The Looking Glass (1x1)

[LadyMatsudai]

(( Closed RP for @Aura ))


The snow was starting to fall on the outskirts of Paradise City, the resonating icon for the world in the union and harmony of the humans and all other races, working together to build a better and brighter tomorrow. Or at least that is what all of the advertisements, billboards, and radio broadcasts pitch to the millions of listeners around the world. Dr. Margaret Thompson simply sighed as she shook her head a little to herself, glancing up to the sky as the sun was slowly starting to peek over the clouds in the early morning sky. The colors glistened in deep oranges, pinks, and reds as the border of the sun started to show through the clouds. The clinic was growing more busy with the holiday season drawing nearer. Riots, bitter arguments, simple accidents, anything you can think of would bring patients of the supernatural races to the human doctor's office, but Margaret could not ask for another lifestyle...another perfect job than helping those in need. After all, a vampire family took her in when no one else would, when her own parents were slaughtered by humans in one of the old nights of constant raids into the ghettos and supernatural neighborhoods.


But by some sick chance, the memory was portrayed in front of Margaret as she saw a crowd of protesters outside of her clinic, a frown creasing her lips as she started to walk faster to try and figure out what the commotion was about this time, the chanting growing louder as she drew close.

 

[Aura]

There was the softest of noises and Mason was awake with his heart pounding in his chest wildly. He groped around madly for the flashlight he kept at the end of the sleeping bag and found it and turned it on with one quick motion. A dim beam of light illuminated the contents of the tent sending eerie shadows across the walls. An impossibly tall and slender outline showed though the material and the wild pounding in his chest stopped suddenly as his heart seemingly stopped. A feral noise that sounded half human-half beast echoed into the darkness and the figure seemed to be retreating.


Mason scrambled frantically out of the tent, a strange courage seeming to work its way into his limbs which moved as if he was someone's puppet and he burst out of the tent just to see the retreating figure of the unnatural beast. It had dark leathery skin pull tightly over long thin limbs and before he knew it, the unnatural beast had slipped away into the darkness silently leaving the young boy trembling in his pajamas from fear and not from the cold. What was that thing? It's limbs were too stretched and exaggerated for it to be human as it had stood easily over seven feet tall. It certainly wasn't a bear... it was too human-like.


He felt his heart slam back into motion as he could feel it beating yet again. It felt as if he had been holding his breath... whatever it was, it was gone. Probably just a nightmare he had been having. He jumped as he heard a wet slapping kind of noise and he flicked his flashlight to the source of the noise and felt his heart stop as he realized that the lumpy red and gray mass had probably once been one of his parents. The feral howl/scream sounded yet again and Mason jerked the flashlight wildly in response and caught sight of his mother's body dangling from a nearby tree. That was before he dropped the flashlight and started running.


Mason jerked awake with a gasp and reached wildly for the lamp at his bedside table illuminating his bedroom in a dim light. The Wendigo. It was bad enough that a camping trip with his parents had gone that way but he had to relive the experience every night in his dreams. It was impossible to believe that such an event could happen... and yet they were surrounded by those monsters. They claimed good intentions unlike the monstrosity that had strung his parents up into the trees before devouring them... but they were no different. All of the supernatural were just as capable of killing as the Wendigo was. It was in their nature to behave that way.


Mason pushed himself out of bed glancing groggily at the clock and decided that it was as good of a time as any to start the day. The sun was just edging on the horizon as he picked up the phone and dialed the closest few of those who were devoted to his cause. The less devoted ones could join as they pleased later in the morning, this work wasn't for everyone. It was for the special few who knew just as strongly as he did what the supernatural element of Paradise City was capable of doing.


By the time the Clinic had opened, there was a sizable crowd protesting in front of it with Mason at the front, "Make Paradise City a true paradise! Get the monsters out!" he catcalled into the microphone watching warily as a vampire edged towards the scene.

 

[LadyMatsudai]

"And my day has to start off like this...great," grumbles Margaret to herself as she slowly pushed her way through the crowds to try and reach the front. She gave soft grunts and pods to the elbows in her gut and hands in her face from the rally goers raising their hands in agreement to whoever the stooge was this time to get them excited.


The 'stooge' in this case was aam she had seen before a few times, but she never took it upon herself to learn his name or that of the other rally participants. Not noticing the vampire drawing closer, Margaret moved to the front to look at the man face to face.


