Wolf's Rain Fan Fiction ❯ Saved ❯ Chapter Ten: Fickle Fate ( Chapter 10 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Saved

Disclaimer: I do not own any of Keiko Nobumoto/Bones characters or ideas. This story is for entertainment purposes only and not for sale or profit.

A/N: Thank you for the continued requests for me to update---they do jog me into doing it! This is not the last chapter, I promise, though that is already in the works. (Fate)

Chapter Ten: Fickle Fate

“Wait.”

“Huh…?” Marie blinked in surprise as Tsume abruptly turned to face her on the cracked cement of the sidewalk. His hands circled over her upper arms as she bumped into him. She would have liked that position if he had meant to kiss her, as she half-expected. Instead, though, he had them dancing in an awkward, side-ways maneuver that had them all but vanishing between two of the closely-built stone buildings lining the busy street.

“Tsume, what’s the matter?” Marie hissed at him, keeping her voice low in reaction to just how tensed up he was. He ignored her, his yellow eyes scanning the brief glimpse of sunny sidewalk beyond their shadow-filled hidey-hole. He intently scanned the people who scurried past, their heads bent down against the biting wind that crept through the city.

He seemed to be testing the air, and she could almost see his nose twitch, though it was only his nostrils widening a bit as he caught something on the light breeze that had him growling slightly. Turning once more, he casually grabbed her by one arm and force-marched her deeper into the narrow, refuse-ridden alley. Marie almost stumbled over a bit of torn cardboard and trash. Tsume merely hauled her closer to his side, threading a way between the tumbled garbage with a dancer’s lithe grace.

“Damn it, Wolf…” Marie cursed softly under her breath, her heels not liking the pace or the hike. “What the hell is going on…?”

His white head bent to hers and he whispered tersely, “There was a man staring too hard at you.”

“What?” Marie stopped in shock, but his vice-like grip on her arm pulled her back into a stumbling half-run as he rounded the far corner of the shadowed alley and dodged into another. She tried digging her feet into the cracked asphalt, panting now, and demanded sharply, “Tsume! Why are we running?”

He growled at her, his eyes flashing. Squaring her jaw, she met his glare with one of her own. Slipping from his loosened hold, she faced him, hands on her hips and demand in her glittering blue eyes.

“Humans,” Tsume growled under his breath, impatient.

“That doesn’t answer my question,” Marie snapped back, irritated. Why the hell was he running from some stupid guy merely eyeballing her? His jealousy, something that had seemed delightfully amusing before, was irritating her right about now. It was one thing to glare daggers at every man on the street who so much as cocked an eye in her direction, but to actually snatch her off the street and drag her down this stinking alley was just too much!

Nerves made edgy since yesterday’s tumultuous revelations had Marie snapping like she normally wouldn’t. She was angry, mostly at herself, but she was mad at him as well for being so damn stubborn and so damn possessive. It was as if he knew what she hadn’t even told him and if he did, then why hadn’t he brought it up? She didn’t know how to tell him or what he might do if---when---he found out about her suspicions, and damn it, she needed him acting like a man right now, not a spoiled little brat!

“What is your deal, Tsume? What the hell do you care if some stupid guy stares at me? You’re acting like a total jerk!”

The look he turned on her was dangerous, the yellow of his eyes reminding her of the first time she had seen him in the darkened shadows of an alley just like this one. The look was wild and predatory, arrogant and seething with a cold anger that made her stiffen, her eyes going wide.

“He’s hunting for something,” he finally bit out after a long pause of staring at her with those balefully yellow eyes.

“Huh?” Marie’s mouth dropped open. He couldn’t be serious. Hunting for something? The guy had probably just mistaken her for someone else. She wore a knitted cap over her hair and was bundled up to the neck in her thick, winter coat. Although it was only September, it was as cold as January right now. She looked like every other stupid person on the damn street, burying themselves in anything warm and hurrying on their way to get out of the dismally unseasonable weather.

Maybe he was just over-reacting. He was a wolf, after all. He had probably been hunted before and was just over-cautious---or paranoid.

