"What are you crying about? That guy was obviously a loser, and you know it." Lex's mother, Marie Lucian Deitas, was laughing as if Lex had said something funny.
"Mom, he worked for the government, he..."
"Exactly, e, e.." Marie took a breath, "Even Kaeron says he's a loser," she got in close and whispered, "You do know Kaerons a wanted man, Lex."
"Who? Kaeron or all the men you dated when we we're kids."
"That was before I. I. Got off... you know." Marie said, trying to use her sickness to garner sympathy from Lex. It had become their normal whenever they talked. Lex would try to call her mother out about all the shit she put her and Kaeron through as kids, and Marie would guilt her into changing the subject by using her sickness.
It worked. "Abraham was scared shitless when you pulled that knife on him." She laughed weakly.
"Yeah, la slurg."
"Mom?"
Lex stared at her mom, who had begun looking at a spot on the floor intensely, and saliva started dripping down her mouth in little globs.
"Mom!?"
Her mom spasmed, and then she snapped back to attention, "Yeah, he almost piss.. pissed him.. self!" She laughed as if nothing had happened.
Lex tried to laugh it off, but her body must not have heard the command because she just looked at her mom, and to her surprise, she felt angry. She had known that the effects of all the drugs her mom took would eventually start getting to her, but doing it now, when she had decided to be a mom again. When she was clean again. It felt as if her mom was trying to hurt her, to ruin her, one final time, and Lex just wanted to scream, and scream, and scream, until she didn't feel like this anymore.
"Lex? Oh, do you remember when I gave you that nickname? Now that was a day."
Lex plastered a smile to her face. "Kaeron was the first person to start calling me Lex."
"No, no, remember, me and Jessica, you remember my friend Jess. Jessica. Sh. Was the one who stole. Stole..." She trailed off.
"Mom!"
"What Lex? Oh, do you remember when I gave you that nickname?"
Lex forced her face to stay neutral. "Yes, mom, I remember."
"That was a day." Her mom laughed.
Lex wanted to vomit.
"Why... Why couldn't you just be happy with us!? Why weren't we ever good enough!? Mom!? Did I do something wrong!? Did Kaeron!? You know he doesn't mean to! He just has a tough time fitting in... Mom?"
Her mom was gone, and with her went the shady apartment she was living in, and the smell of awfully made soup and cigarette smoke. Everything was stripped away, leaving nothing behind...
She was falling!
"Why are you trying to save me?" A familiar voice echoed in the black.
Lex tried to scream but no sound came out.
"Lex, why are you trying to save me!?" The voice spoke again.
Why did it sound so familiar...
"Lex!"
Her eyes fluttered open and she was met with a black figure looking down at her.
"Mom?" Lex asked weakly.
"No... it's Lillian."
Lex blinked rapidly, trying to adjust to the darkness of the area.
"Here let me help." Lillian said.
The room was suddenly filled with a burst of bright light, and Lex had to throw her hands up, close her eyes, and look away so she wouldn't be blinded.
"Sorry about that!"
The light vanished, and Lex put her hands down and looked Lillian's way. She was playing with her hair as if she had done nothing wrong.
"We need to talk." Lex said as the fog on her memory lifted.
"Are you sure?" Lillian asked, refusing to meet her glare.
Lex, however, was not having it and got in Lillian's face. "Yes."
******
Kaeron basically lept down the slope he had run to after taking down his third with a well timed grenade, but it was his last one, so, bittersweet. They were a tight unit and had hardly any gaps, but even with his left arm being useless from the bastard who had caught him by surprise. He had so far been able to circumvent their defenses and slowly chip away at their numbers.
"Come on, Kaeron, you're good, I'll admit that, but without being able to shift.. with that injury, there's no chance you can beat us, you know that, right?"
"So much for friends." Kaeron scoffed. The leader of these bastards was a professional bounty hunter Kaeron knew, who was only known under the alias Dicer. Kaeron had worked with him a few times in the past, and he was one of Kaerons' very few connections for getting Kirion.
Or at least he was. Now, he was trying to hunt Kaeron down like an injured dog, but what Dicer didn't know was for putting his sister in danger, Kaeron would move the world itself to end him and his team of cannon fodder, slowly, and if possible, very very painfully, even if he couldn't shift.
He dropped to the dirt next to a bush and listened to his surroundings. It didn't matter how insignificant the sound; the rush of water from a nearby stream, the slight blow of the wind...
Snap!
He army crawled over to a nearby tree and rose inch by inch until he was able to check around the tree but stay low.
He aimed for the direction he had heard the noise, adjusting a bit for where he knew the guy would go, and fired two shots.
He heard a thud and knew his shots had struck their mark.
"Damn it, Kaeron, always so fucking stubborn. You can't keep this up forever. Thanks to your visit with a certain dwarf, I have 35 million reasons to just waste your time here and wait for my guys to find the girl, and then disappear."
He should've known Einzor wouldn't keep his fucking mouth shut.
"Yeah, but you know if you let me live, I'll wipe you and anyone you've ever loved off the face of the earth." Kaeron said, trying to hide the exhaustion that was creeping in. He had been running around nearly dodging bullets, with a shot arm, for who knows how long, and not even his training could stop him from feeling every grueling moment.
"Not with dear Lexie as a hostage you won't."
Kaeron stopped moving, stopped thinking, stopped breathing.
And then he saw red.
He ran out of his position, charging for the middle of the area he suspected them to be hiding. He was no longer Kaeron Deitas. He was rage, and he no longer wanted to kill these sons of a bitches. Fuck a bullet. He wanted to skin them alive, and nail their fucking corpses to the fucking trees.
