Sabrina Newell
this is part of book of revelation!
Sabrina Newell
Everyone thought the disappearances were just arrests. Salem's poor and downtrodden were used to it. Being harangued by the force about whatever they were doing at any given moment was a daily occurrence. Confused and devastated people returning to a home picked clean after an extended stay in the jailhouse was nearly as common a sight. Whenever Sabrina noticed someone wasn't there, she too thought it was just an arrest. So-and-so got narced on for such-and-such. Burglary, vagrancy, public drunkenness, unpaid fines - crimes of poverty and despair half the neighborhood shared culpability for. They'd be back soon.
Until the police dropped off the face of the planet. Last month the midnight arrests and surprise check-ins ceased so suddenly that the neighborhood that remained initially thought it was something far more sinister. To hear them tell it, the force had stopped harassing the poor, but only because they were devising a way to arrest them all. To string up the whole neighborhood for witchcraft and wash their hands of the "degenerates" Salem looked at with such disdain.
One thing stayed the same. People kept disappearing.
Most of them were people Sabrina knew. People from Sabrina's youth, classmates from her school days, some of her sister's old co-workers, both legitimate and shady. For those who knew the missing, their homes had become memorials overnight, haunted places most stayed away from out of respect. Among those vacant homes was one belonging to a loveable floofball that Sabrina had the privilege of calling a close confidant for years.
Dropping by Lupin's house with her sister every night before going to work had become a tradition for Sabrina in the three months since he'd gone missing. Sabrina and Tabitha knew it would be empty, save for the rare occasions Lupin's few other friends stopped by. They knew it would hurt every time, but the Newells kept coming back like they were addicted to the pain. Sabrina knew he was most likely... she couldn't stop herself. If they stopped visiting now, Sabrina would feel like she had given up on him; on the desperate faith that Lupin was still out there, still alive despite all signs pointing elsewhere. She refused to surrender her hope to a serial killer.
Hope was hard to come by, though. The police were useless when they were around and even more useless now that they weren't. For all of Sabrina's efforts to push the force to do something, anything, their silence and absence spoke louder than any word they could say. Report after report, each one taken with promises that this time, things would be different, they would actually look for the missing person. Lies, falsehoods, deceptions every time to keep Sabrina locked in this song and dance. None of her missing neighbors were ever found. The police hadn't even discovered a corpse. Sabrina wondered, on the worst of nights, if the reports she filed were only going to be turned against her in the end, and she would be strung up for a series of murders she had no earthly reason to commit.
It made Sabrina's skin crawl. Neither of the Newell sisters missed the cops, but one thing was chillingly clear. Something else was running rampant in the slums of Salem. Something the force was willing to ignore. If Sabrina had her way she'd glue herself to her sister's side, with how paranoid she was that she or Tabitha would be next.
Fear didn't fill one's plate, though. Sabrina just had to keep her work swift and not get stuck spending a night in the jailhouse. Light rain brushed Sabrina's hood as she hopped between the roofs of houses much bigger than her own. Treading lighter than even the most skilled of her quadrupedal kin, the cat burglar padded towards the edge of the roof and scanned the rich side of Salem.
Sabrina found herself just short of the walled garden where the highest of elites sipped their wine and pretended they did anything of value. On this side of the wall, wealthy folk who wore the mask of normal citizens went about their evenings without a care in the world. The people here walked with indifferent grace. They smiled like their faces were glued in that position. They laughed that cracking, high pitched laugh that Sabrina always found so fake but no one else here bat an eye at. There was no worry in their faces, no fear of subterfuge or sabotage, and yet every one of them looked like they were itching to engage in some themselves.
It was Sabrina's favorite place to work. She knew these people by sight, the wealthy ones who weren't quite elite but still lived on the other side of hardship. The kind of people who waved at passing neighbors and cops as if they were all lifelong friends, as if their world didn't revolve around the threat of force that kept everyone else in their place. Their houses were neat and orderly and pretty and massive in all the same ways, with their earth toned walls and bright colored flowers and lawns that seemed to have no purpose except to take up space. Sabrina's claws twitched with anticipation. The cat burglar may not have a home here, but this was her territory, her playground. People whose lives were built on theft as brazen as her own, hoarding everything they could, from their riches to their sense of superiority. Sabrina focused her attention on the buildings, picking out targets among the dragons and their hoards.
