“Gods… Shay, what are you doing?” she hissed, her cheeks reddening as both men turned towards her. One with curiosity and the other with belligerence. “Sorry… erm… I…” Well shit… and she’d thought she felt awkward before.
“Dinner’s almost ready. Can you set the table?” Slade offered kindly and she practically jumped to the task. She took the plates, knives and forks and followed Shay down the corridor as she chatted away.
“So… how was the shower?” Shay asked, sounding wistful.
“It was awesome… I mean… wow. Don’t worry, you’ll be having one of your own soon enough,” she added, as Shay sighed heavily. Her words seemed to perk the young girl up though because she positively beamed at her.
“I think so too… I can feel it, Quinn. A shift in the air. Like a big change is coming, you know?” she said with an excited smile. Quinn tilted her head as she thought about it before nodding.
“I hope you’re right, Shay. I really do,” she murmured, as she looked down at her handiwork. She wasn’t exactly domesticated in the truest sense but she thought she’d done a good job. “What do you think?” she asked Shay.
“I think a Mech mutt could have done it better,” Shay said with a snort. Quinn frowned, looking at the sloppy placement of knives and forks at odd angles to the plates before she nodded in agreement.
“Yeah… you’re probably right.” She chuckled as she attempted to straighten everything up a bit, shaking her head.
“Claren will come around you know,” Shay murmured, floating up beside her and bumping her with her hip.
“It doesn’t matter… he doesn’t owe me anything. He’s just looking out for his brother. I would do the same for Amira if the roles were reversed. Truth is, once we get you back in your body and set Amira free, it’s unlikely I’ll ever see him again.”
“What? You mean… you’ll leave us?” Shay asked, clearly wounded.
“Hey, I didn’t say that, did I? What I meant was, you and your dad will settle somewhere, me and Amira will settle somewhere close and then we can still see each other but I ain’t settling anywhere near Union City after we’ve broken into it,” she clarified. “Of course, I won’t just leave you. You’re my friend, aren’t you?”
“That’s alright then… I just… I guess I figured once you had your sister and you’d helped me… well there’d be no reason to see us again,” Shay murmured sadly.
“Well then, you’re an idiot.” Shay snorted suddenly and bumped her again with her hip causing Quinn to misplace the knife and fork she had just laid perfectly straight.
“Why you- you wait. When your back in your body I’m gonna kick your scrawny ass,” she muttered with a grin.
“You’d have to catch me first,” Shay laughed whooshing to the other side of the table with a smile. Quinn was about to run around and do just that when a throat cleared behind her. Turning slowly with a grimace she came face to chest with Aaron. It was times like this she hated being so damn short. She looked up slowly, expecting to find him looking at her as though she was repugnant but, instead there was a confused look on his face.
“Er… dinners ready,” he finally murmured and she moved aside to let him pass. He carried two large dishes of vegetables and Slade wasn’t far behind him with a homemade meat pie. Her eyes widened when she saw it and his chest visibly puffed up with pride as he placed it on the table, all the time watching her reaction.
“Wow…” she breathed. She hadn’t had pie since before her mother died. Truth be told, short of cooking meat on a spit and boiling vegetables over a fire she was not chef material. He gestured for her to take a seat and she did, not moving her eyes from the steaming pie. She sat awkwardly, impatiently waiting for someone to do something so it wouldn’t appear rude when she delved in but there was just silence. Eventually she looked up to find both Slade and Aaron staring at her. Both with matching grins on their faces. For the first time she realised just how similar they were. Although Aaron was as light toned as Slade was dark and his skin was clear where Slade’s was marred by scars, the set of their jaw was the same, they had the same unusual amber eyes and high cheek bones and the amused smile on their faces emphasised it.
“For crying out loud, Slade. Feed the poor girl, she looks like she’s going to pass out,” Aaron murmured, surprising her. Not an hour ago she was certain she could have been lit on fire and he wouldn’t have pissed on her to put it out. Yet, here he was, insisting she was fed. Still, there was time to think about that later… right now, there was Pie. Slade served up a fairly large helping and she was quickly lost in the succulent meat and gravy. A comfortable silence fell over the room with only the sound of knives and forks on plates to break it. After three helpings of pie, Quinn was ready to indeed pass out but she made herself follow the men into the sitting room, Shay floating behind her, nudging her every now and then. She was somewhere between grateful and irritated when she finally got to her seat and collapsed in it. Or on it, depending on how you looked at it. Apparently Slade and Aaron had already arranged to sit and get the map of Union City drawn beforehand and they settled around a small table to do just that. After getting nothing more than a grunt from Quinn, Shay floated over to join them. It was maybe a minute before she was sound asleep, snoring softly, her legs curled beneath her with her head resting on her arm.