"Excuse me, sir...as much as I a supporter of free speech, you need to take your people elsewhere. I have patients that need to be taken care of and they can't come in if you are in the way. Let alone me," she explained firmly but politely.

 

[Aura]

(Sorry, I accidentally lost my response after just finishing it so I was procrastinating on rewriting it)


Mason watched Margaret critically as she approached him. She looked human, but his eyes assessed her critically for any sign that would mark her as one of those monsters, why else would she try to be putting a damper on the protest? She seemed to work inside the building, but that just made him more curious... this was a hospital that was notorious for providing health care to the supernatural element of Paradise City and that also featured many monsters as doctors and nurses. But he choose to ignore his wandering thoughts about the woman's motives and instead offered her a charming smile before pulling the megaphone away from his mouth to speak to her.


The crowd was inflamed so he had to shout at her so that she could hear him over the crowd, "We're well within the bounds of the law... we're just off of the property line," Mason raised the megaphone to his mouth and shouted his next words to the restless crowd, "And I like to think that by the time someone walks around this crowd that it'll have given them enough time to think about what kind of monsters they're supporting with their business and decide to go to a respectable clinic! We're here for Paradise City!"


He immediately lost interest in the woman after addressing her and he focused his attention to inciting the crowd before him which roared and cheered with vigorous enthusiasm after each chant. He could see people joining in from the street caught up in the wild enthusiasm of the crowd surrounding them.


Meanwhile, in the crowd watched one of the ones that Mason had come to protest and one that had no qualms expressing as he put it, their "true nature". Natalia approached the crowd just as Margaret was approaching the leader and she watched the scene coolly. For a moment, she expected something to happen before the one she had identified as "Mason" was roaring into the megaphone. She sighed and her long fingers tightened around the small pouch she clutched firmly in her right hand. Humans.


She began to push her way through the crowd, feeling disgust with every roar of the crowd. It was eventually going to be okay though. She had a plan. This man appeared to be the leader of the humans, the apparent "head" to the crowd's "body" and she figured that if she severed the head from the body that the movement would eventually come crashing down.


At the very least, she was willing to see if killing their leader Mason would have an effect. When she finally pushed her way to the front, Natalia wrenched the megaphone from Mason's hands and as the human man fought for the return of the megaphone she managed to shout, "Enough! Let's get rid of those that are different from us!" she called out and the crowd roared out. The fact that she was a witch made it impossible for the crowd to realize that she wasn't human, so they responded wildly. Natalia dropped the microphone and bent down to pick up a large rock from the small garden display in front of the hospital and threw it at one of the windows. Witches were among the physically weakest of the 'monsters' but she was considerably stronger than a human so the rock hit the window leaving a large crack on its surface.


The crowd roared wildly and suddenly it was chaos as the simple act of aggression towards the building caused the crowd to surge the property line. People rushed out shouting and screaming and they began grabbing at rocks and shoving one another and they even began entering the hospital.


Using the chaos of the riot that was beginning to start, Natalia approached the backpack that Mason had brought with him and she dropped the hex bag into it. There. The hex bag was in place and as long as Mason didn't find it in a timely manner, then this would all be over. Maybe some patients or staff of her kind would meet their ends at the hands of the rioters, but this was war, and sometimes war had casualties.


Mason - http://i1000.photobucket.com/albums/af130/rubberchickensoffear/Colin-O-Donoghue-colin-odonoghue-32860321-245-310_zps69bc23ed.png


Natalia - http://i1000.photobucket.com/albums/af130/rubberchickensoffear/tt_zpscac01d8d.jpg

 

[LadyMatsudai]

Margaret's deep blue eyes narrowed to the charming grin the man had quickly smeared on his lips before speaking to her. Of course...he was one of those protestors. Believed himself to be a saint to those who were too terrified for change...fools. "Just off the property line or not, you are infringing on my clinic. I have to ask all of you to back up to the opposite side of the street!" called out Margaret in the attempts to have the man hear her over his crowds. But she was drowned out by his shouts and chants into the megaphone, frowning at the crowd growing even more passionate to their 'preacher's' word. "Great..." she growled to herself.


The human doctor was not aware at all to the witch that was slowly approaching the stand, her eye glued to Mason as Margaret grunted to the crowds pushing and shoving, waving their hands frantically in the air in applause to their mighty leader. But Margaret's heart sunk to the horrible cry of the woman who appeared out of nowhere to take Mason's megaphone, gasping to the rock slamming into the window of her clinic.


