Cain and Laurie - Down the Rabbit Hole

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For once, someone falls in a hole and it's NOT Cain



Laurie looked up at Pablo, who was currently snuffling around the outside of the hole she’d fallen into. She wasn’t sure just what sort of hole it was, possibly an old fox hole, but she knew that she couldn’t get out. She’d tried a couple of times, digging her hands into the soft earth but she always slipped back down. It was frustrating to say the least, especially since the thing wasn’t really all that much taller then her, maybe only a foot over her head.

“Um, Mr Marko?” Laurie said into her phone’s mouthpiece, having pulled it out and dialed the groundskeeper’s number.

Minutes later, Cain was carefully traipsing through the woods, grumbling to himself. Again one of the damn fool kids was probably walking back where they were told not to. He held the phone up to his ear again, shading his eyes to peer through the bushes."Okay, which way did you turn from the big split oak again?"

"Um, left, I think..." Laurie replied, trailing off as she realised that she hadn't really been paying all that much attention. She'd taken Pablo out for a walk, feeling sorry for him being cooped up, even if it was a very nice room he'd been given in the new wing. She'd mostly just let him take the lead. "I'm pretty sure it was left."

Glancing to the left, Cain saw the telltale broken branches that indicated where Laurie'd gone off the trail, probably following that pig of hers. With a scowl, Cain followed, stepping lightly. He'd put up signs on a few trees warning the students away from this area by the old creek for a reason; almost a century before his brother had invited the first student to the school, the area around the mansion had been used for granite mining. The quarry to the north was the largest such deposit, but there had been numerous "test shafts" dug and blasted on the grounds. Most of them had been backfilled and collapsed, but some had merely been grown over by the vegetation and kept open.

The snuffling noise in front of him could only be the pig, Cain realized, and strode cautiously to the edge of the narrow hole. It seemed to only go down a few feet - definitely one of the partially-collapsed shafts. "You in there, kiddo?" he called.

"Mr Marko! Thank God. Um, do you see Pablo up there at all? I think maybe he wandered off." Laurie called up, somewhat worried. She could still hear him snuffling but she couldn't _see_ him, and what if there were other holes about? "Oh, um, I'm alright, too, just some bruising and a bit of a scrape."

She'd made sure to check herself once the shock of the fall had worn off. She'd managed to grab hold of some of the vegetation on her way down so the fall hadn't been as serious as it could have been. No broken bones, or bad cuts, thank God.

"Pig's fine," Cain grumbled, shooing the curious swine off to a safe distance. He leaned over the hole, then lunged forward, bracing his feet on the ground on one side and one hand against the other edge of the shaft. Reaching his other hand down towards Laurie, he beckoned her to jump. "C'mon, let's get you out of here."

Laurie was about to ask Cain if he was sure he could handle her weight and then realised how stupid that sounded. Even more silly was worrying that his weight plus hers would collapse the shaft, considering how much heavier Cain had to be then her.

Taking a deep breath to try to calm her nerves, she jumped, reaching for Cain's hand.

The moment Laurie's fingers touched his palm, Cain closed his massive hand around hers and heaved as smoothly as he could, launching her over his shoulder and onto solid ground. One quick heave, and he pushed himself back from the hole, then looked around. Making sure both Laurie and her pig were a good distance away, he found a large tree and gripped it at eye level, sinking his fingers into the wood. Three quick chops with the edge of his other hand shattered the wood of the trunk, and he shuffled back over the hole, dropping the tree in to plug it with a crash of bark and leaves.

"There we go," he said with finality.

It was the first time Laurie had truly seen Cain use his strength, and she clutched Pablo to her, as the little pig came to investigate his prone mistress, eyes wide. She'd had no idea...Between him and several of the other men; she had an idea that anyone attempting to attack this place was either homicidally insane or just plain dumb. She suddenly realised she was laying on rather cold snow, and stood abruptly, lamenting the rather damp seat of her pants.

"Um, Mr Marko?" she asked, eyeing the closed hole after a moment. "Are there a lot of holes around here?"

"Lots," Cain grunted. "That's why I keep telling you damn kids to watch where you're going. You've got uneven bedrock around here, and with the creeks coming off the lake, sometimes sinkholes open up. If you're gonna go out running, stick to the paths."

"I'm sorry, I know I should have, just Pablo wanted to explore and I didn't see anything dangerous." Laurie explained, looking rather ashamed. She hated being reprimanded by adults; it always made her feel horrible. "It just looked like solid ground."

Cain shrugged. "No harm, no foul. This time. But you can't go acting a fool every time your pet wants to go for a trot. It's one thing when we can find you on the grounds. But being careless ain't a good habit to get into."

Laurie suddenly remembered the time when they'd had to send Remy to find her, and the time Marie-Ange had to come find her as well. She wasn't so good with the paying attention when she got focused on something, she knew.

"Um...I think maybe the ship has sailed on this particular habit. Isn't there anything I can do to make it less likely I'll fall over, or um, you know, find myself in weird situations when I do get distracted?" Laurie replied, scratching Pablo under the chin and setting him back on the ground.

Cain pondered that for a moment, as an idea struck him. "Yeah, come to think of it. I've got an idea. Run along back to the house, and if you see Nate, tell him I want to grab him for a few minutes this evening."

"Oh, um, okay." Laurie replied, the light of curiosity firmly lit within her gaze but she'd never disobeyed a direct order from an adult and she wasn't about to start now. "I'll see you, ah, later then."

Taking Pablo's lead in hand, she quickly trotted off, taking her pig behind her.

Cain watched Laurie head off through the woods, then followed at a slower pace, noting the broken twigs and footprints in the soft leaves and smiled to himself. "Oh, this is going to be a hoot..." he said quietly to himself as he continued on towards the mansion.