Dear Rabbit

Chapter 18

I hung up the phone frantically, realising she wouldn't answer, and made to grab my keys off of the side. I needed to find her. I needed to know that she was okay. I could practically feel my chest tightening and I willed myself not to have a panic attack, I couldn't. I needed to find Dori. I couldn't panic. But I knew I was anyway.

"Lottie?" I hardly heard Stiles questioning me as I pulled my shoes on in record time. If it were an option, I would have gone without them. Heck, I would have ran all the way to the Movie Store if I had no other option. Dori better be okay, she better be okay. She better.

"Charlotte?!" Hands shook my shoulders and I looked up at the boy. He looked as scared as me. He was confused and maybe he was scared for Dori, maybe he was scared for Lydia, but I doubt I was helping with my behaviour. I just wanted Dori to be okay. I needed her to be okay.

"Dori...she...I...the movie store...Lydia...I!" I couldn't get the words out and I could hear how choked up I was. I wasn't going to cry. I wasn't. I wasn't. I couldn't, I needed to be strong for Dori, I needed to find her and I needed to make sure she was okay...then I could cry and possibly punch a wall.

"Okay, okay, c'mon I'll drive you, the movie store by Main Street?" I nodded and Stiles pulled his keys from his pocket, beginning to hurry me from my room and out the door. I was glad he was driving...I doubt I could competently drive right now.

Stiles turned back around when Scott didn't follow, and the boy looked at us, "I'll catch up with you two, go." I was the first to practically sprint down those stairs and out to the jeep. I'd never been so terrified in my whole entire life. What if she was hurt? What if something really bad had happened? What if she...what if she was another victim? I couldn't cope with that. I couldn't lose my sister. I just couldn't.

Stiles was definitely breaking the speed limit and for once I couldn't give a damn. I was pretty sure I was close to breaking down and until I saw that both my friend and my sister were okay and not in body bags then I don't think I could focus on anything else. A hand reached out and pulled one of my shaking ones into a lap, Stiles glanced over at me as he drove. "Hey...they'll be okay."

"How do you know that?! What if..." My hand tightened around his involuntarily. I didn't want to think of the what ifs. I was shaking in my seat, and since when was this drive ever this long?! Why couldn't we be there already? Oh God.

"Just breath, she'll be okay, it's Dori...she'll kick everything's ass and keep Lydia safe..." I wanted to laugh at that idea, the idea that Dori would be kicking ass and taking names...but that didn't stop the tightness in my chest. I knew Stiles was trying to appear calm so that I wouldn't freak out. The tell-tell clenching of his jaw was enough to tell me that.

"Bu-"

"Breath." Doing what Stiles said wasn't necessarily my first choice, but he probably did know best in that moment. My breathing came out weak and shaky; Stiles probably thought I was going to have a panic attack...and maybe he'd be right. I didn't have them that often. There was that time I had a blood test, and that time I found mum and dad's divorce papers...but overall I didn't have them that often. I hated them. Panic attacks were like drowning; you can't breathe, you can't hear anything, you feel like your burning and you don't know how to stop it and then you panic more. It's like being drugged, disorientated. But if there was ever a time for me to have a panic attack, now was probably the most reasonable.

I kept doing what Stiles told me to do. I kept breathing, I kept holding onto his hand, I kept watching the trees and trying not to think of the bad possibilities, but instead Dori kicking a mugger's arse with her pinkie finger...

The moment I saw the flashing lights of emergency vehicles outside the movie store I was ready to throw myself out of that moving jeep and I probably would have had Stiles not still had a grip on me. The moment the jeep stopped, however, I was out of that car and searching for my sister and red headed friend.