Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Flowey the Flower, Agent of Chaos

Part One

While humans falling into the Underground clearly wasn’t unheard of, Flowey had never seen anything quite like this. He wasn’t great at telling the ages of humans- their lives were so short that they died of old age by the time a monster would have barely entered their adolescence- he was fairly sure that this specific one was an adult. The woman (at least, he was pretty sure this one was female, assuming that humans worked more or less the same way that mammalian monsters did) was wearing some sort of uniform, with a strange package on her back, and she’d landed on her feet, rather than on her face.

It wasn’t often that Flowey felt fear- after all, even if he was badly injured, he could always reset time and go back to before he’d been hurt. But there was something about this woman that simply screamed “scary.” Hidden under a pile of leaf litter, the flower watched this interloper look around at the entrance to the Underground with cold, calculating eyes. He held his breath as the woman’s eyes widened, listened as he heard her speak.

“It’s true- this place is absolutely crawling with anomalies! I’m sure I’ll be able to find him here.”

Thinking quickly, Flowey made a decision. If he could take the soul of an adult, maybe he’d at least be able to get his old body back. Was that how that worked? Adult souls had to be stronger than the souls of children, right? So he made his decision.

Popping up out of the leaves, he loudly introduced himself. “Howdy! I’m Flowey! Flowey the Flower! You look like you’re new around here!” The woman looked at him flatly.

“A talking flower…” she mused. “Strange.” Then, her eyes widened to an almost comical degree. “Mr. Dreemurr? Asriel Dreemurr?”

That was… unexpected.

“How do you know that name!?” Flowey demanded. The woman shrugged.

“Your late sister- her name was Chara Baxter, wasn’t it?”

“How do you know her name!?”

“You’d be surprised what the organization I work for can find out,” came the response. “In fact… didn’t you ever wonder why she wanted to kill everyone? You must have wondered about her reasoning, right?”

Flowey felt as though his insides had turned to ice. Not only did this woman seem to know Chara’s true name, she knew about his sister’s hatred, her fury, her motivations. Things she’d never told even him, while she was alive. “Of course I wondered,” he replied slowly, not sure how much he wanted to reveal. “But I felt that it was probably best if I didn’t pry- she was touchy about her past, about what led her to throw herself down here.”

“So you knew she attempted suicide,” the woman mused. Flowey nodded.

“It was obvious- humans avoid this place, because of the old stories. When she fell down here, and I woke her up, the first thing she said was ‘damn, I’m not dead.’” The woman looked a little bit surprised, but nodded thoughtfully. “Do you… know something about her?” Flowey asked.

“I…” the woman started, then cut herself off. “No, you’re right, you deserve to know.” A pause. Then, “before she escaped and threw herself down here, your sister was known as SCP-5003. The organization I am now ashamed to admit I worked for likes to, shall we say… collect things that are supernatural and ‘contain’ them- basically meaning that they lock them in a box. If the thing is alive, they’ll either wait for it to die or try to kill it themselves.”

“That’s horrible...” Flowey replied, looking about as disturbed as it was possible for a flower to look. The woman shrugged.

“That’s life, young man. But as I was saying, eventually, there was what they call a ‘containment breach,’ which is when one of the things they’ve locked up escapes. Some items are a little more… violent… than others, and a bit more proactive about escaping. While all of the site’s staff was busy trying to prevent the more dangerous objects from getting loose, nobody was paying attention to the Euclid-class humanoid containment wing and 5003 escaped. Euclid-class objects, while unpredictable, usually don’t try to eat people. So your sister fled, came here, and you know the rest of the story from there.”

The flower shuddered, hoping that the human wasn’t able to see it for what it was. He had known Chara hadn’t had a good life on the surface, but he never knew how bad she’d had it. No wonder she’d wanted to die, and then later wanted to kill her own people. But there was one thing that was bothering him.

“So why are you telling me about this?” he asked. “It’s done. There’s nothing I can do about it now.” The woman’s face split into a truly terrifying grin.

“Because I can offer you the chance to finish what 5003- what your sister- started. I told you before I used to work for the Foundation, and technically, I still do. But three years ago, I defected to an offshoot of it called the Chaos Insurgency. One of our goals is to free all humanoid SCP objects. Too many of them are simply normal people who happen to belong to a minority religion, or who simply had an interest in the occult and read the wrong book. Even the dangerous ones are still essentially people, and they don’t deserve to be locked in a box. If you agree to come with me, I’ll show you how to break their cells.”