Laying an understanding hand on one hard shoulder---which tensed under the light touch, something Marie pretended not to notice---she smiled softly, regretting her earlier harshness. “Wolf, you are just over-reacting---”

“Damn it, woman---”

Marie’s rather thin patience ran out about then. Snatching her hand back as if burned, she squared her thin shoulders and glared up at him, her blue eyes snapping. “You are acting like an idiot right now, Tsume. I don’t have time for this. I don’t know what your deal is but I’m not about to stand here in a trash-filled back alley just because you have a sudden notion to play hop-scotch in the dark. I’ll see you later. I gotta go.”

Spinning on her heel, she stalked off, her blue eyes stormy.

Tusme watched her, his expression hard, his eyes molten. She couldn’t have heard his low growl or even understand its significance if she had. “Damn you, woman…”

After pressing the door-bell, Marie wrapped her arms around herself to stave off both the frigid bite in the air and to hide her jittery nerves. Her eyes flicked up and down the deserted street, noting the garbage that had blown up along the curbs. Here, as elsewhere, the street cleaning crews had been disbanded for lack of a paycheck or sufficient funds to repair equipment. It was yet another simple reminder of the slow erosion of public services the city had always taken for granted.

Granted, this wasn’t the best neighborhood, but it was far from the worst. Marie had grown up here in the narrow, three-floored townhouses that lined both sides of the street. “Marco’s Diner” still lit up one end of the narrow avenue with its red, neon sign, but half the letters were unlit and dull, and the coin-laundry beside him was boarded up and closed. The street was ominously silent---no children playing, no people walking about from the store or work. Then again, it was the middle of the afternoon and people might not be off of work yet. But there should have been a few kids playing outside as school was over for the day.

The door suddenly opened behind her with a loud, squealing protest from its un-oiled hinges. Marie jumped, her nerves taut with all the creepy silence that surrounded her. Turning around, her blue eyes widened as she noted that the chained locks were still engaged, keeping the door from opening completely. “Mom?”

“Marie!” Her mother smiled with tired pleasure, closing the door long enough to disengage the locking chains. Swinging it back open, she invited her daughter in with a wave. “I didn’t recognize you, dear, with that cap on. Is it new?”

Marie touched the knitted cap she had thrown over her distinctive blond curls to try and stave off the cold bite in the air. “Yes, it is.”

Pulling it off, static crackled through her hair, making the buttery curls cling to her cheeks as she shrugged out of her coat and mittens. She hung them up on the hook beside the front door that had always been hers. It looked like Cher was home, for a smaller coat was hung alongside her mother’s on the wall.

“You’ve caught me by surprise, Marie. The house is such a mess. You should have called first to let me know you were coming over.” Her mother scolded in a familiar litany that made Marie smile as she hugged the smaller woman. If not complaining about one thing, her mother would complain about something else. It felt oddly homey and reassuring that her mother, at least, had not changed too much.

Looking down at her, Marie noted a few more silvering hairs among the fading blond hair that her mother had swept back into the familiar, tight bun she always wore.

The blue eyes, still brilliant as either of her daughters’, grew concerned as Elaine looked back up at Marie. A work-worn hand gently touched her cheek, and her mother said softly, “Are you all right, dear? You look tired.”

Biting her lip, Marie felt her eyes itch as a wash of tears threatened to fall. “Oh, Mom, I---”

“Marie? Marie!” There was a blond blur and Marie was suddenly enfolded in a tangle of skinny arms and legs that had her laughing as her younger sister hugged her fiercely.

“Cher!” She stepped back a bit to touch the bright curls so like her own and realized with a start that her younger sister was now almost as tall as she. “By the Fates, you’ve grown!”

It was a trite sentiment, but it was true. It had only been a few months, but Cher had shot up like a weed. She’d be as tall as their father if she kept growing like that.

Cher shifted from one foot to the other, self-conscious of her height. She had the fidgety nervousness that so many preteens developed as they started sprouting into young womanhood. She was at that awkward stage, all arms and legs, but there was promise there of a beauty that would blossom in time.

“Ah, you were just as tall at that age,” Elaine said with a soft smile as she admired her daughters, who looked so like one another. They could have passed as twins if Cher were older.

“Not as pretty, though,” Marie laughed, tucking a buttery curl behind her sister’s ear. Cher blushed and dragged her sister from the small foyer and into the kitchen, chatting excitedly about her latest experiment and eager to show her sister the results.

