The Best Of Both: Camp Cretaceous OC

Fire in the Piazza

The room was quiet as Darius' decision was processed, everyone looked neither here nor there about his opinion to not go after Brooklynn. Even Max wasn't incredibly surprised by his choice. Despite him knowing that Darius was never the kind of person to leave somebody behind, this was different. This whole situation with Brooklynn was sticky and messy and all over the place. It was neither Yaz's nor his right to try and convince them otherwise. At this point, it was down to the individual to decide what they should do.

Yasmina, on the other hand, looked absolutely appalled at his choice, her mouth wide open in shock. "Seriously? You don't want to go after Brooklynn? Mister Always Does The Right Thing?" She exclaimed.

"Yaz!" Max intervened, standing up.

"I just think that maybe Sammy's right," Darius explained calmly.

"No, she's not!"

"Thanks," Sammy scoffed sarcastically, turning her head away from her with her arms crossed.

Yasmina quickly backpedalled. "No, I'm just saying, you're not considering Brooklynn in all of this".

Sammy turned to her again. "And I'm just saying, she had time to call us for information about the Professor, so she has time for a quick 'my bad'".

"Sammy, she is with the woman who tried to kill us. Who tried to kill her," Yasmina pointed out.

"I understand that. But she chose to go with her," Sammy countered.

Yasmina's eyes narrowed. "Brooklynn is family, and in my family, we are always there for each other". Sammy raised an eyebrow at her, and Max didn't miss how her eyes briefly flicked over to him for a moment.

"Don't you see? There is no good answer here," Darius said. "Brooklynn is with the woman who tried to kill her, but she also chose to be. This isn't an easy problem to solve, I mean, it's messy and complicated and there's no good answer. Brooklynn's death tore us all apart before. I don't want her life to do that too".

The group fell into silence, but was quickly interrupted by the echoed sound of shouts. "Hey, that sounds like...," Max began.

The group went downstairs, following the noise through the hallway, through the kitchen and out the side door into the yard, where they spotted Kenji on the other side of the fence, calling out into the streets beyond, while Nonna stayed within the yard, and from the look of it, was trying to calm him down.

"Smoothie? Smoothie!" Kenji called. 

"Woah, wait," Darius asked. "What happened to Smoothie?"

"Smoothie is gone!" Kenji shouted, turning to them with a panicked expression. "I wasn't watchign and he escaped. Now he's lost out there...".

Kenji was silence as a church bell echoed through the town, reaching their ears with a resounding gong. In the dusk light, the few people still out on the streets suddenly picked up the pace, speed walking to wherever they were headed. Nonna asked something in Italian. "Maybe it's a warning," Gia gasped, holding up the mystery feather.

Darius knew what had to be done. If the town was issuing a warning, then whatever had attacked them in Gia's car was probably close by, and this whole town would become its playground once night fell. Darius looked at the sun dipping below the tree line. "We have to find Smoothie".

0O0

Brooklynn and Soyona waited not so patiently in the portable room in the catacombs. Soyona sat at the head of the table while Brooklynn was a few seats down, plastic water bottles in front of them. 

As they listened to the low hum of the TV's noise, they waited, and waited some more. Brooklynn watched as Soyona fiddled with her bottle cap, flipping it up and down on the table in front of her. She turned back to her own drink and reached out with her prosthesis, managing to grasp it gently. Slowly, she lifted it towards her mouth, only making it halfway before her hand unwillingly squeezed, squishing the plastic in and sending water out of the bottle and spilling on the table.