A Rough Morning, Indeed

John could hear Sam’s panicked breaths through the speaker of the phone. Whatever this was she clearly thought this was serious. He spared a meaningful glance towards Red before wandering a bit away from the crime scene.

“What do you mean?” he asked the girl on the other end of the call.

“Exactly what I fucking said! I can’t wake her up!” Sam hissed back.

“Sam,” John felt a twitch of irritation in his head but he tried to level his tone to be as calming as possible. “You’re panicking and not being clear. I need you to slow down, breath deeply, and help me understand exactly what’s going on so I can figure out how best to help.”

“Not over the phone! You can get the fuck back here is how you can help!” John winced and pulled the phone away from his ear until he was sure she was done.

“Sam, I promise you I’m coming but I need to know exactly what’s going on and who to bring,” John tried to reason with the panicked girl. ‘For fuck’s sake, I need some way to channel this Charisma into an ability or something,’ he sighed to himself.

“Bring who? Cops? That Brighton girl?” Sam asked but just as quickly cut him off before he could reply. “It doesn’t matter. John, you can’t bring anyone else, ‘cept maybe your girl since she was there. Need I remind you that last night’s party was illegal?! I don’t want anyone getting into trouble!”

“By the sounds of it, we’ve got far more to worry about than a slap on the wrists for underage drinking,” John reminded her before swallowing the lump forming in his throat. He wasn’t sure exactly what was going on but he had a sinking feeling this was his fault. “Now, is Emelia dead?”

“Dead?” there was a slight pause on Sam’s end. “No, uh… not dead, no. ****… or uh… comatose.”

“Comatose?” John repeated under his breath. “Okay, I’m bringing Moira. She might be able to heal her.”

“Heal? Like magic?”

“I said might, I’m not certain,” John deflected her question. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he added before ending the call.

He looked up to see his friends and handler looking at him curiously. “Trouble?” the detective asked curiously once John stepped closer.

“Yeah… uh… personal emergency,” John replied. “Moira, do you mind tagging along?”

“Uh… sure, I guess I can,” the Warden replied with an inflection of worry in her voice.

Lee’s Face knit into a frown upon hearing John’s request. “Do I need to get involved, Newman?”

John met the detective’s stern gaze, and John suddenly felt very naked. “I’m not certain,” John replied honestly. He didn’t exactly know the detective well, but he felt he could trust Lee to a certain degree. “I’ll contact you if it’s something I can’t handle,” he promised.

Lee nodded his head and said nothing more, seemingly satisfied with his answer. “You’re free to go then. Just ensure that whatever emergency this may be you return to work focused tomorrow.”

“Fair enough,” John agreed before shaking the detective’s hand and walking away from the scene with Red and Moira following close behind.

“What’s going on, darling?” Red voiced as they hurried through the park.

“Sam called, seems like there’s some sort of trouble with Emelia,” John replied quickly as he called an uber. “She sounded pretty freaked out and didn’t want to tell me the details over the phone.”

“This… is really turning out to be a bloody awful day,” Red exhaled with tired eyes as she leant shoulder to shoulder against John while they walked.

“You’re telling me,” John replied as he put an arm around her waist. From the corner of his eye he caught Moira bristle and her head seemed to lock straight ahead of them. ‘Right… that’s a talk we’re gonna have to have again soon…’ John recalled the time they’d very nearly gone all the way before she’d darted off like a startled doe. ‘I never did find out the reason for the chastity belt…’ he mused. “Anyway… uh… do you need to contact anyone, Moira? I don’t want to be jumped on for abducting you again.”

“I’ll just tell him I’m going to train with you,” Moira replied as she pulled out her phone, grateful for the chance to focus her eyes somewhere that wasn’t on John and Red.

“What? That happened?” Red choked back a laugh, no doubt picturing John held down by men in black suits after being caught doing something ludicrous. “When?”

“About a week ago while you were with your family,” John shrugged. “We were just farming for items and EXP in barriers before SWAT came in and cleaned out half of the enemies to ‘rescue’ her.”

“That’s so much more boring than I’d hoped,” Red whined.

