08-20-2018, 12:55 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-21-2018, 06:20 PM by Natalie Grey.)
The silence was like a sudden vacuum.
Her artifice of confidence eroded a little in that moment, her heart shuddering loud enough to make her dizzy. The door had closed, but she pressed softly against it anyway, just to make sure. There was no lock, and she didn't want to cause panic if Jay's parents returned and could not get in. Though neither did she want to risk interruption, considering she wasn't entirely sure what she was doing. Only that she had to try.
Cayli had pulled herself up by now. Jay clawed himself back together, sharpening the dishevelled lines from his altercation with his father. She expected a torrent of grief, but it was darkness that consumed his expression. And purpose. It took her a moment to realise what he was doing. How he'd discovered what he was was just another in a long line of topics ignored between them. So far as she knew he'd never been Sick. Not that there ever proved time, in the tumultuous fashion they seemed to permanently lurch in and out of each other's lives, for conversations that might make the road they travelled together a little easier.
But she understood then that he knew what his parents had done. What they had hidden.
"She won't be able to see the mechanics of that. Neither of us can."
It wasn't exactly the way she had planned to tell him, though he'd had all the pieces for a long time now. Explosive force swept men aside like toys in Netlands, yet she and Ekene had walked out mostly in tact from that epicentre. When Jay's brothers were forced to leave him bleeding in the dust, she'd struggled against the tide to coax a burst of adrenaline enough to haul him to his feet. At least enough to get out of the way. No one ever seemed to wonder why they'd found her on the embassy's front steps rather than tucked away safe with the other refugees, praying for the Legionnaires' timely intervention.
Light, how did he think she got away from Palvo?
She didn't pierce too deep for a reaction. Even now there wasn't time to unravel the knot of everything unspoken. But she wasn't sure she wanted to perceive what he thought of her silence, at least not now.
"If you're going to stay you need to keep quiet," she said softly instead. "Don't be a distraction. To either of us." She might have told him too that she was utterly out of her depth; that a spectator to the struggle burst a terrifying amount of pressure in her head. Everything she'd learnt had been through adversity. Lessons and regrets clung like ghosts; it hadn't exactly been a painless journey. And she was hardly an expert. But sharing the weight of doubt would only cast a heavier burden on them both. The expectation was heavy enough on its own. So she wove the illusion of strength, and hoped that would be enough.
Cayli watched wide-eyed. Hollowed cheeks, dull eyes. The enormity of the task caught in Natalie's throat, the question of whether it was already too late hanging like a pall as she sat on the bed beside her, the mattress creaking under her weight. Proximity revealed just how thin Cayli had become. How weak. Natalie smiled anyway, empty of platitudes that might comfort a dying girl. She had Jay's eyes. "So you must be Cayli. My name's Natalie. I wish we could have met under different circumstances."
Her smile touched morbid; she didn't hide the flash of it. Nor did she think about what to say. A fortress of careful walls protected Natalie's exterior, but when she allowed it the honesty beneath was blunt. Cayli didn't know her; had no reason to trust her beyond the sanction of her brother's company and the calm way she simply took control. So what Natalie offered was raw, unpremeditated. Her voice was low, meant to capture Cayli's whole attention; just enough to pull her that little bit forward and begin to block the rest of the room out.
"I was older than you are when I found out what I could do. I burned my dad's office to the ground, and the house with it. You can keep that secret, right? Because my mother will kill me if she knew it wasn't exactly an accident." A sin spoken so casually they'd never know it hadn't ever passed her lips before. Evidence had burned to cinders in that blaze; she could still remember the sensation of it flowing out of her, the ash choking up her nose, the pounding at the door as it all burned.
"I was in hospital for a while after, so it wasn't immediately obvious I was Sick. But I was lucky. With some help I learned how to stop myself from reaching for the power, and it saved my life."
That method wouldn't work for Cayli, though, because Natalie wasn't even entirely sure how it had worked for her, and there just wasn't time to puzzle out the mystery. Her conversation with Marcus seemed a world away. That small room and its piano; the rich flourish of chords and scribbled notes still little more than exploration in her head. She railed against Brandon for his ignorant eye toward education as a basic foundation. She'd meant to prove him wrong. But she hadn't expected such high stakes to test the theory.
She shifted. Her voice softened, thinking of the cadence of notes that smoothed her grasp of the power until she no longer needed the crutch. The press of ivory keys pushed her into thoughtless calm, the slow build of sound paving the path towards the fall of an embrace. It took trust. But she didn't know how to replicate the feeling for someone else. In her lap her palm opened, a prism of light burst above, shimmering the colours of a rainbow; a physical draw for Cayli's attention, which still snatched every so often to pull comfort from her brother's presence.
Because if she wasn't exactly sure how to fix this, she knew there could be no distraction.
"Do you remember any strange things happening to you, Cayli? It feels like light when you touch it. Like pure joy and peace. I can feel it in you. It's what's making you Sick, but only because you don't know how to touch it safely." The colours striated a simple pattern, like chords. A steady, mesmerizing pulse. " Just listen and watch and let go. We've got all the time you need, and I'll stay until you've got this. It's not a battle to be won with force. You can let yourself drift. Lose your thoughts."
