Hunter: Eclipse

28th April 2013

(last chapter has been changed slightly hence the republish x)

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At the head of the long conference table, Ailin sits with a straight back and blank face. Her hands methodically shuffle the papers in front of her, on which she has nothing actually written, before gathering them up to tap into a neat pile where they sit flat for a second before being moved again. The motion soothes her. She finds it hard to concentrate on much else, despite her body having recovered from the beating it just took, compliments of the God of Light and his healing abilities. By now she expected Elise to have appeared. Even if to just roll her eyes, say something insulting, and then disappear again. The wanted message would have been received by her by now, surely.

To her left, the Bunting family sit just as anxiously. Jordan draws a circle on the paper in front of him, going over and over the same line until it cuts through. Then he starts again in a different area. He had been clicking the pen, but one look from his father who sat beside him had him using it for its intended purpose instead. His parents hold hands and sit silently, tight-lipped and worried. Both blamed themselves for, everything and lost in thought, they brace themselves for the worst, because things always get worse before they get better. Don't they?

Opposite them, V is leaning back in his chair. Listening to the chaos at the end of the table, with a mixture of interest and boredom. None of this was doing anyone any good and catching the eye of Mrs Bunting, he offers her a tiny smile which she either ignores or just doesn't see. He worries about them. He worries about Elise. He glances at Ailin and worries about her too. The state that Elise had left her in at the hospital had made him wonder if their President would even make it. Turning back to the shouting god, he wondered what it was that brought them all together this way. Fate or a plan that another god had set into motion years before he had even been a twinkle in his father's eye. Both, everything or none of it. But here they all were, worried for one particularly darling girl, that they couldn't find.

Beside him Zane, Penny and Keiran talk amongst themselves as they are filled in on the attempted attack on Olivia and the chaos that followed. Zane has an uneasy feeling growing in the pit of his stomach. He doesn't like it and knows whatever is going on might not end well. These things rarely do after all, while Keiran wants merely to return upstairs and be with his family. His may worry solely about his wife who is not dealing with the near abduction of their daughter well. Penny puts this all down to another Elise drama, that makes her so much more thankful for her own, boring life and minuscule problems while wondering how Colton will fare among this crazy little family she is now firmly apart of.

No interrupts the argument happening between the Powers and the Valkyrie, at least not until another Kasha demon appears beside Ailin, whispering something none of them in can hear before disappearing as quickly as she came.

"Is it, Elise?" Her mother breaks the silence.

"She was just located in our jail. Apparently-"

"Here? In this building?" Artemis demands.

"Yes," Ailin tells her; the tone of her voice is flat, giving none of her internal thoughts away.

"Did they-" Mrs Bunting doesn't want to ask, and so she stops herself.

"She is gone."

"How does that even work?" Penny huffs. "What happened to the security in this place?"

"It doesn't matter Penny. We are above the powers here, the few we can not break are what-" Apollo hesitated, but carried on. "Cain created during his time here."