Marie allowed Cher to dominate her attention, though half of what Cher said left her baffled. The girl was as passionate about science as Marie was about chocolate---or Tsume. Marie could sit back and admire her sister’s dedication, which would make Cher a brilliant research scientist one day. Even at twelve, Cher was already developing a rather ruthless ambition to succeed in her chosen field, a need that often excluded her from taking part in the more mundane activities other girls her age found so important. Their mother worried incessantly that Cher was far too serious for her age, that she was already too obsessed with success to the exclusion of all else a girl her age should be concerned with---namely, boys.

Marie couldn’t see what the problem was. She had never been that boy-crazy as a teenager and although she had never been as shy or quiet as her sister, she had been just as seriously passionate about computers as Cher was science. She had turned out all right and so would Cher, as long as she always had her anxious mother around to keep her grounded.

“Enough, Cher! You’ll drive your sister crazy with all that nonsense.” Elaine, ever sharp when she was confronted with something that confused her, interrupted them with a familiar frown of disapproval that reminded Marie all too well of her own childhood.

*Mom will never change. She never quite understood us or why we ever cared about all that ‘technical stuff.’ She always claimed we were more like Dad and he always confused her, too.* Marie nudged her sister’s knee with a commiserating smile. Cher looked rebellious for a minute, but just sighed as Elaine demanded if she had cleaned her room.

“Not yet.” Cher got up reluctantly. Marie felt bad, she hadn’t been by to see her sister often enough.

“We’ll talk later, ’kay?” Marie poked her sister in the side, who shied with a smile and a quick nod before disappearing up the stairs to go do her chores.

Elaine sat down at the table with a sigh. “Finally. She’s always happy to see you, Marie. You don’t come by to see us as much as you should.”

Marie dutifully nodded, though her mind was elsewhere. How was she going to break the news to her mother that she was pregnant and by a man she had never even met? Hell, how was she even going to explain Tsume, when he wasn’t even really a man? Sudden doubts plagued her again and she bit her lip.

Her mother wasn’t stupid and she knew her daughters like no one else could. Laying a worn hand over Marie’s on the table, she asked gently, “Honey, what is it?”

“Uh…” Marie couldn’t meet the concern in her mother’s blue eyes with her own. The chair beneath her felt suddenly constrictive and she abruptly stood up, restlessly pacing the small kitchen as she had always done when deeply troubled about something.

Her mother watched her with mingled concern and amusement before making the decision for both of them. “Would you be more comfortable if we took a walk, like we used to do? Maybe we could go get a cup of coffee at Marco’s.”

Marie seized on the idea, if only to stave off the inevitable for a few more moments. She didn’t know why she was so damn nervous. It wasn’t as if she was a young teenager. She was a grown woman, damn it, with her own life and her own choices and her own consequences.

Then why was she running away like a child who needed comfort from her mother when she should---as a mature adult---confront Tsume with her suspicions and work through them like a grown ass woman who could handle anything and everything? But for some crazy reason she needed her Mom’s reassurance right now, her Mom’s support and simple, down-to-earth practicality. As frustrating as Elaine could be at times, she also had an uncanny ability to cut right to the heart of a problem and Marie’s emotions were in such turmoil she needed that right now---desperately.

“That…that would be nice, Mom. Thank you.” Marie gave the smaller woman a grateful hug and Elaine patted her cheek, her smile tender as they traced their steps back to the foyer to retrieve their coats.

The tall, white-haired man paused on the dusty street corner. He stood out among the few people hurrying along the street who were bundled in thick layers against the fierce wind that howled around the edges of the crumbling brick buildings. He acted as if the cold did not touch him, half-dressed as he was in ripped, black leather. There was something in his marked stillness that had the other people giving him a wide berth as they scurried past him.

Turning his head sharply to the left, he tested the wind that gusted around him, sending scraps of paper rattling down the street and tugging at the thin tail that bound his white hair back. Golden eyes narrowed as he abruptly stiffened. With surprising alacrity, he turned and vanished inside an abandoned alcove. Not a minute later, a squad of helmeted city police jogged past, their weapons conspicuously cradled in their arms across their armored chests. The few people out on the street stopped and gaped as the armed personal guards of Lord Okum tramped past them at a good clip. They came back to life as a second patrol rounded the corner, scuttling out of the way as the larger unit followed the first. Both groups quickly disappeared down yet another narrow passage, leaving the deserted street strangely forlorn and lonely as the biting wind moaned its discontent among the tightly shuttered tenement shops.

