Sierra had wanted Thomas and his followers to suffer, and I’d agreed to make it happen.  I couldn’t do anything about Bryce’s girlfriend or her mom.  They were dead, and it had probably been instantaneous and painless.  Thomas, though?

Thomas gets to suffer.

Brooks followed my gaze to Thomas.  In his accented voice, he asked me, “You want me to bandage him up?  Don’t know how much I can do.”

Not much, I’d imagine.

Thomas heard and stopped crawling, dropping onto his belly.  He didn’t look toward me, but I knew he was listening.

“yes please”

“It’s fine,” I told Brooks.  “Focus on the boy.”

And Thomas gets to have his hopes lifted up and then dropped to the floor to shatter.

He nodded, then helped hold Bryce’s prone form while Minor got a better grip.  Thomas didn’t move, react or say anything.

Seems that prompted him to give up crawling for the door.

“Let’s go,” I said.

We ran, and with Brooks keeping one hand on my shoulder to guide me, I glanced behind us to get a sense of what was going on.

And now Taylor stomped on the shards of Thomas’ hopes.

If he’s still alive, that is.

It was eerie, to see the changes that had occurred in our surroundings in the time it had taken me to cross the wall and wait for the fight to pass.  If the attentions of the Merchants had erased any familiarity I had towards the Weymouth shopping center, Labyrinth had cremated the remains and erected something else in its place.  It was a cathedral, dedicated to a goddess that was very real and having a very active hand in current affairs.  Labyrinth.

Seriously, I’m loving this.

Labyrinth wasn’t stopping there.  Minor had to catch my arm and pull me back to keep me from being caught in the path of another effect in the mall’s floor.

Ooh…

The ground cracked and bulged upward as though a mole was tunneling at high speeds just beneath the tile.

Pull out the hammers, Merchants, it’s time for some Whack-a-Mole!

“Get back!” someone shouted behind me.  I recognized Lisa’s voice and took her advice, backing away from the hump.  Minor stopped me from backing up into another hump that had appeared behind me.

So what are you doing here, Labyrinth? Pillars, perhaps? A sort of cage?

Stone walls heaved upward from the mounds of broken tile, blocking my path and stopping at a height of twelve or more feet.

Close enough.

As more walls rose around me, I saw a door form to my right, and the corridor to my left had a bend in it.

I guess this kind of shenanigan is why she’s called Labyrinth.

The wall behind Skidmark and the other ‘upper circle’ members of the Merchants began to bulge inward.

Oh shit, the wall is coming for you. The wall is coming!

Features took form: a face, ten feet tall.

…you sending some sort of message here, or just trying to intimidate?

Protrusions below it, near the floor of the platform, marked emerging fingertips.

Niiice.

“Okay.  Right, okay.”

She pushed his shoulder, making him stumble in the direction Vista had gone.  Easy to forget how strong she is.  “Now go.”

Hell yes.

He ran.

Definitely don’t get the sense I’m forgiven, there.

Yet Victoria focused on helping to set things right between Clocky and the other person he upset, no matter how much it hurt her.

He checked two empty rooms and made one nervous check of the women’s bathroom before he found Vista halfway down the stairwell at the rear of the building.

Good to know Clocky has enough sense to check there, in spite of the awkwardness of entering.

(Which, by the way, is bullshit. Gendered bathrooms are bullshit. There’s literally no good reason to have them that I’m aware of.)

She had one leg up on a higher stair than the other, her hands clasped around her knee.  She turned her head partway, acknowledging that someone was there, then wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her costume.

It’s gonna be hard to approach her if she doesn’t want to be approached.

“I’m sorry,” he spoke to her back.

“You’re a jerk.”

Good start, opening with that. If you didn’t, you’d risk suddenly being far away from her.

“I am.  I’m the worst jerk.”

Heh. Yeah, sometimes it can be good to go along like this.