Super thrilled to get a collection of three of my TBC kids from Harp - Orrin, Kira and Benji in all his disaster glory. And Benji looking so much like Cain's song it's beautiful.
Fingers picked up the cipher like he were holding a tablet but as soon as he picked it up fully the feeling of it vanishing hit him along with something new: a boiling heat just inside his skin, fire along his nerves. His heart was pounding, slamming in his chest along with that adrenaline feeling that came with chasing a stalker, with running with clawing up the roof and then slamming down on top of prey-
Someone moved and when he turned they stepped back for a moment until the demon mask wearing kid pushed it back and squinted at him. He didn't know who had ended up on the mission with him - the usual group he ran with had been busy and he had gone out alone before HQ had sent a second was helping since the missions needed to cover almost all of Redacre in a few hours. But he almost could feel the fear before they squared shoulders. "-knock it off, smuggy, you look like you're about to fall over. Did you get a fever or something? You look a little... glassy...?"
Hands came up and Orrin felt like the twist of his lips was something far more malicious than a smile as he gave the other kid a up-nod. "I'm fine. Look..." He'd picked up some signs but right now the idea of putting up signs in someone's trashed yard had no appeal. "I saw some movement, bet we have a stalker. You deal with that, and I'll keep them clear."
His heart was thudding and the boiling feeling had gained something new - pain. Like sand and ash burning his lungs, something else was with that fire and only when the other club kid had moved did he find a tree, pulling himself up. The bark dug in and he felt it, smelling the crisp pine scent and that dragged something out-
Or the snap did, as the other kid left. When they were gone there was a shuffling and Orrin was half-bent over the branch from pain before there was movement as timid as a walking deer.
The gleam of the light reflected in eyes that normally were silver. This time, though, they were a hazed animal red and he leapt before he thought. A kick at the lucid's knees and the startled surprised yell when they went down was followed with a rush of angry victory, a hand holding them. It was instinct then, and a twist of Old Tongue, as he bit the lucid's neck and the struggle ended up with the lucid kicked again, a startled cry out to the Dispatcher and the Voice, and Orrin a few feet almost ass over kettle before he was on his feet.
And he felt alive.
It was as bright as daylight and that feeling was addicting, that high, the burning gone, as he picked himself a roof with a run and a leap pulling himself up until he was across the top and he crouched. In the shadows he held still and then he saw it, that glint of movement, the shift of shadows that were someone moving. And from his cell phone, it sure as fuck wasn't whoever was on the mission with him.
It wasn't a sleeper. It wasn't a lucid. He crawled in the shadows then dropped down to the lower first-floor overhang of a roof and he waited. Was it... - there. There.
Eyes narrowed as he leapt off the roof when the movement came close enough that he could tackle them, slamming into the Speak-As-One masked stalker with a bitter snarl of a laugh before the stalker was pinned down with a grip that almost wrenched the kid's arm out and it was too short of a hunt, the haze told him as he left the stalker in that strange Suppression grip that Speak-As-One put them in when they were caught, having sated that aching hunger.
He waved off the other kid and headed towards the tunnels to meet back with them before something grabbed him as the high from downing the stalker began to fade, starting with a slithering laugh that was in his ears and felt like claws grabbing around his skull. As the feeling of knives starting at the nape of his neck slid through his hair the hunger grew as his vision danced then fell sideways, the only thing he had words that he almost heard-
LET'S SEE HOW WELL YOU WORK OUT, PUP...
A puppet on strings was the way he felt, his blood burning until the sun came up and he finally started to be able to move, as if the grip of the Voice was chased off as fingers of light streaked for the dawn. His phone had been smashed and from the way his hand felt he'd done it himself, the fractured screen covered in blood and as his fingers twitched he felt the spidering of cuts on his fingers and palm.
He couldn't even get his phone to turn on but he remembered... fighting. And every time he had those raked claws had almost lost their grip then dug in even deeper with a mocking laughter that had egged him to keep going. HQ had said something about him being late to come back and that was what had doomed his phone at the end, after he'd been turned around and spent the night going after something difficult - he'd slammed in to and chased and been chased by one of the bloodstalkers and the stalker and he had made it a long chase and fight, ranging from the daycare to the Maze, ending with straining lungs and pounding pulse with the stalker downed.
And then the Hunter had laughed because that feeling of accomplishment, of winning, it'd driven the pain back from the fact that he'd been running without biting anything else but the stalker when they'd been finally down.
I THINK I LIKE YOU, PUP. FANG AND CLAW AND ENDURANCE.
And rage, as the Hunter had dug in and flexed when the teen had fought back again.
YOU'LL NEVER WIN.
When the sun came up and the pain had finally left and Orrin was able to wipe the blood from his mouth then drag a still-bleeding hand down his shirt in an effort to get glass out from it, the Hunter's laughter was ringing in his mind and Orrin rolled to his feet, legs braced to avoid falling over. "I will rip.... that fancy name from you," he swore as the Hunter crowed and cackled.
BARE YOUR FANGS TO ME, I WILL DRINK YOU IN.
The smoldering rage was what kept the teen on his feet until the last echo of the Hunter's voice had left his mind.