Sabrina bristled at the sight of the largest property in the area. A manor so suspiciously massive that it could consume Sabrina's entire block and have space for more. A manor owned by a cop. In this side of town, people were not forced to learn how to avoid notice, how to keep one's head down when boots stomped too close. They got the privilege of respecting and admiring the force that Sabrina had to fear. She itched to pick Nevermore's manor clean, but stopped herself. That was Thomas's claim. A claim that made the man more and more anxious every time Sabrina or Clef brought up the subject, until Thomas abruptly stopped talking to anyone at all.
Worry clutched at her heart, thinking about the two of them. Thomas's initial illness had the entire band worried. He had been in terrible shape. Bad enough that Sabrina, who had seen too many people wither from diseases a Cleric could easily blink away if only the victims could afford it, started to wonder if they should prepare for the inevitable. And then, just like that, Tommy got better. A miracle that should have had Eddie over the moon, knowing he wouldn't lose his last living relative to the horrors of plague. And though he still clung to Thomas with everything he had, relief from the plague did nothing to soothe the poor kid's mental state. He was still unraveling at the seams, restless, obsessively looking over his shoulder like a hunted creature.
The boy's older cousin was unraveling, too. Thomas had shut them all out. The moment he was able to ascend from the bedsheets, he demanded space, privacy, solitude. It was no secret why - at least, initially. Thomas needed to make sure that Eddie didn't get hurt. No one blamed Tommy for doing everything he could to protect their kitty cat from disappearing like the rest of their friends slowly were. Salem was a dangerous place, and their side of town was the most dangerous of all. Fear was a pervasive thing in the poor neighborhood. The serial killer prowling through their streets made that fear tangible for many.
Despite how simple it seemed, Sabrina couldn't push away the feeling that something was deeply wrong. Each time the cat burglar caught a passing glance of her partners in crime, Thomas and Eddie seemed to sink deeper into terror and paranoia. This was far more than the average folk and the little rituals they'd all formed to keep themselves safe. The pair rarely spoke. The Teaches' home was a fortress during the day and empty at sunset. They jumped at unseen shadows, clung to alleyways and each others' sides and fled whenever they felt someone's gaze. It was like they feared being noticed at all. It was like they thought the moment they let their guard down, something would strike.
It reminded her of Pepper...
Sabrina shook her head. She was getting distracted.
Her gaze fell on a different house. The sides and roof of 41 High Street matched the palette and shapes of all the manicured houses that surrounded it. The same earth toned walls and carefully maintained facades and lawns as vast and useless as the people who owned them. The exotic purple flowers that spilled across the front yard showed off the owners' wealth just as efficiently as any other. The women who called it their home wore the same friendly, sociable mask as everyone else on this street of dolls and puppets. They smiled, waved, made polite conversation, playing their parts in the show that was the wealthy side of Salem.
Everything about it looked normal. Everything about it felt wrong. It felt like the colors were more vibrant even though they definitely weren't. It felt like the air shimmered in the courtyard. It felt like the lights shined bright enough to blind Sabrina from miles away when the owners were inside. It felt even more artificial than the other monuments of excess that lined this street. The place was calling to Sabrina in a way where she felt she'd never leave if she stepped in. It gave her the creeps.
Sabrina turned her gaze anywhere else. The next house that caught her eye, 44, felt equally wrong, though for vastly different reasons. On most of the toy-like properties that adorned the wealthy side of Salem, the bland browns and blacks of the houses were given life by rich greens, soft pinks, bright yellows, and deep blues from the plant life that made up their massive lawns. This plot was the sole exception. The house itself was a light grey that looked almost blue in the moonlight, but no flowers grew in the yard. There was barely any grass, just patches of green surrounded by oceans of pale, sickly blades that had been trampled on over and over again.
It was like the Sheriff made his home look like a graveyard on purpose. Rhodes had more than enough money to take care of his lawn - and if not the Sheriff himself, then he could certainly pay for someone to do the job for him. Yet this husk masquerading as a house was lifeless, mangled. For a part of Salem so obsessed with image, the deliberate appearance of death in the home of the police force's highest title was more than a statement. It screamed on behalf of the entire institution.
Sabrina weighed her options. Steering clear of the place was more than likely the wiser decision. If the Sheriff was home, entering his house would only sign Sabrina's death warrant. On the other hand, thinking of the Sheriff at all made her blood boil. He had led his force to arrest people the rest of the town deemed "unsavory" en masse, he had turned the other cheek when Salem's marginalized were being taken from their homes in the dead of night by some serial killer hell-bent on slaughtering them all...