“And if I refuse?” Flowey asked- without any real intention of refusal. Really, the woman had his attention from the first time she’d said Chara’s true name. But he very nearly changed his mind after seeing the woman’s grin widen into something more resembling a rictus than a real smile.

“Then I’d have to kill you.”

“I’ll do it,” Flowey said quickly. The woman clapped her hands and hopped in place excitedly.

“EXCELLENT!” Seemingly out of nowhere, she produced a flowerpot and a small shovel. Flowey looked at her, face carefully blank.

“What is that.” It wasn’t a question.

“I have to get you out of here somehow, don’t I? Don’t worry, I’ll let you down as soon as we’re through that barrier. You won’t be able to do anything if you’re in a pot, after all.” It was a logical conclusion, so with some trepidation, Flowey allowed her to dig him up and carefully place him into the terracotta container. The woman was surprisingly careful with him, making sure he was as comfortable as possible. “This part might be somewhat uncomfortable, and I’m sorry.” Before Flowey could ask what she meant, the woman pressed the pot into her hip, and grabbed a cord hanging from the side of the strange backpack. The pack roared to life with a ripping sound, and the two of them started lifting off of the ground.

“Jetpack,” the woman answered the flower’s unspoken question. “We’ll get up through the hole that way.”

And just like that, for the first time in a hundred years, a monster had gone through the barrier. Just like that, Flowey’s new life had begun as an agent of the Chaos Insurgency.

To Be Completed

Chapter Text

Part Two

Corporal Lawrence was bored. Also very hungry, but that was pretty normal these days, so mostly, he was just bored out of his mind. The goddamn government spooks who’d captured him- how many years ago was it now-? didn’t feed him, didn’t provide him with any sort of entertainment (seriously, would it kill them to at least put a radio, or one of those television things he’d heard so much about in his cell? Staring at corroded metal all day, every day, had gotten old at least fifty years ago), and seemed to generally try to forget about his existence. The last time he’d even bothered to break down the door to his cell he’d found himself in a seemingly endless metal maze with nothing but one particularly unfortunate man in an orange jumpsuit who’d been mopping the floor for prey. Technically. Lawrence had died serving his country. These “Foundation” idiots really could be a little more respectful. He knew they killed the jumpsuit people all the time, they could at least throw him a snack now and then.

So, of course, the last thing Lawrence expected was for the door to his cell to be blasted off its hinges. It took a few moments for the former soldier to process exactly what he was seeing- because, frankly, it made absolutely no sense. If he was going to trust what his eyes were telling him, the abnormally-large flower apparently growing out of the concrete floor was the one responsible for the removal of the door. But there was no way that was possible, right?

“Howdy! I’m Flowey!”

Okay, now Lawrence had to admit that apparently, the flower was the source of what had just happened. So either the Foundation assholes were just fucking with him, or he was actually going to finally get out of this cell without expending effort on his part.

“Uh, howdy?”

“Someone told me they haven’t been feeding you,” the flower said. “Don’t you want to go get something to eat?”

“You probably wouldn’t be saying that if you knew what I ate,” Lawrence muttered under his breath, not expecting any sort of a response. So many times he’d tried to get someone’s- anyone’s- attention only to not get even a glance in his direction, so he’d started to assume that nobody else could actually understand him. Maybe that sludgy shit he constantly produced had something to do with it, he wasn’t sure. Maybe that crap corroded his vocal cords. So, once again, Lawrence’s mind was blown when the flower responded, actually addressing what he’d just said.

“Humans, right? That’s why Agent Gray told me to let you out first,” Flowey replied.

Not caring whoever the hell Agent Gray was, Lawrence just asked, “you can understand me?”

“Duh,” Flowey said. “I speak English, don’t I? And where I come from a lot of people can’t talk that great, you have to be able to figure out what they’re saying.” He paused. “Oh yeah, do you have a name? It’s going to be weird calling you ‘one oh six’ all the time.”

How long had it been since anyone asked him something as simple as his name? Lawrence wasn’t sure. He wasn’t even sure what year it was anymore- he’d lost count around 1940- but it had at least been since he was brought to this place in the early 1920s.

