Aisha
Aisha Laborn/Imp
February 14th, 2013
The past ten days have been shit.
That’s a pretty mild way of putting it actually, shit is when I have to set an Aryan bar on fire and end up getting a cape called in. Shit is when some idiot tries to restart the ABB but without any capes. Shit is a lot of different things but usually, it’s something I can get done in a day or two, it’s annoying, it’s busy work, and I hate it but that’s all it is. Shit.
But the past few days haven’t been shit, they might’ve started out as shit but they got a lot fucking worse before any of us could put a lid on it.
And why?
Because my dumbass brother took his dumbass girlfriends to get their dumbass boyfriend back.
Now, I don’t blame him for it, honestly, if he picked a better weekend for it, I might even call that shit romantic. But he didn’t bother looking at the schedule, he just left, right when the Elite, the Chain Gang, and the Horsemen decided to come at us.
Things haven’t been this bad since the Nine decided to rake over the city but with Lionheart deciding to grow a pair of balls, we’re left trying to keep things together without any backup. Again, I’m pretty fucking sure that he wouldn’t have pulled this shit with Brian ready to twist his balls but see above, dumbass brother.
The Director probably figures that with Boston’s gangs each trying to tear us a new one and with The Elite needling us for support, he might be able to wedge in more Protectorate. Of course, in the name of ‘reestablishing law and order,’ he’s left Brockton hung out to dry.
Maybe I should give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he doesn’t have the big picture of all the shit going on. After all, not all of it’s been confirmed yet. There’s rumors that the Chain Gang’s Brand is here to get some new capes and that War of the Horsemen is literally abducting people right off the street but whatever. I digress.
Dealing with any one of these psycho gangs would’ve been a bitch to deal with when we were all here but now, we’re fighting three gangs, each with numbers we can’t pin down, and we’re missing a few of our heavy hitters, I’m sorry, our heaviest hitters.
We’re divided worse than we’ve been in a long time, with our remaining big guns (Glory Girl, Blasto, Bad Apple, Crucible, and all them) on the south side fending off the Chain Gang and the Horsemen and me and the less violently inclined going after the Elite’s general.
The Op was supposed to be quiet, I was sposed to go in to verify the fucker was here, Trevor was supposed to get me out, Cassie would smash the bastard to bits with a car, and Diane would be on overwatch to see if he had any surprises.
Like all plans in BB though, I should’ve known ‘supposed to’ is a roundabout way of saying: ‘not gonna fucking happen.’
Our network was pretty damn sure Bastard Son was alone and we had some callers in Oakland to confirm he left most of his crew over there. Without them, we figured he was relying on the shock and awe/kill a ridiculous amount of people in a short time strategy, the shit that let him muscle his way into Oakland in the first place.
And because my dumbass brother took his dumbass Thinker girlfriend with him, we went in with the info we had.
Needless to say, it was bad info.
We should’ve known better. The last time the Elite took their shot at the city, they walked in with an impenetrable frontline, Uppercrust with his shield tech, Impetus for quick getaways, Eureka with the plans, and Paris to actually make their openings.
The plan they had then was like a fucking scalpel, precise and shit.
Bastard Son on the other hand, he ain’t nothing like that.
“Oi,” a loudspeaker sounds deeper in the trainyard, the oldass system barely able to start at all. “This thing working right? Be a shame if it didn’t, heh.”
He’s got the kind of voice reserved for shitty video games, low and gravelly and so evil it feels like he’s putting it on. He might be actually. I didn’t get that great a look at him earlier but I’m pretty sure he had his hair gelled up into middle school spikes.
“See, I can’t hear shit out there.” The loudspeaker shrieks a bit towards the end of his sentence and I chance a look outside the rusted train car. “Windows aren’t exactly clean either, think there’s moss or something growing on it. Heh. You Brocktonites, city already halfway down the crapper but none you willing to flush it.”
