WHEN THE DARKNESS COMES I NICK CLARK

Study Your Pain

Study Your Pain

"Hey," Chris said from behind Lourdes, making her turn around. "You alright?" he then asked hesitantly as he drew level with her, Alicia and Nick bringing up the rear, the former with red eyes made raw from weeping, the latter pale but strangely composed.

"No, I'm not," Lourdes said abruptly, pushing the hair out of her face with both hands, hands that shook despite herself.

"Of course you're not," Alicia said bitterly, "who freaking is?"

"Well, screw you too, Miss. Smartass!" Lourdes flared up, rounding on Alicia.

Alicia just ignored her, barging past instead, sending Lourdes staggering to the side.

"Watch were you're going, will you!?" Lourdes flung at Alicia's retreating back, making to go after her, only for Nick to grab her arm, swinging her round to face him.

"Hey," Nick said abruptly, towering over her, forcing Lourdes to lean back, "she was very close to Susan, you know that, and now she's dead, and Matt too"-

- "We've all been through the mill," Lourdes retorted, "not just Alicia. I saw you kill Cal for Christ's sake!"

"Yeah, because he was going to kill you!" Nick yelled. "What else was I supposed to do, huh? Send him a thank you card!?"

"Whoa, what the hell's this?" Chris said in disbelief, wading inbetween them both. "What the fuck are you talking about!?"

Gritting his teeth, Nick gave Chris an abbreviated rundown of events, not sparing himself from censure. Once he was finished, Chris just stood there, looking shellshocked.

"You - you did the right thing, man," Chris then managed to say, nodding at Nick, before glancing nervously at Lourdes, "you protected my sister."

Nick bowed his head, ramming his hands into the pockets of his slacks, shoulders hunching.

Chris nodded again, not sure what else to say, before heading into the lounge, Nick hesitating before following, leaving Lourdes

~*~

Travis paced the floor, trying not to look at the bare patch where Madison's best rug had lain. They had used it to wrap up the corpse of the man Daniel had shot, the body now lying out in the yard where he and Madison had carried it, concealing it out of sight underneath some old tarp. With the Salazar family now installed upstairs in Alicia's bedroom, Daniel having assured Travis his cousin was coming to collect them tomorrow, Travis was now trying to make plans for his own family's safety. But as he looked at their exhausted faces, he felt suddenly helpless to help them, panic threatening to paralyze him.

"We have to go, babe," Madison said firmly, Alicia raising her head from her mother's shoulder, the two of them sitting close together on the sofa.

Travis exhaled sharply, before tilting his head back, half closing his eyes, Lourdes recognizing it as the first sign of her father losing patience, something she had seen too many times when he was teaching class. Without thinking, she glanced out at where Susan Tran still stood, her grasping hands clawing at the air through the gaps of the fence. She had never been on the best of terms with Susan, who had viewed the Manawas' in the light of interlopers, but now such grievances seemed petty.

"Close the goddamn blinds, Lo," Travis snapped, rounding on Lourdes, making her start violently.

"Travis!" Liza hissed, glaring at him, before shooting Lourdes a worried glance.

Travis pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "Would you please close the blinds, Lourdes?" he rephrased through gritted teeth.

"What's the point?" Nick said, rolling his eyes. "We all know there are a couple of corpses cluttering up the yard, so closing the blinds isn't going to make much of a difference."