Hawk Point *ON HOLD*

Chapter Ten: Sister

This chapter is unedited so sorry for typos and mistakes!

Cif wakes up in the morning sitting bolt upright with her heart going like a trip hammer, sure she had a nightmare.

As she struggles out of bed, her new surroundings tell her a different story. Running a hand through her matted hair, Cif staggers down the stairs and into the living room to find Aven, Mildred and Emily sitting there with somber expressions. She doesn't need to ask but she does anyway: "He's really gone, isn't he?"

Mildred lifts herselt to her feet. "Darling, we don't know where he is---"

"But he's not dead? If the Watchers took him, they must have killed him!" Cif collapses onto the couch next to Aven. "No---he can't be dead." A shuddering breath escapes her lips. "But what happened to him?" She demands.

"Who knows?" Aven says with a shrug, "But don't assume that he's dead. Assumptions are a waste of time."

Cif's veins feel as if her blood has been relaced with ice water. "I want to help find him. I want to do something. I don't want to sit here while Christopher is missing. For all I know, he could be hurt, tortured or..." Dead. The word ricocets through her head jarringly. He could be dead. In her mind's eye, Cif can vaguely imagine life without Christopher. It would be empty and sad. No, sad isn't the right word. Broken. Torn apart. Destroyed. Her life would be destroyed without Christopher's smiling face. "I want to help." The words fall of Cif's tongue like a choked whisper.

"You don't know a thing about this hell hole of a town." Emily says coldly. "Do you think that you can just find your Uncle without knowing what you're getting into?"

"Christopher isn't my Uncle---" Cif begins, and breaks off when the phone rings.

"I'll get that." Mildred says, "Who knows how many people are ransaking my Café with Dustin in charge." She pads off into the kitchen.

"Dustin offered to take care of Judgememt day." Emily says, looking lazily after Mildred, her cold demenor thawing slightly. "He left for the morning shift an hour ago."

"Is he related to you?" Cif wants to know.

"No," Emily says slowly. "He's a friend of mine who is staying with us because his parents kicked him out."

Cif sets her jaw into a stubborn line. Something about Emily's tone makes her doubt the other girl; Emily isn't scowling but there is an odd, fixed look about her face that is something worse. "We're really good friends." Emily adds as an afterthought.

Aven blanches at that before shaking his head. "I don't like him," he says thoughtfully, "I know everyone else likes him, but I don't. Maybe it's because he works so hard to make people like him. Maybe I'm just a bastard. But I don't like him. I don't like how he's hiding something."

Emily's fixed expression doesn't change. "And you're not?" She asks.

Something flickers behind Aven's eyes---something that was there and gone too quickly for Cif to identify it, though she feels a chill at the back of her neck, as if a cold hand is touching her there. "Of course I'm hiding something," he says, "But the difference is that I'm awesome and Dustin's not."

"That must be the most pathetic argument I have ever heard." Emily mutters, then proceeds to call Aven an unflattering name that relates to female dogs.

"Emily, that's enough." The door opens, almost silently, and Mildred stands in the doorway. "Aven has his own reasons and opinions."

Color rises in Emily's face and Mildred steps into the living room, shutting the door behind her. "I heard most of what you were saying," she tells them, "Even through the wall. Emily, you don't know how Aven sees things because you don't know him as well as I do. If you think Aven's opinion is without reason, you're wrong there."