I try to get a better look but down here, it’s hard to tell where anything is. I think I can just barely make out the watchtower a few train cars down but the snow is thick as hell. I squint against the flurry, feeling my power slowly return when he steps out from behind the furthest train car, his head thankfully turned away from me as I duck back into my hiding spot.
I barely caught a glance at the fucker but he’s big, big like one of Rachel’s dogs but twice as ugly.
SCREEEEEEEEEEEECH
A violent scream roars through the trainyard, making my hiding spot shake as I grip my pistol tighter to my chest. I can feel my power shrinking away from me, like it’s scared of the fucker.
Granted… if there’s any motherfucker worth being afraid of… it be Animos.
We should’ve known Bastard Son wasn’t going to take a stab at the city alone but I didn’t think he’d pick up local psychos to help him out.
“S’probably bad manners of me to hire ‘em just to stick myself up here but eh? When’s the next time I’ll be able to fight with this bloke if it ain’t in a soundproof room? Heh.” The bastard is laughing up there and I growl to myself.
He’s got us on the ropes, Diane said she was going to get help but that was half an hour ago, for all I know she could be bleeding out in the streets by now. Cassie is… I don’t know where she is and that fucking terrifies me. Part of me wants to run out of here and look for her but the other part of me is saying Trevor can only save one of us at a time and with Animos screaming, he’s probably got a hard enough time remembering how to use his shit.
That and if Animos doesn’t get me, his partner will.
The watchtower has some kind of exit that feeds right to the ground, every couple seconds, a wave of clones come out, each with a knife, a piece of debris, one even just had a single nail. And all of them are able to kill ten people with just that one thing.
It’s a match made in hell, when two powers go so well together it’s a wonder the two haven’t met before. Spree can make an endless wave of people ready for Bastard Son to infect and even though they die a bit quicker because of that, the ex-Teeth member must’ve learned how to pace himself since his boss left him for Heartbreaker.
The clones aren’t biting it after just a few seconds away from their original and with an endless army combing this place over… I’m gonna have to book it soon.
“Speaking of…” the fucker must love the sound of his own voice. “Do you like my new lads? Personally, I think they’re a bit rough around the edges, maybe lacking in a certain je ne sais quoi but they get the job done and unlike the rest of them losers shacked up with the Horsemen, they know their boss ain’t coming back. War tried to get into their heads about making a new Butcher but they know better.”
My heart is hammering in my chest, loud enough that I almost don’t hear the mob heading towards me. This… I might die here.
That’s a tough thought to think about, the kind that makes my mouth dry like a dessert but fuck, I’m not dumb.
I was good at hiding even before I got my powers but I can tell that this is the end of the road, there’s nowhere left to hide and even if Spree’s clones go down with just one bullet, all I’ve got is twenty four.
Back up isn’t going to come in time, I’m sure of it. With fights on the south side, lack of Protectorate back up, and the two trump cards up Bastard Son’s sleeves? This all feels planned, probably because it was.
I can’t prove that but I’ve been around enough times that when shit hits the fan, I can tell if it’s bad luck or someone screwing with you and this all feels a bit too coincidental to be the former.
The doors to the train cars are yanked open, the rust keeping them closed meaning fuck all to the dozens of hands yanking it down. Ten or so identical heads poke through, a few of them already melting from Spree’s limit and the rest grinning widely at me, their eyes black with Bastard Son’s power as they step in.
The clones are too far gone to speak and the shit Bastard Son does to them is enough that a few of them trip over themselves to get at me, melting into puddles as I fire into the horde. The gunshots echo loudly in this cramped space, making my ears sting as I keep firing.
It’s a terrifying thing, watching them get closer, their knives catching the little bit of light that leaks in, their eyes, wild and crazy and murderous but just as they get to me, the first few in stabbing range, something gets them all to still.
I don’t know what it is that’s got their attention but it gives me enough time to load another mag in as something explodes in the distance.