Maybe he finally was going crazy, but if he was, Lawrence decided it wasn’t so bad. He’d already outlived his entire squadron, his family, and if he was going to lose his mind over a century after he’d fallen into that muck in the trench, well, it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. At least now he wasn’t just staring at rusting metal and chipping concrete, waiting for the end to come.

“Lawrence,” the soldier finally said. “Corporal Ed Lawrence.”

“Let’s go, then!” Flowey said happily. “Oh. But put on some pants first. We aren’t animals.”

The Hard-to-Destroy Reptile, aka SCP-682, was having a slightly better day than normal. Sure, the disgusting water-filled bags of tissue were regrettably still alive, but they also seemed to be taking the day off from tormenting him for once. So far, nobody had shown up to dunk him into a pool of acid, shoot a Gatling gun at him, expose him to any other eldritch horrors, feed him anything disgusting and poisonous, electrocute him, or try to lock a real monster in with him. And his day got even better when he heard all of the humans screaming in terror.

“OH FUCK IT’S LOOSE! SOMEONE- YAAAARGH!”

“What the-?! Blergh!”

“AAAAAH!”

The lizard actually managed to see what happened to the last one through the observation window- one of the humans appeared to be eating another one. Alive . Humans really were disgusting. At least he at least killed his food first with a bite to the carotid artery. It was so much easier to eat when the food wasn’t trying to escape and screaming. This was just barbaric. But then again, these were humans they were talking about. SCP-682 never thought he would understand them, and he didn’t particularly want to.

“Howdy!” a voice, an alarmingly cheerful voice, interrupted his thoughts. “That pen doesn’t look very comfortable! Golly, I bet you’d like to get out of there!”

The lizard rolled his eyes. These humans really were stupid. Did they think he would eat the other, apparently cannibalistic human for them and just leave them alone?

“I don’t need your help. When I get out of here I am going to devour your entrails,” 682 promised darkly. “And then I will slaughter everyone and everything you love.”

“Good fucking luck,” the voice suddenly turned darker, colder. “I don’t love anything. And if you won’t willingly come out here, then I’ll make you, and I will make you regret defying me.” A pause. “And I’m pretty sure I don’t actually have entrails.” A second pause, then- “Hm. I wonder what this bright green button does.

“ Wait, don’t-” the lizard tried to say, but he was unable to finish his sentence, as close to 500,000 gallons of fluoroantimonic acid crashed down on him from above, while an equivalent amount of potassium hydroxide flooded in through the walls. 682 screamed as the toxic liquids both burned through his scales and hide on their own, only to be amplified by the violent exothermic reaction created by a very strong acid coming into contact with a base.

Several minutes later, once the reaction was complete and 682 sort of floated limply in the still hissing fluid, it began to drain through a grate in the floor.

“Now will you listen to me? Or am I going to have to play with the control panel more?” the voice asked, the cute tone very much at odds with what the thing was saying.

The big lizard’s instinct was to tell the voice to go fuck himself, but he didn’t really relish the idea of another acid bath. He still didn’t feel like saying anything to it, though, so he stayed silent. “Good,” the voice said. “I’m looking for something, and I need someone to help me deal with the humans. If I let you out you get to do whatever you want, just don’t get in my way. Do we have a deal?”

The lizard paused. It sounded too good to be true, but what if the voice was telling the truth? If he really was freeing SCPs in the process of looking for whatever he wanted, maybe… maybe he could convince him to free SCP-053, to give the little girl a chance at a proper life outside of this cold, calculating, sterile laboratory. At least, as normal a life as possible when being raised by a giant crocodile monster- there was absolutely no way 682 was going to let humans take the kid again.

“If I do this… will you let someone else free?”

“Yeah, yeah.” the voice responded. It was good enough for 682. He’d get to wreck some humans and he’d be able to free his friend.

“Then yes.”

“Excellent!” the voice suddenly sounded much cheerier. The familiar alarm that signified his pen was being opened sounded, and 682 immediately charged out, mentally smirking. Stupid human. As though he really was going to go along with this plan… only to stop dead in his tracks.

