36 - Ambush//Lea

All three of them spun around to find a conscious Alejandra trying to set herself upright. Nora let out a frustrated shout and stomped towards her sister.

"Scared? Scared of what?" Nora shouted. "I'm the one who was scared. My mother and father disappeared, then my sister ran off."

"I'm sorry," Alejandra said. "I really am."

"I can't deal with this," Nora said angrily. "You disappear for almost a year and all you have to say for yourself is that you were scared and that you're sorry."

"Nora," Paxton called out. "Don't be so mad at her."

"Why not?" she said.

"Because I was scared too," Paxton said. "I never asked you where you came from or who you were looking for because I was scared it would change our dynamic."

"What?" Nora said. "That doesn't even make any sense!"

"I've never have a friend like you before," he explained. "Or any friends, really. I've had one best friend ever, and that was an online text-only relationship that lasted three weeks before we argued over which modern languages owe the most uncredited groundwork to Goidelic lang-"

"Paxton," Lea said, taking a note from Nora's book of tricks. "Focus!"

"Oh, yeah," he said, pushing his glasses up. "You're the closest I've ever had to a sibling, to a real family. My parents haven't noticed I'm missing in the whole time we've been room-mates, but your sister still cares about you, I can tell."

Nora looked torn between her anger towards her sister and her compassion towards Paxton. Somewhere in the middle of it all, a single tear escaped, it quickly made it's way down her cheek. Alejandra leapt into action, wiping it away.

"Alé!" Nora called out as she stepped away, her shout ending as more of a whine. With that simple connection, Lea felt like she'd found the perfect rhyme for something in her song. She rushed forward and stopped Nora from taking any more steps away from her sister.

"Nora, listen to me," Lea said. "You more than anyone understand how Alejandra feels right now."

"How?" she asked quietly.

"You haven't been to see your grandfather this whole time," Lea asked, trying to overlay the sharp question with compassion. "Why is that?"

"Grandpa?" Alejandra said, putting a hand to her heart in sorrow. "He's been alone this whole time?"

"Yeah," Nora said, regret seeping out of her voice. "I couldn't face him. I promised myself I would only come back with you and our parents."

"If I went back before that, I'd feel like I failed everybody," Nora said. "Mom, Dad, Alé..."

"Even you guys," she added, looking at Paxton and Lea. In turn, Lea gave Nora's sister a look. Alejandra quickly got the message and took her sister's hands in her own.

"I felt the same way," she said. "I wanted to figure out a way to seal back the stones of transformation before I stopped the Heist Phantoms. I didn't even know you were one of them until today; when that man said it, I just froze."

"Is that why you didn't help us?" Lea asked.

"I didn't want to fight any more because it could raise my pitch," she said. "But even just watching you three fight, I think it went up a little."

"Wait wait wait," Paxton said, confused. "Why wouldn't you want your volume to go up? It's how you get stronger."

"But that strength comes at a cost; it weaponizes you," Alejandra said. "Makes you a pawn for the Devastating Event."

"Excuse me?" he asked loudly just as the door opened behind them. Lea jumped, they all did. In their waking nightmare of a day, they'd forgotten that Waco was in the house.

"What are you guys shouting about?" he said sleepily. He'd clearly just gotten up from his nap. He quickly scanned the room. "Paxton! You're back! Hope this isn't another fight."

"Woah," was all he said when he laid eyes on Alejandra.

But it might as well have been for what happened next.

A loud banging noise downstairs made everybody, including Waco, jump. It was followed by some indiscriminate shouting and then a much louder banging noise.

"What is that?" Waco asked, confused.

Nobody answered, because they all knew what was happening.

Mr. Foley -the newly minted Byzantine Phantom- had found them.