It’s a small sound but that’s only because of how far away it is, I imagine if it were closer, it would sound like a grenade. And just when I think that, it happens.
BOOM
Something explodes above me, the train car rattling as the Spree clones look up, all of them overjoyed before they come apart into red and peach puddles of skin and muscle.
“What the fuck is—” The loudspeaker goes quiet as another boom sounds, coming from the watchtower Bastard Son held himself up in. There’s a few more explosions and after the third one, I realize something that makes my stomach drop.
All those booms sound exactly the same and all of them are familiar to me. I know that sound well, it’s the same sound we heard all around Brockton when Quarrel tried moving her gang back in.
The Butcher’s back and she chose the worst fucking time to throw herself in.
I run out of the train car, almost slipping on the pulp Spree left behind as my power comes back to me, the little button in my head to stay visible showing up and firmly ignored as I look at the little watchtower Bastard Son had himself held up in.
It’s black as pitch, with the top half on fire and smoking like a chimney as someone stands on the top of it. I can’t make them out in the smoke but all the proof I need of who she is is beneath her.
Spree and Animos are both at the base of it, bowing to her.
I’m turning around before I can even think about it. I need to get back to the tower, I need to warn everyone that shit just got a hundred times worse, that either War actually managed to make his clone or Cherie Vasil finally—
I skid on the snow when I see the capes in front of me.
I don’t know how I didn’t hear them before but as they march, unaware of me, all I can do is focus on the cape leading them.
My brother is walking towards me, his darkness coming off his body like smoke with Lisa on his left and Rachel on his right. All three of them look like they’ve been through hell, their costumes sloppily patched together with gauze and clashing thread.
My brother’s helmet is cracked right down the middle, the skull looks like it took a sledgehammer to the face but otherwise he— all of them, look okay.
I’m happy to see that they’re alive but the group behind them makes me keep my power up. Nothing about their costumes seems familiar to me but all of them scream that they’re not to be fucked with.
The one closest to Rachel looks like he’s wearing bloodstained riot gear, with two heavy batons on his back. He walks like he can’t wait for his next fight and the way his knuckles clench makes me take a step back.
The guy behind him is even weirder, built with wide shoulders and covered head to toe in some kind of black trench coat that covers his mouth. He’s wearing a thick pair of yellow goggles and I think the steam coming from his nose is a bit too gray to just be normal breath.
There has to be maybe a dozen capes behind Grue and his girlfriends… and with how all of them look… it might be judging a book by its cover but I’m not going to risk it given where my dumbass friends decided to run off to. The thought makes me want to throw up but I can’t chance it. If the worst really did happen, and Heartbreaker mindraped my brother, I’ll be a good sister and do what I have to do.
I step into his path, running backwards until I’m sure that Brian won’t be able to get me and then, with a deep breath, I'm about to make myself known when Lisa brings her fingers up to her lips, whistling sharply.
I barely have a second to wonder what the fuck she’s doing when the Butcher explodes on my right side, appearing back on the train car and startling me as I fall to the snow. At this distance, I can tell she isn’t a clone.
Cherie Vasil’s hair is a lot shorter than when I last saw it, almost shaved down to the skull and while she’s put on a lot more muscle since Mannequin put her away, she’s still a skinny bitch with butt ugly tattoos.
My heart is hammering in my chest as I look up at her, my stupid head reminding me that she has fifteen different ways to kill me when I look at who she’s got in her right hand.
Bastard Son is the kind of cape that wears a suit just so he can get blood on it, he kills because he likes killing, he fucks with people’s heads like it’s something he was made to do. If the Nine ever went to Oakland, he wouldn’t be nominated by one of them, he’d probably volunteer and be blowing out Jack Slash’s back on a nightly basis.
But right now, despite knowing that he takes lives the way other people breathe, he couldn’t look less threatening.
The Butcher’s got him by the back of his neck like he’s some annoying kid that won’t listen to her and the blood leaking from his head makes him look all the more defeated. He’s done and with his main lackeys treating her like a goddess, he’s out of henchmen too.