It was a long moment before the black-clad man appeared again. He growled softly to himself, his yellow eyes flashing as he ducked into a side-street that ran counter-point to the patrol’s steady, stamping progress across the city. He didn’t like the purpose to their stride or the fact that her scent faintly whispered to him on the shivering wind of their passage.

The desperate, heavy thuds on the front door boomed throughout the quiet house, echoing up the stairs to where young Cher was absently tugging her blanket straight. She jerked up in surprise at the first, sharp knock. It was quickly followed by a battery of blows that had her all but stumbling down the narrow stairs in her haste to get to the foyer. Mom and Marie had left some time ago for their walk; she was almost done with her room, but she was frightened by the thundering blows that accompanied her scramble down the steps. Who could it be, and why were they knocking so loudly? Something might have happened to Mom, or Marie…

She snatched the front door open with a fumbling turn of the troublesome knob and stared in wide-eyed shock at the fat little man who stood on the stoop before her with such desperate fear in his dark eyes. He was a bit red in the face, his eyes widening behind the thick, fogging spectacles that sat on his rather bulbous nose.

“You’re not Marie.” He sounded rather affronted to find her there, rather than her sister.

“I’m Cher. Marie isn’t home. Can I help you, sir…?” Cher hugged the door, uneasily nervous with such a strange little man but still polite, as her mother had taught her.

“Where is she?” The man’s voice was low, urgent. His eyes darted up and down the deserted, wind-blown street as if he could materialize Marie out of thin air.

“Dunno,” Cher replied, unwilling to say anything more. “You can try back later…” She started edging the door closed.

“No time.” The man shook his head, biting his lip with indecision as Cher shivered in the icy wind that whistled around the opened door. The door creaked as Cher inched it forward a bit, hoping he would take the hint.

His beady little eyes blinked on her as if grasping at any straw. “No time. There’s no time. They’re after me. They found out---I don’t know how---that I know. I must flee the city. Lord Okum’s declared martial law and shut down the lab. You must tell her.”

“You’re crazy,” Cher whispered, frightened, and tried to slam the door shut, but a pudgy arm blocked her abortive move.

“No, wait. Tell her, tell Marie. I’m Dr. Davigny. Tell her---I must go. There’s no time, and they will most likely find me. They must not find the book. I cannot let them have the book. You understand?” He was desperate now, voice hoarse and all but choking on his own fear. Fishing a wrapped bundle from out of his thick coat, he wedged it through the narrow opening made by his heavy arm blocking the door.

“Please, girl. Give it to her. She will understand, she will know. They cannot have the book. Take it, take it.”

Cher mutely shook her head, scared by the man’s desperate insistence. Ignoring her reticence, the man thrust the wrapped bundle through the doorway so that it fell with a thud on the worn linoleum of the foyer.

Mission accomplished, the man released his hold on the door-frame, hissing a last, “Tell her!,” as he scuttled back down the short flight of stairs. Shivering, Cher watched him scurry down the street, his shoulders hunched as if that might help to hide him. Shutting the door, Cher thrust the triple locks home with fierce intensity, hoping to drive away her own uneasiness and fright.

“He’s just a crazy old man,” she tried to comfort herself as she knelt to pick up the wrapped package on the floor, curiosity getting the better of her. Peeling the protective oil-cloth back, she blinked at the faded red cover with its gilt edging.

“‘The Book of the Moon?’”

“The fugitive has been spotted, sir.”

The captain’s heavy brows came down in a dark vee across his long nose. “Show me,” he brusquely ordered the junior officer.

A blip appeared on the digital display that mapped the narrow streets of this quiet residential section of Freeze City. The captain frowned. Noble Lord Okum would not take kindly to any unwarranted disturbances in this part of the city. His orders had been for the discreet retrieval of the professor---though his orders had been a bit vague on whether or not the man should be brought in dead or alive. It hardly mattered, anyhow. They didn’t need the good doctor, they only needed that stupid book.

“What do you think, Lawres?” The captain turned to his second-in-command. He was a gifted strategist, if a little too cold and calculating for his tastes. Still, Lawres was a gem of ingenuity. “We can hardly go from house to house, demanding they hand over Davigny. Our Noble Lord would not appreciate such a disturbance to the citizens of this section without good cause---”

“Perhaps that is what we need, sir,” Lawres’ chilly blue eyes lit with vicious inspiration. “A disturbance of good cause.”