Her voice murmured on, soft, coaxing Cayli to lull. She'd know if it worked.
Her artifice of confidence eroded a little in that moment, her heart shuddering loud enough to make her dizzy. The door had closed, but she pressed softly against it anyway, just to make sure. There was no lock, and she didn't want to cause panic if Jay's parents returned and could not get in. Though neither did she want to risk interruption, considering she wasn't entirely sure what she was doing. Only that she had to try.
Cayli had pulled herself up by now. Jay clawed himself back together, sharpening the dishevelled lines from his altercation with his father. She expected a torrent of grief, but it was darkness that consumed his expression. And purpose. It took her a moment to realise what he was doing. How he'd discovered what he was was just another in a long line of topics ignored between them. So far as she knew he'd never been Sick. Not that there ever proved time, in the tumultuous fashion they seemed to permanently lurch in and out of each other's lives, for conversations that might make the road they travelled together a little easier.
But she understood then that he knew what his parents had done. What they had hidden.
"She won't be able to see the mechanics of that. Neither of us can."
It wasn't exactly the way she had planned to tell him, though he'd had all the pieces for a long time now. Explosive force swept men aside like toys in Netlands, yet she and Ekene had walked out mostly in tact from that epicentre. When Jay's brothers were forced to leave him bleeding in the dust, she'd struggled against the tide to coax a burst of adrenaline enough to haul him to his feet. At least enough to get out of the way. No one ever seemed to wonder why they'd found her on the embassy's front steps rather than tucked away safe with the other refugees, praying for the Legionnaires' timely intervention.
Light, how did he think she got away from Palvo?
She didn't pierce too deep for a reaction. Even now there wasn't time to unravel the knot of everything unspoken. But she wasn't sure she wanted to perceive what he thought of her silence, at least not now.
"If you're going to stay you need to keep quiet," she said softly instead. "Don't be a distraction. To either of us." She might have told him too that she was utterly out of her depth; that a spectator to the struggle burst a terrifying amount of pressure in her head. Everything she'd learnt had been through adversity. Lessons and regrets clung like ghosts; it hadn't exactly been a painless journey. And she was hardly an expert. But sharing the weight of doubt would only cast a heavier burden on them both. The expectation was heavy enough on its own. So she wove the illusion of strength, and hoped that would be enough.
Cayli watched wide-eyed. Hollowed cheeks, dull eyes. The enormity of the task caught in Natalie's throat, the question of whether it was already too late hanging like a pall as she sat on the bed beside her, the mattress creaking under her weight. Proximity revealed just how thin Cayli had become. How weak. Natalie smiled anyway, empty of platitudes that might comfort a dying girl. She had Jay's eyes. "So you must be Cayli. My name's Natalie. I wish we could have met under different circumstances."
Her smile touched morbid; she didn't hide the flash of it. Nor did she think about what to say. A fortress of careful walls protected Natalie's exterior, but when she allowed it the honesty beneath was blunt. Cayli didn't know her; had no reason to trust her beyond the sanction of her brother's company and the calm way she simply took control. So what Natalie offered was raw, unpremeditated. Her voice was low, meant to capture Cayli's whole attention; just enough to pull her that little bit forward and begin to block the rest of the room out.
"I was older than you are when I found out what I could do. I burned my dad's office to the ground, and the house with it. You can keep that secret, right? Because my mother will kill me if she knew it wasn't exactly an accident." A sin spoken so casually they'd never know it hadn't ever passed her lips before. Evidence had burned to cinders in that blaze; she could still remember the sensation of it flowing out of her, the ash choking up her nose, the pounding at the door as it all burned.
"I was in hospital for a while after, so it wasn't immediately obvious I was Sick. But I was lucky. With some help I learned how to stop myself from reaching for the power, and it saved my life."
That method wouldn't work for Cayli, though, because Natalie wasn't even entirely sure how it had worked for her, and there just wasn't time to puzzle out the mystery. Her conversation with Marcus seemed a world away. That small room and its piano; the rich flourish of chords and scribbled notes still little more than exploration in her head. She railed against Brandon for his ignorant eye toward education as a basic foundation. She'd meant to prove him wrong. But she hadn't expected such high stakes to test the theory.
She shifted. Her voice softened, thinking of the cadence of notes that smoothed her grasp of the power until she no longer needed the crutch. The press of ivory keys pushed her into thoughtless calm, the slow build of sound paving the path towards the fall of an embrace. It took trust. But she didn't know how to replicate the feeling for someone else. In her lap her palm opened, a prism of light burst above, shimmering the colours of a rainbow; a physical draw for Cayli's attention, which still snatched every so often to pull comfort from her brother's presence.
Because if she wasn't exactly sure how to fix this, she knew there could be no distraction.
"Do you remember any strange things happening to you, Cayli? It feels like light when you touch it. Like pure joy and peace. I can feel it in you. It's what's making you Sick, but only because you don't know how to touch it safely." The colours striated a simple pattern, like chords. A steady, mesmerizing pulse. " Just listen and watch and let go. We've got all the time you need, and I'll stay until you've got this. It's not a battle to be won with force. You can let yourself drift. Lose your thoughts."
Her voice murmured on, soft, coaxing Cayli to lull. She'd know if it worked.