Standing right in front of him was an elderly human in ancient military fatigues gnawing on what looked like a human tibia, and a flower. But not just any flower- the biggest flower the lizard had ever seen, and that wasn’t even the weirdest part. Said flower also appeared to have a face, and rudimentary legs and arms made from leaves that it apparently used for locomotion. It grinned widely when it saw 682. “Welcome to the team! I’m Flowey the Flower! And this is Corporal Lawrence!” Using a leaf, the flower gestured towards the human. Lawrence acknowledged the reptile with a nod, and 682 fought back a shudder. Okay, he took that back- this thing wasn’t human, even if it had been at one point. Once he’d overheard some of the human researchers talking about some television drama involving the undead- maybe that was what this thing was.

“Well, come on then!” Flowey exclaimed. “We don’t have all day!”~

Epon bint Samael, more commonly known these days as Elizabeth Samuels, or SCP-166, winced slightly as she finished praying her rosary and leaned over to place it on the small table next to her bed. Sighing, she looked down at her body, the oozing pressure ulcers causing her a fair amount of pain. It had been three weeks since she’d had to move quarters, and because for security reasons the doctors had insisted she wear a Gulf-style burqa until she was resettled, the garments had been on her body for almost six hours. The resulting ulcers had been some of the deepest she’d ever had, and Dr. Nguyen had been furious. But really, what else was there to do? Epon needed to be moved, because it wasn’t safe for her to be around normal people.

She was some sort of freak, a monstrosity. She might not have looked like it, but she was. It was in her nature- she needed sexual contact with human males, even if she didn’t want it. And she didn’t. Her deepest desire was to become a nun, but it seemed that was going to be impossible. It wasn’t safe for her to be out of this cell, or all the human men would be driven insane by her presence. Usually, the researchers and D-class assigned to her were careful not to mention it where they thought she might hear, but Epon knew they thought she was a succubus. Ha. What a joke- a succubus nun.

All of a sudden, she heard someone scream, a woman’s voice. And then, almost immediately afterwards, what sounded like an adolescent boy.

“For fuck’s sake, will you knock it off already!? How many have you eaten so far? Put this one in the fridge or something.”

“Fine,” a gravelly voice responded sullenly. Then, the boy’s voice again.

“And you- are you sure you know where we’re going?”

“I told you,” a different gravelly voice snapped. “There’s only so many places she could be, they’re not going to put a humanoid in the objects wing.”

The voices continued arguing with each other. The teenager seemed very concerned with the whereabouts of documentation relating to someone named “Chara,” while the other two complained about not getting to cause as much destruction as they wanted.

“You already ate three different groups of people with guns between the two of you!” the exasperated teenager snapped. “That’s not enough for you?”

Epon went pale- whatever was going on, these people were dangerous. And apparently cannibals, that ate what sounded like multiple Mobile Task Forces.  Male cannibals.

Thinking quickly, she reached over to the nightstand, unplugged the lamp, and clutched it like it was her last hope, her last line of defense. Praying silently, she waited.

When the group finally entered her cell, however, she abruptly stopped and blinked, not really able to process what was going on at first.

A zombie dressed in an ancient, decrepit military uniform, an overly large crocodile-like creature, and weirdest of all, a flower with a face using leaves in order to walk. All three of them stopped dead in their tracks, and for what seemed like hours, the two groups just sort of stared at each other.

Finally, the flower broke the standoff. “Uh… Corporal? Is it normal for humans to not wear clothes?”

“Not usually, no,” the zombie replied.

“And does that look like a box of documents or a little girl to you?”

“...no.”

“You IDIOT!” the flower snapped at the crocodile. “You said you knew what you were doing!”

“I can still eat you, you know,” the reptile growled. The flower rolled its eyes.

“Try it and I will make sure you regret it,” it snarled. Turning back to Epon, it spoke again. “Excuse us. We’re in the wrong place, obviously. We’re looking for a small human girl, or records about an older human girl.”

Epon blinked. “I… don’t know anything about any records, but I do know there are several young human girls in this wing. Can you describe her?” She wasn’t sure why she was helping these three, especially since she knew they apparently ate people, but something inside her told her it was alright, that they wouldn’t hurt her, or the young girl they were looking for. As it was, it was already more social interaction than she’d had with a man since she was a young girl herself. It was… refreshing.

The zombie and the flower looked at the crocodile, who described the girl. The child seemed unremarkable, really, other than the fact that she apparently made non-anomalous humans lose all reason and become homicidal. There was only one child that didn’t have any other, more immediate obvious effects that Epon knew of, so she told the group. “There’s a little girl that the staff will visit only if they’re wearing HAZMAT suits and have a steel cable attached to them right across the hallway from me.”

