Come Feed the Rain

There was absolutely no shame in beating a tactical retreat , and Thomas decided that the moment both furry little demons were contained was in fact the perfect time to do so. He was feeling a little bored now that the letter was finished and had absolutely no urge to spill his guts to a camera, so he wandered the house.

The smell of smoke caught his attention and Thomas followed it into the room where they filmed the confessionals, ignoring the crew setting up the confessional camera and poking around until he found a piece of paper, much crumpled and charred around the edges. "You're not getting me in front of that tonight," he told the crew that was waiting expectantly.

Ignoring them again, Thomas unfolded the paper, smoothing the rumpled crispy edges, and found himself staring at a printed email. He began reading it unconsciously, his lips twisting in distaste as he realized just what was troubling Edward. So much for being the Brady Bunch family. Edward might not have gotten tied up to a sacrificial altar as a blood sacrifice to restore his impotent father's virility, but this was emotional manipulation at the hands of a maestro and scarring enough in its own way. Thomas folded the page up carefully and stuffed it into his back pocket. He wasn't leaving it around in case Edward got idiotic and came back for it.

Thomas wandered back into his room to mail Justine's letter before he rejoined the hilarity he could hear coming from outside and stopped dead at the sight of an envelope sitting in the middle of his unmade bed. He approached it with a growing sense of dread and picked it up. No marks on the front, just a scrap of paper that said "Oblivion" and gave a set of numbers.

The growing sense of dread coalesced into a brick in Thomas's stomach and he looked around him. Luckily, the cameramen had been slow to follow and he was still alone. Tucking that card into his pants pocket as well, Thomas grabbed one of his pieces of luggage, and threw in a change of clothes and all of his knives, zipping it up with one hand as he buckled the saber's belt at his hip. He grabbed his pen and scrawled a hasty note on the back of the envelope, tossing it onto Edward's bed before hoisting his bag and taking the window out onto the grounds.

"Back in a couple days. Cover for me."