“Cherie,” Lisa calls, pointing to the snow in front of her. “Make some cuffs that cover his hands and then come down here.”
My jaw hits the floor. Did that blonde pipsqueak really tell the Butcher what to do?
Cherie nods and I think my jaw ends up somewhere underground when she rips off a bit of the train car’s roof, the metal fizzing with white foam as she wraps up Bastard Son’s wrists. With him restrained, she hops down right where Lisa pointed and I shake my head, wondering if I ate something weird.
Did the Butcher actually listen to the pipsqueak?!
Wait a minute, if Lisa’s controlling the Butcher then that means that Heartbreaker isn’t! That means that—
No. I slap the side of my face, I’ve listened to my gut on too many things this year. I let myself listen to the shit that sounds easiest, that fits the best and it’s cost me my best friend. For all I know, Lisa is just a handler for the Butcher while Heartbreaker kicks up his feet in Montreal. I can’t be sure of anything and unless Fullstop gives them another hit or Diane clears them, I’m gonna play this safe.
I run back even further, getting myself between train cars just as Spree and Animos walk by me, both of them pissed as hell and either angry or high enough to think they can take on this many capes.
Animos is a monster, kind’ve like a dog, kind’ve like a tiger, and kind’ve like a crocodile, with a long, angry jaw heavy enough that he has to walk on all fours. His mouth snaps closed, the fists sized teeth clicking together as Spree steps forward, arms at his sides.
“So,” he greets, his eyes fixed on the Butcher. “You managed to pull our boss up from the Bay? Take it she’s repaying a debt, as good Butchers tend to, but the job has a certain respect you and yours seem to be lackin’. You can’t order her around like that unless you want her to—”
“Cherie—” Lisa snaps her fingers and points at the two Teeth. “Take care of them.”
As soon as the order leaves her lips, the Butcher turns back to face them, the air popping twice as she teleports between her last life’s friends. Both of them are thrown back by the explosion and I watch as she grabs for both of their heads.
Animos tries to suck in a breath, his chest expanding like a bellows but before he can scream, both he and Spree are slammed into the snow. The big guy survives it just because of how tough his ugly monster form makes him but when the snow settles, I’m not sure if his friend is alive.
I guess he could’ve survived, done the same shit he did when Quarrel first came here, create an explosion of bodies to cushion him but honestly, I don’t see many solid things in the crater he just formed with his face.
Regardless if they’re dead or not, there’s no one left to fight but… I need to keep eavesdropping. I can’t show myself unless I’m sure they’re alright.
The snow keeps falling, the wind blanketing me in the flurry and I'm already wondering the logistics of following them in this weather when Brian speaks up, gesturing to the capes behind him.
"D'accord, nous sommes arrivés au mauvais moment mais—"
"You're French is terrible," one of the capes interrupts him, a tall, lanky giant of a blonde wearing a strange outfit of sequins and fish scales. "Most of us speak English, y'know?"
"Fine," Brian grunts out in his typical, 'I'm the hard ass leader/ I need to get laid' tone. "We came at a bad time, there's capes fighting on the south and—"
"Where do you want us?" Another cape interrupts, this one short as hell and wearing some kind of ballerina outfit with a deer motif. "South is vague, give us streets and we—"
"First." Brian interrupts right back, voice somehow even sterner. "You work for us. If you want out, we can talk about that later but I am your leader and you will listen to me."
He takes a step towards the ballerina, his boots crunching in the snow.
"Second, I am not your father. I will not let you run off and do jobs by yourselves, I or another Undersider will accompany you at all times."
Brian makes his last step towards the crowd of capes, his dark coming off him like fog on the water.
"You are going to be watched for a long while, both because we don't trust any of you and because your Alec's family. He wouldn't want to see most of you hurt and until he gets better I don't know which ones of you he'd be okay with dying."
