The Hunter and the Hunted ✔️

~•27•~

"Just leave, Everly!" Becker whispered, his voice raspy. He sounded dead. He looked dead. I'm surprised he wasn't dead. His face was wrinkled and his hair was grey, he was far too stressed out. But that was no excuse for his actions.

"Why?" I pleaded, standing up from my crumpled position on the floor. "How could you?"

Becker was void, a black hole of emotions. He looked simultaneously upset and relieved. "You wouldn't understand." He was vague, empty. "I'm sending you home."

"Please come home, fix this." I begged, but it wasn't to a single soul. I was crouched on the floor of my house, the place still a mess and in tatters.

I looked up, the familiar kitchen was worse than any kitchen I had ever seen. Why? Because it was empty. No people.

"Dad?" I called out, but it was useless. He and Dallas were still stuck in Canada. There was no calling out for mom, she hadn't been here in a long time. And there was no little Zach. No big sis Fiona. I was alone, for the first time in a long time.

I stood up and looked around the empty house, in my hand was my phone and Uncle Kas's phone. I thought about calling my dad, telling him that his brother was just murdered by his niece and nephew.

But how do you tell someone that? How can I crush my father like that? Even though he hates me right now, and I hate him, he's still my father in the end. And anyways, no person deserves that phone call. Him and Kasparov were by far, two completely different people. They argued and fought, but at the end of the day they were brothers.

I turned Uncle Kas's phone on instead, dialing up the woman I had talked to earlier. Sisca. The witch. She could do something. Bring him back.

She answered immediately. "Well, you ready to be teleported?" Her southern drawl was unusual, but I didn't have the mental strength to ask her about it.

I didn't dare cry over the phone either, showing weakness wasn't in a Hunters vocabulary. "Konrad Reinheart killed Kasparov. Can you do anything... bring him back?"

The girl let out a soft moan, her world crushed. "Oh no. I'm— I'm sorry. I can't. I can't do anything. There's nothing anybody can do. Nobody can bring back the dead." She hung up and I closed my eyes, tears falling down my face even though I tried my hardest to keep them back. A small, selfish part of me noted that he didn't deserve this. That he didn't deserve to be cried over. He wasn't a great person but still. Even the hero feels lonely when his enemy falls. He was family. In my life since birth. I understood parts of why he was the way he was, and it's the part of me that understood that drew from my sadness.

I walked up the stairs, limply, headed to the guest room where Uncle Kas was staying.

I pulled his suitcase out from under the bed, and tossed it on top, sniffling. I unzipped it, the sound so loud against the deafening silence in the house. I didn't hat silence, I just hated this silence. Dead, cold, lonely quietness.

Inside the bag was nothing special. Just clothes, toiletries, pictures. I threw everything out, throwing shorts and pants against the wall. I grabbed a shampoo bottle and watched it explode on the ground, splattering everywhere. And finally, when it was just an empty case, I slammed my hands down in the bag and screamed into the empty house. Nobody heard me.

I threw the case off, landing a fresh new hole in the wall. I slid down the bed and got onto my knees, pulling my hair and yelling into the mattress.