blood trail {adrien}

There was so much to feel that Adrien Nox found it easier to shut down. His body in shock, hands beginning to tremble the second the doors opened and he saw the two lifeless bodies lying on the ground. The closest was Amrin and even seeing her in that state, completely still, those big wandering eyes now vacant, gave him a great urge to vomit. But when he realized that the second body was Poppy's, it was immediate. He took the piece of him that needed to feel this- that needed to hurt, or scream, or fight, and he severed it away from himself so that all was left was a cold stare and a single thought:

I need to leave.

He turned away because if he didn't then, he would've been frozen. His father, Poppy, all he had left was the boy whose arm he snagged as he began to stalk away from the group without looking back.

"We're leaving, Indigo. Now."

There was a desperation in his voice that he resented himself for having. Indi was all he had left. His life, or whatever was left of it, and one friend in a lion's den. He couldn't lose him, too, or all that would be left was the darkness of this forsaken place and the killer dwelling within it.

Once they were far enough away from group, Adrien let his grasp on Indi's arm loosen and they walked separately. The lights flickered off again, Adrien had to use muscle memory to know where he was, but had no idea where he was going.

People were dying. They kept dying. He was a magnet for monsters, but they never seemed to come for him. They took the ones he loved, or the ones he was supposed to love, and they beat them down and made him hate himself for letting them get close to him.

"Don't-" he interrupted, when Indigo began trying to console him about Poppy's death.

Indigo went silent and he heard a thud. He sighed into the darkness.

"Did you fall?" he heard something else. At first he mistook it for the rustling of leaves, but after a short while, he realized it was the sound of something dragging against the ground.

"Indi?"

He squinted his eyes, peering into the nothingness in vain as the dragging sound grew louder and more apparent.

His heart began to pound. Fight or flight.

"Indigo." He wasn't asking anymore, he was demanding. If you're alive, say something. If you're just high and tripped over a rug, fucking tell me. No noise came, just the sound of something- something heavy- being dragged away. Fight or flight.

He wasn't letting this happen again.

"He's all I have left," he called. A feeling of sickness overtook him and he realized that it stemmed from the fact that he had potentially just spoken directly to the killer. What's more, when his feet began to move, they were carrying him toward the sound. Fight or flight.

He chose to fight.

Though, it was quite difficult to do, stumbling around in the darkness. More than once he was certain he heard the sound from his left or his right, only to reach out and find a wall. Eventually, he wasn't sure where it originated and where it echoed from, and at some point he could no longer hear it at all. The lights flickered on briefly, just for a moment, and he found himself standing all alone in the hallway, right next to the kitchen Violet had disappeared into.

He stepped through the door, trying as hard as he could to ignore the fresh memory of Poppy and Adam helping him disable the lock. It felt like it had happened months ago, but only a few hours separated him from that time, when he thought that was as bad as it would get.

He pressed his hands against the cool marble of the counter and breathed in a deep sigh.

She was gone. There was nothing he could do, but Indi might have still been alive. He might've still been able to save him.