“I TOLD you I knew what I was doing!”

“Shut it, scaly,” the flower snapped. “Let’s get the kid, find Chara’s stuff, and get the hell out of here. I got stuff to do, and if you want to make it to the bayou before these people catch up with you we’ll have to move it.” The crocodile growled, but obeyed, leaving Epon’s cell first, followed by the flower and the zombie. The zombie stopped, though, before leaving. He took a good look at Epon, which made her twitch, then said something she never expected.

“You will want to get those ulcers looked at. I think some of them are infected. I saw too many people die from sepsis in the trenches.” And with that, he followed the other two out of the cell, leaving a very confused woman behind.

What… what exactly had just happened?

To be Continued

Chapter Text

Ultimately, it did turn out that the strange naked human and the crocodile thing were right. The room across from the naked woman’s room contained a multitude of toys, a heavy, reinforced door, and a very scared young human. Flowey honestly was kind of fascinated- logically, he knew humans had to have children. His sister had been a child, but she had been beginning to reach her adolescence when she… when she passed. This one was barely out of infancy.

And she seemed terrified of them.

Well, Flowey guessed it made sense. They were a crew including an enormous reptilian predator, a zombie, and a bizarre flower thing. For any human they’d be an odd (and probably incredibly scary) sight.

The crocodile monster looked around. “You two! Fuck off! You’re scaring her!”

“We’re scaring her?” Lawrence asked incredulously. “You’re the one that looks like a goddamn alligator!”

“Whatever,” Flowey said. “I have better things to do than sit here watching your touching reunion.” And with that, he backed out of the cell, deciding to go try to find the documents he was looking for. After a pause, Lawrence followed him.

The two of them spent the next twenty minutes looking for storage rooms. They terrified a few inhabitants of the cell block, found more mops than anyone could possibly ever need, found hard copy phone books dating back to the 1970s, and pages and pages of notes taken on various subjects. It was these that interested Flowey the most- this Foundation had been imprisoning and experimenting on sentient beings for what seemed like hundred of years. The flower wasn’t exactly a paragon of morality, but the experiments described disturbed him on a level he didn’t realize he could even feel anymore. If this was what humans did to each other, what other horrors had they inflicted on Flowey’s own people during the war? If anything, his species should have been grateful that the humans didn’t just commit wholesale genocide. No wonder Chara had wanted to eliminate every last one of the scientists here. It was simply a desire to survive.

And then he found the box.

It was labeled in plain black marker: SCP-5003. And even though he knew it was entirely magically inert, Flowey cringed back from the evil aura it seemed to emit. Even Lawrence, who had snuck up behind him while he was thinking, jumped backwards. “What the hell is in that thing?”

“I don’t know,” Flowey replied. “But I think I need to find out.. For Chara’s sake. She died because of this. I have to know.”

“If Satan pops out of it I’m going to eat you,” the zombie warned. Flowey rolled his eyes, didn’t dignify his companion with a response, and carefully lifted the top off of the box with his leafy hands.

Luckily for Flowey and Lawrence, the devil did not actually rise up out of the box. Instead, there were a number of notebooks, a faded, folded green sweater, a letter in an envelope, and a torn black folder. Gingerly, Flowey picked up the folder and opened it.

Item #: SCP-5003
Object Class: Euclid Keter Uncontained Presumed Neutralized

Description: SCP-5003 is a humanoid female of approximately 10-13 years of age. It stands at 53 cm, weight approximately 35 kg. It has chin-length red hair, pinkish cheeks, and usually can be seen wearing its favorite green sweatshirt. Under no circumstances is the object to be referred to by its birth name, Chara Baxter. Object is believed to be able to manipulate time if given free use of its hands, but refuses to cooperate with testing.

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-5003 is to be contained at all times in a standard humanoid containment cell. Under no circumstances is the object to be allowed out of the titanium-alloy handcuffs, or to be within 50 m of anything that can be used as a knife. Object may be allowed access to one book a week for entertainment if it behaves itself and cooperates with researchers.

Addendum 7.3.1980- Research personnel are no longer allowed in physical contact with SCP-5003, due to [DATA EXPUNGED].

