State of Radiance [Jesse Faden & Zachariah Trench]
He firmly grasps the steering wheel her eyes can only focus on.
No.
She looks at him. Trench is not really worried. Thinks himself safe.
Don’t do this.
Underneath the coat, Jesse clenches her fingers and barely moves her arms. Trench must think she’s having an agitated dream. It’s the only way Jesse has to know she’s not weak.
This is a bad idea. You will get yourself killed. He might survive. The Bureau cannot have you again.
She has only one guess to know if it’s true or not.
The world spins, but Jesse manages to pin herself into it and escape the car. Her body is not fully strong for the task of running; a desperate pace can be achieved. She only needs to push further with it. No moonlight to guide, no poles—only stars. North star. Where is the north star…
A shot echoes in the desert and her arm is cut. Jesse screams, refusing to look back. More shots echo and blow the dirt beneath her feet. She fears her heart might thrum its way out of her chest.
“Goddammit, Jesse!” Trench barks out. “Come back!”
“Fuck off!” She returns.
“I will keep you safe!” He argues, then. When out of her grasp, Trench has only two options left; it only depends how far Jesse can keep on with this. Her body itches, fibrillates beneath skin, and she must continue. “Jesse! Jesse!”
Another hit, right on her ankle. She falls yet her anger does not. Polaris looks out into the lights on the horizon: someone is out, out there, just waiting. Her north star.
Trench comes closer. Jesse howls, frees herself out of the fear: becomes whole.
A figure of brightness and teeth and a thousand eyes of fractal shapes hovers before Zachariah. It resembles a mirror. A kaleidoscope, a biblical figure, or both or neither. Something he has been trying to maintain under his control for so long. Something unknown the scientists at Research are still carefully fiddling to understand its origin. It—she—whatever it now is—frightens the darkness that surrounds, flutters the dirt they stand on, and blows softly against his face. Its harm is not immediate—instead it's a heat that’d burn if he stepped one inch closer.
Above everything, it is beautiful; and so it is a demand to cease.
“Jesse—” He whispers hoarsely. “Is it still you?”
A swift motion—a pulse around him. A threat; it speaks.
“YOU KNOW WHO I AM. YOU HAVE BEEN HERE FOREVER. I HAVE NOT. LEAVE ME ALONE.”
The warmth gnaws at something deeper within himself, and he claims in a throaty growl: “I won’t.”
Brightness increases, encases the source and twists outwards in a gust of icy-hot pressure.
The source is burnt. Brightness vanishes. Jesse leaves wounded, but freed.
Her north star awaits.