“I figured as much,” John replied. “But I promise you the thought of all those lost items and experience points hurt me far more than being smacked around by a bunch of Order goons for **** their princess ever could.”

“Yeah, I, uhm, should have been conscious of that possibility,” Moira replied meekly.

A minute later the Uber arrived, and the three of them were soon packed inside and taxied back to Emelia’s house.

Emelia’s front door practically flew open the moment John stepped out of the car. Samantha came charging out, wincing as she stepped into the bright late-morning sun to seize John by the wrist and drag him inside.

Red looked about to intervene before seemingly deciding that he wasn’t being hurt and, with a shrug, followed them inside. Moira for her part looked on with a confounded expression.

John was surprised to find many of last night’s party-goers had hung around… including a few he recognised from Emelia’s room. One of the girls’ eyes lit up as she saw him step into the living.

“John!” she greeted with a clear note of relief to her voice. “Is it true you can help my sister!?” There was a noticeable quaver in her speech.

“Sister?” John furrowed his brow in confusion. She looked nothing like Emelia. Then he recalled the two girls he’d found in the en-suite bathtub. ‘Fuck, they were sisters?!’ he groaned to himself before shaking his head clear of the thought. That didn’t matter now. Her words brought forth a much more pressing concern. “Emelia’s not the only one, then?” he asked, turning to Sam.

Sam’s eyes were downcast as she nodded her head. “I started checking on others after you dropped the call… there’s four in all.”

“Fuck me,” John muttered under his breath.

“All of them did,” Sam replied. There was a hint of accusation in her tone and certainly a look of mistrust in her eyes.

John let out a heavy sigh and massaged his temple. “Look, I’m aware this may very well be my fault, but whether or not it is, I swear I’ll do my best to fix it.”

Sam’s expression softened slightly but she said nothing in turn, rather turned and made her way upstairs to Emelia’s room. The girl lay exactly where John had left her, resting peacefully on the bed, though the bedsheets had been tossed over her to cover her nude form.

On the bed beside her sat her brother. Despite looking like the walking dead after a night of heavy drinking, Jayden nursed a glass flask in his hand. His eyes narrowed when he saw John enter and he took a large gulp before standing to face him. “The fuck did you do, Newman?” There was a dangerous shadow to his expression as he advanced towards John.

John lifted his hands in a gesture of calm. “I don’t know, I’m here to figure-” he didn’t get to finish as Emelia’s brother swung the flask in his direction.

Jayden’s whole body went into the swing, but his **** state made it easy for John to sidestep, causing the boy to stagger out into the hallway. John was prepared to try and reason with Jayden, but the miss only seemed to infuriate him more. “The fuck did you do to my sister!?” he repeated, turning and lunging at John with both arms outstretched in a drunken attempt to grapple him.

But before Jayden could make it two steps in John’s direction, Red interceded with a swift and precise blow to the back of his head. Emelia’s brother immediately crashed into the floor and didn’t move. Red glanced down at him with an annoyed expression before shoving his **** body into the hallway with her foot and shutting the bedroom door behind him.

“What?” Red demanded as she turned back to the group and caught John’s look. “He’d only get in the way, anyway.”

“You didn’t need to be so rough with him,” John bemoaned.

“Alright, I’ll just let him glass you next time,” Red snarled back with a venom that caught John off-guard.

“A-are you okay?” It seemed like a stupid question given the circumstances but John asked anyway.

“Of course I’m fucking not. I can’t remember a damn thing last night, we just saw what a man looks like as spaghetti, my new friend might be dead, you’re possessed by my dear papa’s she-devil bitch, and to top it all off, that manky knob decided now’s the time to take a swing at you.”

“Spaghetti?” Sam’s head cocked with a mix of confusion and morbid interest.

“Possessed?!” Moira’s reaction was much more heated as she turned to face John with an expression of major concern. “What does she mean?”

“One thing at a time, please?!” John hissed back. “We’ll deal with Emelia and the others first, then handle the remaining shit.”

“R-right, of course,” Moira composed herself before a familiar somber mood returned to the group.

John felt a twinge of apprehension as he stepped forward to examine Emelia’s body.