"No! No stop it! Stop!" she cried out, grunting at the rush of the riot shoving her out of the way to raid the building, patients and staff crying out in fear and quickly rushing off to hide. Margaret winced as she was shoved to the ground, the pain of the impact vibrating through her body before she suddenly watched a shadow loom over her. "Dr. Thompson," cooed a deep voice, Margaret looking up to see a bronze skinned muscular man with vibrant white hair and the deepest of green eyes looking down at her, his body adorned in simple cotton robes. "Xanders..." she breathed to the angel as his white wings extended from his back, picking her up carefully. "What is going on?" he asked. "No time for that. We need to get the others to safe locations," she encouraged, pushing herself out of his arms as she winced to the blood dripping down the side of her head. "Go find all of the children in there and take them to my parents' estate. I will grab you when it is over," she ordered, the angel nodding before taking off to fly into the building.


"Margaret!" called out another smooth voice, a Native American man with short cropped hair and a work shirt with jeans dashed up to her, touching her arm. "What's going on?"


"Rioters are attacking the clinic. We need to get the patients and staff to a safe place," she answered before watching the man's eyes narrow, a familiar deep growl rumbling in his chest. "Yazzie! Yazzie calm down please! Turning won't help," she cooed, watching his eyes turn into a golden yellow before sighing and nodded, running off into the hospital with Margaret not too far behind him. The duo darted and dashed in the hallways, avoiding the rioters as best as they could as Margaret quickly ushered patients into her office, fitting as many as she could before closing the door behind her, pulling down the shades to hide everyone. A little vampire boy started to wail in his mother's arms, making Margaret dash over and shush him sweetly, rubbing his little back as she looked up to the door, shaking from the adrenaline rush and praying to God no one would get through...

 

[Aura]

"Wait!" Mason shouted as the crowd reached its boiling point and violence began to spill over. He didn't want violence to seep into his protests, they were just supposed to be to raise awareness and maybe stir a different kind of action. The window behind him shattered and he jumped in response as glass sprayed into the waiting room. This wasn't the kind of response he wanted, the snarling and shouting of the crowd reminded him so much of the inhumane noises that the wendigo had produced that night.


"Wait!" he shouted again but this time into the megaphone that he scrambled to pick up, "Don't become like them! We're human! We're not violent and blood-thirsty like them!" he shouted desperately though only a few people seemed to notice. Most people seemed to be swept up in the mob mentality though, they were throwing rocks, and knocking over and kicking and tearing at equipment. Shouts and screams came from inside the hospital and his stomach churned hoping that they were just shouts of fear or of excitement from the rioters rather than shouts of pain. Even if the hospital was filled with the monsters, he didn't want violence, it was something that the monsters would do.


Natalia grinned watching the scene before her. Humans could be manipulated so easily, and Mason didn't seem to notice the hex bag at all. Her scheme was going to work. She slid a hand into a pocket and she produced another hex bag. One couldn't be too careful. It seemed counter-intuitive but she was going to hide this one in the hospital. If Mason found the hex bag or left his bag then all of this would have been for nothing. If she left one in the hospital and it wasn't found then the damages that it would cause would probably look like more damage that the humans had caused. The hex bag in the hospital would be like throwing a grenade into your own trench, but then claiming it came from the enemy's trenches. If Mason's hex bag didn't work, then this one would kill people in a way that made it look like the rioters had. Her kind would likely respond by retaliation and that was good. Her kind had been standing by idly too long. They had been passive for too long. It was about time they fought back.


Hoping the chaos of the rioters would hide her yet again, Natalia quickly shoved the hex bag into the back of a cupboard. Now, it was time to activate her charms. She slid a large blade out from the sleeve of her shirt and quickly jabbed it into the throat of a nearby human. She pressed a hand to the wound to staunch the bleeding and she began sliding him down the hallway. She tried the door of a nearby office and frowned as it was locked. The man loosed an agonized howling noise and she frowned, surprised that the man was still alive. She dragged the body towards another room finding that it was unlocked before dumping the body inside before pulling a knapsack off of her back filled with what she needed to activate the hex bags using this human's blood. The man had made a lot of noise and there was a trail of his blood leading to the room she was in, but Natalia was confident that the chaos of the riot would protect her from being found before the two hex bags were activated.


She pulled a chalice from the bag and pressed it to the man's neck filling it up with his blood. Time to start, and she began to whisper Latin.

