George didn’t feel it. The pain. Not right away. Then it twisted, a piece of barbed wire around his heart, gripping, tugging, pulling, squeezing. He didn’t feel the heat as he ran to the car. He wasn’t gone. He wasn’t gone.
“No. No! Get out! Dante, get out of the fucking car!” He was snarling at the car, his hands blistering and burning under the hot metal of the car. He didn’t accept it, he refused to. He couldn’t. He couldn’t lose another person on that fucking doorstep. The glass shattered under his fists but he felt hands grabbing him, pulling him back and his elbow raised and jerked, crunching into Silver’s face. It was her yelp that caused another jerk of horror in his heart. It was John’s Dante that he attacked. That was some fucking poetry. It was then that he finally stopped, watched as the woman clutched her bleeding mouth on the ground. He spun on his heel, his face wild, his eyes searching for a moment that would take him back. Then he was only filled with revenge. It burned, a singular bright in the darkness that was consuming him. George Darling didn’t cry for people. He avenged them. “I’ll kill them. Kill them all.” It was an mantra, the only thought in his head. They’d be dead by morning. Because that was all George Darling knew. When he felt something, anything, someone had to die.
The commotion had rumbled through Neverland in one loud burst, cracking windows of buildings nearby and bellowing throughout both sides. Leo had ran right to the source, following the flames and having to shield his eyes instantly as the car was engulfed in fire.
Leo knew his car, and he knew George. His face and the sight of Silver on the ground next to him was the sort of anger that he had only seen elicited a few times before when he had been wronged more personally than professionally. If he blinked, Leo could almost have been convinced they had stepped into decades gone, that very same spot where Louis had been slain now destined to hold that same darkness for another of those who had seen this place built from ground to greatness.
He didn’t think much on his next move, heading straight for the bull and blocking George’s path with his body while trying to usher him away from the fire that was in danger of spreading.
“You need to get away from here, you don’t know if there’s another one about to go off or if there’s a fucking gun on you somewhere.” The man may have liked to think himself invincible, but the body of their friend now desecrated and departed was proof he wasn’t. No one ever was. He knew was inserting himself smack bang into the line of fire of a man on edge, one who wasn’t pleased to see him at the best of times but he didn’t care. He remembered vividly where that mantra he caught the tell end of him muttering had landed him before -- a prison cell.
