'reflections'
act one.

chapter seventeen: two guns.

"i was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched."
-edgar allan poe

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AS QUICKLY AS SHE HAD LEFT THE KITCHEN, CASSIE WAS NOWHERE TO BE FOUND INSIDE OF THE HOUSE. 

Vienna paced the length of her room anxiously, counting the laps she had made around the small area.

25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30...

Cassie was gone, had the unsub taken her? There was no possible way he could've done that, not with the FBI agents surrounding the house, their careful eyes watching everyone's move. Even if one of the Naturals were so adjust themselves in their seat, one of the agents would perk up as if on command.

Vienna fidgets with her fingers anxiously as she focused on the wall, where photos of her friends, family, and other interests of hers were tacked onto a board. She looked at the most recent photo she had taken with her camera, a photo of her and Dean.

Dean.

Maybe Dean knows where Cassie is.

Vienna walked down the hall at a rapid pace, knocking gently on Dean's door.

Nothing.

"Dean?" She called.

No response.

She opened the door gently, and his room was empty.

That's weird, she thought to herself.

She began waking back to her room when she saw Michael.

"Michael, Cassie and Dean are gone," She says, her voice becoming uneasily high at the end of her sentence.

"Huh?" He asks.

"They're gone. We've got to call Briggs or Locke." Vienna urges.

"Ok, I'll do that." Michael says, a rare serious expression on his face as he pulls his phone out of the pocket of his jeans.

He presses on Locke's contact, and she answered almost instantly.

"Michael, is everything okay?" Michael put Locke  on speaker so Vienna could listen as well.

"Uh, Vi just told me that Dean and Cassie aren't here, and that Cassie disappeared a half hour ago."

"Yeah," Vienna chimes in. "she's nowhere in the house.

Locke was silent for a minute. "It's being taken care of."

"What do you mean?" Michael asks. "Where are they?"

"Don't worry about it, Townsend." Locke says, her voice too calm considering the fact that two of her Naturals were gone. "Tell Vienna not to worry either."

"Okay." Michael says, exchanging a confused look with Vienna.

And suddenly, it all made sense.

The last time Vienna had seen Cassie less than an hour ago, she ran out of the room, saying that she had to call Briggs or Locke. That's probably what she had done.

She recalled nearly two years ago, Briggs had mentioned in passing that there was a safety house that they would only use if it was absolutely necessary.

Of course, you shouldn't mention something in passing to someone with an eidetic memory. Little did Briggs know, Vienna still remembered it to this day.

And she had found the location of the safe house, and of course she remembered that too.

"Michael." she snapped as soon as he hung up.

"What?" He looks at her.

"We have to go."

"What? Locke told us not to go anywhere."

"Michael Townsend, look me dead in the eye and tell me serious when the last time you followed exactly what Locke told you?"

Michael smiles at her, but the look on her face was serious.

"Oh, you're serious." He says.

"Yes, I am."

"Vi, we could die. If Locke sent both Cassie and Dean to the safe house, it must be bad."

"Their life is on the line too, Michael. We have to go help them. They're our friends."

"But-"

"Michael, if you don't feel safe, bring a gun."

"A gun?" Michael's mouth falls agape. "Do you understand what you're saying?"

"Of course I do." Vienna says. "Locke and Briggs taught us how to shoot just in case, remember?"

Michael nods. "Yeah, but if it's really nothing and we go storming in there with a gun, Dean will probably think we're the unsub."

Vienna lets a laugh slip through her lips, but her face turns serious again. "Us, the unsub?"

"Well-"

"Michael, better safe than sorry. We have to be cautious."

"Which is why we should stay here." Michael says.

"Fine, I'll go by myself, i'll bring a gun, and you can stay here while I go."

"No." Michael snaps, reaching for her hand. A rush of tingling pins and needles shot up Vienna's spine at once. "I'm not letting you go alone."

She could basically feel the heat radiating from his body to hers, they were standing so close. So close that Vienna could almost just stand on her tiptoes and kiss him right now, but she couldn't do that. They had to go, or at least she had to, if he wouldn't.

"Ok." Vienna says after a moment, praying silently that the heat and most likely redness in her face would go away soon. "So are you coming or not?"

Michael pauses for a moment, his eyes scanning Vienna's face. "Yeah." he says quickly, almost as if he would change his mind if the words came out any slower. "But i'm carrying the gun." He says as they begin to walk.

"Okay Mr. Tough Guy." Vienna scoffs.

Michael glares at her.

She winces. "Not the time for jokes?"

"Not really, considering that you're putting our life on the line."

"Michael, don't get mad at me. Please. I just want to make sure Cassie and Dean are safe, they're like our family."