 

[LadyMatsudai]

Margaret kept shushing the patients that had gathered in her office, rubbing the little vampire boy's back as she tensed to the sound of the door handle jiggling, someone struggling to get in before it died down. The father of the young boy sniffed the air deeply and growled, causing Margaret to look towards him. "What is it?" she asked as the vampire looked down to Margaret with his red eyes.


"Blood has been spilt..." he growled as Margaret frowned worriedly, giving the little boy back to his mother. "All of you...stay in here and do not open the door for anyone until it is clear," she ordered, carefully opening the door to cringe at the site of the blood trail smeared into the tile along the hallway in front of her office door. Closing the door behind her as she saw movement in the opposite office of who she knew to be the staff that were at the clinic that day, Margaret slowly started to follow the bloody breadcrumbs, glancing around the corner slowly before her eyes widened to the site of a human male, dead as his body poured his liquid essence of life onto the floor.


"Witch..." Margaret said to herself before grabbing a long pole from one of the mobile IV stands and dashed right for the woman. "Hey! Leave him alone! Get out of my clinic!" she warned defensively, holding the pole in her hands, ready to fend her off if she tried to attack.


"Just scare her off," Margaret thought to herself. "Don't become the monster these rioters are..."

 

[Aura]

Natalia flinched as the door swung open and she nearly stopped chanting, but thankfully she didn't break the spell and ruin all of her work. She watched Margaret carefully not breaking eye contact as Latin continued to pour past her lips. A bubble formed and broke in the blood that her chalice held and another did as the bubbles began to appear more frequently. As she continued to speak, she realized that this was the same human who had tried to talk to Mason earlier... just whose side was this woman supposed to be on? Natalia had believed her to be aligned with the supernatural of Paradise City, but apparently she was just as attached to the filthy human rioters who were now tearing the hospital apart. Either way, this woman wasn't going to stop her... she didn't immediately attack so Natalia used the moment to finish up the spell on the hex bag that was outside of the hospital with Mason. Maybe she didn't have enough time for the hex bag in the hospital, but that was fine. She still had finished the spell meant to kill Mason.


Mason's image flickered briefly onto the surface of the blood in the chalice before the bubbles burst through his image and she finally acknowledged Margaret who had been waiting just a few precious seconds for her to respond. The foolish human had hesitated so she hoped that the woman didn't truly have an allegiance to her human friend outside.


Natalia got up off of the ground and her chalice was knocked to the ground spilling now black blood across the floor before her. She reached forward with a bright smile putting one hand on the pole and jerked it away while the other hand gently brushed a strand of hair from Margaret's face, "Don't you see?" she said and her smile grew wider and she laughed, "I helped you. If all goes well, their leader will be dead in minutes."


Natalia scooped the chalice up off of the floor deciding that she would have activate the second hex bag later, she doubted that this human would let her activate the more controversial of her hex bags. But the first spell had been cast and as long as Mason was near his backpack, it would kill the man. Natalia laughed again and she deposited the chalice into her backpack, "This is the ugly face of humanity." she said and motioned to the dead man on the floor in the puddle of his blood, "They are egotistical, violent, cruel, and self-absorbed. They would bleed every one of my kind just as I did to this man, but without a reason. I killed this man for a greater reason, a life for a life. You'll thank me when you never have to worry about Mason Price and his ilk again."

 

[LadyMatsudai]

Margaret ran right for Natalia as she pulled her arms back to swing the club to try and scare off the witch before gasping to the strong grip on the pole, grunting to the yank as she panted heavily from the brush on her face to wipe the hair from her eyes. "Killing an innocent whose mind is clouded is not helping," hissed Margaret back as she struggled to get the pole free from the witch's grip, growing tense from the woman's laughter in such a grave situation as her fingers released the pole from having it yanked from her hands.


"The only ugly thing I see...is you holding the chalice of an innocent man's blood that you slaughtered as well as the chaos the others outside are causing in my clinic...No one is safe from being a monster...human or supernatural alike," said Margaret seriously, shaking from her chest tightening of her heart pounding so much from her anger. But her eyes widened in surprise to hearing the leader's name outside as she furrowed her brow. "Mason..." she repeated before quickly turning to dash outside to try and find the leader, having a strange feeling something bad was going to happen to him.