Chapter 10
“So… what’s the deal with the two of you?”
“What?” Slade looked up from his map before glancing towards Quinn and heaving an internal sigh of relief that she was still out for the count. “What do you mean?”
“I mean are you two… am I going to have to fumigate the guest bedroom when you leave?”
“Shit, Aaron… subtle.”
“That’s me… well, do I have to beat it out of you?”
“Yeah right… that’ll be the day. Nothing is going on okay? She… saved my life. And, though I know you don’t believe it, she’s gonna help me get my baby back. I’ll never be able to repay her for that.” He paused thinking of the possibilities before squashing those feelings with a vengeance. Over the past 24 hours he had become more invested in her abilities… shit he’d never seen anyone so powerful and if someone really could drag Shay’s spirit back into her body, that person was Quinn. “So, I would take it as a kindness if you would ease up on her a bit. She’s having a rough week.” He gave his brother a warning glance as he finished speaking, to which Aaron held up his hands in a ‘whoa’ motion. “Yeah, cos you just decided to give her a break because I asked you nicely. How about you give me a break and just leave her be until we leave?” Slade continued, irritated.
“Hey, I mean it. Besides the whole mutual hallucination thing she doesn’t seem half bad.”
“Wow… you almost sounded sincere… and it isn’t a hallucination. Please Aaron, I need you to trust me on this one, brother. I thought Shay was dead for a long time too.”
“Do you remember the first time I saw you after you left? When Cammy and Shay were… when Cammy died and you came to stay with me… You were so broken, Slade. I’d never seen you like that. All my life, you’ve been the dependable one. The rational one. But you weren’t even a man then. Then you just disappeared in the middle of the night. You didn’t even leave a fucking note. I thought you were dead too. Just like that and I’d lost you all…” Aaron paused, his nostrils flaring in barely contained anger. “Then you came back, what a year later? Drunk, beaten and battered and claiming your dead child was appearing to you? I thought you’d lost your mind. At one point I even considered killing you myself to end your misery but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Then you just left again… what the fuck am I supposed to think?”
“I’m sorry,” Slade murmured after a moment ashamed of his lack of concern for his younger brother. The truth was he had been broken and he didn’t have room to care for anyone else, at least the first time he’d ran away. “You’re right. I wasn’t… I thought about ending it myself. Tried a few times. Turns out I’m a
bit of a pussy. When I came back, I was telling you the truth. She found me, Aaron. The King, he… he did awful things to her but she survived… in some way at least. I have a chance to restore her now.” Aaron began shaking his head in anguish but Slade forged ahead. “Do you know why I left the second time? Because she told me, Aaron. She saw you, loading the silver bullets into your gun, crying… she told me that you were arguing with yourself, saying it’s for his own good, if I love him I’ll do this for him… she saw you.” Aaron had stopped moving completely. He was utterly motionless, he didn’t even appear to be breathing.
“How can you know that?” he finally whispered, looking up, his amber eyes rimmed in red.
“Because she’s here, brother,” Slade said, his tone pleading for understanding and acceptance.
“I… I thought I had no choice, Slade. I thought it would be for the best but I… I couldn’t do it. I threw the gun away that night, buried it outside before I even knew you were gone.”
“Aaron, it’s alright, I don’t blame you. You were right, once upon a time it would have been a mercy but not now. I swear to you, Shay is here and soon enough you’ll be able to see her properly yourself.” Aaron leaned back in his chair and the room fell silent. After a few minutes of awkwardness Slade got back to drawing the map of Union City and all that could be heard was the soft scratches of his pencil.
