(The Story Returns to Jr.’s POV)
Oogie, angry in defeat tried firing random spells; none of them made their mark and more than a few hit the building. Most of the bugs were dead but one of them that I'd hit with a flaming arrow ran around until it hit the wall and lit the place on fire. Then I saw her. Her organs were visible though the huge gash. Blood was all over her and Lock who held her. I ran over there but she was dead before I reached her. We tried to carry her with us, but as dad said we didn’t have time. The building was coming down too fast and her dead weight only slowed us down. But no one wanted to leave her there. With pain in his voice Dad said, "It's too late for her, we have to save ourselves now." We made it out just as the place came down. Flames licked up over the tree house as it sank downward and we all watched as it was reduced to ashes. Shock cried and I wanted to put my arms around her but fought the urge. Dad and Lock watched expressionlessly. I wondered what happened to Barrel and Oogie. I hoped those bastards were trapped inside and burned to death after what happened to Lini. I didn't see them escape at least. Now we were going to have to tell Mom.
Mom was hysterical. If I had ears they would have been bleeding at the sound of her screams. And I thought Shock was loud. She was furious that we had gone there and when we told her that Lini didn’t make it… Dad was doing his best to calm her down. I noticed Andy was standing in the door way but when I stepped toward him, he ran. I figured he was just upset. A group of volunteers got together and offered to search the ruins to see if they could find anything. When no one was looking I grabbed Shock's hand and we snuck off somewhere private.
A few months ago we'd all decided to go I can't remember where, but Lini got sick and she told me to go on. I show up to find only Shock has arrived. Apparently Barrel had a run in with the law and Lock had to help him sort it out. We never did go to wherever we had planned to go and instead we just went around randomly going into places we thought looked interesting. It was a lot of fun. We'd been going out secretly ever since. Secretly because at first we didn't know if it was just a fluke or something more and we didn't want the whole group involved in case it didn't work out. We were going to tell everyone but then Lini started acting weirdly…
She was really upset and now that we were alone I put my arms around her. She hugged me tight and cried on my shoulder. I had lost a sister. She had lost a brother. I broke the silence and said, "It'll be okay Shock." "But how? They're gone. Gone forever." She was right. I didn't know how we were going to get through this, but I had to stay strong. "At least we still have each other." I Kissed her. Then I heard the door open and we looked up to see Lock standing there.
"When were you planning on telling me you were seeing my sister behind my back?" He didn’t sound angry; in fact all emotion was gone from his voice. He seemed, I don't know, somewhere else. He poured salt in his coffee. He hates coffee. He was also eating a gross amount of candy. Sure, he eats a lot of candy anyway, all of them do, but this would make me sick and I don't have a stomach. He was actually drinking the coffee until Shock took it from him. "Earth to Lock" she said. "It's fine with me. Really you two would be great together." I looked at Shock. She made the he's been drinking motion (legally their old enough to drink, but as has been mentioned before, their consecutive age is not how old they really are). I knew very little about their past, but I can guess they've been through a lot. I thought this might be the last straw for Lock. "He's lost his mind." I whispered to Shock. She nodded slowly in agreement. He wasn't the only one. Mom entered the room with the same expression. She was followed closely by Dad. "Be careful around your mother." He whispered to me, "She's a little fragile right now." "Same with Lock." I whispered back. People handle grief different ways. Mom was currently putting some candy (skittles I think they're called, though I don't care for candy much myself) in the salt-coffee.
