Startled Awake

*Hezzlie*

My pillow is vibrating. I struggle to open my eyes, but the more it vibrates, the easier it becomes. When they crack open, I realize it’s still dark outside. I turn to the clock on my nightstand and note that it’s about two o’clock in the morning.
Who the hell is calling me?
I reach under my pillow and grab my phone. The name says Sarah, but that’s what I changed Dean’s name to after my mom shared his contact information with me yesterday. I didn’t want my father to see it. “Hello?” My voice cracks and is raspy from sleep.
“Hezzlie?” His tone is desperate, filled with panic, and in the background, I hear what sounds like people rushing around, talking to one another in hurried voices.
“Dean?” I whisper. “What’s going on?”
“Are you okay?” I hear the worry in his voice now. “Are you safe?”
“Yeah. Why?” I look around my bedroom, now actually unsure as to whether or not I am okay. Why wouldn’t I be? Is he not safe? I think of Rowan. What if something happened to him? Would I feel it? Would I know? “What’s going on?”
He lets out a deep breath. “Something really bad has happened. I don’t want to get into the details right now because I don’t have permission to talk to you–or anyone about it–but I had to make sure you’re safe. No one there is acting strange?”

“No,” I assure him, even though I don’t have any way of actually knowing if anything is going on here or not. “Is everyone okay there?”
“No, they’re not,” he says quickly. “But James and Rowan are okay. Mara is alive and uninjured. That’s really all I can tell you.”
I sit up straighter. “Is someone else dead? Did we attack again? What about Wilma and Natalie?”
“The two of them are fine. I don’t know how to answer those other questions. I’m sorry, Hez. I wish I was able to tell you more. I probably shouldn’t have called, but I had to check and make sure you’re safe. Please, be careful. Stay in your room or wherever they’re keeping you as much as you can. Don’t trust anyone.”
“Okay.” It’s all I can say. I hear James calling him in the background, and I know he has to go. When he says goodbye, and the phone goes dead, I sit for a few moments before I realize I’m trembling.
My first thought is that I should check on Rowan. I should reach out to him through the mind-link and make sure he’s really okay.
But I don’t want to get Dean in trouble, and he made it seem like he wasn’t supposed to call me. I decide not to try to contact him now.
There’s no way in hell that I’m going to be able to go back to sleep, though. I get out of bed, go to the bathroom, and then I start pacing. The castle is quiet, as if everyone else is sleeping. At least, that’s what I think at first. Then, as quiet settles around me, I hear the faint sound of music coming from somewhere far away.
It’s a violin.
Completely ignoring what Dean has just told me to do, I open my bedroom door and stick my head out into the hallway. I hear no one else, but I do hear that music still, and it seems much closer to my room than the salon I found my brother playing in the day I spoke to him about it.
Quietly, I slip out into the hallway and start walking in that direction. I turn a few corners, go down a flight of stairs, and see the soft glow of dim light underneath a door. Without stopping to think about how mad he was the last time I interrupted his music, I push on the door. It doesn’t budge–it’s clearly locked. Again, I don’t hesitate. I have never tried to use my powers before to unlock a door, but I do now. A soft glow illuminates the dark hallway, and I hear a soft click. When I push again, the door swings open.
My brother stands by the window, staring out at Moonstryker Mansion in the distance. He’s playing the violin with such fervor, at first, I think he doesn’t know I’m standing there. I take a few steps into the room, watching his fingers fly across the strings as he bends at the waist and hunches his shoulders in time to the music. He’s playing with more emotion than he was the other day, and it’s clear that he’s agitated about something.
He finishes the song with a floury and then turns to look at me with fire in his eyes. Aiden doesn't speak, only glares at me.
Tentatively, I take a few steps closer. “I don’t know what’s wrong,” I begin, my voice a soft whisper. “But I know it’s bad.”
He sets his violin down and turns toward me. I can see the vein in his neck pulsing, his arm muscles tight as he strains to control what I can only assume is rage.
I should probably back out of the room. I should probably turn around and run. Instead, I take a few steps closer. “Aiden,” I say quietly, “what can I do? I want to help. I–”
He glowers at me, but then a moment later, he lunges at me–but not to hit me or push me away. My brother, whom I’ve only known for a few days, wraps his arms around me, buries his head in my shoulder, and he begins to cry.
At first, I just stand there, not sure what to do, but then, I instinctively wrap my arms around him and hold him tight. “It’ll be okay,” I whisper several times, even though I don’t know what I’m talking about. “It’ll be all right.”
“No,” he finally says. “It won’t be, Hezzlie. It won’t be okay. It’ll never be okay. Why?”
I pat his back, letting him get it out. All I can do is be there for him, whether he likes me or not, whether he deserves me to be here or not.
After several minutes, he stops shaking and pulls back. “I’m sorry.” He wipes at his eyes. “I’m not normally like this.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I assure him. “I don’t know exactly what happened, but I know that something awful happened over there.” I nod in the direction of the mansion. “And I’m assuming Mara is caught up in it.”
Solemnly, he pinches the bridge of his nose and steps away. “He made her do it,” he whispers. “I knew he was going to use her somehow. I could tell when they sent her away she wasn’t herself. He promised me he wouldn’t do that, but he lied to me. He knew all along what he’d asked that monster to do to her.”
I have to assume he’s talking about our father–and Alistair. They must’ve done something to Mara to cause whatever happened tonight in Moonstryker Mansion. Considering how creepy Alistair has been when I’ve interacted with him, I can imagine Mara was not a fan either. Anything she may have done when she got home couldn’t have been of her own accord.
I think that’s my brother’s point as well.
He steps back toward the window, pacing, still wiping at his eyes, angry. “I have to fucking do something, Hezzlie! I can’t let them get away with this!”
At first, I am confused. I think he’s saying he needs to do something to get back at Moonstryker. After all, they are the archenemy of our family. “Wh-what are you going to do?” I ask him.
He shakes his head wildly, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know! But I have to do something.” When he turns to look at me, his eyes are wide and unfocused. “I have to stop them. I have to get her back! I have to… I have to…”
“You have to what?” I hold my breath, praying he doesn’t say he has to take out Rowan.
“I have to… kill Father.”