As far as warnings go, it's a bit clunky but given how dead tired he is, I'll let it go with only a little mockery.
The important bits get me to lean forward, peeking out from behind the train car and debating whether or not I should get in closer.
Brian said he wasn't their dad and if they're all related, that gives them a common thread. It's a lot to hope for, enough that I'm pretty sure I shouldn't hope for it at all but…
He said until Alec got better.
That means he's alive, that means he has him back, that means I—
I lean forward again, the snow on my shoulders hitting the ground with a dull smack and bits of it slipping between my boots and ankles, getting into my socks as I jump.
Right into the train car I'm leaning up against.
I'm not a big girl, barely a 115 pounds but you don't need to be all that heavy for a big ass metal bell to start ringing.
The sound is loud, creaky, and droning enough that my power ain't going to get it ignored.
"What the fuck—" Brian turns, his skull looking right at me but then looking around, his brain unable to keep any memory of me inside. "Who's there?"
He whips his head back around, his skull examining the new capes.
"Which one of you did that?"
"Oh come now," the blonde one tries to speak for his group. "Your Thinker already confirmed what we can and can't do so—"
"Not you," Brian cuts him off, his eyes scanning the crowd before he points at one of their smallest, maybe eight years old at the latest. "Syndicate, did you do anything? Is there someone over there?"
Oh fuck.
"Maybe?" The child, Syndicate I guess, steps forward, her costume an awful lot like Regent's but with a bit more glitter and a pleated skirt. "I can kinda sense something but it's— I'm sorry, I can't—"
The kid grips her head as she lets out a groan. A few of the capes around her step a bit closer to her, none of them patting her back or offering her words of assurance but it's something I guess.
I know why she's in pain, it's the same thing that always happens when a cape tries to keep their power on me, the same shit Alec would deal with when I tried to get him more comfortable with his power.
She's on a fast track for an aneurysm unless I do something and unfortunately for me, the only something I have is to… aw, fuck it.
I stand up straight and take a long step out into the snow, holstering my pistol as I press the button in my head.
“Hey Grue!” I shout, making him, his girlfriends and some of the capes behind them jump, all of their eyes staring at me as I wave, ready to let my power drop back in at a second's notice. "You still…" I tap the side of my head with one finger. "Got that stick up your ass?"
A few of the capes behind Brian snicker, their laughs making my skin crawl as Brian lets go of his dark.
The black smog puffs away into nothing and I can feel the grip I have on my power loosen. Most of the time, it's easy enough to keep myself visible but when I'm nervous as fuck, it's like holding down the handle of a grenade, every second getting harder and harder.
Brian takes a shaky step towards me, his arms rising up just a little bit.
"Ai—" he clears his throat and he must be tired like a motherfucker if he almost slipped my name like that. "Imp?"
"Yep," I reply, taking my own step towards him and trying to keep my voice steady as I keep my mask trained on him but my eyes roaming over all the new capes. “You didn’t call, didn’t write, and now that you’re back… you have a circus with you.”
The circus bristles a bit, a few of them glaring at me, two or three of them snorting, and the rest not reacting at all.
“Oh,” Brian looks over his shoulder for a second, like he’s just now realized how weird the group behind him is. “Yeah, they um… they had to— we—”
“Regent’s alive.” Lisa cuts him off, her green eyes tired but unwavering as she meets mine. Her news is… I want to believe it, there’s nothing more I want to believe but with Heartbreaker… normal Master code phrases and all the shit we did back before the Gesellschaft took their stab at the bay, none of that works. She could be— “I know you don’t believe me, but he’s dead. The second we’re done with the Chain Gang and Hosemen, Grue, Skitter, Bitch, and I will go into quarantine for as long as Gallant thinks it’ll be necessary.”