Michael's silent for a moment. "This unsub is really dangerous. I just don't want you to get hurt."

"What about you too?"

"Well, me too." Michael adds.

And they walk in silence to where Briggs kept his locked gun. When Michael pulled it out from where Briggs hid it, for some reason, Vienna didn't feel stressed.

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THE SAFETY HOUSE LOOKED as if it was just a regular house. Vienna's heart rate rose as they creaked up the front steps.

Maybe Michael was right, that they shouldn't have came.

That was something she never thought she would say, Michael wasn't always the best judge of right or wrong.

But she didn't object, because if she told Michael that they should go home, she'd never ever hear the end of it.

So she swallowed the lump in her throat and walked next to Michael, the old steps squealing under their weight.

"Get behind me." Michael pushes a protective hand behind her so that she was almost completely behind him.

He pushes the door open, the hinges creaking loudly, announcing their presence.

Suddenly, Vienna caught sight of them. Cassie and Dean.

"Michael?" Cassie says as she and Dean whip around to face the door, and Dean is holding a gun as well. "Vienna?"

Dean lowered his weapon. What are you guys doing here?"

"Why do you have a gun?" Vienna watched the color drain from Cassie's face.

She thought Michael was the unsub, and maybe she thought Vienna was the unsub too.

A team.

Dean raised his right arm, gun in hand. "Put it down, Townsend." There was a rare look of distress on his face.

Michael would put down the gun, wouldn't he? That's what Vienna thought. She knew Michael, probably better than anyone here did. He had mentioned that the opportunity of losing it was in him, but she knew better than that, didn't she?

Michael was one of her best friends, she felt like she'd known him for her whole life, though it had only been two years.

But, because of the connection she felt to Michael, had she unknowingly followed the unsub?

Was Michael the unsub?

No way. She couldn't think that. But could her really rule it out?

This was Michael. The Michael she joked with, he read Jane Austen, and watched romcoms with her and made pancakes for her, they'd pranked people together for years. He'd slept at the foot of her bed when she'd had nightmares. He was a sweetheart, her Michael. Even though he wasn't hers.

He'd put down the gun.

But, he didn't.  Instead, he trained the weapon, and his eyes on Dean.

"Michael." Vienna hissed, her voice breaking.

He didn't say anything to her, but he simply just stared at Dean, and Dean stared back.

Michael had his gun trained on Dean.

Dean had his gun trained on Michael.

"I'm warning you, Michael. Put it down." Dean sounded calm, almost too calm. Vienna's stomach churned.

"Michael." The familiar lump rises in Vienna's throat once again. "Put it down, please." She steps out from behind him so she can look at Michael.

His gaze wavers, looking to Vienna. The girl he loved more than almost anything, she'd to anything to protect her. He read her emotions like the open book he couldn't quite put down. She had tears in her eyes, did she think he was the monster?

If he thought she was in danger for even one second, he'd put a bullet through whoever tried to hurt her's head, but he wasn't the monster in this situation.

He realized that Vienna looked afraid of him.

He looked to Dean and Cassie, and began to explain himself. "You were gone, you both were. And one of the guns was gone. Vienna and I-we thought-" And Vienna looked at the boy in front of her, confused and hurting, the guarded expression fell from his face. "I would never hurt you, Cassie. Or you, Vienna." He looks at Vienna.

Suddenly, Vienna's gut twisted. How could she believe that this boy would ever want to hurt her? This was the same Michael that she'd always known.

Beside Cassie, Dean repeated his command, for Michael to lower his gun.

Michael closed his eyes, and lowered his weapon. But the second he did, the sound of gunfire flew through the air.

One shot, two shots.

Vienna tried to figure out which gun had gone off. Michael's hand was by his side.

Vienna's ears rang at the loud noise, and she watching in horror as a dark red color blossomed across his pale blue shirt.

He'd been hit, twice. Once in the shoulder, the other in the leg. His eyes rolled back in his head, as he dropped the gun from his finger tips, and he hit the floor with a thud.

No, no, no, no, no.

Tears sprung to Vienna's eyes. But she was frozen in place, staring at Michael as his life's blood drained out of him.

She turned to see Dean aiming the gun at her, and she tried to yell, to tell him not to shoot her too.

But then she realized that he was not aiming at her, but at the person standing behind her. The one who'd shot Michael.

He was aiming his gun at Special Agent Lacey Locke.

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cam's notes!!!

DUN DUN DUNNNNN

why is my heart actually pounding rn.

only two more chapters left in the first act after this one !!

qotd: what is your favorite book genre? mine is thriller or some romance !!

i hope you liked this chapter and i'm so so excited for the next one ;)