As Elaine's phone rang... (Zoe, Cai, Danny)

[lightningseed.insanejournal.com]

Zoe was in her room, yes, but there was no way she would have been able to notice the phone, even if it was in her room, unharmed and whole. Zoe was too busy, too far away.

Her body seizing on her floor.

- dark, not a complete dark: bars, grey walls, a door with bullet proof glass at one end of a dark hallway.

- blonde? Rachel? Staring at the wall -whispering something to herself, curled under a blue grey blanket, face a mess – red, red eyes, red nose.

- no indication of how long she’d been there. What was Zoe after? Scratches on the wall? The walls were clean – no – no they weren’t – the picture confused itself in Zoe’s mind’s eye.

-walls of stone and there were scratches, there were clawmarks, and the whispering was a raspy laboured breath. The stone walls were thick, but not so think they couldn’t crack open.

Vibrations shuddered through her – and the wall – and a roar and a cr-rr-rac-kk and blinding sunlight seared into her vision.

A demon had torn the metal bars from the stone wall – wherever the vision was, the cell was soon destroyed. A demon woman stood silhouetted against the midday sky – white with clouds but clouds that blinding with their brightness. A demon woman, wings outstretched, stepped through the rubble toward the person who was shuddering in the corner of the cell.

Zoe couldn’t make out her features, save for the fact she was a woman, her wings were demon wings, and her skin, as she reached down to pull the person she was freeing to their feet, was white.

Zoe woke on the floor of her room, covered in the curtain she’d torn as she went down. She could not open her eyes, as if the bright light from her vision was still in the room, though in reality it was only the soft glow of her lamp. Her eyes watered – and it felt like a knife had been stuck through her skull, from one temple to another.

She scrambled for her bedside drawers and dry swallowed a double dose of painkillers – all of this blind, her eyes watering, but squeezed shut. She hadn’t had a vision this potent since – well… she’d almost died in the pool with Cai a few months ago but that was different – terrifying, but not as raw, as brutal.

Still involved Rachel, though.

And a demon breaking her out of a cell?

It must tie in with the funeral she’d seen with Cai – it must. Two visions involving Rachel? One of her running, one of her imprisoned – then released? It must have been her who the demon woman was releasing.

Was that her mother? The thought hit Zoe right in the stomach, a cold dull thud of certainty and dread.

Zoe had to find out. Now. No more beating about the bush, no more waiting, no more patience. She reached for her phone and the second it was in her hand, it began to ring. She pressed talk instantly - “Zoe?”

Cai’s voice was broken. Zoe’s fingers tightened round the phone, she blinked a few times as her eyes began to clear. They still stung, and there were still knives of pain deep in her skull, but she could see. “Zoe, please? I need…”

He was unmistakably in trouble. He’d been crying, or still was – and there was fear, real fear in his please. “I’m here,” Zoe said. “Where are you?”

“At home,” he said, which she did not expect. “Zoe I-"

“-What’s happened?”

“- I know whose funeral it is.”

“Tell me,” she said, heaving herself to her feet (it hurt it hurt it didn’t matter) and beginning to stumble downstairs. Each footstep sent another jolt of pain through her head, like the vision was still lodged there, banging against her forehead from the inside.

She found her way with one hand clutching her phone, the other groped in front of her – she could see, a bit, but trusted her outstretched hand to tell her when she was about to run into a wall more than she trusted her eyes.

“It’s Dom,” Cai said, and made a broken noise; a vocal sigh that hooked into a gasp at the end. “I saw him – in my vision – I saw Nonnie come home and find him dead in our living room. Just lying there – middle of the floor – like he had tripped.”

“Shit.”

“Zoe - Zoe - what do I do?”

Zoe stood on the landing at the top of the long sweep of stairs, hand wrapped around the polished balustrade. She did not know.

“Zoe help me,” Cai’s voice cracked.

“When will it happen?” Zoe heard herself say.

“I don’t know, I-"

“Nighttime? Daytime? Was it bright? Raining? What was the light like, when Nonnie came home?”

“I… it was raining,” Cai said, looking up at the evening light streaming through his bedroom window. “I think? And daytime… I think? I don’t know though, Zoe! It could happen tomorrow.”

Tomorrow gave them hours. “I have to call you back,” Zoe said, and hung up on him.

Shit – she knew hanging up was cruel. But if it was raining in his vision, it wasn’t happening now. Right now the sky was almost clear. Zoe had seen Rachel this afternoon, when she left for her exam, but that was supposed to have finished forty minutes ago, and being out of contact for forty minutes didn’t mean a lot - until it did. Forty minutes was an age.

Rachel should have called Zoe as soon as she’d finished her exam. Well – they hadn’t agreed on anything like that, but it was Rachel, she was hooked to her phone. She wouldn’t finish her last exam and not contact Zoe, would she?

No, Zoe was convinced her silence was a bad sign.

If she’d stayed to the end of her exam that meant she could be anywhere in a forty-minute radius of school. If she’d left earlier (which to be honest was likely) she could be even further. It meant she didn’t know where Rachel was right this second. She didn’t know.

As Zoe came down the stairs (jolt – jolt – jolts of pain) Rachel’s phone went to voice mail.

She tried again.

Three times.

Zoe screamed in frustration at her empty house. But she did what she promised – rang Cai back. He answered as quickly as she had. “Cai, do you know where Rachel is right now?”

“Rachel?” he sounded stunned. He sounded like he’d forgotten who Rachel was. “No – I don’t. Why?”

“Fuck,” she said, which did not instil confidence. He’d called for comfort – to have someone to panic to - to get help to stop this dreadful thing happening, and Cai was getting none of the reactions he expected, none of the reactions he needed.

It scared him. Fuck that – he was already scared. It hollowed him out; he was terrified.

“What’s happening?” he asked in a whisper. “Oh dear God, Zoe, what’s going on?”

“Can you get to Rachel’s house as soon as possible – like, leave now. I’ll get a taxi and meet you there.” It would be faster, Cai lived a lot closer to Rachel than Zoe. And if she was fine? Then they could all laugh at Zoe later. But Zoe had a pretty strong feeling Rachel wasn’t fine.

“Why? Why Zoe? What’s happening?”

“I had a vision too,” Zoe hoped that would explain enough. “I don’t know what’s happening, but she’d involved. Can you get to her house? If – if anything is happening – you stay out of the way, Cai. You keep yourself safe.”

“I don’t understand,” he said and her heart hammered – there wasn’t time for not understanding – but before she could put this into words Cai said “But I’ll do it.”

She could have kissed him. If he’d been in the room with her, she might have. Grabbed him and kissed him and said thank you, thank you for not questioning me, thank you.

Instead, she said “Quickly,” and hung up on him again, this time, to call a taxi.

Danny too – Zoe was thinking so fast and so panicked she had missed the obvious: Rachel could be with Danny. But she’d already sent Cai on his way – if Rachel was with Danny then the worst that would happen was a wasted trip. That was nothing.

Zoe called the taxi first, because she could cancel if Rachel did turn up but if she didn’t then Zoe didn’t want to waste precious minutes. With the taxi on its way, she rang Danny, holding her phone so tight against her ear it hurt. “Come on, comeoncomeon,” she whispered – prayed – under her breath.