Divulgence (Song of Sophangence Book 2)

by E. I. McAllistair

  “Don’t bother me none. I preshate it.”

  “What exactly then is the issue? You can make it no problem. Can you just not move it?”

  “Yea, I’m kinda stuck here. No matter how hard I try I don’t go nowhere.”

  “Hmm, maybe if we give you a little push, kinda like jumping a battery on a car, it will get you going.”

  Walking over to Dan and giving him a hard shove, he simply topples over onto the ground, feet still attached to the board. “Okay, that didn’t work.”

  “Ya think!”

  “Sorry, it seemed like a good idea at the time.” Noticing Dan was still just still toppled over on the ground, “Umm… did you want some help with that?”

  “I’m tryin’ alright!”

  Laughing at the contortions on his face, Anaar finally puts up his hands to stop him. “Ok, wait. Just get off the board, let’s take this one step at a time.”

  Releasing his feet from the straps on the board, it topples over as he shimmies to a standing position. “So… what now?”

  “Well it seems you have issues with control the more weight you add to it. Why don’t you just try moving the board around by itself first?”

  “Huh. Why I ain’t ever try dat?”

  “Maybe I’m your muse. Give it a try. At the very least you aren’t having issues keeping the board together, so that is a plus.”

  When Dan finally started trying to move the board, it looked more like some sort of geisting rather than him actually controlling it.

  “Huh...”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Well, I ain’t really notice it before, but when I’m tryin’ to move it, it feel like me tryin’ to move a whole bunch of different pieces of paper.”

  “Is that not how it normally feels?”

  “I ain’t never really tried movin’ nothin’ before. Well not somethin’ bound together.”

  “But you make barriers all the time. What about those?”

  “Dat is more like connectin’ a bunch of small thangs together. I don’t usually move stuff once it’s put together. I just move da paper to where I want it to be then build it there.”

  “Wait. Are you saying this whole time you have had no idea how to move your constructs?”

  Scratching his head in shame, “Well when you say it like dat, it make me feel right shitty.”

  “No! I mean sorry. This is amazing though! You said you felt like you were trying to move many separate pieces of paper. What if you could basically merge all the paper into one big piece of paper in your mind? Do you think you could manage it then? From what it sounds like, your mental image of what exists doesn’t quite match what exists in real life. At the very least there is some sort of conflict. When I look at your board, I see a board. I don’t see the individual sheets that make up the board. Maybe your mind is having a hard time reconciling the difference. I think we have found step one: making many sheets of paper merge into a single entity!”

  “I guess I get it… Give me some time to work on it.”

  “Ok, I’ll just work on martial arts practice over here. I still kinda suck with these tonfas. In order to force myself to get better I have been leaving my swords at home.”

  Leaving the puzzled Dan to contemplate how to turn his constructs into a singular unit, Anaar moves some distance away to practice with his tonfas, as well as his martial arts forms.

  “It appears your explanation of your disappearance met the approval of your friends. Well done managing to give them peace of mind, without divulging anything damaging.”

  You make it sound like I lied.

  “That is simply your own interpretation. Perhaps you feel some guilt in not telling them everything.”

  I wouldn’t call it guilt, more like I’m conflicted. I want to trust them, but given the information that group had on me, and the danger it could put them in, it seems foolish and selfish to bring them into my mess. Look what happened to Phavian. He knew absolutely nothing about what was going on and he still got dragged into it.

  “There was some good that came from this whole ordeal, despite how trying it was.”

  What good has come from any of this?! I’ve simply added more people to a growing list of people I have killed, be it intentionally or unintentionally, I scared the shit out of my friends, and I have put serious strains on my relationships.

  “You have also finally acknowledged your feelings for Mr. Ingraham, as well as endeared yourself to mother enough to become officially part of our family. You may now rejoice that your money problems are forever solved.”

  Note to self, whenever I need a moral compass, you are not it.

  “Humans are inherently self-serving. Why should you not feel some relief and excitement you can now pursue your heart’s desires, or that you will never want for money again in your life? I propose a shopping spree. I’m sure Mother would be more than amenable to sprucing up your wardrobe.”

  What is up with everyone taking issue with how I dress!?

  “It is unbecoming of someone of your station now.”

  Since when did this become some 15th century nobility?! My station? Regardless of whether Ixnes has decided to adopt me, which I don’t think is technically a thing since I am of legal age, but whatever, it doesn’t change the fact I’m still me, and quite frankly should I even know this?

  “I know many things about you. It only seems fair to reciprocate in some manner.”

  I think Ixnes would disapprove of you telling me all this.

  “Quite the contrary, she finds it most agreeable she will not need to talk you into it now.”

  You two have been plotting behind my back?!

  “Yes.”

  You weren’t supposed to answer that!

  “Then do not pose queries that you do not wish to be know their response.”

  This is exactly why I have never wanted people to know about my affinity! Already I’m being treated differently!

