the blood in our future

Hush

A/N: This is just Lucy being absolutely chaotic and insane on main again

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Lockwood was running through the star-lit trees, chasing, always chasing, after the sounds of that scream.

From time to time, he looked behind himself, expecting to find Lucy there, covering his back. Just like she always did. Like she always had. But expecting her to be here now was foolish, and he knew that. She wouldn't come running after him. Not when she didn't even trust him enough to know that he wouldn't kill her, for Christ's sake.

He knew, of course, that this must've had something to do with Colby. Somehow, he must've found a way to manipulate Lucy, to tell her lies she would believe - and, going off of the fact that Lucy had mentioned something about a letter right before they'd been interrupted, he supposed it might've been as simple as that.

Lockwood felt incredibly helpless at the prospect, which made him all the more mad. He'd locked every door, watched over her every night, and yet, Colby had found a way in. Yet, Colby had found a way to nearly make him lose Lucy all over again.

"Help! Help, please! Please, dear God, help me!" the scream rang out again, and Lockwood changed direction slightly to accommodate the new input of location.

It wasn't easy, running through the woods in almost total darkness. And in addition to that: Despite straining his ears, there was nothing he could hear in between the screams. No birds or animal noises, no rustling of leaves, no sounds of footsteps other than his. No thrashing of either victim or attacker on the forest floor.

When there wasn't screaming, it was dead silent. It was eerie, made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up despite his agent's training.

"Help! Help, please! Please, dear God, help me!"

And yet, despite the complete absence of any sound, despite the very real danger of Lockwood getting fucking lost in this park's goddamn wooded area, he refrained from answering the shout with one of his own.

Something about disturbing the silence felt... wrong. He didn't know why, really, but, then again, for the sake of preserving his nerves, he didn't want to think about it all too much.

Plus, on the logical side: If there was some poor woman being attacked right now by possibly very real humans, it made only sense not to draw attention to himself whilst he was still on his way. It was better to sneak up on them quietly, to use the surprise of his entrance to his advantage.

So, given this landscape of quiet, it was only fitting that Lockwood's final clue was not another scream, not another sound, but a flickering light.

There was an orange glow coming from in between the trees, slowly urging him to draw closer.

It was a fire, he could make out upon approaching a bit closer. A campfire, to be exact, burning in the corner of a clearing.

And a bit to his left, there lay a woman, completely motionless.

Hastily, Lockwood rushed over to her, knelt down next to her to check her for any injuries-

But she was dead already.

He knew as soon as his fingers on her pulse point were met with no resistance, as soon as he lifted her head and it revealed a massive gash on the back of it.

As soon as he saw the weak death glow forming right underneath her.

There was blood everywhere, now that he'd touched her - on his hands, on his trousers, on his shirt, on the grass underneath him.