the blood in our future

Thicker Than Blood

A/N: So sorry everyone this was supposed to go out like a week ago but I scheduled the chapter while I was really tired and accidentally did it for 2025. I don't have notifications on for this, either, so I only noticed now😭😭😭

Anyway hope you all have fun with this! Grab a drink, grab a snack, keep your teeth always in line of sight, and enjoy!!

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Mary Carlyle breathed out. Breathed in. Let another wisp of air carve out her lungs. "It's not her?"

Barnes shook his head. "No. There's no mole. It's not her." He sounded as if his breath was heaving, too.

Mary had to cling to the wall for support. Had to give it her all not to sink to her knees.

It wasn't her.

Lucy wasn't dead.

Not this way, at least.

Wildfire-thoughts spun through her mind. She'd been right. The girl's head had been bashed in to distract. Sam had wanted to keep Lucy alive, probably for that disturbed experiment of his.

But how long would that hold up?

The horrible truth was: Just because this wasn't her body, it didn't mean her sister wasn't dead. It didn't mean that whatever Sam had needed to happen — hadn't already happened.

Mary gave it her best to wring down the nausea. To fight to keep standing despite the knives in her leg, the weight on her heart.

"We need to find her," she murmured towards Barnes. "If all of this was a distraction, then Sam has her. We need to find her." Her voice grew more and more determined. "And we need to bring her back."

"We need to tell Lockwood and George, first of all," Barnes remarked. "They'll be crazed with grief by now. You were crazed with grief. And if that already led you to break into a hospital's ventilation system, I regret to think what they might be up to."

Mary nodded, only registering every second word he said. Everything processed only half since she knew it: That there might still be a chance. That she might be able to get her big sister back.

"Call them," she nodded. "Once they know it wasn't her they found, they'll be our best bet to find her, anyway—"

"The hair," Barnes murmured, interrupting her.

Mary looked up. Tried to keep stable. "What?"

"The hair," he repeated. It seemed as if he was raising his hand, lifting something up with it, but Mary couldn't see what. He stood with his back towards her, careful to shield her from the body beyond. "It's not— it's not even."

"What do you mean?"

"It's freshly chopped," Barnes explained, voice too even to sound human. "Hastily. Unplanned. It must have been longer, before." He hesitated. "I think that—" He broke himself off.

"What?"

"Nevermind. It's not important."

But Mary had always been quick. She'd figured it out, anyway. "You think that Lucy wasn't the original target," she concluded. "You think the corpse was supposed to stand in for someone else, first. For me."

Barnes stayed quiet. Mary processed half of it.

It was always there, in the back of her mind: That she should have been the one to run, to drown, to lay on this table, to get taken. It never should have been Lucy. It only had been because she'd called her. Because she'd been so afraid she hadn't been able to take it.