  “If it makes you feel any better, Mother had already planned a trust for you after the events of the Cuba incident. If that is taken into account, this was done before she knew you were water attuned. The deciding factor to make you her full-fledged beneficiary comes solely from the fact you will actually outlive her. Now, back to the matter of the wardrobe…”

  I am not going to start dressing like Ixnes! She has already put me into that lavish room.

  “Perhaps an agreement can be struck. All future clothing you purchase must meet my approval.”

  Oh god. This is her doing isn’t it?! She put you up to this!

  “Affirmative.”

  I can’t believe this. I’ve been forcefully adopted and now I’m being made to meet her image standards…

  “This is the way of things. It is best you get over it.”

  You fucking-

  Just then Anaar feels something ram into his leg, pulling him from his exchange with his artificial older brother. When he looks down, he notices the paper craft has hit him in the leg, and Dan is far off in the distance dancing happily. When he realizes he has finally gotten Anaar’s attention he runs over joyously.

  “I been callin’ ya name for like ten minutes! I figured it out! Now dat I done made all the paper into one big piece of paper it feel like it so much lighter! It don’t feel like I’m struggling to lift ‘em all no more!”

  Jumping onto the board, he manages to strap his feet in and zoom away, lightly bobbing just above the ground. Though he loses his balance at first, he quickly corrects himself, moving at an impressive speed with the board. Rounding back toward Anaar, Dan in his excitement speeds straight into Anaar, losing control of his paper just before colliding, leaving Anaar to catch the excited boy in his arms.

  Without much thought, his mind in full impulse and instinct mode, Dan cranes his neck up planting a deep kiss on Anaar. Caught off guard by the sudden kiss, Anaar pushes Dan off him abruptly, causing the boy to stumble a bit, but quickly recover. Before he had even thought about what he would do nex
t, he blurts out the first thing on his mind.

  “I love ya. I been in love witcha. When ya disappeared, I didn’t know what to do wit myself. I jest kept fuckin’ up lef’ and right. Ya thought I had a date dat day in da liberry, but you was suppose to be my date, but I ain’t never make dat clear. I felt so stupid. You been straight wit us an I cain’t jest keep actin like it ain’t burnin’ me up inside.”

  Surprisingly much more frigid than he intended, Anaar simply responds, “I don’t love you.”

  From the look on Dan’s face it was clear he would have rather been jettisoned into the sun than receive the icy response to his declaration. Stunned into silence, Dan falls to his knees unable to focus on anything other than the searing pain in his chest at the moment. Before, he had made assumptions, been jealous, and even hurt others in his quest for Anaar’s affection, but never had he expected the truth would be so staggering of a blow when it came directly from the source.

  Realizing what he had done, Anaar felt a deep sense of loathing for himself as his response had not properly articulated his feelings. When he thought about it more however, he realized they had done exactly that. What he was feeling, though not specifically how he felt about Dan, but his deepest fear about how his exchange would go with Phavian when they next met. Somehow, he had gone from fully committing to his role of repressing his feelings toward Phavian, to letting them control him, and poison other relationships and aspects of his life.

  He had spent so much time and energy pushing down the overwhelming emotions tied to Phavian, he had never once even suspected or acknowledged how Dan felt about him. In a flash it was obvious, all the signs were there, he simply did his best to ignore them. Drawing in a deep breath, he drops down to his knees in front of the still frozen Dan, shaking him a bit to get his focus.

  “Dan. I need to explain. What I said to you just now came from a place of deep-seated fear I would hear those same words myself. They aren’t accurate, and don’t apply to you. The fact of the matter is what I told you all earlier, I meant it. I do care about you. I actually love you guys. All of you. That is why it was so important to stay away from you for that time. I went from only having one family member, to a multitude in a short amount of time. I guess you could say I’m just not used to loving more than one person. It was so easy to love my mom, to be devoted to her and only her. When you have a singular focus, you don’t have to make tough decisions. There is only one path forward. Now I have all these people in my life that would break my heart if anything happened to you all, and we have discussed what an unstable Demolitionist means for the world. I want to make it clear, I do love you. You are my friend, and you are like a brother to me.”

  Though Dan heard the words, they felt hollow, empty, simply lip service by a man much smarter and more cunning than he was to try to rectify a wrong he had committed. The apology had made him feel worse, rather than better, as he knew the truth is usually the first thing on someone’s mind, so the fabrication that came afterward was just a feeble attempt to mask said truth. It wasn’t until he noticed a slight sniffle come from Anaar that he really came back to reality, and focused on the tear streaked face of the large man in front of him.

  “Life has been really fucked up the past couple of weeks. Everything I try to do right seems to end up in disaster. I only hurt those I love, I only destroy what I try to save. It feels like I’m beyond redemption. How do you try to profess to be good, when all you do is evil? I can’t give you my heart Dan, at least not in that way, because it was already taken long ago. I tried my best to pretend I wasn’t in love with Phavian. I hurt him over and over again trying to push him away, but he still just kept loving me. I don’t know if I just feel I’m not worthy of love or what, because everyone else seemed to recognize our love but me. So much that I nearly got him killed because of it. That is what it took to finally open my eyes. Even when he was at death’s door, the only thing he could think about was protecting me, despite all the pain I had caused him. Now I have turned the world upside down, and I don’t know if I will be able to right it. I’m not used to this. Give me the hardest equation in the world, I’ll solve it. Put someone in danger and I will risk my life to save them. Put someone in front of me, who pours all the love they can give into me though, and I blow them away. Maybe it has to do with my nature as a Demolitionist, or maybe I’m actually just a demon. Either way, it seems true to that nature I was built to destroy.”

