He let his keys clatter loudly in the dish on the table next to the door as he kicked off one boot and then the other, skidding them across the entry until they hit the wall with a dull thud. Tasty mewled at him from the hallway and he glanced up, annoyed at her persistence, and then began unbuttoning his shirt. That cat always -
Wait.
His eyes slid back up to settle on the cat, confusion written across his face.
“Isaiah?”
He called out to the empty apartment, forgetting what he was doing and heading into the livingroom where a single lamp had been turned on. The center of the kitchen table held what was obviously one of Isaiah’s charcoal pieces, though as he got closer, he felt a rock drop in his stomach. A metallic sharpie had been used across the front -
I do not make idle threats. Bring me what I asked for.
Immediately, the rock in his stomach sank deeper, filling him with a nauseating sensation of dread. That writing was not Isaiah’s - but he grabbed it anyway, marching to his bedroom where he had shoved Scholomance’s note into the drawer of his desk. The wooden drawer nearly came off its track as he ripped it open and grabbed the note, laying it beside the smudged, damaged piece of art. The letters didn’t match, not even close. Kam felt frozen in place as his heartbeat hammered in his ears.
Alkaid.
She had been in his apartment, again, with bits and pieces of Isaiah trailing in her wake.
He pulled out a piece of notebook paper and scrawled a hasty, nervous letter in sloppy handwriting.
-
Scholomance,
Where are you? What’s happened?
Ghen
-
He reached for the new ink pad he had bought, intending to write a reply to Scholomance that he never had, not too keen on repeating the skin-melting method he had used while drunk on a bench. The aftermath had not been fun. His fingers fumbled clumsily at the seal until it was broken, then he punched his ring into it and onto the paper, watching it disappear into thin air. It was no less unsettling when he was sober.
He could have waited for an answer but the pit in his stomach made him restless. He scooped up his letter-writing supplies, in case Isaiah answered, shoved them into a gym bag and crossed the apartment. For a moment he considered grabbing the cat and bringing her along - but he didn’t know why she was here in the first place, or what might have happened.
“I’ll be back, try not to destroy anything.”
As if talking to a cat that wasn’t one of those damn mauvians was of any real use.
He grabbed his keys and stormed out of the condo, not even bothering to lock it. When the worst of his nightmares could get in without a door, what was the point? In minutes he had plunged his key into the ignition of his jeep, trying to ignore the scratches on the paint job he had yet to fix, and was barreling faster-than-necessary through the mostly deserted streets of destiny city. He was lucky, in a way, that most of the police force seemed to have their hands full with less mundane issues.
The closer he got to Isaiah’s apartment, the more he became aware of an acrid stench of unnatural smoke - not the calming smoke of a wood fire, or even tobacco. Something sickening that hung in the air and clung to the inside of his nose. When he rounded the last corner and came face-to-face with the scene, the rock in his stomach felt like it was slamming into his ribcage over and over and over. He had to pull over into a parallel spot as he stared in horror at the sight of Isaiah’s smoldering apartment building, surrounded by the flashing lights of cop cars and fire engines.
His mind jumped immediately to the worst conclusion, imagining a dead, smoldering Isaiah among the ashes of Alkaid’s revenge.
The burly man cut the engine and reached for the gym bag that had fallen into the floor of the passenger seat, sending another frantic letter in seconds.
-
Scholomance, <******** answer me, please.
-
As the hours ticked by and no answer came, he retreated back to his apartment with an unsettled, restless cat. Every few minutes he would send another frantic letter, begging Isaiah to answer him, hoping that at least the lack of returned messages meant that it was reaching someone.
Did they come back if the address could not be found?
He didn’t know.
(Word Count: 874)
Strickenized
