Chapter Nineteen:

I am vaguely aware I’m being dragged out between two people. My arms drape over their shoulders as I force my legs to move, even in a half-conscious state. My left side is aching, almost in unison with my head as a headache spikes along my skull. Thoughts were scattering, trying so poorly to piece together everything from the last few minutes -or hours- I can’t tell anymore. My sight was scuffed from the smoke and probably tears along with nauseating vertigo. My hearing not doing much better than a muffled roar aligned with intense ringing that seemed to intensify with the headache.

But between the dragging through smoke, fire, heat, and shattering glass, my invasive thoughts went to a place I would rather keep buried.

The last time I spoke with my Mother, when I announced that I would go to my Dad. And the look of relief that washed through her eyes. She quickly hid the emotion from her face, but I saw. I knew what it was. I was more surprised that it still hurt. That it still pricks at my heart. I knew her capacity to love me truly and unconditionally was fractured and never matched what she said. I overheard her conversations with others throughout my childhood when she thought I wasn’t there or couldn’t hear or thought I was too young to understand. But I knew.

I knew she cursed my father for her life. She was delayed from her life’s goals because she was pregnant. With me. The fact that he could still pursue his lifework while she ‘had to take care of me’. Which was only one of the myriads of lies that she fed me.

I didn’t know until I was fifteen that she was hiding everything about my dad. Telling at best half-truths but only if it painted a villainous picture of him. The confrontation I hit her with was the last straw for both of us.

“You know your father never wanted you!” My mother’s words were always lined with her French accent that she could never get rid of.

“I know he wanted me more than you ever have.” I saw the threats she made at him about aborting me if he didn’t provide support. Despite my mother being capable and becoming a veterinarian, she was so short-sighted in other aspects. Like her son figuring out how to contact his dad.  

Oh and how my father more than provided support with her ever-vicious blackmail. He paid for her university loans, my school fees. Everything. All so he could get maybe a short phone call with me once every few months. Even those were strictly monitored by my mother who was more than ready to cut the conversations short and shallow.

My father was similar to my mother in the fact that he let her bully him into things. He was freakishly smart but so very foolish when it came to my mother’s manipulations. He was one of those cases you hear about, graduating high school when he was twelve. He globally attended universities for shits and giggles through his early twenties and made the fatal mistake of attending the same university as my Mother. He was attending her university for animal sciences and Adeline du Randt battered her eyelashes at the naive South Korean exchange student who was hooked. She probably did like him in the start but from knowing her most of my life. She did not like playing second fiddle to anyone…so when my dad outshone her, she became spiteful and when she realised she was pregnant with me, she was outright petty.

I honestly do not know why she went along with keeping me. I think it was to hold it over my father but it was definitely not out of love for me. She eventually finished her qualifications and moved to a rural town in Australia, setting herself up her own practice and live the quiet picturesque life she seemed to have wanted. I was on the sidelines, helping out when she was short staffed and despite her narcissistic and insufferable personality, some idiot farmer fell in love with her. she actually loved the guy back. Or at least she claimed to when she walked down the aisle with him. She then proceeded to have two kids with him. But there was no room for me. She hated my existence as the ‘stain’ that smudges the ideal life she had painted for herself. So when my dad offered me a ticket to the moon. I took it. I couldn’t face her or her reminding me that I was ruining her perfect life plan. I couldn’t handle that when she faced my two little half-siblings that there was no animosity or regret in her eyes. That she could show them the unconditional love that she could never extend to me. I hated how it felt like I was the black sheep even though I don’t hate them, I was intensely jealous of the love she so freely gave them. So rather than turn out like her, I left when I could.

Now look where it’s gotten me…

I switch myself out from those distant memories, I’ve had enough of my brain trying to match my physical pain with mental anguish.

I look up and see a strange mass that I did not expect to see again.

“Horror,” I cough out.

“Nice afternoon, isn’t it, Kitty?” I could just hear his cheery voice over the irritating ringing in my ears as he turns that Cheshire face of his in my direction with a half hop.

What was he doing here?

I guess I had the question in my eyes as he simply shrugs, “When there’s smoke, there’s something fun. Speaking of, your precious fur’s been singed.”

Bringing attention to my side made me acutely aware of it and falter in my step between Skull and Crow.

Crow pulls me up a little and I hiss at the movement.