  With the outpouring of emotion from the large man before him, he immediately regretted thinking he was being lied to. He simply did not know how to handle all the things going on with his life at the moment. Suddenly the prospect of brotherly love felt a lot better when he knew any possibility of something different had never been present from the start.

  All along, he had thought he had been running a race with Maggie, when instead it turned out there was someone else who had been simply waiting at the finish line for them to realize the futility of continuing on. With growing understanding, he realized you cannot weep over losing something that was never capable of being yours to begin with. With all the support Anaar poured into him, it was completely unfair to tax him with yet more burdens he had to sift through. What he needed now was not a suitor, what he needed now was a friend, his family. Grabbing hold of the giant man’s shoulders, he pulls him close, giving him a tight hug.

  “I cain’t say I’m sorry for how I felt, hell how I feel, but I am sorry for puttin’ more on ya plate with all ya goin through. You done been da best friend I done ever had, and you ain’t never wanted nothin’ from me. Prolly cause you ain’t never really needed nothin’ from me, but I always need somethin’ from you. For once let me do somethin’ for you instead. If ya believe Phavian is who is gone make ya happy, I’ll support it all da way. I mean hell, I’d fuck him.”

  Dan smiles as he feels Anaar shake slightly with laughter. The two release their hold, and Dan looks at Anaar. “Now see this ain’t right, why you look so good even when you all snotty and shit. I guess dat make sense why da two kings of da school would end up together. How us normal folk gonna compete wit dis?!”

  They both laugh, and Dan feels much better than he thought for someone who had been rejected, since he finally had clarity on his position with Anaar. He decided he would support Phavian and Anaar with the same amount of energy Anaar had been supporting him with all year, even if it would be painful. Once he realized just how big a task that would be, he found he had a lot of work to do.

  6

  Becoming a man possessed, Phavian had spent the last few days channeling all of his anguish, fury, and confusion into a singular goal. Going about his academic classes in a thick haze, everything about his normal demeanor had changed. His normal brigade of adoring fans received none of the heart melting smiles or waves they were used to. His friends found him abrupt, with a fuse that was practically non-existent, causing them to distance themselves.

  All he did was train to be faster, stronger, better. If anything even thought of coming between him and his training, it was immediately blown away. With the Mid-Year Melee bearing down his neck, he refused to allow any person or circumstance to stand in the way of him retaining his title. He had taken to gathering intelligence about his top competitors, all of them working in earnest to overcome the barrier they had not been capable of passing for years.

  Finding himself still not fulfilled in his training by himself, he goes to see Master Shin, sure that he could finally go all out, releasing the pent-up rage he had been feeling. Walking across campus with Haymana strapped to his back, he ignored the squeals of glee from his admirers as he thought about how he felt when he was on the ground being beaten. Remembering that weakness of mind, body and spirit he felt as he was miraculously being healed from his physical wounds, it only reminded him how he could not break out of the dome seemingly responsible for his recovery. Instead he watched on as the one person he wanted to protect more than anything in life, dispatched a force far bigger than what had taken h
im down, as if they were but a mere trifle.

  Finally, there was the betrayal of all he thought he knew. He had always been the aggressor in their relationship. That was a role he had always played because he felt that was his rightful place, that no one could be more powerful than he was, thus it was his due to take what he wanted. How humiliating it was to find not only had he been lied to the entire time about something Anaar should have known he took very seriously, but to also be given a false sense of control he was the mentor, the provider, and the protector.

  He realized it hurt all the more because of how deeply he had fallen for Anaar, that he would be the one to so utterly tear him down, piece by piece. Compared to that, the actions of those who had kidnapped him seemed nothing in comparison. Where was he supposed to go from this point? Spiraling further and further into his pain, the only thing he could think would begin to fix his world was to take back the power he had always known to be his.

  Entering the dojos Phavian makes his way to Master Shin’s, bursting in with no regard for the student that was there.

  “Get out.”

  The student had heard the famous Phavian Ingraham was a pupil of his master, which had always given him a sense of pride in which he expected a kinship just based on that fact. When confronted by the frightening presence of a man he had always heard was the epitome of pleasantry, he was stunned none of the pieces fit. Just as he was set to open his mouth to question what was going on, he felt himself be impaled by a chill like he had never experienced before, which was saying quite a lot as he was from upstate New York. Needing no further motivation, he found it painful to move, but was much more fearful of the pain that would come if he had been stupid enough to stay.

  Master Shin looking up, neither amused nor angry, simply focuses on him with that intent Phavian had come to know meant he was not pleased. “You forget your place boy.”