Kant exhaled the disinfectant-heavy air. "Let him go."
Hale stared at him through Gabriel’s blue eyes, wearing that all-knowing, superior look. "You do not command ."
"And you have no right to his body." Kant took his arm as if he could pull Gabriel away from the evil spirit. "Get. Out."
Hale yanked his arm free, lifting his chin in arrogance. Dark, smoky energy curled around Gabriel’s forearms. "You think you can force out?"
With a sharp swing, he drove his fist into the wall, inches from Kant’s head. The bathroom’s lights flickered at the impact, and for a second, the world seed to tilt.
"I am through being patient!"
It happened so fast that Kant didn’t flinch. The tiles crumbled, rubble scattering by his feet.
He slowly looked back to Hale, frowning. What the fuck, honestly?
Hale’s expression faltered—not from Kant’s glare, but from pain. He pulled back his fist, hiding a wince. The knuckles were bruised and bleeding.
"Oh, you son of a bitch," Kant muttered under his breath, getting between Hale and the door. "You crossed the line."
Hale’s lip curled. He lunged. A flash of a fist aid straight for Kant’s face.
Kant ducked, barely missing the blow. "If you harm him, you’re only harming yourself." He side-stepped again, catching Gabriel’s shoulder to push him back.
"Out of my way!" Hale hollered, going for the door again.
Water hissed sowhere overhead. A pipe let out a high-pitched groan, followed by a spitting burst. Steam curled into the air, water sprayed the wall and the floor, drenching them.
"Goddamn it." Kant wiped the water out of his eyes, all the while trying to drag Gabriel away from the door. "Get back here!"
The tiles were damp and the rubble didn’t help keep grip with the ground. Gabriel was slippery as an eel, but Kant managed to wrestle him back every ti.
However, Kant didn’t have any further action plan than ’do not let him get out like this’. He placed his hopes on Hale eventually tiring himself out and getting out of Gabriel’s body, but it was a slim chance.
Whatever was driving Hale, was one hell of an energy.
To Kant’s dismay, hospital staff ca knocking.
"Is everything okay in there?!"
Before he could answer, a fist collided with his jaw, snapping his head sideways.
The world flashed in a burst of black and white.
Kant stumbled away, trying to shake off the disorientation. Was Gabriel always this strong or was it purely Hale’s power?
"Sir?!" ca a call from the outside, followed by urgent knocking. "Open the door, please!"
"In a minute!" Kant called out, breath shallow. He’d be damned if he let Gabriel run out like that in front of the press.
"The water pipes have burst, you need to step out!" the staff insisted.
Hale surged again, this ti grabbing at Kant’s collar. But before he could get a slap in, Kant flipped them around and pinned Gabriel to the wall. Not too hard, just enough to keep him from slipping away.
"Unhand !" Hale ordered.
The lights flickered violently. One overhead bulb exploded with a sharp pop, raining glass. That, and the water pipes bursting wasn’t a great combination.
Kant cast a glance at the door, then back at the evil spirit. They couldn’t stay there forever.
"You better behave," he gritted out, holding him like a raging ntal patient, "or I’m making sure you get exorcised in the most painful way."
Hale grunted and writhed, the an energy spreading, trying to curl around Kant’s throat. "You dare—you dare threaten ?!"
The knocking on the door turned into pounding. "We’re unlocking the door!"
Kant was going to make a run for it with Gabriel as soon as the door opened. Get them away from the public’s eye, then figure out how to deal with this in privacy.
"I will kill you," Hale muttered in his thousand-spirit voice. The sound sent an icy wave down Kant’s spine.
The dark energy strangled Kant, tightening dangerously.
"Stop this," he choked out, clawing at the dark energy with one hand, the other still gripping Gabriel.
They kept grappling until the door slamd open. But the mont it did, the sputtering faucet beside them burst. Water sprayed everywhere and at everyone.
Gabriel bolted between the chaos, slipping free as the door swung wide.
The wisps of energy released Kant just as his vision had started turning into a rainbow. He gasped, leaning against the wall for balance.
He might have underestimated the evil spirit. Just a little bit.
Gabriel’s soaked figure vanished down the hallway, blazer flapping behind him, wet soles smacking against tile, a trail of droplets following. He didn’t look back.
The staff just stood there.
No one moved. No one spoke. Nurses exchanged bewildered glances, and a security guard who had just arrived skidded to a halt, blinking at the fleeing silhouette like he couldn’t quite believe his eyes.
The Everett heir. The one who had shied away from the caras and kept out of sight since his arrival at the hospital. Running through the hallways like a deranged patient who’d ripped out his IV.
Soone muttered, "Was that—?"
"Gabriel Everett?" another finished, aghast.
The water still hissed. Pieces of tile crunched under soone’s foot. The bulb above Kant flickered feebly like it too was trying to process what just happened.
Finally, the water supply was turned off, leaving the bathroom in discomforting silence.
Then, as if soone had unpaused the scene, every head turned to Kant.
He was hunched against the wall, soaked through, one sleeve of the stolen scrubs torn, a bruise already purpling along his jaw. His hair dripped into his eyes. He probably looked feral, cornered, and dangerous.
Yet, he felt more like a pissed wet rat—dripping, dazed, and not quite out of the canalization yet. Kant wiped water from his face, chest still rising and falling hard.
No one said anything for a beat too long.
Then ca the inevitable: "What just happened?"
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