signed_sabrina | (no subject)

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Sabrina locks the doors to Leviathan as quickly and carefully as she can manage without fumbling the key. Their hour of sunlight is already fading, and while she currently has all the supplies they'll need for magical defense (subject to an advance on her paycheck), time shouldn't be wasted.

She puts the keys in her coat pocket, giving Charlie a smile before she starts to pull her scarf up again. "I think if we're quick, we'll be fine," she says. All of it is strange and wrong and dangerous, but Sabrina can't help but feel like there's something more. What that could mean to her, about her, she doesn't want to think about.

Taking his hand, she glances up and down the street. It wouldn't be safe for Salem here, so easy to spot against the snow, but she misses his sense of hearing. She thinks she hears something, but the wind chooses that moment to pick up, and she winces, automatically turning into the shelter of Charlie's body for warmth.

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Charlie wraps his arm around her shoulder, keeping her close to him, huddled in against his side, his scarf pulled up so high that only the pinkish tip of his nose is exposed. He hates the growing darkness, hates how careful everyone has to be.

"Come on," he says. "Let's go back to Nick's. It feels safer being higher up, somehow."

The last clear thought before everything starts to happen is how much she loves the way his nose gets pink like that, and she's leaning up to kiss that rosy bit of skin when she sees movement in the corner of her eye. There's cruel, feral laughter around them, and Sabrina pulls away, staring at the group of monsters that's surrounded them.

One of them, a leader of sorts, snorts. "Yeah, it's the boy. Shiny, pretty one, isn't he. Watch the bitch, she's got something to her."

The laughter sends a shiver down Charlie's spine, and he immediately grabs at Sabrina, even as she's pulling away, even as he's realising that she's the more capable of the two of them in a fight. If it comes to a fight.

"Hey," he says, wishing he sounded braver. "Don't...don't call her that."

God, she loves him for trying to defend her too.

"Charlie, let me," she says quietly, and in her desperation, she breaks free from him, her hands starting to glow with a hot, rosy light. "You should all go," she tells them, firmly, knowing that they won't. "I'll kill every last one of you if I have to, but you should go."

The leader just laughs, that high and screeching sound. "Tear her apart, boys--" he begins, and is promptly knocked back by an actual ball of rose-colored fire.

Sabrina's murmuring, ready to go again, when they charge, three grabbing for Charlie, the other three advancing on Sabrina.

A sound that's part panic, part pride bubbles up in his throat when he watches her take out one of the goblins, but he swallows it down, backing away, putting himself behind her, until three of them are grabbing at him with spindly, sharp-nailed hands. He kicks out, frantically, with the heel of one boot. "Sabrina..."

Sabrina turns immediately at his cry, the fire blazing hot on her fingers. "NO," she screams. "No, you can't have him." She pulls back her arm to release the fire, frantically calculating the best spot to hit them--

--and suddenly she's got her back to the wall and her hand is throbbing in pain. She turns her head to see the dagger that pins her there, the blade forced through the flesh of her palm and deep into the wood facade near the door. She screams again, this time in pain and horror, and turns to see them with their hands on her Charlie, her Charlie, no, no.

"CHARLIE!"

Suddenly, there are more hands than he can fight off, grabbing at him -- his clothes, his hair -- and dragging him backwards, away from her. He sees the knife flash in the streetlight, and the next thing, it's Sabrina pinned to the door, blood black in the night. Charlie makes a noise that can only be described as a scream, pulling, thrashing ,fighting, until he feels claws dig into his skin, drawing blood.

"Sabrina!"

She's terrified and angry and in so much pain, and she doesn't know if she has the time to pull the knife from her hand. Struggling only means a sickening moment where her hand is no longer touching the wood under her palm, but there's a brilliantly painful slide until the back of her hand touches the hilt.

One of the goblins not holding Charlie bursts into flame.

But it's not enough, she knows it, and she's crying, screaming as she reaches for the knife in her hand.

One of them bursts into flames, startlingly bright, but the others still have hold of him, and he's fighting, he is, but then something heavy hits him hard, clips his temple, and his legs go out from under him, his vision swimming, the heels of his boots dragging against the floor. He sobs her name.

Sabrina knows then, from the way he calls her name, even as they're dragging him away, that she's not going to be able to save him. Not now. She sags against the wall, and with tears clogging her voice, she calls out to him.

"Please, Charlie, hold on, I swear I'll be there soon, Charlie--"

The last thing he hears the way she says, sobs his name, and then they hit him again, harder this time, and everything goes black.

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