Kaycee looks up at Katherine when she does not reply, a sad look passing over her normally joyous face at the reaction she finds.“ Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Katherine frowns slightly before reaching out to Kaycee’s shoulder, “No, it’s alright. I just wasn’t expecting you to know about the poisonings.”
A look of surprise flashes across Kaycee’s face before her eyebrows furrow in confusion, “Wait, you know about it too?”
Katherine smiles thoughtfully before laying back onto the grass and looking up at Kaycee. It was her favorite way to discuss things with her twin. “Yes, I know too. It's actually what I was crying about. Well, that and missing you.”
Kaycee grins before laying her head on Katherine’s stomach, her face towards her twin as the rest of her body balls up just like it use to, Kaycee’s knees ending up touching Katherine’s shoulder. “So….do you happen to know who is doing it or why?” Kaycee asks as Katherine reaches down to rub her scalp.
“I wish. I doubt I have any more idea of any of it than you do unless you know how to keep the victims alive.” Katherine says, her hazel brown eyes watching the clouds.
Kaycee reaches out to play in the grass as she contemplates her answer. “I don’t know. I...uh...well…”
Katherine pauses in rubbing Kaycee’s scalp, glancing down at her with a smile, “Let me guess, you’d beat up the poison.”
Kaycee rolls her eyes, “That’s stupid, but instinct might be part of it. Like when you are fighting and have to know whether to duck or attack. Know when you stay and when to go. You got to know when you have to push more to heal them and when you can just let the subconscious heal them.”
“How does that work if you are exhausted? You can’t heal them and sleep Kake,” Katherine sighs.
“Sure you can. The power flows where it’s needed, we only guide it,” Kaycee tells her pulling away as she sat up once more.
Katherine frowns slightly, sitting up also, “Mom told us that.”
“Yep”
“But that was with Wiccan power. It not the same thing as Omega power” Katherine says in confusion, her eyes going wide as she realizes what she had just said.
Kaycee smirked a bit, “It’s similar enough, Kat-Kat. It's practically linked to Soul Magic to begin with, just with more limitations. Like Wiccan powers, you have to focus to add power to it, but it flows constantly from you. Why do you think Wiccan’s emotions are so easily linked to their power? Their subconscious links it, but they can still focus that added power.”
Katherine frowns as she ponders her sister’s reasoning, “I can see how that can make sense, but still doesn’t help us find what the base of the poison is so we can create an antidote.”
“Devyn thinks it's some sort of Wolfsbane,” Kaycee shrugs, looking around the dreamscape. “She can’t tell which specific species it is or if the poison has more than one species of wolfsbane, but she really believes it's magic-altered Wolfsbane in the poison.”
Katherine, ignoring Kaycee’s mention of a strange name, stares at Kaycee in surprise, “Wolfsbane. So the symptoms at the end could be a forced allergic reaction to the poison.”
“Huh?”
“The final symptoms before death don’t match rouge syndrome, but it does match with the symptoms of a Wolfsbane allergy,” Katherine explains standing up in excitement.
“So they get hives and have trouble breathing,” Kaycee asks.
Katherine nods, her excitement dying as she thinks more on the allergy symptoms. “Well yes, they even throw up and go into anaphylactic shock.”
“Okay, so they could be trying to cause Wolfsbane allergies. But then why is it mimicking Rouge Syndrome at first,” Kaycee asks, rubbing her hands through her hair. As her fingers catch in some of the strands, Kaycee makes a face, pulling her fingers out of the tangles, causing Katherine to grin slightly at the familiar movement.
“I don’t know Kake. There’s no way of knowing for sure why it’s showing this duality. If we only could see the poison in the blood closer to when….” Katherine starts, brushing Kaycee’s hair behind an ear with a smile before being cut off by a loud buzzing.
Startled, Kaycee jumps up. As the buzzing continues, Katherine stands a bit slower, as the twins focus on the distant buildings that have begun to fade into darkness. Kaycee reaches out and wraps an arm around Katherine as they stare out at the creeping darkness, “It's time to wake up I guess, “ Katherine murmurs, her chest tightening up in pain at the thought of waking without Kaycee being there in the morning.