Before the cat burglar could second-guess her decision, she leapt, bounding from roof to roof until she landed atop her new, spontaneous mark. Sabrina crept her way forward, searching for a way down the house. At the rear of the house was what seemed to be a back entrance, absolutely riddled with boards and nails that threatened to encase the entire wall.
It looked like one of the homes in Sabrina's own neighborhood. The cat burglar's mind drifted to a couple that wrenched her heart every time she saw their house. Pepper and Viola were so consumed by terror that they encased themselves in their home so no one could snatch them away in the night. Their run-down shack was covered in boards just like the ones on the Sheriff's back wall. Every time someone so much as passed them by, one could hear those poor girls jump at the sound.
The similarity in front of Sabrina was a twisted joke. What did the Sheriff have to be so afraid of? What scared a man who had it all into boarding up his house in the same manner as the ones who had practically nothing? Sabrina parted the wall with a scoff and searched for another way in.
Sabrina paced around the Sheriff's house. The side windows weren't boarded up, and Sabrina excitedly prepared to slip one of them open. A tiny white light made her jump back. Sabrina peered up into the small space where the wall met the inside of the roof. That white light was nestled in there, connected to what looked to be a mess of black metal and thick strings. A tiny, almost imperceptibly thin wire creeped down from the light towards the latch in the window. If Sabrina had touched it, she would have snapped the tripwire and set off... whatever that thing was.
Sabrina's curiosity about the device ended there. She checked each side window just in case, and all of them had that same little white light nestled in the inner roof. No other doors resided on this side of the house, nor were there any cellar doors in sight. Sabrina scowled, trying not to press her body against the wall out of habit as she begrudgingly made her way back toward the front of the house. She would simply have to try the front door and hope for the best. The worst possible way to enter the house of a mark, but Sabrina's rage would not let her turn back now. She was going to rob this corrupt piece of work blind.
A half-broken "WELCOME" sign greeted Sabrina at the front of the Sheriff's house, nailed to the door eons ago and only lazily repaired in the meantime. Sabrina gave the sign a nod in mock-respect, and made a beeline towards the doorknob. The cat burglar's claws itched to dismantle the lock that separated her from the house of the man that represented her neighborhood's suffering.
It only took a bit of convincing for the door to give out a soft click. Sabrina opened the door as thinly as she could manage, just barely wriggling her head inside to peer into the foyer and main hall. Nobody was in the main room, at least. Sabrina slipped the rest of her body inside, gliding through the shadows as quietly as her quadrupedal kin.
The house was as battered inside as it was outside. Long-neglected decorations hung lopsidedly on the walls. The light above Sabrina's head was unused and dusty. Sabrina crept further along the wall, ducking into a wide hallway. The kitchen was nearby, the door strangely left open. Sabrina's original goal was to get food, but...
Sabrina slipped further down the hallway before she could lose her resolve. Other rooms tempted her, but few of these spare rooms had things worth taking. Most of them were empty, and the rest had various odds and ends that would serve no purpose except to take up space.
The end of the hallway was in sight now, the seemingly endless corridor capped by a door that would've looked completely plain if not for the chipped paint and small hole in the top half of the wood. The air grew frigid as Sabrina approached, but she steeled her resolve. Certainly the Sheriff would store something valuable in his most private room. Her claws out, Sabrina advanced towards the bedroom lock.
To Sabrina's surprise, the lock gave no resistance. Rhodes's bedroom door just slid open when she pressed her hand to it. It barely made a sound as it ghosted away, revealing an empty bed with the sheets thrown about like the Sheriff had left in a hurry. Wall to wall, drawings and portraits of the same red-haired woman covered Sheriff Rhodes's entire bedroom, all of them marked with a little golden star that seemed to be stamped on.
The first thing Sabrina noticed was that each image of Deputy Advent was in various stages of completion. Some were fully painted portraits of the Sheriff's obsession, others were drawings lined in ink, still others were simply crude sketches hastily scrawled in pencil. To amass so many...
The next thing Sabrina noticed was that half of them depicted the Deputy in different states of undress.
Bile formed in Sabrina's throat. Every now and again, the drawings of Deputy Advent would be interrupted by various sketches of the jailhouse warden who called the Deputy his wife. Each of these sketches depicted Jay suffering a death more gruesome than the last, and each seemed to be drawn with increasing haste and fury. It took everything in Sabrina's will to not vomit then and there. The cat burglar had no love for the Deputy or the Jailor, but that didn't stop her blood from boiling. The sheer disgust Sabrina felt upon seeing these drawings made her wish Sheriff Rhodes was home so he could meet the business end of her claws.
