The Glass Ballerina Who Danced On Knives

Bullet

TW: shooting

Thea comes and causes a scene at dinner, according to Xander but I don't attend dinner. I don't stalk Jameson and Avery on their nightly, fruitless Black Wood searches. The gala planning committee is boring, ignorant, and gives out disgusting refreshments. One girl wants to put velvet curtains over everything. Charming, but a little gauche. There's only so far new money goes.

The entire gala has already been planned anyways, we're just finalising catering, music, and entertainment so I don't understand why she has to keep waving her enormous pearl ring and tacky Louis Vitton in our faces about how she can afford it. The world seemed to come to a standstill, which is why, out of boredom, I decide to grab my gun and head out into the Black Wood. I hear shots.

No.

I'm running through the woods, as fast as my feet will let me. Past the blurring lines of glow in the dark duct tape, until I come to the tree that Granddad had guided me to four months and two days ago.

Tobias Hawthorne II

Two large, dark shapes lie on the ground, and I can make out a shape running through the woods.

Bam.

Bam.

Bam.

I fire three shots, and I know at least one of them hit them.

"Jamie, where's Oren?"

He's bent over, cradling Avery's upper body.
"She's hurt!" He shouts at me, and I recoil.

I refrain from screaming back at him, and dab at her chest with my headband as best as I stayed calm. It was bark, not a bullet. The bullet must have hit the tree.

"Are you okay, Avery?" Oren is running towards us. "Jameson, is she okay?"

"She's bleeding." That was Jameson. He pulled back from cradling her and stared.

"Your face." Jameson's touch was light against her skin.

"Did they shoot me twice?" she asks, dazed.

"The assailant didn't shoot you at all." I spoke up "You got hit by a couple of pieces of bark. The other cut's just a scratch, but the bark's lodged deep in this one. We'll leave it until we're ready to stitch you up."

Oren made quick work of displacing Jameson and ran his hands expertly over Avery's body, checking for damage.

"Stitch me up." She says shakily

"You're lucky." Oren stands, then did a quick check of the tree, where the bullet had hit. "A couple of inches to the right, and we'd be looking at removing a bullet, not bark."
I stalked past the place where the tree had been hit to another tree behind us. Yanking a knife from my belt, I dig the bullet out, the cool metal falling into my palm.

"Whoever fired that is long gone now," Oren states, plucking the bullet from my palm and wrapping it in what appeared to be some kind of handkerchief. "But we might be able to trace this."

This, as in a bullet. Someone had just tried to shoot Avery. They weren't aiming for Jameson.

"What just happened here?" For once, Jameson didn't sound like he was playing.

"What happened," Oren replies, glancing back into the distance, "is that someone saw the two of you out here, decided you were easy targets, and pulled their trigger. Twice."

"I'll call a team, " I offer, holding up the walkie-talkie I lifted from a guard.

Oren opens his mouth to say something, then decides against it. "Tell them to bring a med kit."

The ATVs arrive quickly and take us to Wayback cottage, not the House.

Oren doesn't trust us.

Mrs. Laughlin was at home when we arrived at Wayback.

The older woman who practically raised me took one look at Oren, Jameson, Avery, and me and ushered us inside. If a bleeding person being stitched up at her kitchen table was an unusual occurrence, she gave no sign of it.

"I'll put on some tea," she said.

"Are you okay with me playing medic?" I ask before Oren can, settling Avery in a chair. "I'm sure Alisa could arrange for some fancy plastic surgeon."
That gets a tiny smile out of her

"Just stop me from bleeding." she whispers.

Internally, I'm panicking. On the outside, I'm as calm as I can be.

Remove wood.

Clean wound.

Stitch.

Clean again.

"Done," I say with confidence. Ms. Laughlin brings out a tray of tea - and a tumbler of whisky.

I pull off the glass top and pour a heavy dose into Avery's cup.
"Drink that." Under different circumstances, I would have laughed at the look on her face. "It's not poison, I swear."

She takes it hesitantly, hands shaking.
I steady her hands and drink her tea, then pour it down her lips. She takes a shaky sip.

I pour myself a shot of whisky and drown it.

Mrs. Laughlin gives Avery an almost maternal look, then scowls at Oren. "Mr. Laughlin will want to know what happened," she says, as if she herself were not at all curious about why this girl was bleeding at her kitchen table. "And someone needs to clean up the poor girl's face." She gave Avery a sympathetic look and clucked her tongue.

"Where is Mr. Laughlin?" Oren asked, his tone conversational, but I heard the question—and the implication underneath. He's not here. I know how good of a shot he is.

As if summoned, Mr. Laughlin walked through the front door and let it slam behind him. There was mud on his boots.
From the woods?

"Something's happened," Mrs. Laughlin told her husband calmly.

Mr. Laughlin looks at Oren, Jameson, Avery, and me—in that order, the same order in which his wife had taken in our presence—and then pours himself a glass of whiskey. "Security protocols?" he asks Oren gruffly.

Oren gives a brisk nod. "In full force."

He turned back to his wife. "Where's Rebecca?" he asked.

I look up from my empty glass of whiskey. "Rebecca's here?"

"She's a good girl," Mr. Laughlin grunted. "Comes to visit, the way she
should."

So where is she?

Mrs. Laughlin rests a hand on Avery's shoulder. "There's a bathroom through
there, dear," she told her quietly, "if you want to clean up."

A.N.: I forgot to update yesterday ToT sorry! I'm going to do "A very Hawthorne Christmas" about when Trinity was ten. New chapter of agent Goldfinch up too. Ily and have an amazing week! <3!
Sky(lar)