone stands like a stone statue, afraid of her next move. They all wonder of ways to stop her, he did just hold a gun to Malakai's head, this should be up to Alice. But it's not right. Jackson's gun comes to mind, with the eyes she has on the back of her head, she could turn any second and shoot one of them first.

They don't have any choice but to watch.

"Alice." Andrew breathes shorter, "Alice, please. Put it down." His hands shake, his brows curve for mercy, "Talk to me."