The cat burglar forced herself to stop and breathe. That would be suicide, but there was still something she could do. Sabrina decided to take two of these horrific drawings and shove them in her bag. Quickly - holding the wretched things made the cat burglar feel slimy inside. The Deputy could choke, but the Advents needed to know.
It was hard not to look at one of these godsforsaken images, with them being plastered all over every wall, but Sabrina tried her best. She scanned the rest of the room, searching for safes, jewelry boxes, hidden rooms - anything private and valuable that wouldn't scar the cat burglar for life.
Sabrina took refuge in the walk-in closet. It was difficult to see in there, but at least the walls were clean. Sabrina grasped at air for a moment while waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Within the floor of the closet, the feeling underneath Sabrina changed. She went down on all fours to examine more closely. Boarded wood broke through the stone floors of the closet to form a trap door. Sabrina tried to pry it open, but it wouldn't budge, and there didn't seem to be a visible lock she could pick.
By now the cat burglar's eyes had adjusted to the minimal light in the closet. Sabrina carefully shifted the Sheriff's vast array of clothing in search of a way to open the trap door. A button, a switch, maybe a crowbar to pry it open. Sabrina didn't really know what she was looking for, but she'd know when she found it. The process was slow, with the effort Sabrina took not to knock something to the ground or tear into the mountains of clothing with her claws.
Those claws found what Sabrina sought before her eyes did. A raised bump of cold metal. A button. Sabrina hastily pushed the switch, pressing so hard it would leave a mark on her palm. The trap door swung open. With Sabrina standing right on top of it.
A half-muffled hiss escaped Sabrina as her backside hit the floor beneath her. Looking up with a sigh, she scanned the cellar. Various boxes and crates lined the walls, filled with anything and everything that could fit in them. Cash, gems, scraps of paper, various belongings from people Sabrina had once called neighbors...
Sabrina shook the image of a mass grave out of her mind and slowly climbed to her feet.
As much as Sabrina wished she could cut and run with the crates of gems and gold, there was no way she would be able to even lift them all off the ground, let alone carry them back to her neighborhood without getting caught. The cat burglar had to choose her haul wisely, and hit Sheriff Rhodes where it hurt. The bottom line was easy and obvious, but what else could Sabrina take with her?
To gain some insight, Sabrina began looking through the crates that weren't filled with cash. Nestled within the contents of one box was an unbelievably ornate diamond ring; she wordlessly pocketed it and pressed onward. Near the back of the cellar was an enormous basin filled with crumpled up papers, stacks of notes and gods-only-knew what else. For a moment, she considered taking only the ring. Information might have been worth more than gold in the right hands, but that info needed to be something more substantial than potato soup recipes.
Sabrina's rage and curiosity outweighed anything else she may have been feeling; she grabbed papers at random, quickly glancing at each one. True to their crumpled appearance, most of them were junk. Reports on cases decades old. Shopping lists. Agendas listing useless press conferences and meetings that seemed to bore even the Sheriff to tears. Sketches of -
Wait.
Sabrina knew this guy.
Two drawings of Sabrina's next door neighbor - her friend - met the cat burglar's eye. One appeared as a large, burly man with a smile that shined brighter than the silver around his neck, and another appeared as a werewolf whose soft fluff and huge puppy-eyes almost, almost, made Sabrina grin. These drawings were both attached to a creased folder with yet more mangled papers inside. Sabrina's hands shook with fury as she opened the folder.
Name: Lupin Baron
Sex: M
Date of Birth: Feb. 3, 1666
Height: 185 cm
Physical description: Bronze skin tone, silver eyes, dark blue-gray
hair (or fur, in werewolf form), tall, stocky build.
Unique Identifiers: May transform into a werewolf at night, this
form has similar fur color to Lupin's typical hair color. Has scars
across his cheeks and eyes. Wears a silver necklace with a rose
pendant.
Last Seen Time and Location: Feb. 3, 1693, circa 9:30 PM, near the
Baron residence.
This report was months old, and Sabrina recognized the filled in details as her own handwriting. Her friend, her report, her plea, had been disposed of like this...? Sabrina's blood boiled even more. The cat burglar kept reading. She couldn't tear her eyes away.