“You swear to that?” I ask, snorting. “Y’know, just saying the shit you’re gonna do isn’t worth shit. I can’t just—”
“C’mon,” a boy with blonde hair looks at me, his voice almost the exact same as Alec’s but a lot more scummy. He’s wearing some kind of dark blue military jacket, with white gloves and a dull red trim along the insides. “I know you can’t trust a word any of us say so I’m not gonna insult you with that but all the proof you need is in the van back there—” he gestures behind with a thumb, “—just do your invisibitch thing and see if they’re lying. Simple as that.”
I just met this guy and already I don’t like him. There’s an air to him that says ‘oh look at me, look at how smart I am, I can tell someone to jump off a bridge just by talking about their receding hairline.’ kinda like how Lisa used to be actually.
“And who the fuck are you?” I ask, tilting my head and thinking about how he’d feel if I covered his mouth without him seeing me.
“I don’t have a cape name,” he answers, “It’s droll and stupid so why don’t you—” he snorts a bit, his shoulders jumping. “You know, if you want to talk about—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Lisa cuts him off, her eyes fixed on him with the meanest glare I’ve ever seen out of her. “You try that shit again and we’re sending your ass to the Guild you understand?”
The blonde’s lips pucker into a sneer but he doesn’t say anything, his eyes are weighing the pros and cons of fucking with us and after a moment, his shoulders fall as his lips quirk up, his hands raised in a nonthreatening gesture.
“Okay, okay, just seeing where the boundaries are, that’s all…” he smiles and I almost flinch when I see his perfectly white teeth are now covered in blood. “My apologies.”
I don’t buy it for a second but there’s more important shit going on right now and I can’t waste my time held up here.
“I’m gonna trust you’re on the up and up,” I say to the group and then to Brian, “I’ll hug you after Gallant gives you the clear.”
He tries to say something, stepping towards me again but the second I’ve got my ‘hand’ off the button in my mind, he stops, looking around in confusion before he turns back to Lisa. Her eyes are glazed over a bit and when she tries to give some BS explanation to seem like she’s in control, I start walking the way the other blonde directed me.
It’s an even fast and slow walk, since Jack Slash got me with the bear trap, I’ve always tried to be mindful about any shit that might just be waiting for me. I’m hard to kill only in that people don’t know about me, other than that, all it’ll take is one stray bullet or bit of shrapnel.
I make sure to keep a wide berth from Alec’s siblings, I’m betting their powers are a pretty good half and half of Thinker/Master bullshit and I’m not willing to bet that my power trumps all of them. That’s the one thing I can count on when it comes to Undersider luck, we have absolutely none and one of these assholes will probably tag me with some curse of everlasting orgasm if I stick around.
Most of the walk, I stick to the footprints the others paved and when I exit the trainyard, I see where they came from.
A caravan of beat up trucks, vans, and and shitty suvs take up most of the road and while I’m sure all of them have something interesting for me to poke around in, it’s the one with the giant beetle on top that gets my attention.
Atlas has seen better days though.
His bigass horn has been broken right down the middle, the end of it covered with a towel that’s stained with purple blood or whatever the fuck bugs have inside them. His shell’s been beat to hell in more places than not, the half metal/ half chitin cracking apart as he lifts his head to me.
The action is a lot slower than it should be and though I want to think it’s just the snow fucking him up, I can tell it’s more than that. The big guy is hurt and unless we get him to Panacea soon, he might just keel over.
I shake my head and turn my eyes back to the van underneath him and what I see makes me back up. Written on the side of the van, in dead cockroaches, is a name. My name and an order: IMP, Drive.
Seems even with my power up, Lisa can still put enough together to ride my ass.
I step around the front of the van, my eyes trying to get a glimpse inside through the tinted windows. I can’t see shit through the glass but when I try to open the door, I clearly see the knife Taylor tries to stab at me with.
