[ There’s no two ways about it. If the tracks are gone, if he and Ian have been moved around and pulled apart, if something grabbed that goddamn mask off the tree after leaving it to taunt Mace through the window —
Whoever the fuck it is, they’re out here right now, and the right thing to do would be to hunt them down while Ian’s still inside the relative safety of his room. He’s got the cutter as a weapon, he’s got time on his side with how quick he’d been able to smash that window —
Ian’s voice, angry and desperate, telling him not to die. Ian, waiting for him to come to the master bedroom, ready to break open the damn window and probably would do it if Mace took too long to get there. ]
Fuck.
[ No, his priority is to do what he’d said he would. Screw the logistics, the tactical advantage of it, because he’d said I’ll find my way to you, and he’d meant it. Which means no detour to the living room window to bust through, just a straight line to where he surmises the master bedroom is.
The fog presses in on him as he moves along the perimeter of the cabin, billowing up softly and menacingly through the woods. It’s thickening somehow, and a new foreboding starts to trickle into his thoughts: what if he can’t find his way? If he doesn’t get back — if this goes tits up on him, that would leave Ian permanently alone and injured, a sitting duck for whatever the hell was after them.
Just as he thinks his visibility’s about to be fucked for good, his hand lands on what is unmistakably a window sill, and Mace can’t help the relieved oath that comes out of him. ]
Jesus Chr—No!
[ It morphs into a hoarse yell, his blood running cold. Through the misted glass in front of him, he can see Ian, being held down by all four of those sons of bitches, spread eagle on the bed, and they have that fucking hospital mask on his face—
No. He doesn’t bother wrapping anything around his hand this time, feeling absolutely nothing but black terror and fury as the glass gives way under his fist. Pulls himself through the moment he can get his head in, looking up with frantic eyes to see —
Nothing. The bed’s empty, there's no doctors, where did — ]
no subject
Whoever the fuck it is, they’re out here right now, and the right thing to do would be to hunt them down while Ian’s still inside the relative safety of his room. He’s got the cutter as a weapon, he’s got time on his side with how quick he’d been able to smash that window —
Ian’s voice, angry and desperate, telling him not to die. Ian, waiting for him to come to the master bedroom, ready to break open the damn window and probably would do it if Mace took too long to get there. ]
Fuck.
[ No, his priority is to do what he’d said he would. Screw the logistics, the tactical advantage of it, because he’d said I’ll find my way to you, and he’d meant it. Which means no detour to the living room window to bust through, just a straight line to where he surmises the master bedroom is.
The fog presses in on him as he moves along the perimeter of the cabin, billowing up softly and menacingly through the woods. It’s thickening somehow, and a new foreboding starts to trickle into his thoughts: what if he can’t find his way? If he doesn’t get back — if this goes tits up on him, that would leave Ian permanently alone and injured, a sitting duck for whatever the hell was after them.
Just as he thinks his visibility’s about to be fucked for good, his hand lands on what is unmistakably a window sill, and Mace can’t help the relieved oath that comes out of him. ]
Jesus Chr—No!
[ It morphs into a hoarse yell, his blood running cold. Through the misted glass in front of him, he can see Ian, being held down by all four of those sons of bitches, spread eagle on the bed, and they have that fucking hospital mask on his face—
No. He doesn’t bother wrapping anything around his hand this time, feeling absolutely nothing but black terror and fury as the glass gives way under his fist. Pulls himself through the moment he can get his head in, looking up with frantic eyes to see —
Nothing. The bed’s empty, there's no doctors, where did — ]
Ian?