Last time I saw Lupin was last night. We had spent the evening at Jackie's tavern, using some cash we saved up to celebrate his birthday. The party was supposed to end at 9, but you know how it goes. We were rowdy and drunk and having fun and nobody checked the clock and all of a sudden it was 9:15. So Lupin and I hightailed it out of there. Drunk as skunks, we managed to walk ourselves back to Lupin's place. Might have been 9:30 or 9:35 at that point? I don't know for sure. It was around that time. I wished him happy birthday, we said our goodbyes, Lupin went inside, and I went home for the night.
Next morning, almost noon, Davey knocked on my door. He asked me if I'd seen Lupin. I told him the above - we were partying last night and we went our separate ways after I walked him home. Davey said Lupin never made it to work, and he thought maybe the big guy crashed at my place for the night. We were both -
Sabrina stopped. If she read another word, she'd have found herself ripping the paper to shreds. This was a person's life. This was a man Sabrina knew, a man whose safety she and her sister prayed for each night. And it was here, shoved in the cellar of the Sheriff's house, amongst scrap paper like her missing neighbors were trash. Lupin wasn't the only one. There were more folders just like this one mixed in with the useless junk in the garbage basin.
Sabrina wanted to burn this godsdamned place to the ground. But if she did that, no one would know why.
The cat burglar forced herself to remember her goal. Hit Rhodes where it hurt. His reputation and his bottom line. Sabrina stuffed the files of her missing neighbors into her bag, more for her own sake than anything else. With the Sheriff's reputation in her hands, Sabrina went straight for the glittering crates near the middle of Rhodes's cellar. The cat burglar quickly snatched the most valuable one she could carry - a small chest stuffed to bursting with gems and gold.
Satisfied with her loot despite the growing inferno erupting within her, Sabrina climbed her way out of the cellar as quickly as she'd arrived. Rhodes still hadn't returned. The cat burglar cursed the fact he would live through the night through dumb luck as she padded her way back through the house, slipping out the front door again before bounding into a sprint. Quick as her quadrupedal kin, Sabrina climbed on top of another nearby house and leapt from roof to roof, soaring home as effortlessly as the wind itself.
For a moment, Sabrina remembered her plan from the distant past, to bring home dinner for Tabitha. The cat burglar glanced at the gems and gold under her arm. Sorry, Tabby. The Newell sisters would have to buy food tonight. Sabrina landed on her own roof at last, padding her way down the familiar oak walls to greet sweet home. Sabrina unlocked the door and walked in. "Tabby, I'm home!"
Nothing.
Sabrina blocked the dread out of her mind. Sabrina had been out a while, and Tabby worked day shifts. She was just asleep. It was fine. It would be fine. Tabby was fine. The cat burglar padded towards their shared bedroom - softly, to avoid startling her sister - and gently opened the door. "...Tabby?"
Everything about it looked normal. Everything about it felt wrong. Sabrina's eyes locked onto Tabby's side of the room. The bed was neatly made. Tabby's hiking boots stood beside it, in front of her nightstand. The walls were clean, the floors and windows were free from signs of struggle. Her vase of flowers was untouched, the blooms still healthy and shining in the moonlight. Her embroidery kit and spools of colored thread were laid neatly on the small cutting table that dominated her side of the room. The half-finished dress Tabby had been working on floated on her mannequin like a ghost.
Only one detail gave the indication that anything was amiss. A small drop of blood, trickling down the inside of the door. Tabby wasn't in bed. Tabby wasn't in the room at all.
Sabrina dropped everything in her hands and bolted out of the house like the devil was on her tail.
The cat burglar ran straight to the place where only desperation would lead her willingly. Tabby was arrested, Sabrina told herself. She was blamed for Sabrina's own crimes and spent the night locked up. Or maybe Tabby finally got busted for the shady stuff she used to do back in the old days. Whatever the reason, Tabitha Newell was in jail right now. She had to be. Sabrina refused to consider the alternative. The cat burglar pounded on the jailhouse door like she was going to break it down.
The door swung open, so suddenly that Sabrina almost hit the warden in the face as he answered. "What the hell are you doing slamming on the door like that?" Jay asked, half-exasperated.
"Is Tabby here?" Desperation poured from Sabrina's voice. "Tabitha Newell, my sister, she was -"
"Oh, ah..." Jay took a surprised half-step back. "I'm really sorry Sabrina, she's not here - quick, come inside, you can file a report with me and -"
Sabrina was gone before Jay could finish the sentence, bounding into the night as she yelled for the sister who couldn't hear her desperate wails.
