Earlier
Yeyette agitatedly tapped her foot as Victor set the table - with Eugène helping by using the Force to float silverware to their respective places. Victor finally paused and gave her a concerned look.
"What is it?"
"Sören isn't back yet," Yeyette said. "He said he'd be home by seven-thirty in time for supper, and it's after eight, he's not here, he hasn't called, and he isn't answering his phone. That's very unlike him."
"Perhaps he is... distracted."
Yeyette knew what Victor meant by that, and she didn't like it. But that was also unlike Sören. Her best friend wasn't a prude at all - just the opposite - but years of working as an exotic dancer and male escort had also made Sören a bit old-fashioned about not sleeping with someone on the first date, and he tried to be a gentleman with the ladies.
Even if that hadn't been the case, he still would usually call to let her know he was running late, or have the courtesy of answering his phone when she called. Something felt off.
Yeyette took out her cell phone and tried again. No answer, straight to voice mail. Then on impulse, Yeyette decided to Google the name "Serena Ubrelvy". She felt like a bit of a stalker for doing so, but her suspicions were aroused and having an investigative mind was part of her job as a toxicologist. To her not-surprise, Google returned Ubrelvy, an anti-migraine drug.
Yeyette recalled Sören telling her that Juniper frequently claimed to have migraines as a way to avoid chores or affection, claiming she couldn't sit up, couldn't function, and then would be out of the house for hours at a time, with evidence of shopping trips and other little adventures. Yeyette's teeth set on edge now.
Suddenly Anthony barged into the kitchen, even though dinner wasn't served yet, looking ready to kill. "Sören's in trouble," Anthony said, and pressed his fingers against his temples, wincing in pain. "I can feel it."
Yeyette closed her eyes. Sören's signature in the Force was faint - it reminded her of the way Victor's presence in the Force had felt when the Force suppression drug was wearing off, back in those dark times - but he was alive.
For now.
Yeyette grabbed her keys, grabbed Eugène, and headed towards the back door. Anthony followed.
"No," Yeyette said.
"That's my partner," Anthony said. "What do you mean, no?"
Yeyette felt a twinge of sympathy - were their positions reversed, were this Victor or DeKalb, she'd be fighting tooth and nail to go on the rescue mission. But she put on the same voice she used for difficult patients at the hospital. "Sören needs you here, because when I bring him back, he will be... ungood." That wasn't proper English, but she could barely string two words together that wouldn't involve profanity at that bitch Juniper. She should have known...
Nicholas was standing in the doorway of the kitchen now. "May I assist -"
"No," Yeyette said, more firmly. "He needs both of you here. Draw him a bath, make him some tea... something."
Time was of the essence, and Yeyette grabbed one of Sören's hoodies, black, from the hall closet then ran out to the car, carrying Eugène; Victor and DeKalb didn't catch up to her fast enough so it was only her - which was perhaps just as well; she was sure Juniper would underestimate another woman, and that would be to Yeyette's advantage if it came down to a physical altercation.
After she had backed out of the driveway and drove onto the main drag, she realized she had no idea where Sören was. Sören and "Serena" were meeting at The Coffee Grounds just over in Terre Haute. For all she knew, "Serena" could have taken Sören all the way to Indianapolis or even as far as Fort Wayne, though that seemed unlikely.
Yeyette used the Force to move Sören's hoodie over to Eugène to smell. "Find Uncle Sören," she said in French.
Eugène sniffed the hoodie - though it was less picking up Sören's scent than it was getting a lock on his Force signature - and then he stood up on his hind legs, front paws and nose pressed against the glass of the passenger window, tail swishing. "Take a left," Eugène said with authority.
Yeyette sensed Sören again, though it was muffled - Forceful animals had better homing instincts than people, and she trusted her cat's judgment. Sören, I'm on my way, she spoke into his mind, in English.
Sören's inner voice came back, anguished. I have no idea where the fuck I am.
"Now take a right," Eugène said. They passed the sign announcing the Terre Haute city limit. "It's not terribly far, Maman. Another few turns."
That meant wherever it was, was really out in the sticks. Eugène knows. I'll be there soon.
Now
It was one of the ugliest houses Yeyette had ever seen in her life. It was a two-story house, off-white with weather-beaten, yellowing, peeling siding, a lawn full of weeds, and there was a rusty orange Ford Pinto on cinder blocks, a broken refrigerator and a toilet seat on the "lawn". There was a black Buick that looked like it was on its last legs, parked in the driveway in front of the garage. Yeyette couldn't help letting out a low whistle at the eyesore.
Yeyette was just in time to see Sören doing a half-stagger, half-run, to the road, lurching with little sobs like he was in pain. And Juniper and Larry chasing behind - every few paces they got shoved back as if an invisible man were pushing them, and Yeyette realized Sören was trying to use the Force to throw them but it wasn't quite working.
