26 - Missing//Nora

When she'd left home and hired a private investigator to find Man_of_Manx, Nora had never expected to find somebody like Paxton on the other side of the screen name. The way people spoke of his work, she'd expected an old professor in his sixties who had a an accent with traces of the French Intelligentsia.

Instead, she'd found a scrawny teenage boy with zero real life friends. A boy who had essentially figured out a way to run away from home undetected. He'd been intimidated into believing her story wholesale, though at the time she hadn't meant to scare him. She just wanted somebody to believe her.

It was almost funny; at first she needed him to believe her, and then he needed her to believe him when he figured out how to utilize the Noiz. A midnight trip to a Homesd DIY megastore later and they were both clothed in real magic.

Soon her quest for answers had roped in another teenager and she'd promised Lea a wish based on Paxton's latest translations. With three Phantoms, she believed they were invincible.

Right up until Paxton was taken.

She'd considered asking Lea for the Noiz back and heading off to Paxton's to sulk, but she didn't want to be alone. Even if it did mean pulling Lea deeper into her mess. Lea had called out to her when Paxton was kidnapped, but she'd frozen in the moment, unable to do anything to save him.

When she'd seen the rose gold phantom, everything seemed to make sense, even if it did hurt. She'd ended up lying to Lea about it because she didn't want to believe it could be true. Even behind the mask and long flowing skirt, she knew who had taken Paxton from them.

Waco let them spend the whole day laying on the couch, cleaning up after them and bringing them meals. He reminded Nora of her, of the way she used to be with her family. Under his care, the shock and terror slowly began to wear off. Nora found herself thinking that she owed it to him too to have Lea's wish fulfilled.

Even if it meant freeing a guilty man. After all, Nora herself was already guilty to start with.

"Okay! Enough sulking!" Waco said as the sun came down behind him, pulling the comforter off of them. Though both teenagers whined at the sudden action, they didn't fight for it back. "It's time for a ghost story!"

"A ghost story?" Lea said, her voice a mix of trepidation and disbelief. It was clear in her eyes that she was starting to feel better too.

"Yup!" Waco confirmed, pulling the curtains so that just a tiny sliver of late afternoon sunlight was coming through and passing them each a flashlight. "This fight has gone on for way too long, so I'd like to remind you that some people have it even worse than you do!"

"How?" Nora asked curiously, fiddling with the flashlight.

"Have some empathy, children," Waco said, pulling himself off his walker and onto the opposite end of the couch. "Can you imagine how bad the characters in a ghost story have it? Forever doomed to be, well, doomed?"

Nora and Lea somehow found it in themselves to laugh.

"Is that a yes?" Waco asked.

"You already drew the curtains," Lea reminded him. "I don't think we had a choice."

"Exactly!" Waco said, launching into his story.