Realization - the layers of denial peeling back as the gravity of her situation set in - lit a fire in Sabrina. She ran at a speed that would terrify the gods, through the streets, around the buildings, barreling past the few who dared to roam Salem at this time of night. All the way to the biggest house in Sabrina's poor neighborhood. Every deity Sabrina could think of heard the prayers in her heart, pleading for Clef to be home. Begging to keep the few friends she still had left. Bargaining everything up to her very soul just so Clef wouldn't be the next victim of a serial killer given free reign to slaughter them all. Sabrina desperately climbed up the walls, picked the lock at Clef's window, and scrambled into their bedroom with tears streaming down her face.
The sound of Sabrina tumbling into their bedroom with the feline grace of a brick wall startled Clef awake. They shot upright, glancing down at the sobbing cat burglar. "W-Woah, Brina, what's -"
"Tabby's gone." Sabrina's breath hitched. "Please tell me you've seen her tonight, I came home and she wasn't there and there was blood on the door and... and..." Her voice tumbled into wordless cries.
Clef blinked slowly, trying to process the words as they fell from her mouth. "I haven't seen Tabby since this morning... she'd just gotten back from meeting with some of her old business associates..."
"W-why did I...?" Sabrina sobbed harder. "We... I... We've got to find her. She's gotta be in town somewhere. She isn't... sh-she can't be..."
"Brina, hey -"
"Y-you'll come with me, right?" Sabrina whimpered desperately, looking at Clef with a frenzied glint in her eyes.
In lieu of words, Clef pulled Sabrina in as tightly as they could. The cat burglar returned the embrace and sobbed. Sabrina Newell felt like the scum of the earth. She had wasted so much time in that damned house. She had let herself get all high and mighty with righteous fury about the Sheriff, she... it had to have been her fault that Tabitha went missing. Sabrina could have saved her sister, if she wasn't so...
Sabrina's stomach only dropped further as her mind drifted to the disheveled state of Rhodes's bed. How he'd obviously left in a rush, and how all of the missing persons reports were in his cellar with the garbage...
"Clef, please." Sabrina begged, trembling harder, claws digging into Clef's arms as she tried to nudge them off of her, "You'll come with me, right? You'll help me find her?"
"Do you...!?" Clef took a deep breath. "Brina, I'm sorry. I can't do this. I don't wanna lose you too."
"But what if she's...!?" Sabrina wriggled out of Clef's grip. "We have to find her or she's going to die."
"It's... it's too dangerous, Sabrina." Clef sighed sadly. They couldn't even face her.
"Do you think I give a damn about danger right now?" Sabrina yowled. "My sister is in danger, and you know the cops aren't gonna do anything about it, they never have before, if we don't go right now -"
"If we rush in there alone, we'll just end up as the next victims." The softness in Clef's tone felt almost mocking.
"W-we don't have to go alone! Thomas will understand, he'll definitely -" Sabrina pulled on Clef's arm, but they didn't budge. "Come on, let's go get Tommy!"
Clef glanced up at the ceiling. The right words eluded them. Clef knew that they couldn't convince Sabrina to hold off on tearing half of Salem apart in search of Tabitha, but.. Perhaps if they managed to convince Sabrina to stay until morning... "Stay here for the night." Clef blurted out after a moment, giving Sabrina a serious look. "I've got some leads that might be able to point us in the right direction." Clef wished they could say more than that, but they would be sending Sabrina to her death if they did. "Again, this is incredibly dangerous; especially if what I think happens to be true. We absolutely cannot rush into this blindly." Clef put a hand on Sabrina's shoulder. "Once it's morning, we'll get Thomas and search for Tabby. Got it?"
A growl escaped Sabrina's lips. Every agonizing second from now until morning was a grain of sand, threatening to fill the room like an hourglass and bury her. Tabby could die by morning. Tabby could be dead already, with the time Sabrina had wasted searching the jailhouse and coming here. Sabrina should be painting the town red right now, she should be searching for her sister right now, she should be...
The layers of denial peeled back. Realization set in. Clef was right. Without help, Sabrina would end up as just another victim. Just another file crumpled up in the Sheriff's waste bin. "The second the sun rises, I am out of here, with or without you," Sabrina hissed.
"I'll be there with you," Clef tried to be reassuring. "At least try to sleep, please...?" they sighed, laying back in their bed and staring up at the ceiling. Clef's brow furrowed. They both knew neither of them would get any rest tonight.
Sabrina only crashed face-down onto the bed next to Clef. The pillow the cat burglar claimed was quickly soaked with tears.