the blood in our future

Ghosts in Your House (Blood on Your Hands)

A/N: I WANT to but we're never gonna get rid of the long chapters😭😭

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No one died when enough gas met enough sparks; when the building formerly used to host black market operations lit up in one last blinding blaze before turning into ashy rain.

No one died when the windows burst and the walls shattered. When the fire swept through the hallways, angry enough to leave nothing for itself.

Not even one Julius Winkman.

As it should turn out, Flo and Kipps had found him forgotten in some corner on their run to check whether the building was empty. He'd cried and cried so desperately behind a locked door they'd thought him a kid at first. And even though Flo had offered up her vote of just leaving him there, Quill Kipps had had a different idea.

Safe to say, the one thing Inspector Montagu Barnes hadn't been expecting — busy shouting at Mary all whilst trying to delegate the arriving DEPRAC teams and ambulances and fleeing people — was to see a grinning Kipps exit the building. A grinning Kipps who held none other than Julius Winkman in a grip that looked very non-negotiable.

"Inspector!" Kipps had called out to him, and Barnes hadn't known where his eyes should stray first: To the hair that stood up as if struck by lightning, to the soot blackening everything but his eyes and teeth, or to the prison escapee he was currently dragging after him.

The prison escapee had won, in the end.

"Kipps," Barnes had murmured back more in horror than in greeting, "what—"

"Thought he might be worth more to you in prison than dead," Kipps had smiled brightly. "He's a highly wanted man. Thought you might like to do the honours of catching him."

"I'm sure it would look good to your bosses," Mary had caught on, never one to let a few loud words stop her from trailing after him. "You know, being the one who arrested Julius Winkman and all. That's gotta make up for something."

He'd quirked an eyebrow at her. "Like the fact half the department saw me handcuffed to my own car?"

"Exactly that. Now go on." She'd pointed at where said handcuffs had still been dangling from his left wrist. "It's not like you don't have the means."

And, well, she hadn't been wrong.

Winkman had first been put firmly into those handcuffs, then stuffed into the back of some car. And after that, the waiting had begun.

Almost every one of the kids had made it out. George, Mary, Kipps, and some other strange girl who kept hovering near them. As much as his oncoming headache pulsated stronger and stronger each minute he spent within earshot of them, not even he was immune to checking them all over. To forcing them to get looked at by a paramedic before allowing them back near the front lines.

Almost every one of the kids had made it out. Except for Lucy and Lockwood, that was.

Barnes couldn't send teams in. This much had become clear the minute he'd seen the smoke and fire break out of the upper floors. And it had only become even clearer once Mary and George, gasping and apologetic, had rushed to tell him about what had been going on. Had rushed to tell him about the gas.

The firemen had already been called, but his own teams he couldn't send further than the doors; further than they needed to go to aid those who'd either already made it outside or were just about to. Beyond that, all he could have them do was try and confirm if anyone knew of anyone still in the building. Try and figure out who was still missing and who wasn't.