 

[Aura]

Margaret's words had almost no effect on Natalia who just laughed again. Humans. She hadn't paid much mind to them in the past, save for when she needed blood for her spells or when one of them managed to get her angry, but lately they had been getting more vocal and agitated. She could remember just what it felt like to be like one of them, just simply running around and squawking with no purpose other than to make noise, ugh... had she been so obnoxious once? Anyways, all she knew was that the humans had been getting louder and more violent and she had to put them back into place. What business did mere mortals have repressing the ones that should actually have control? The answer was none. She was doing this for the good of her own kind.


She didn't stop laughing until Margaret disappeared, probably to help Mason, the foolish girl. She wasn't going to activate her second hex bag, but she was confident that it wouldn't be found. It wasn't hidden behind cleaning supplies in a cupboard and even if it was found, it didn't bother her. Natalia just knew that she was going to keep it there. She may not be using it today, but she was sure that if the woman bothered her again that she could always cast the spell later.


---


For the first time in years, Mason felt helpless. This kind of scene was not what he had intended when he had called some of the people together this morning to protest. He didn't like the supernatural any more than any of these people, but the aim of his protest had been peaceful. He had made sure that they were off of the property line to avoid breaking the law, and everything. All he had wanted to do was raise awareness and get the crowd excited enough that they would go home and start lobbying politicians or making petitions.


He supposed that he probably should have been happy considering the crowd was taking action against the supernaturals, but he felt nauseous. He had no desire to join the rioters. A couple of years ago, he knew that he wouldn't have hesitated, but while he loathed that which was inhumane, he still didn't want to really hurt anyone. That would be too like them. Hurting people was what those monsters did, and he had no desire to do anything remotely similar to someone else what the wendigo had done to him.


Instead, he shouted for control in the megaphone for several minutes and when it was clear that he had lost his crowd, he then decided that he was done today. He may have organized this protest, but he had lost his crowd. He could stand around until the police showed up, but considering this wasn't his intent then it wasn't worth going to jail for all because he had started it. He just wanted to leave. He shrugged his backpack on and frowned hearing something fragile-sounding break from within the hospital.


He only managed to walk away one step when a violent pain ripped through his abdomen and he grimaced and groaned before his feet collapsed out from underneath him. He staggered to his knees and his hands stretched out before him to catch him from landing on his face. In this position the pain seemed to double and he wretched loudly once before he threw up. His head spun dizzily from the pain, and he dimly noticed two things... one was the woman who had tried to talk to him earlier and that his vomit was pure blood. A scream escaped his throat as the pain in his abdomen became more intense. What was happening and was he going to die??

 

[LadyMatsudai]

"What could that witch have done to Mason?" asked Margaret to herself as she rushed out of the front doors of the clinic and jumped down the stairs to run to where the crowds first rallied. "What could she possibly do that would kill him?" she continued before gasping to catching Mason out of the crowd on his hands and knees, vomiting blood on the ground as she heard him scream. "Mason! Mason!" she called out before dropping to her knees to examine him, frowning to how sickly he looked.


Checking his vitals, Margaret looked him over for any wounds or injuries on the outside of his body. Nothing...nothing at all. Trying her best to figure out what was wrong, Margaret grabbed at the bag to yank it off of his back to examine him further without anything getting in the way, tossing it to the side.

 

[Aura]

(Sorry! I was in that awkward stage right before student teaching where I had to prep for student teaching and finish up all of my university assignments simultaneously!)


The pain had become so intense that he didn't notice Margaret's presence at all during his ordeal. Blood seeped out from his nose and a white foam was mixing with the blood from his mouth and suddenly it was all over. The pain was lifted from his body so suddenly that it almost felt like the whole thing had been a nightmare. If it weren't for the damp feeling on his face from the blood and the blood that had pooled out on the ground around he might not have even believed it had even happened. He coughed and pulled himself into a sitting position and it took him a moment to reconcile the sudden change in his condition. After agonizing pain like that it was physically shocking to suddenly feel nothing.


Not that he wasn't overjoyed to feel better. After he collected his bearings, he finally thought to try to figure out what had just happened to him. The riot was still in progress and nobody was paying him much mind except for the girl who had talked to him before things had gone back, "Did you help me?" he asked.


He slowly pushed himself off of the ground, admittedly he was a little scared of making quick movements just in case he wound up bringing the pain back, but it didn't come back.