A few hours later and he had mocked up a fairly decent map of the city, including possible hideaway points they might need on their way to the fortress. Aaron hadn’t spoken since their last conversation. He remained unmoving in his chair, apart from his eyes which seemed to be jumping from left to right and back again as he thought. It made Slade a little nervous. Not because he was afraid of his brother, that really would be the day, but because he wasn’t sure how he would react when he finally came back to himself. He had been right when he’d said that Slade was the dependable one; Aaron had always been somewhat unpredictable. Heaving an internal sigh, he turned back to his map and the gradual realisation that had been building inside of him finally came to fruition. They were being crazy if they thought they could literally ‘storm the castle’ with just the three of them… well, two and a half. If they were really going to do this then they’d need help just to get through the god damn city. He puffed out his cheeks and ran his hands through his hair as the magnitude of what they were thinking of attempting kicked him up the ass with a huge dose of reality.
“Shay?”
“Yeah, Dad?”
“Can you check on Quinn’s sister for me? I need to know how long we have,” he murmured and Shay, who had been sitting playing with Quinn’s hair, gave him a solemn nod before shimmering out of sight.
“She can do that?” Aaron asked, startling him.
“What? Erm… yeah,” he replied with an uncertain frown. “You believe me?”
“I wouldn’t go that far… but, I can’t think of a rational explanation for the things that you know so… well, I won’t be having conversations with the air but… you know, I guess… well you seem to believe it and who am I to tell you it’s not real?” he ended on a question, seemingly just as confused by his words as Slade was.
“So… you don’t believe me?”
“Hells, I don’t know… but if there’s a chance you’re not insane I guess I should be there for you, right? It’s a pretty slim chance though, Slade.”
“Yeah, I guess it is,” Slade murmured with a chuckle, “why break the habit of a lifetime though, right?”
Aaron snorted but quickly turned serious again, “you know the inner city is manic, right?”
“What do you mean?” Slade hadn’t been to Union City since before… well, before everything changed. It had been years.
“They’re batshit crazy out there, that’s what I mean. If we’re going to get through it we’re going to need some support, not to mention some serious fire power,” Aaron murmured, his tone low and serious as he echoed Slade’s earlier thoughts.
“I know, I… wait, we?”
“You really think I’m going to let you go in there alone, brother? Crazy or not, I’m coming with you. That was never in question,” he shook his head incredulously as though Slade was an idiot for thinking otherwise.
“Alright,” Slade nodded after a moment, a rush of pride and gratitude running through him. “Does this look right to you, then?”
Aaron never got to answer as Shay reappeared, her face flushed. As flushed as a luminescent spirit could. “What is it?” Slade asked, dubiously and Aaron’s eyes shot in Shay’s direction, though he still could not see her.
“Amira isn’t there. Apparently, the soldiers who have her and the others in Quinn’s clan came across another village on the way and decided to make a detour,” she murmured quietly, a shudder wracking through her.
“I’m sorry Squidge,” Slade felt awful, constantly having to send her to peer at the darkness of others but it was a necessary evil that she was uniquely qualified for. Slade relayed everything she told him to his brother who, though he seemed uncomfortable, to his credit didn’t renege on his declared position. Shay had explained that she saw King Jackson shouting at his holocaster when a scout gave him news of the delay. She had then travelled to the village and observed the carnage there. Men, women and children dead at the hands of Jackson’s lackeys whether they were gifted or not.
“She saw all that? Fuck,” was all Aaron could say when everything had been passed over. Shay returned to her position on the sofa beside Quinn who was still snoring softly, apparently taking comfort in playing with her hair. Though, as Slade watched her, he thought maybe she just found comfort in touching someone. He couldn’t imagine how it must have been for her, the years she had gone without knowing the simple comfort of touching another person. After Camille… after she had been taken so viciously from him and he believed Shay to be lost as well, it had been several months before he lost himself in the flesh of another but, now that time had passed, he understood it wasn’t about sex or carnal desire. It was just about taking comfort in the arms of another, feeling wanted and cherished if just for a moment. He wanted those feelings for her. Wanted her to know just how much she was loved in a way that words just couldn’t express. He was grateful to Quinn for providing her with, at least, a semblance of that. The red haired immortal would never know just how much.
“Seriously, Slade… we’re going to need a fucking army at this point…” Aaron mumbled, circling security holo points on the map. Slade looked over his shoulder to see there were far more than he had been hoping for.
“How do you know about these?” A tailor wasn’t exactly afforded access to security operations. It made him curious.
“I didn’t tell you? I work for the rebellion, have done since the King took it upon himself to murder our village.” He muttered, nonchalantly.
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