I leap back, my hand going to my pistol as I level it, sure that any second, some Heartbroken piece of shit is going to jump out of there and—
“Taylor!” there’s a radio on the dash, a piece of shit walkie talkie, the kind you can buy in bulk from a military surplus store. Skitter turns her eyes to it, her mask is mostly destroyed, with only one lens sitting in the mask as Lisa’s voice comes through. “Don’t attack, she’s with… she… hold on I— I—”
“Stranger?” Taylor asks, her voice a growl of distrust and honestly. That’s my girl.
I release my power and the second she’s able to remember the corner of her eye, she whips her head back around to face me, the knife in her grip held even tighter as she pulls herself forward. There’s a beat and she takes a breath, her glare softening just a bit as she zips back behind the seat, leaving the door open.
“Taylor?” the radio asks again just as I get in, the keys still in the ignition as I grab them. “Taylor are you—”
“Nope,” I answer, grabbing for the walkie talkie and closing the door behind me. “Taylor can’t come to the phone right now, where do you want me to drive?”
I’m checking the rearview mirror when I get a look at the backseat, my eyes widening.
Taylor’s taken up the seat diagonal to mine and laying over the rest of the backseat, his head in her lap as she plays with his hair, is my best friend, Alec Merceau.
“Holy shit,” I cut off whatever Lisa wanted to tell me and almost climb into the backseat myself as I lean forward, taking all of Alec in as I repeat myself. “Holy fucking shit, you’re— dude!”
Alec doesn’t stir in the slightest, his eyes just look up at the ceiling of the crappy van and my relief turns sour like spoiled milk when I really look at his face.
I’ll be the first to admit that on some days, Alec would look like the star of an open casket funeral. His eyes can be a bit dull sometimes, like doll eyes and his face can sit in the exact same position for hours on ended but even when he got really bad, like when Cherie became the Butcher… he was nothing like this.
Right now, he’s laying in the back like he’s dead, like if I reached for him, his skin would be as cold as the snow and his eyes… it looks like there’s nothing going on behind them, like the lights are off and nobody’s home.
“Alec?” I try to get his attention and nearly flinch when I’ve got it, his eyes darting over to me like a lizard’s before darting back to the ceiling, one of his legs bending up into an angle as Taylor shushes him gently. I look away from the blue eyed boy and to the girl holding him, her eyes fixed on him like he’s the only thing in the world. “What’s wrong with him? What—”
“Imp!” the radio screeches in my ear and I wince as I push it away from my face. “We can debrief after this is all over, right now I need you to get Skitter, Atlas, and Regent back to the Tower as quickly as you can, the rest of us will regroup soon.”
“Regroup soon?” I ask the radio, tilting my head as I try to figure out where the fuck Lisa got the balls to start ordering me around, especially given that last I saw her, she was jumping out of a fucking twenty story window. “The fuck do you mean—”
“Do it.” She orders again, her voice even angrier than mine as the line goes dead. The static that fills the car feels like a slap to the face. They ran off right when we needed them most, were dead silent for a little over a week, and when they finally come back, it’s just back to business as usual?
The fucking— I take a deep breath and turn around, getting the car started as I put in drive.
“Just—” I growl under my breath, pissed beyond reason. “Just fucking perfect I guess.”
I look back in the rearview mirror, thinking about whether or not I can grill Taylor for more information when I get a look at her face.
She’s done a lot to stop being roboSkitter when she doesn’t have to be but it’s because of that I can tell she’s not doing too hot. Her eyes are red around the edges, already shining with something before she wipes at them, sniffling quietly as one of her hands starts to trace Alec’s features.
She’s been crying and given how tired she looks, I bet she’s been doing it a lot lately.
I might want answers enough to threaten Lisa or Brian but I’m gonna hold off on that till I’m sure they won’t break if I look at them wrong. That’s the thing that’s really bugging me, I didn’t expect them to come back smelling like roses, hell, there’s been a few times where I was worried if they’d come back at all, but the way they are now… it’s something I hadn’t considered.
That they’d come back, with Alec and with Heartbreaker dead and still… they don’t feel right.