Decisions, part five

The impact was no more than he'd expected; the wards here were for warning, not protection, and he didn't intend to give them time for their warning to make a difference. The room he crashed into was barren, furnished only with a table, a few chairs, and a battered couch; he caught up one of the chairs and flung it at Sherri, who was sitting on her couch and looking at her phone. 

The chair smashed into an unseen protection, and fell to the floor; Sherri immediately rose to her feet, then glanced at her phone in confusion. To his right, the Thorin Tanelorn of the great cats was standing beside a chair with a hostage in it. 

The hostage was supposed to be a doll! It was a doll -- it had no scent -- but the magi had put a seeming on it for this exercise, and it looked like a human child bound to the chair. For a moment he was back at Pettibone, seeing another face in another chair, and he hesitated for the barest moment as Thorin dodged around the hostage and charged him, impossibly fast over this short distance. 

He felt the impact before he could refocus, before he could bring his arms up or get his body moving again, and caught Thorin's wrist for a brief moment, pulling the cat back and to the floor alongside him. Thorin broke the hold immediately, caught him under the shoulders, and hurled them both back out the shattered window just as Antoinette shimmered into place in the room and Elyssa smashed in through the no-longer-warded door. 

Thorin released him as soon as they were past the window, and they both began to fall; Chris landed hard, and Thorin landed softly and silently on his feet, still human-formed and completely unmussed.

"Sorry," said Thorin, "but that's how it goes." 

Chris shot a hand out, caught the cat by his ankle, and yanked him down. He came to his feet, dragging Thorin up after him, and flung him into a building. He was overreacting, he knew it, and showing too much of his strength. The trouble was that he couldn't stop it. Some part him was still seeing a frightened child tied to a chair, again, and that part had taken control of his actions. He sprang up, caught a ledge around the building, sank his claws in, and launched himself further. There was a lintel above the next row of windows, and he caught himself on it and pushed himself further up. 

He was just below the upper row of windows when Thorin caught his ankle and nearly pulled him off the side of the building; if Chris hadn't been sinking his claws into the stone, the cat would have succeeded. Instead, Chris thrashed and kicked down, raking claws across the cat's face and then his arm; Thorin dropped like a rock, landed easily on his feet, and started straight up the side of the building again. 

By then, though, Chris had found the broken window and rolled inside it, ignoring the broken glass on the floor. Thorin didn't follow him; the cat leapt past the window and up to the roof. 

Sherri was on the ground, thrashing around but otherwise immobile; Antoinette was speaking into her cell phone. "We've got the kid. Pull back. You don't need to make this meet, we'll bring her to you."

Elyssa asked, "Chris? Are you okay?"

"With this?" he gestured towards the doll that had been tied to the chair and was now held firmly in Elyssa's arms. "No. Not at all. I was about to--" He made himself stop. 

"Chris," said Elyssa firmly. "Take a deep breath." 

He took a deep breath. 

"Say it with me: it's just an exercise."

"It's just an exercise." He wasn't sure he believed it, but he was calming back down, starting to refocus. "It's just an exercise."

"It's just an exercise," Elyssa repeated.

Antoinette put her phone away. "We're going to take the kid out to her House," she said quietly. "What are we looking at?"

Chris shrugged. "The cat is still active, and there are two other magi and two other outsiders he might call in. We go now, quickly, and hope to be gone before he returns with help."