“We’ll need to do backburning in the Gardens to try to control that fire,” Skull states out loud. “We can’t rely on the rain for this.”

“Not enough of the glass was smashed for it to be completely effective,” I hear Crow agree back.

Good for them to plan all this out but I was over this.

“Horror, check to make sure no one was following us.” Skull directs him.

“How about you save ordering people around for someone who enjoys being submissive? Speaking of, Bass missing me yet?”

Skull ignores the jab, “Then you help me with Lukey-boy and Crow, you go check on the surroundings. I think that bullshit between Ghost and crew has caused enough ruckus to get Pyros buzzing and Bailey sprinting towards here. I’m not in the mood for both and a raging inferno.” I hear a van door open.

“Careful with using your full vocab. You’ll have nothing left,” I could hear Horror’s grin even with my focus being on the ground right now…and I realise that there was still a warm orange glow not too far from us.

“For now, we retreat and deal with the fire. The last thing I need is Pyros thinking I’m sending them a love letter.”

“How do we know that Pyros wasn’t in on this?” Crow asks as he pulls me to sit inside the van.

“We don’t,” Skull shrugs. “But if they knew I was here, they would have set way more traps than just a rigged-up dust explosion. This was a deal between Tribunal and Pyros. It lacks Creed’s personal touch.”

I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess the leader of the pyromaniacs that own the bridge is ‘Creed’.

“Well this is the extent of me giving two shits,” Horror does a two finger salute at Skull.

“Why do you bother in the most irritating ways?” Crow rolls his eyes.

“I’ll do you one better; why is Gamora?”

Why was he even here? I must have asked out loud as he turns his attention back to me.

“What can I say? I’m a cat person.”

“Lucky us,” Crow lets out a breath. I feel his hand linger on my forehead before stepping away. “I don’t think Moon’s little doctor is doing too good.”

“I’m not a doctor,” I spat. I’m not little. I’m not Moon’s. And I probably wasn’t doing good. My side is prickingly painful and I know most of my clothing is singed. I was lucky that this was the extent of it. If I could still feel pain, my nerve endings were still intact. I was probably starting to develop a fever and need to cool the area pretty soon. I needed to rip off my clothes and inspect just how much of my side was burned and just how severely. I want to escape the pain but my intrusive thoughts decided that dredging up old memories was the way to go instead of unconsciousness. I was tired and on full alert. My eyes and lungs sting after being in smoke and heated air a little too long.

“Did we see anyone else?”

“Not a clue,” Horror shrugs before casually walking off on his own, the streets swallowing him up in one gulp.

Skull lets out a breath, “Typical.” He then adjusts himself. “Crow.”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” Crow moves away and does the same. Leaving me alone with Skull and whoever the driver was in the van as he barks at him next to step on it and take us back to Moon’s base.

“Moon’s going to love this,” Skull mutters. “Always getting fucking involved instead of telling people to piss off.”

“You’re the same,” I muster. “You decided to get involved in this personally.” He could have left it to one of his little henchmen to take us to the Garden.

“Why would I do that?”

“You-” I stop myself. This crazy bastard left himself in the open just to see what would happen. To see the extent Pyros and the Tribunal were involved. He left himself as live bait because he wanted to see if the relationship between the tribes was more than just a simple deal. And he found that it wasn’t. “You seriously just walked into a trap set for Ghost just to see the extent of what Tribunal and Pryros wanted?” I ask incredulously.

I see a knowing and pleased grin work onto his smug face. “Oh you’re a very clever one. I’ve also just found out just how much Horror likes you. Now that was something I wasn’t expecting.” And I do not like what he was suggesting. I could be a live line to interact with Horror. For whatever reason.

“Leave me out of this,” I snarl back at him but I flinch at the movement as the van drives over a bump.

“No can do. Moon listens to you. Horror likes you. You’re resourceful and now even my brother has an interest.”

Lucky me.

“And if you happen to find the cure I’d rather have some stake in it.”

He’d rather have a controlling monopoly over it.

I close my eyes and swallow hard. I’m not gonna drown in this shitstorm that is rising around my ankles. I am going to look for a way out from Skull’s clutches and Moon’s hands. And A boat. I’m going to need to find a boat. Or a canoe. I don’t care. If I could put a body of water between me and this crazy side, I might actually be able to sleep with just one eye closed rather than having both open.

I really -really- hate people and listening to him has just rereminded me why.