A flicker of movement to his left had him adjusting where he was charging, and that's when shit hit the fan.
Bullets whizzed by in all directions like mosquitoes, but it must not have been Kaerons day to meet Death because somehow the shots were off by inches each time, and one even grazed his cheek, but Kaeron was an unstoppable force headed for his target.
A smile twisted his face, and he ducked a bullet, only to pull out his dagger, as his target came into sight, and whatever they saw in Kaerons eyes made them drop their gun.
"What the fuck!" He exclaimed before Kaeron jammed the blade all the way to the hilt, into the man's throat, and he started to choke on his own blood.
With an impressive amount of force, Kaeron dragged it across his throat until he made it around its entirety, and blood sprayed out like a broken school water fountain.
The bullets quieted and something inside Kaeron bubbled to the surface and he laughed.
"Fuck this, he's a freak of fucking nature!" Somebody squeaked.
The sounds of his enemy retreating had Kaeron going feral. Were they crazy? The hunt had begun and there was no stopping until he had killed everybody or they killed him.
"No! Stay in position you idiots..."
Kaeron moved like the wind, Dicer had messed up letting him get a trace on his voice, and Kaeron was going to enjoy ripping him to shreds for it. It would almost make up for losing the runners. Almost.
He darted straight for the tree in front of him, and he and Dicers eyes met, and it was obvious that Dicer was shitting himself. Good.
Bang!
There was a new hole in his shot arm, but Kaeron pushed forwards. They would need more than a sniper if they wanted to stop him, especially one so obvious.
Kaeron shoved his dagger in his mouth, pulled out one of his beretta's, and without looking the fuckers way. Fired a single shot.
He heard the bastard drop from the tree he was perched in and he felt robbed. That was one less person he got to torture.
"Look Kaeron man I was.. I mean, it's just a job you know, no hard feelings, Kaeron, Kaeron! Man! Listen to me! I was just kidding about the Lex thing, Kaeron!
******
"Who or what are you?"
Lillian averted her eyes from Lex's death glare. Lillian had never made Lex this angry before, but she could sense that Lex wanted to trust her, and Lillian would first betray that trust than tell the truth about herself and let everything that happened with Talion happen with them because as selfish as it was. She liked Lex, and she had come to really... tolerate Kaeron, and they were the closest people she had to call friends, and she couldn't bare to see that moment where the way they looked at her changed, and she becomes nothing more than a rare specimen to them.
"Come on Lex, you knew from the beginning that I had secrets."
Lex shook her head. "No, nope, that won't work. You were glowing, but you're supposed to be human... Humans don't glow."
Lillian smiled, hoping Lex couldn't feel how nervous she really was.
"I'm better than I thought if I can fool a Deitas."
"What are you talking about?"
"I mean, I knew I was good, but I didn't think I could..."
"Earth to Lillian, what are you talking about?"
"It was a parlor trick, my young detective."
"First of all, if you ever call me a young detective again, I'll tell Kaeron that he can start calling you Small Feet again..."
"Point taken."
"... and what do you mean? it was a parlor trick." She looked at Lillian with a skeptics stare.
Lillian took a breath to steady her nerves and then spoke. "The glow you saw was really from a flashlight, and I knocked you out using the stun gun that I had hidden up my sleeve."
Lex examined her, disbelief written all across her face, but Lillian was a statue, not allowing even a hint of emotion to show on her face.
"You're lying," Lex rolled her eyes, "You're such a bad liar. You try way too hard. So, what really happened in that forest and don't say nothing because I swear to Vulcan Lily, I will march straight to Kaeron and tell him everything."
"No, I swear, I'm telling you the truth." Lillian said, pulling out a flashlight and a stun gun. "See."
The anger on Lex's face subsided for a moment but it quickly returned. "I don't believe you. For all I know, you could just conveniently have those two things, or maybe you fricken, I don't know... teleported, or something."
Lillian burst out laughing, and it wasn't an act. She couldn't help but imagine herself teleporting around like some kind of superhero. Maybe then she wouldn't have needed saving from Talion.
"It's. Not. Funny." Lex seethed.
"No, you're right, I'm sorry, but Lex. Don't you think if I had abilities, especially an ability that actually allows for its user, to move from one place to another, that I would'nt have stayed caged to that monster for so long, or at all?"
Lex lowered her head. "Ok, so you didn't teleport, but... come on, Lily, I'm going crazy over here. What could be so bad that you can't tell me? I thought we were friends."
Stop asking, stop asking, stop asking!
"Lex! Drop it. I don't want to talk about it. Ever, okay."
She flinched. "Fine. Whatever."
"Ladies."
Lillian's head shot towards the opening of the hollowed out tree they were staying in, and there in the entrance stood a short buff man in military camo green clothing from his head to his toes.
He aimed his pistol at Lex. "Don't do anything dumb or I'll have to do something... unpleasant to your friend over there."
Lillian's body locked.
She had no choice, even with a gods damn stun gun in her hand she still couldn't do anything! That soul crushing feeling of uselessness that she had been becoming close friends with as of late snaked up her spine.
The sick sound of bone being sliced through like butter echoed in her head.
The man's head went flying until it hit the wall and rolled in front of her.
"Good job, Lamb. Next time. However. Maybe stop making out with my sister long enough to make sure that the area is safe." Kaeron said, emerging from the shadows, and something about it reminded her of the first time they met, but this time, he was already covered in blood.
A sickening thought almost knocked her to her knees.
If Kaeron ever figured out what she was, he might not enslave her, nor even leave her... he might kill her.