She popped the locks and Eugène looked at her. "Be careful, Maman, there are hornets," Eugène cautioned her. "I sense them in their nest."
Yeyette nodded. Then the passenger door opened and Eugène ran out, and Yeyette hopped out of the car.
"I am a good and kind boy, so I brought you assholes a present!" yowled Eugène as he used the Force to float the hornet's nest out of the back garden and smashed it on the ground between Juniper and Larry. "Just visit the nasty ones, leave Uncle and Maman alone, please," the cat called after the hornets.
Yeyette used the Force to pull Sören to her, who collapsed in her arms, shaking, sobbing with relief - and fear. But the hugs and comfort could come later.
She was pissed off. Sören was like a brother to her, and they had hurt him. They were going to pay.
Yeyette held out her hand, and shoved Juniper with the Force, to fall directly onto the hornet's nest, which began buzzing loudly. A cloud of hornets rose up.
Eugène pounced on Larry with a hiss, scratched his face, and pissed in his eyes, making Larry scream like a girl, and the orange cat darted away just in time for the cloud of hornets to break in two - half swarming Juniper, half swarming Larry.
Larry began to swat, even though that was the worst possible thing he could do. "NAYEST! BEESETHS!"
"They're not bees, you moron! They're hornets! But then, you can't even tell cinnabar and bronze apart!" Juniper yelled back, trying to swat away angry hornets.
"HORNETSEST, THENNETH!"
What an imbecile, Yeyette thought to herself, wondering how someone could mangle archaic English that badly.
Juniper screamed and swore as she got stung, and then Larry shrieked over and over as the hornets began to sting him, buzzing angrily like an entire stadium of vuvuzelas. Yeyette stood there smirking - then her amusement faded as she felt the surge of Sören's intense distress in the Force, knowing he'd been through something much worse than what Juniper and Larry were experiencing now. They weren't suffering enough.
She raised her hand again and began to Force choke Juniper and Larry, to make the torture-by-hornet-stinging even more unpleasant. A little gift, after whatever hell they'd put Sören through. She got angrier and angrier, watching Juniper and Larry gag on their screams... and she made herself stop before she choked them to death, something in the back of her mind cautioning her that would be inviting a lot of trouble. It felt like they were being watched, though that made no sense, it seemed paranoid - nonetheless Yeyette had learned from hard experience to heed those bad gut feelings.
Yeyette grabbed Sören by the arm and Eugène climbed onto him, purring and kneading to try to soothe him, and they headed to the car. "Let's go home," Yeyette said.
Yeyette paused as she backed out of the driveway, to make a mental note of the number on the house, what street they were on. That information might be useful later. After they crossed the city limit back to Beauregard, Yeyette pulled over to punch the address into her phone.
"You gonna call the police?" Sören asked, his accent much heavier than usual, a sign of deep stress.
Yeyette took a deep breath and looked into Sören's sad brown eyes. "That depends. Tell me what happened."
"Well... 'Serena' was Juniper pretending to be someone else to stalk me. I got tasered in the parking lot at the Coffee Grounds, I got hit with a dart..." Sören tapped his right shoulder. "I blacked out. Woke up in their basement. They waterboarded me and I have something up my ass and Juniper threatened to rape me later."
"Mon Dieu." Yeyette already suspected Sören had been affected by a Force suppression drug, but now she was certain of it, and if Juniper and Larry had access to that sort of thing that meant they were in on something big, and the police either couldn't help them... or wouldn't, depending on how far this went. "No police, I think, since they drugged you."
Juniper and Larry were possibly more powerful enemies than either of them realized, not a mere case of a vindictive ex-lover and her new asshole boyfriend, but something far worse. Sören seemed to understand this too, nodding with a "Jæja."
Then Yeyette saw that Sören was holding onto a black-leather-bound journal with an embossed silver pentagram on the cover and the words Book of Shadows above it. "What do you have there?"
"Oh, this? Her spell book. She had some, ah. Some of my hair and stuff on the altar, like she was going to work magic on me, so I took this and her crystal ball as revenge. I know that sounds really stupid and petty, but -"
"She deserves to be annoyed," Yeyette said. "She deserves - well, never mind what she deserves." Her blood was boiling now and it took her every ounce of her restraint not to turn the car around, drive back, and just use the Force to murder both of them, but then that would probably escalate the situation beyond control.
It already felt out of control. Yeyette decided to take the long way home, in case they were being followed, not that it would really do much good if it was the government or something just as powerful, but it made her feel like she had a tiny shred of power over the situation, the least tiny little thing she could do.
Sören leaned back in the passenger seat, holding Eugène, rocking himself like the night she'd seen him rock himself after he'd been raped by a client. She wanted to tell him he was safe, but she didn't believe in giving false reassurances.
What she could tell him was the truth. "I will kill her if she ever comes near you again."
Sören gave a thin, pained smile. "I know."