// Nine //

// Stop //

Nine crouched down next to Tacey, running a hand through the cotton of her dress.

She would wake any moment now.

She had to, the apron had caught fire and could suddenly combust at any given moment. Nine would be fine, but Tacey surely would not. The flames would eat away at her skin, nip by nip.

He stilled, cocking his head.

What was he meant to do?

He was only told to stay with her, so maybe that's all he would do. But what if the house caught fire?

Well. That was a bridge he'd have to cross once he got there.

Tacey's face had relaxed from a cringed and pained expression to one of dumb compliance. She was still asleep, even coddling the ground a bit, but her face seemed less herself. She looked different.

Not that Nine had any clue as to what that meant. He wasn't supposed to be the brains of anything.

The kitchen area, once smelling like fresh crepes, now was releasing a chocking black smog in Nine's direction. Fire had started.

Nine's sockets widened, a feeling akin to panic setting. Oliver didn't tell him what to do. Oliver expected this fire, had 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 it, but left no instructions for Nine.

He flicked his gaze from a peaceful Tacey to the now building fire with a morbid expression, reaching out to her and yanking himself back in a shoulder tearing pattern.

He couldn't 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘦 her! But he trusted Oliver too much to believe she'd die.

Oliver didn't lie.

𝘔𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳 wouldn't lie.

Right. Oliver had told Nine to sit here and wait for Tacey to wake. So that's what he would do.

Nine felt calmer with that thought, after all, he wasn't told to think. He surely hadn't thought yesterday, when he blindly followed Oliver's gesture to kill. So what was different here?

Nothing.

The fire was visible now, 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬 it was spreading quickly. Tacey stirred at its scent, her nose scrunching and pulling her entire face back into a sneeze. Her eyes peeled open.

Her brown irises were hazy and unfocused, her pupils dialated as small pinpricks. She would have seemed scared to Nine, if he had given her a long enough glance. Her mouth opened to speak, but out came a scream instead as she was scooped up under Nine's grayish red limbs and scrambled out of the burning building through a cracked window.

His body twisted to shield Tacey before his shoulder made contact with the flimsy glass, shattering it across the ground. He curled in on himself to tuck Tacey to his chest, landing on his side with sharp blades of glass digging into his flesh.

He shook it off and hopped away from the hazard before setting an extremely confused Tacey to the ground and on her own feet.

She had a cloudy gaze and she swayed on her feet, her hair oily and clinging to her cheek. Her dress hung low on her, almost sinfully low on her chest and hips and sticking close to her form. She was barefoot on the grass and flinched slightly as a shard of glass pierced the soft skin of her heel.

Nine stood in front of her, shifting his attention from her to the raging fire and down to his loose tie. He readjusted it, near chocking himself with how tight he'd made it up to his neck.

"W-what? " Tacey stuttered.

She held a hand up to her temple and massaged it back and forth, glancing at her ruined house. Fire was creeping along the light wood of the hand built cottage, it's slender fingers wrapping around the window ledge and waving at her.

She had half the mind to wave back.

She felt dizzy and full, like something important had been ripped from her. Like a chunk of her mind had been spooned out and replaced by... Something.

It didn't feel unpleasant, but it surely wasn't 𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘭.

She could recognize Nine, but couldn't associate any feeling with him. Oliver was a distant memory, but again, no emotion. Not even the cozy cottage beside her, burning to the ground, it meant nothing to her despite the years of memories and familiarity within it.

It was like she had been given a blank slate, a new beginning.

Maybe this was good?

She tried to look Nine in the eye and smile, but was stopped by a distant roar of horns.