Locked Away

XI

It felt like hours before I had any amount of strength to get up and make my way over to Lena. I closed my eyes and shook my head, trying to get a grip and also focus at the matter at hand. I pushed her hair back out of her face, and looked around the room. I watched the doorway and held my breath, I was pleading to see someone walk through. To my relief, it was like a slow motion movie.

Clint came in first, bow drawn and scanned the room, ready to take a shot if he needed. Once his gaze met Harlow he jogged over to her and kicked the remaining branches out of the way that surrounded her and Lena. Nat followed suit, she glanced over at us as she made her way to the table that was piled with all of our personal information. Sticking a flash drive in the computer and was hacking into the system to get anything she could before we left. You could hear Atlas saying a protection spell to seal the room, that way if Grimm did return it would hold him off briefly and Atlas was more than capable of holding him off. James hustled in with a gun in his hand, he knelt down next to me and ran his hand over the scratches on the back of my neck. Examining my injuries, I was still struggling to breathe and was dizzy, but I had to snap out of it.

All heads turned when Loki walked in slowly, he instantly saw Lena on the ground and ran to her. He held her hand and sat in silence, almost glaring at me and Harlow for not protecting her the way that we should have. In some way I did feel guilty, we should have protected her better. We could have prevented this, and it would be one of us going through this and not Lena. She didn't deserve it, she was strong and willful and I regret letting her down. Guilt and worry settled in the pit of my stomach as I tried to focus on James's face.

Lena gasps and sits up quickly, she looks at me and Harlow before starting to panic. Tears filled her eyes, she was looking around frantically. "No...no no no." She kept repeating. She scurried to her feet and turned in a circle, looking for whatever was unleashed. We all looked at each other and waited for a minute...nothing happened.

"We have to leave," She panicked and you could hear her voice breaking. She was trying to hold her emotions in and prepare herself for what we are all about to find.

We stayed together as we made our way back to the main house, the bookcase closed behind us and it was so quiet. You could hear Lena's shaking breaths as she made her way to the front of all of us. Loki stayed close behind her, running into my shoulder on purpose. I winced in pain and held it to try and soothe the pain. We followed Lena to the living room, she stopped dead in her tracks. Her breathing grew shallow and I followed her eyes, in the secondary living room there was a young Lena.

She was maybe sixteen or seventeen years old, she walked slowly to the edge of the room. Dropping her backpack from school on the ground and all of her supplies was scattered around. As we grew closer, you can see someone in front of her on the ground. The woman's body was still and lifeless. My heart sank immediately as I looked to my right at Lena, she was starting to shake and Loki was holding her tightly. I turned my attention back to the young version of Lena, she was hysterically crying and eventually grew silent. I could see her body shake and a man appeared, someone I would guess to be her brother. He walked up behind her and as soon as he touched her shoulder, it was like she shattered into thousands of pieces.

She screamed loudly and collapsed to her knees, an actual shockwave shot out of her and filled the whole house, it blew out the windows and the cupboards flew open. Her brother along with all of us were knocked off our feet and fell backwards against on the floor. Everyone except Lena, she was still standing and none of this was affecting her. She was silent while watching everything unfold in front of her. The clouds circled outside and it grew dark quickly, the lightbulbs were lighting up and shattering, startling us. The wind was powerful and you could see a tornado forming in the distance through the windows, thunder and lightning crashed and roared and it was the only thing you could hear for miles.