Kaycee nods, tears suddenly showing in her eyes as she pulls Katherine closer. “I was hoping…” She starts, a shuddering breath cutting off the rest of the thought.
Katherine turns to face Kaycee, wiping the tear that escaped Kaycee’s eye, smiling tenderly, “I know. I wish we did too.” Kaycee gives a strained smile and just watches the darkness. Katherine chooses to watch her, trying to envision Kaycee as an adult. Shaking her head, she looks around as the darkness starts to take over the outer edges of the yard. “I will always love you Kake,” she murmurs.
Kaycee chuckles as the darkness reaches the point of being just feet from them, looking into Katherine’s eyes, smirking softly “You have to, I’m your sister.”
Katherine closes her eyes a moment while trying to think of a response, only to find when she opens them that she is waking in the car as Uncle David drives down the road to Blue Moon Pack’s Housing Campus. Her neck is stiff from leaning on the window, and she notices the sky barely lightening with the dawn. Sitting up and stretching, being sure to work out the stiffness of her left shoulder particularly, Katherine looks down to notice Nancy deeply asleep with her head on Katherine’s lap. A look forward allows Katherine to see Valorie leaning with her head on the window in the passenger seat, also sleep. Glancing around she realizes the car is quiet besides two sounds, the engine running and the tires moving along the road. Meeting Uncle David’s eyes in the rearview mirror, Katherine waves slightly and let herself yawn. Gently petting Nancy’s hair, Katherine smiles down at the younger girl before focusing out at the passing countryside.
“You okay sweetheart.” Uncle David asks, as he returns his attention to the road.
“Yeah. Just had a strange dream,” Katherine says, smiling delicately at her uncle.
“Strange how,” he asks, returning Katherine’s smile.
“It wasn’t the nightmare for one, and I thought I was waking up to an alarm buzzing for a moment.” Katherine shares with a shrug. “I talked with Kaycee in it about the poisonings. She knew about it somehow. It was nice. Like she was really living it with me.”
“It was probably just your mind talking to yourself sweetie,” Uncle David replies.
“It didn’t feel like that. She was the most real thing in the dream,” Katherine murmurs, keeping her tone soft so Uncle David wouldn’t hear it.
While he was still every bit a teddy bear in his personality, Katherine never felt comfortable around him outside of when she needed comforting. It's not that she didn’t feel loved and supported, it’s just that he was quiet and while smart, wouldn’t be focused on the way things were beyond what was right in front of him. This was especially evident in David’s interactions with the other packs. He had assumed that since Blood Moon Pack had attempted to take over his pack in the early years of his reign as Alpha, that all the packs saw the Fox River Pack as weak and was constantly focused on building up defenses to protect the pack, and often refused to interact with even the packs that had been allied with Fox River for centuries. Katherine, while also fairly quiet, always wanted to know the full picture, not just the bare minimum of information. She felt not reaching out isolated them and closed them off from being able to have the knowledge to know how the other packs truly felt about Fox River, let alone if they had discovered something that could help the pack thrive. The difference of outlook often leaves the two of them to wrangle with each other over moments that causes them to be dealing with the same issue, like the poisonings, thus causing them to have a strange relationship where Uncle David often could not understand Katherine, even as he tried to support her.
“How much further do we need to go,” Katherine asks, looking down at her sleeping cousin.
“We’re going to stop for breakfast in a few hours and then we’ll be able to go straight through to the housing campus and should arrive about lunchtime,” Uncle David answers, glancing back at Katherine with a small smile.
Giving him a nod and smile in return, she settles further into her seat and leans her head back to try and get some more sleep. I wish Kaycee was really alive. She would probably have instincts on how to really stop people from dying. Katherine thinks as she closes her eyes, letting herself drift away and await the stop for breakfast. I doubt she would have been actually able to heal in her sleep. That makes no sense. I can imagine her trying it though. But she probably would have been a Cappa anyways.
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