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trigger warnings: minor swearing, slight blood, mentions of self-harm
★。／｜＼。★
CAM'S POINT OF VIEW
BARNES STOOD IN THE CENTRE of the living room, the five teenagers standing or sitting around the room. Lucy and Annie were positioned on the couch behind the tall man, while George was opposite them, and Lockwood and Cam stood with their arms crossed behind the couch.
There was a faint chill to the room, caused by the psychic energy from Carver's dead body. It wasn't severe, although none of them knew whether it had the potential to be, considering that DEPRAC had come in and scrubbed the place free of blood and applied many precautions to avoid a Visitor.
Cam had his arms crossed and his right thumb and pointer finger dug into each other out of sight, while his left thumb pressed against his forearm. It was mostly out of instinct — more or less a habit he'd developed as a kid to take his mind off any pains or thoughts — so he didn't often realise that he was doing it nowadays.
Since his arms were crossed, the long black coat Lockwood had leant him — an attempt to hide the bloody stain on his shirt from Barnes. He needed to get that cleaned up soon — crossed over, hiding most of the lower half of his shirt.
The coat was probably a size or two too long for the boy, but his shoulders were broader than Lockwood's so it fit well-enough for the moment.
"It's a Mughal dagger," George explained to the inspector as he handed him back a plastic ziploc bag holding the dagger, "Indian, 16th century. They usually come in pairs, so if we find the other one, we find who killed Carver,"
"No," the older man shut down the idea immediately, "You've had your shot. You've made yourselves too conspicuous," his face was serious and set in stone, making his point clear.
The teens all shared stressed and argumentative looks between each other.
"Bickerstaff's mirror, the bone glass, it's Fittes' business now,"
"You can't be serious," Cam argued.
I did not get stabbed for bloody nothing.
"They'll screw it up, it'll get into the wrong hands," George told Barnes, adding on to Cam's statement.
"It's not your problem anymore," Barnes shrugged, not showing any remorse, "I mean, look around. You've got no safeguards, no supervision. And I don't have the time or resources to protect you,"
Lockwood muttered something under his breath before making eye contact with Barnes, "Inspector, I know you don't much like us-"
"I never said-" he interrupted only for Lockwood to speak over what he had to say, "Or our methods, and that's fine. But they work. We found Annabel Ward's murderer. No one else knows that, but you do,"
