placebo's machine

Found 17

Found

Eva strained her eyes to the side, hoping to catch a glimpse of her soon-to-be killer. It was a girl all right, short at that, with an eyepatch over her left eye, wearing an airship captain’s jacket that looked like it had been stolen. Short, with a frown etched deeply on her face.

What caught Eva’s eyes the most were her full lips pressed together, but never seeming to fully portray anger.

So was that Mary?

Eva was glad that, even if she died, Gabriel would have found them.

But a hand wrenched the gun away from her head, and she felt herself being pulled away by Gabriel. “Stop it. She can’t hurt you.”

The girl dropped the gun. “G-gabriel!”

She stood there for a few moments, shocked, before she was pushed out of the way by another girl, with skinny blonde pigtails and a heavy black coat.

“Gabby!” She cried breathlessly, flinging herself upon him, though she was much taller. “I missed you,” she added in barely a whisper.

To Eva’s surprise, Gabriel raised his arms to wrap around the tall girl, too. “Leah,” he laughed.

The original girl with the gun tucked said firearm into her pocket and dragged Leah off of Gabriel. She stared him down for a few long moments, before kicking his shin and punching him in the gut.

“N-nice to see you, too, Mary,” he choked out.

She grabbed Gabriel’s collar and pulled his head down to her eye level, glaring even harder. “You ass,” she announced finally. “Took you long enough to join the party.”

Mary’s gaze came to rest on Eva. “And you. Look what he dragged in. Why do we need this-”

“No way!” Interrupted a voice. They all spun around to see the boy Eva had met at the festival. “You’re that pretty girl I met! Man, if I had known that you were coming today I would have told Mary not to go sticking bullets in stranger’s heads. I mean, what if they just wanted a book or something?”

Leah huffed and returned to hugging Gabriel.

“Elijah,” Mary said sternly, glaring even harder. (Though Eva hadn’t known that possible.) “Now is not the time for you to make your highly romantic views on life known.”

Eva stepped out into the library a bit more. “I-I thought you were French.”

Elijah’s face showed nothing but pure, unfiltered glee. “You did? It was that genuine? Thank you! My heart leaps this day!”

Mary muttered something about ‘genius first impressions’.

Leah slipped her arms off from around Gabriel’s neck, somehow padding softly on tall, black leather stiletto boots (not that she needed them) to peer down at Eva. Her wide brown eyes blinked, before she put out a slender finger to touch Eva’s neck. “You have a mole there,” she announced. “Quite unusual, but I once met someone with a freckle on their lip. You’ll have to work on that.”

Eva clutched her neck where Leah had touched it, indeed feeling a small mole. “I-I- okay?”

She looked up at Gabriel for clarification on what just happened, but he let out only a small, sad smile.

Mary made a point of ignoring Eva while she invited Gabriel farther in, though Elijah very courteously offered Eva his arm. Leah trailed after, sitting cross-legged on a stool next to a dusty shelf.

The whole library was small, with porthole-esque windows letting in yellow streams of sun at the top of the domed roof. Otherwise it was square, with three stories and ladders to get to each.

On the backs of all three inhabitants Eva noticed odd bulges, which Leah mostly hid under her black coat, which seemed to have strips of cloth sewn to the cuffs of the sleeves and collar to make them longer. Under that, though, she saw short, tight black shorts with a sort of garter belt attaching them to Leah’s boots. Judging by the way that Leah adjusted them uncomfortably and sent Mary distressed looks when doing so, it had not been her idea, but instead the short tyrant with pouty lips.

The most disturbing thing about said tyrant was not the gun, Eva felt, but the fact that her pants seemed to remain a pristine white made her feel uneasy.

An awkward silence fell over them, with Eva shifting from foot to foot and Mary languidly stretched out on a small table.

“I suppose I should ask who that is,” Mary told Gabriel, nodding in Eva’s direction.

“Honestly, Mary,” Gabriel sighed. “She’s not bad. Stop being so rude.”

Mary raised her visible eyebrow. “When was I ever not rude?”

“Never,” Gabriel pointed out in a light tone. “Maybe you should start now.”

Mary gave him another hard look, but soon broke it and replaced her expression with a softer one. “I’ve missed your witty comments,” she admitted. “About my question, then?”

“You could just, you know, ask her yourself,” Gabriel muttered.

“Fine,” Mary announced, turning with a sigh to Eva. “Who are you?”

Eva looked at Gabriel, and he motioned for her to answer. “Eva. Though Gabriel says my name is Evangeline but...I can’t remember anything. He says that I come from where you guys did- I have wings too- but I can’t remember anything at all.”

Mary widened her eyes, looking pointedly at Gabriel. “So can she fly, then?”

“Yes,” Gabriel replied.

“Well, to figure out what’s going on, because there’s no way they just let us all go, I have to ask Gabriel some questions. You. Leave.” She pointed at Eva and then the door.

Leah looked down and tapped her feet together, obviously not invested in the conversation at all.

“Since you can still fly, it complicates things,” Elijah explained gently. “We need to ask some things that could possibly eliminate that.”

Gabriel looked back at Eva. “I...”

Eva smiled. “You stay here. It’s better than the shed. I’ll go home, and if you need me you can find me.”

Gabriel grinned back. “Thanks. Be careful.”

“Don’t worry,” Eva called over her shoulder as she left. “Bye.”

The chill had increased, and Eva tightened her coat around her shoulders. It was getting dark, the sky stuck in gloaming with hints of a purplish grey covering the world. The streets seemed oddly empty, though, a fact that seemed unrelated to the growing dusk.

Eva felt a shiver race up her spine that had nothing to do with the weather.

She began to feel more relaxed as she passed the train station, which seemed to be well occupied. Perhaps it was a holiday she had not been aware of.

The dusty path out to Kurt and Jan’s house seemed oddly settled and packed, the wind still for once and not a movement besides that of Eva and the black birds high up in the sky.

The back door was open.

Eva noticed that before she saw Sebastian, slinking away with his head down. He let out a whimper as she passed, running far away, back to the town.

Eva watched him go, the slowly turned her head back to the open door.

The shadows seemed to snatch at her feet as she walked, and she pushed the door farther open with some trepidation, looking if there was anyone lurking in the shadows.

“Hello?” Eva called, stepping in.

A hand grabbed her ankle the moment she crossed the threshold and tugged her down. Eva found herself staring into Jan’s blue eyes, now dilated and wide.

“Leave,” Jan whispered hoarsely, a bit of something dark trickling out of the corner of her mouth. “They’re here.”