Untimely

- XIII -

The soft click of Vanya shutting the door behind her was all Mara needed before she released a shaky breath.

She couldn't put up her façade any longer and let herself fall back into the shelf. Though she found Vanya the most endearing out of the six siblings, she still didn't trust her enough to let her see Mara be off guard.

Ben sat across from her on the floor, leaning on the packaged stacks of ketchup. Being in a storage room, they had to make the most of it out of the lack of space and appropriate seating.

He stared intently at nothing as his face contorted in various different emotions. Confusion. Anger. Denial. Betrayal. Then back to anger. It was a cycle Mara found herself to be familiar with especially in the past two days.

She left no stone unturned when she revealed the secrecy of her father and the reason of her absence to him. Even with Vanya silently listening and tending to his cuts, Ben didn't utter a word. But looking at him now, Mara already knew he was finally going to let out his frustrations now that Vanya had left.

"Why help them in the first place?" he said, his voice low enough that Mara almost didn't hear him. "They could be far more dangerous than anything."

"That boy was telling the truth, Ben." She pulled both her legs to her chest. "I saw everything."

"You touched him without your gloves?" Ben raised his voice slightly and nearly stood up. "Mara, you know you can't just do that."

"I don't know why I did it either." She huffed. "When I saw that stupid old banister about to break off under him, it was like something took hold of me. I had completely forgotten what his powers were."

Her brother paused, his expression seemed to soften if not for a bit. "What did you see?"

Mara stiffened. Just the slightest mention or reference of it put her sense on overdrive. "The apocalypse."

Her lungs hitched. Her eyes watered at the thought of the smoke engulfing her under the falling sky in the ruins of everything she thought she knew. Ben's face began to blur from the threatening tears, but Mara wiped it away before it could have the chance to fall.

"Everything was in ruins including the Academy. There were ashes falling down from the sky." Pulling her legs closer to her chest, she continued in a shaky voice. "It buried what was left even the corpses of those purple standing outside that door."

Mara stared at her feet. She knew if she looked at Ben any further, she would burst.

"Smoke was the only thing I could breathe in." she sniffed, tears already making its way back. "I can still feel it clogging up my lungs and burning my eyes."

Mara exhaled deeply. It was shaky breath that cracked her façade. "I saw Five there, Ben. I watched him scream over their dead bodies and sacrifice his own principles just to get back to them."

The visible frustration and anger at himself for leaving in the first place. The loneliness in his eyes whenever he looked at his mannequin friend. The brutal promise to himself and the constant red that decorated his hands.

It was all coming back to her.

"No one deserves to live a life he had." she said, voice cracking slightly but still remained stern in her appearance as she turned back to face her brother. "I wanted to help him because its what we do."

Ben's expression changed. It was evident in his face the torment and indecisiveness to trust in her blatant belief and the skeptical questioning he was taught.

"Did you see the others by the way?" she asked instead, not waiting for his response. "Matthew or Alvi?"

"No." He replied looking down. "I checked their rooms but they were empty."