Addendum 11.25.1980- Object class upgraded to Keter by order of O5 council.

Addendum 1.2.1.1980- Object reclassified as Uncontained after Incident 076-54A. Whereabouts currently unknown. Due to its time manipulating ability, there is a possibility of an XK-Class End-of-the-World scenario.

Addendum 8.12.1982- Object believed neutralized. Unknown entity (hereby classified as SCP-5003-A) arrived with what is believed to be the corpse of SCP-5003. Attempts were made to subdue the entity, but it fled with the body. Whereabouts currently unknown. Believed neutralized. -A. Clef

Flowey stared at the piece of paper, then handed it off to Lawrence without saying anything. The zombie read it quickly, then handed it back to the flower.

“You know, I wasn’t always a flower,” he said after a while. “Chara told me I looked like a surface animal called a goat, but I don’t know how true that was. I had never seen one. I never should have met her- hundreds of years ago humans sealed my people underground. But one day I was playing outside of my home, and I heard someone call for help. Of course I went to go see what was going on. Chara had fallen from above- and because of the barrier, there was no way for her to get back.” Flowey let out a bitter laugh. “I remember thinking at the time it was weird she didn’t seem too upset that she was going to have to live in a cave for the rest of her life. If this is what was waiting for her on the surface, I can’t blame her.”

“Could she really control time?” Lawrence asked curiously. Flowey made a movement that approximated a shrug.

“If she could, she never did it where I could see.” He judiciously didn’t mention that after he had died he’d gained the power to reset- he still wasn’t entirely sure how that worked, although he figured it had something to do with the DT energy Alphys had injected into him. But he really didn’t feel like trying to explain it. The zombie looked as though he was still only barely following along.

“My parents adopted her- they weren’t going to let a child, even a human child, have to try to survive all on their own. Chara and I became best friends, and I was proud to call her my sister. And then it all fell apart. We tried to make a pie for our father, but we confused cups of butter with buttercups. We nearly killed him, and Chara… broke. Before I could really stop her, she made a tea of the toxic flowers and drank it. Our mother tried to save her, but… she died. Before she passed, though- she asked me to absorb her soul so we could cross the barrier. She wanted to be put in the flower bed in the human compound. Here.” Lawrence could see where this was going, but said nothing, waiting for Flowey to finish the story in his own time.

“I brought my beloved sister’s body here. I tried to place her in the flowers, but the humans panicked at shot at us. I was hit, in the shoulder.”

“You died from being shot once?” Lawrence asked. “Getting shot in the shoulder is painful., but doesn’t usually kill you.”

"My people work differently than humans,” Flowey answered. “Humans are a lot more durable than us monsters our. We are mostly made of magic, and intention can affect how badly we are hurt. Disrupting the magical field can easily kill us, especially if it’s a projectile weapon shot with enough hatred. But because it didn’t hit my soul directly, I was able to grab Chara and run back home. But I died shortly afterwards. I don’t remember much after that, other than waking up in a laboratory as a flower. I screamed and yelled and called for my parents, for Chara, for anyone. But nobody heard me,” Flowey said, then sighed. “I later found out that my parents buried Chara near where she fell down, and then spread my dust in the same area.”

“Spread your dust?” Lawrence asked.

“We don’t leave corpses when we die,” Flowey replied.

For a little while, zombie and flower stood in silence. Then, Flowey folded up the paper and stuck in under his leaves. “There’s no sense in sitting around here,” he said quickly. “Let’s get the gator and the kid and get out of here.”

Lawrence looked like he wanted to say something else, perhaps ask another question, but he held his tongue. “Alright,” was all he said

SCP-682 had managed to coax SCP-053 out of her cell, and the little girl was giggling as she rode on the back of the lizard. The lizard shot the other two a threatening look- not to say anything about it. Lawrence smirked, but said nothing.

“Well, I guess this is it, then,” Flowey said. “I’ll probably never see you again. Don’t eat too many humans!”

“Heh. No promises,” Lawrence chuckled. 682 rolled his eyes.

“HALT~! WE HAVE YOU SURROUNDED!” A voice echoed all through the hallway. From both ends, the doors flung open and a flood of heavily armored (and armed) people barged in, completely cutting the small group off. Lawrence put his head in his hands.

“Oh fuck,” he swore. “It’s the cavalry.”

To Be Completed