“Explain yourself, Second,” the captain growled, though he might just know what Lawres was getting at. The man was a brilliant tactician and clever as hell. A gem, indeed.

“A riot, sir? Surely we would have to put such a vicious menace to the peace of this section down without qualm, sir, and if we have to do it with a good show of force, than who is to blame us in the doing of our duty?” The glint of prim satisfaction in Lawres’ cold blue eyes was almost distasteful. If the man had a weakness, it was that he was a tad over-fond of violence.

Still, such a discrepancy could be overlooked in a man so talented at finding solutions to rather sticky situations.

“Indeed. A riot, you say? How…convenient.”

Marie slumped back into the cracked vinyl of the tiny booth, rubbing her pounding temples as her mother closed her eyes and sighed with resignation. “You’re pregnant.”

Marie mutely nodded, then realized that her mother couldn’t possibly see the abortive movement with her eyes shut tight, and said tersely, “Yes.”

She listlessly stirred the cooling coffee cup before her, the spoon ringing against the cup’s curved side. Elaine opened her eyes at the sharp sound in the quiet, deserted diner and admonished sharply, “Then you shouldn’t be drinking that. Caffeine is bad for the baby.”

Marie restlessly pushed the cup away, not interested anyway in the lukewarm sludge.

“What about the father?” Her mother asked, her brow wrinkled.

“He’s---it’s complicated,” Marie finished rather lamely. She felt wilted, drained, and her mother was not reacting as she had expected. Instead of reassurance and loving support, Elaine seemed agitated and almost angry.

Should she have expected anything else? Hell, Marie didn’t know what to expect. It felt good, though, to have finally told somebody. Keeping a secret like that was pure hell.

“Who is it?” Elaine demanded, her voice a bit shrill.

“His name is Tsume. He’s…well, Mom, he’s…” Marie fidgeted with the spoon again, trying to find some way to explain to her all-too-practical mother just what, exactly, her boyfriend---or whatever---was.

Hell, did she even know?

She felt a sudden urge to giggle, a rather hysterical reaction. More important, did she even know what her baby was? Or would be?

The silence felt heavy, though there was a faint rumble, a low muttering sound in the distance that oddly reminded her of the low hint of warning in Tsume’s ever-ready growl. By the Fates, she wished he was here, with her, right now.

“Does he know?” Elaine sat back, her blue eyes wise.

“No,” Marie said softly, saddened by that fact, and by the fact that she hadn’t had the balls to tell him yet. What was she doing? Damn, she was an idiot. She should have told him the first moment she ever suspected. She was---

“What is that noise?” Elaine demanded sharply, her voice rising in harsh complaint as the faint rumblings grew louder. Behind the worn formica of his cracked counter, Marco merely shrugged, though his expression grew suddenly alarmed as multiple cracks split the ominous rumble outside. There was a faint staccato of fumbling steps on the outside pavement, as if somebody were running, and then another, and another.

“What in heaven’s name…?” Elaine half-rose from her seat, her blue eyes widening in alarm as she stared out the smudged glass behind her daughter’s head.

Marie blinked as Marco’s mouth fell open, the worn dishrag finally stilled in his hand. With an ominous feeling of unreality, she felt her head slowly turning to stare out the window, and her eyes widened as cold fear twisted deep in her gut.

“Marie! Marie!”

His howl rent the stumbling chaos all around him. Tsume felt the tide of panicked humanity surge about him as additional shots were fired into the seething crowd. Loud screams of rage and fear enveloped him, making him wince as they echoed in his sensitive ears even as he ducked under an out-flung arm. Somebody’s elbow jabbed him sharply in the side and he snarled, baring his teeth. Frightened eyes swam into his vision as those nearest him tried to flee both him and the dangers behind them.

One of the shadowy forms in front of him fell beneath the furious press of the frightened crowd and was trampled underneath, their screams abruptly cut off as other people bawled in mortal terror of their very lives. More shots were fired; sharp, echoing cracks splitting through the menacing rumble of the police tanks and the panicked shouts of the mindless rabble. The sounds of breaking glass tinkled and splashed, adding an odd counterpoint to the dull, throbbing roar of ominous dread.