"What happened?" he said and he flinched hearing his voice. He had expected those words to form in his head so he was surprised to hear the words come from his mouth instead. He wiped his mouth and nose on the sleeve of his shirt grimacing at how his sleeve practically came away crimson from all of the blood. What had happened?

 

[LadyMatsudai]

(( OOC: It's ok don't worry about it I just took my GRE today and I had worked a lot of OT last week so no sweat ))


Tossing the bag away from Mason, Margaret examined him quickly to the site of white foam from his mouth and the blood dripping from his nose. That hex was eating him out from the inside out, planning on leaving his insides as nothing but mush for morticians to scoop out later. Helping Mason change positions to sit upright on the ground, Margaret crouched more to the ground as she looked right into his eyes, trying to help him recover from the shock.


"Mason? Mason, can you hear me? It's Dr. Thompson," she explained, smiling a little to hearing a response from him before nodding simply, not wanting to say too much to have him stress out again. Upon his question of asking what had happened, Margaret simply glanced back to his bag before walking over, unzipping it to frown at the site of a hex bag, shaking her head to herself.


"A witch planted a hex on you. She planned to kill you, the woman who took the megaphone from you and turned all of your followers into maniacs," she explained, putting the hex bag back into the bag to hide it from Mason, quickly tossing it into the dumpster outside of the clinic. "You need to get as far away from here as you can and go to another hospital. I need to get all of these lunatics out of my clinic," she explained, starting to walk away.

 

[Aura]

"Wait!" Mason shouted hoping to catch Margaret before she walked away. He agreed with her that he needed to find another hospital, but he was still processing the newest information regarding... a witch? The woman that had taken the megaphone from his hands had been the one to incite the riot? What sense did that make? He had chosen to protest this hospital because of the role that it played in the supernatural community, so what sense did it make to turn the protestors into rioters?


"What do you mean a witch?" he asked and immediately felt silly for the question. Of course he knew what a witch was. It wasn't exactly one of the more obscure monsters like the wendigo that had strung his parents up into the trees before tearing them apart... witches were common lore, little girls dressed up as witches for Halloween... they weren't exactly anything absurd. But still he had asked the question, it was out there. The hex bag was a little surprising for him anyways, so maybe she could supply an answer.


"Don't go in there," he added assertively. From within the hospital, he could hear smashing and shouting, "They won't like seeing you in your lab coat and they might try to attack you. Take my advice and just leave. There are better hospitals to work at anyways." he said softly. This woman had just saved his life and she was human, he was legitimately concerned for her safety.

 

[LadyMatsudai]

Hearing Mason call out to her, Margaret frowned from the man trying to stop her a second time from entering her clinic. He was really starting to annoy her to no end. First he stopped her from entering just to start her own day and NOW he expects her to stop again because of the fact the riot will want to kill her. And he expects her to just leave?! She turned on her heel quickly to face the man, her eyes narrowed darkly with a deep frown curling on her lush lips.


"Yes a witch, Mason. This witch, for whatever reason, cast a dangerous spell on something in your backpack and it was strong enough where if I did not intervene, you would have died. And with regards to my clinic, you will not tell me what to do. Your little protest broke down into this and I am going in to save my patients still stuck in there...this clinic is all I have left," she answered a little softer at the end, frowning a little sadly before turning again to walk inside through the crowds to save whoever was left behind.

 

[Aura]

"I'm not telling you what to do... I'm just highly recommending the smart thing to do," he said underneath his breath watching Margaret storm off. He knew that he probably should stay out of her affairs, but the point that she had about her saving his life was embedded in his head. He had been spared by the wendigo because of the way it hunted, where he was too young, small, and insignificant to be worth the effort of hunting, but this time he wouldn't have been as fortunate. The witch's hex bag was probably moments away from killing him, and he could only thank this woman. He owed her.


Mason cursed under her breath and jogged after her. He left his backpack on the pavement, the hex bag was removed, but he probably wouldn't ever pick up that particular backpack again, "Hey!" he shouted and when he ran up to her he hooked his arm into the crook of her elbow and wound his arm around hers, "You're an idiot to go back in there, but you saved my life. I owe you this... if I'm with you they won't attack. I didn't start this riot, and I may not be able to end it, but they should respect me enough to not attack if you I'm with you."


He glanced at Margaret, half-expecting her to resist and to continue to be stubborn. The riot was still in full force so she had to understand that it was dangerous for her to go alone, "Why do you help them anyways? I mean... one of them just tried to kill me."