Secrets | TMR | One

6:1

The minute Adeline left the Medhut, the air became deathly silent. Henry instantly ceased all movement, his manic laughter came to a halt, his malicious words fizzled and dissolved in his stomach, no longer managing to clamber their way out his mouth.

It took Nick nearly an hour to convince Clint and Jeff that the words the builder was spouting were absolute nonsense.

But after what seemed like a lifetime of convincing, the leader was confident in the fact that the Med-Jacks believed none of the venom Henry was spewing.

Tiredly pushing his forearms against the door, Nick finally succeeds in removing himself from the hut. His feet feel heavy as they trudge through the thick grass, but the rest of his body appears to remain alert to his surroundings.

His brain already having an incling into the carnage he is about to deal with when he walks into the Homestead.

As it turns out, Nick's mind was absolutely correct with its suspicions. Opening the door to their shared room, his steps falter when he sees Adeline bashing around the space, picking out various garments from the drawers by the wall and lobbing them back onto the middle of a blanket which has been laid out over the top of the bed.

She moves with so much force the leader would swear he could see indentations from her crutches gradually drumming themselves into the floorboards.

"What the fuck are you doing?" he questions, taking a timid step into the room and closing the door behind him.

"I need to go" is all Adeline says back, not even lifting her head as she sifts through the drawers, throwing all of her belongings over her shoulders.

The leader does nothing for a moment, taken aback slightly, his brain trying to compute her words. He pushes his head back an inch or two, until his neck scrunches up beneath his chin, and he blinks away the initial shock. "Sorry, what?"

"I need to leave" the girl spits out, glancing up to look at Nick for a brief second before spinning around and hurling herself towards the side of the bed.

Once again, the boy is left with more questions than answers. His forehead creases and his lips purse in confusion as he takes a step over to the bed, grabs a handful of her clothes and walks back to the dresser, stuffing them deep into the drawers and closing it over. "Why?" he asks, his tone of voice calm and collected, his brain not yet registering just how serious Adeline is being.

She ignores him completely.

Nick steps into the middle of the room, attempting to block her path by standing directly in front of her, but all Adeline does is weave around him, muttering incoherently to herself as she stumbles past to grab the clothes he snatched up not moments ago. "Addy, why?" he questions once more, his head bowed down slightly as his body turns and his eyes follow her every movement.

"Because it's my fault" she mumbles, standing by the edge of the bed as she stuffs every article of clothing she owns to the middle of the outstretched blanket. Pausing for a moment, she draws her right hand up and uses her fingers to tuck some stray hair behind the back of her left ear. "It's my fault. Henry said so. It's my fault and I need to- I need to leave before it gets worse because if I don't then you're all gonna die and then-"

"Ads-" Nick cuts in, extending his hand out to grab her arm. His fingers only get as far as grazing over her hand before sliding away, absorbing some the blood from her palm into his skin. His words falter, the letters dangling on the tip of his tongue as he raises his hand up to his face. Thick ruby liquid twinkles in the bronze sunlight, sparkling so brightly it strains his eyes.

"What the-" he whispers to himself, but the distraction only lasts a brief second. His vision flickers back down to Adeline, and the frenzied way she bundles the blanket up, concealing all of her clothes within. "Ads, stop."