Tsume fought to keep his feet, viciously forcing his way through the screaming sheep surrounding him. More shots rang out, closer now, and the sharp odor of gun-powder itched in his nose. There was a yelp beside him and a nameless man fell, a woman screaming in horror as blood flowered along his side. Ducking, Tsume felt more than heard another bullet whistling just over his head. Snarling his rage at the seething tide of terrified humanity around him, he roared his frustration, his eyes glowing with a feral gleam.

“Marie!”

Something was wrong, terribly wrong. He felt it in his bones, in his very soul, in that instinctive place in his gut that just howled out to him that something terrible and utterly, unimaginably awful had just happened. He knew it, he felt it, but he howled out his screaming denial.

“No! Marie!”

Instinct overcame him then and he abandoned the illusively ineffective body he wore for his true form. There was a startled shriek behind him as someone froze, seeing the man change into a snarling, grey beast right before their stunned eyes. The shock cost the fool his life, for he was knocked over and trampled even as Tsume leapt past another screaming idiot standing right in front of him. New cries of rising hysteria rose from the people who had rung him and a second wave formed in the sweeping sea of terrified humanity as they tried to get away from the snarling wolf within their midst.

Tsume ignored them, his mind taken up with the need to find his mate. *Marie!*

He ran and bit and fought his way through the throng of screaming people, caught up in the mindless violence and terror of the mob. He felt something sharp pierce his side once, felt the occasional blow as a braver fool would strike out at him as he leapt past. He ignored the pain, snarled and fought and even killed when he must, and ran on.

The riot was in full swing and the armored tanks and police that swarmed the area tried to quell the seething mob, shouting demands and threats out across the mindless babble of confused hysteria with sharp orders to disperse. Shots rang out and more screams mixed with the blood that covered the street as desperate people fled for their very lives. Tsume’s paws touched the warm stickiness and soft, squishy bodies of the dead and dying without true notice, a face swimming into his vision and then back out without regard as he leapt past. Her scent grew stronger and he ran with panting breath and hard defiance in his heart. He cut his paw on a pair of broken spectacles, the fat little man’s face swimming before him. It was someone he should have known, should have recognized, but he was too taken up with his own heart-twisting fear to care right then.

*There!*

Her scent was strongest there, but the thick, metallic scent of fresh blood was heavily threaded among it. He denied it, denied the truth and the meaning of it. There was blood everywhere, in his vision and in his fur as he leapt through the broken window, the sharp edges of the shattered glass catching on his soft underbelly. The place was in shambles, tables overturned and chairs broken into so many matchsticks. A man lay beside the broken door as if he had tried to keep the mindless mob’s violence at bay with his own two hands. An older woman lay dead on the floor nearby and the look of her had Tsume’s heart freezing in his chest---but it wasn’t her, his Marie. It was someone like her, though older, and there was enough of a superficial resemblance to her familiar scent that it made him whine and snarl as he stood trembling and panting over the woman’s dead body.

“W-Wolf?” A faint whisper reached his ears, and he turned his head sharply.

*Marie!*

He was there, beside her, in one leap, changing form in the air so that he could cradle her small body in his strong arms. “Marie, my God, Marie…”

“You…you came…” She whispered brokenly to him, her blue eyes misting with tears as she coughed weakly. Blood covered her stomach, the sticky, warm wetness of it plastering her sweatshirt to her skin, with more seeping from a sullen wound at her shoulder.

“No…God, no…” Tsume knew and denied it, screamed it as she coughed again, her eyes fluttering closed as her breath came in short pants. “No!”

“Tsume, Tsume, please…” She sobbed for him, for her, for what was not to be. “I’m so sorry, so very sorry…”

“Marie. God, Marie, no! Please, God, no!” Tsume howled over her, rocking her small body in his arms as if that would stop the inevitable.

“I…I never told you…I’m sorry…I’m so very sorry…I loved you, Wolf, I loved you…”

“Marie!”

Her blue eyes, so brilliant and jewel-like in the sapphire sheen of her un-fallen tears, grew empty as her broken body sagged against him and his aching howl of utter loss and denial at the betrayal of fickle fate rent the air, sending its heart-wrenching keen spiraling out across the shouting chaos around them.

“MARIE!”