Hidden and Silent (SpyxFamily)

Ch. 12: Part Two

Damian's muscles were stiff. Pressure crammed his throat and tightened his stomach and he couldn't tell if his heart was still beating or trying to strangle him.

The scream, the one explanation that Damian couldn't believe, that seeded chaos and disruption through his mind, had all but reduced the discarded furniture to splinters. The curtains and cushions were in shreds. The sand Damian had found was dashed uselessly across the broken floor.

The scream was the only thing left. It's existence was absurd. It's presence in Damian's mind was absurd. It reverberated against his skull and consumed the last of his thoughts. It wouldn't leave him alone and harangued and clawed for his attention so much so that he couldn't think straight. It was loud and wild and he couldn't ignore it any longer. He couldn't pretend it didn't exist.

Damian looked at it and it finally went quiet.

In a rush of silence, it came to a standstill. Damian stared back at the beast that had come to fill the room, it's overwhelming presence blocking anything from coming in or going out. It was just there and Damian looked at it. He looked at it and his logic and deductive reasoning balanced precariously like a see-saw on a log. His other thoughts were numbed, his good senses were questioned and he looked at it.

It was ridiculous.

It was the only thing left.

He felt the rattle in his ribs when he breathed and his nerves jumped and raced uneasily.

It was insane.

It was the only thing left.

Demetrius was watching him intently now, his kite forgotten as it landed. He was unnaturally still. His face conveyed very little and his apprehensive eyes betrayed him as they bored into his little brother.

The wind was near dead as lasting vestiges breezed gently through the grass and Damian found his breath again, inhaling sharply.

Forger.

Her name played like a gong through Damian's skull, the startling ram of a hammer hitting it over and over, as if forcing him to recognize it. He couldn't refute the similarities that came racing to mind, as if they had just been waiting for him to take notice. Memories and thoughts slowly began to meld into a horrible picture that he hadn't had the tools to put together before. It was just like Forger and someone's hands reached into his chest, clenching at his heart and lungs.

That sixth sense. While Forger would catch Damian looking at her, Demetrius' was more subtle. He picked up on Damian's moods, his anxieties, and seemed to understand him by the most tiniest, indiscernible little tics in his face. It was like they were both attuned to him.

Demetrius mentioned the nightmares before Damian could. The ice cream. Guessing when Damian was hungry. Suggesting the amusement park before Damian could say he wanted to go.

And Forger.

All the little looks she gave him. The times she offered her help with whatever was stressing him out. How insanely calm she was on the bus before anyone learned the bombs were fake.

. . .

. . .

. . .How much she avoided him when he was trying to uncover her secrets.

As if she knew.

Like Damian was just now noticing a moon-sized meteor that had been on a collision course with the earth for a week and ripped through his world, he was stunned into petrifying realization. His brain had stopped sending signals and his mouth parted, unable to form the words.

The experiments.

Damian knew what they were for.

"Demetrius?" A hoarse, shaky whisper lodged in Damian's throat and he barely heard himself speak it.

Nothing. Demetrius had become a gargoyle, frozen and quiet. It didn't look like he was breathing. Damian hadn't even said it and Demetrius had stalled.

It was every bit a confirmation.

The little, wooden handle dropped from Damian's hand as the wind died on the ground. The warm colours filtering through his kite had passed when it fell, and the sun's rays, though warm in the beginning of it's descent, cast fingers of dark shadows across the expanse of open grass. The sun had begun to set along with what remained of Damian's sense of the world. It had all but been destroyed.

The remnants of his perceived reality were disintegrating the longer Demetrius' gaze stayed locked on his and Damian wasn't all that sure that Demetrius could look away. Or force his body to move or operate. His legs remained stout, his fingers hovered motionless in the air, and his face was schooled into nothingness. With a sudden turn of his head, he came back to life and turned to the handle in his hands. As if he were unaccustomed to using them, he slowly wound up the string of his kite.

"Deme—" Damian began and failed.

Over and over, Demetrius wrapped the thin cord until all the slack was taken, the grass softly rustling underneath as it gently scraped in small, repetitive increments. Demetrius crouched to pick it up and wrapped the tail loosely around two opposing sides. He stared at.

"Demetrius. . ." Damian tried again.

Head angled at his kite, Demetrius' eyes shut closed, his entire face tightening and clenching as he inhaled deep and long through his nose. He exhaled and his shoulders sagged, his disposition turning to accepted defeat in an instant. A hand covered his eyes.

"Demetrius!" Confused emotion burst in angry, broken, fractures through Damian's chest and his voice cracked.

With every bit of oxygen he had, Demetrius sighed heavily at his kite and dropped his hand. "Yeah. . ." The construct of red, framed paper was tossed carelessly to the ground.