Alliance in Blood

My mystery man was hurting.

He kneeled on his sand dune alone, facing the dawn. He was bent forward, hands fisted into the sand. His grip was so absolute that not a grain slipped through his fingers. Even through his slightly baggy clothing I could see how his body shook with repressed emotions. My attempt to follow the range of them gave me a headache. His sobs were the worst. He was obviously trying to hold them in, but the harder he tried the more heart-wrenching the sound. It really did make me lose my breath.

As I walked around him, I wanted nothing more than to push him behind me and fight against whatever was hurting him. For some inexplicable reason I wanted to protect him. At the same time, he was coiled so tightly that I felt any touch would make him fly away at the seams. He was so fragile right now, and to see such a strong creature reduced to such a state was something else heart-wrenching. After several painful sobs I wanted to leave him to spare my own feelings, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. So I stayed, and we made our own wells of suffering.

As the sun rose higher the air seemed to become more tense. Two emotions seemed to be emerging the strongest in him: grief and rage. I no longer paced around him but sat a few feet from him, knees up to my chest and my arms wrapped around my knees. I watched with wariness as those two emotions fought for dominance, his body shaking harder as his feelings reached their crescendo. In the end, the figure in desert garb threw his head back and screamed his grief to the sky. The power of his pain became physical. The sand exploded out from underneath him and was thrown into the sky. I felt my mental form be blown away by the shockwave… and shot upright as I woke in the back of the minivan, sweating and gasping.

I stared at my wet reflection in the window as I got my breathing under control. I was able to do so in peace as everyone else seemed to be asleep. Howard was snoring in the backseat, half on the seat and half off. Hilde was curled up in the passenger seat, her head resting against the window, and our Coma Guy was still in his coma, slowly being strangled by his seatbelt since all of the action had him sliding down in the seat.

I turned at last to Trollé, where her golden eyes caught mine in the rearview mirror. We stared at each other for a few seconds before she focused back on the road. “A vision?” she asked, even though it was obvious by her tone that she knew it was anything but.

I exhaled slow and long. Quietly, I said, “In a manner of speaking.” It wasn’t the complete truth, but it wasn’t a total lie either.

She hummed in affirmation. “But you did not ‘see’ your home being destroyed.”

I ran my hand over my face. I felt like a big pile of dog shit, so much so that it took me a second to catch that she was subtlety testing me. It was obvious I just had a vision… of a sorts, but I didn’t have one of the Hunters. “No.” My voice was garbled because of my hand. “No,” I said again, clearer. “I did not ‘see’ my home being destroyed.” I sighed. I was so tired of explaining this. If I thought it would do any good, I would tattoo what I said next on my forehead. “I do not see the future.” I rested my head against the window and closed my eyes.

“Then what do you see?”

I almost laughed. It would’ve been bitter, and hollow, and possibly insane sounding, but I kept it in. I ended up frowning instead. “Things that I’d rather not witness.”

She hummed again. “I know that you are not human.” I opened my eyes and met hers in the rearview mirror. “Trolls are from the Earth. Did you know that?” I didn’t know where she was going with this. Curious, I shook my head no. “We are. Just like gnomes, goblins, dwarves and many others. All races of the Earth are one with Her.” She sighed heavily. “We feel Her in our bones… we taste Her on our tongues… Her voice caresses our ears,” she whispered, eyes going nearly vacant before focusing on me again. Her gaze was so intense her eyes glowed. “I felt you, Primus.” She raised a hand, and trailed her long, thin green fingers across her lips. “I tasted you.” Her tongue swept out, catching on a fingertip before slipping back into her mouth. “I smelt you.” She was silent for a moment. “Quinze was right. You are divine.”

I stared at her, bewildered. I had no idea what the hell was going on.

“You are no physic. I have been around psychics. They lack flavor, where you nearly choked me with yours. They are textureless. You are full of swirls and spirals.”

I was so tired, and so… well… confused, that I didn’t react.

“What are you?”

I was floored. Trollé has always, always treated me with uninhibited disgust. I was sure she treated the snot on Quinze’s shoe better than she treated me. Seeing this side of her where she was almost… lusty… frightened me more than when she held a shotgun to my head. “Trollé?” I could feel myself tensing for something. Something not good for me. I sat up, planted both of my feet on the floor with one hand gripping the back of the seat while the other rested against the seat in front of me. Every muscle was tensed in preparation to kick, bite, jump through a window, whatever. “What’s going on?”

“Hmm?” She seemed almost high.

“You hate me.”

“Yes.”

“Then why are you being like,” I grimaced, thoughts of a turned-on Trollé making me nauseous, “this?”

“Because of the taste of your power.”

“What?” I wanted to rip my hair out. If having ‘visions’ caused this kind of reaction in trolls, I better not ever let Wufei find out. Hell, I might lock myself up in his antechamber. The last thing I needed was to be sexually assaulted as I walked down the street by some random supernatural critter just because I saw someone thinking about what they were having for lunch. “I don’t understand what you mean. I don’t-I-I’m not like Quinze, okay, or like Wufei or the Queen of England for that matter.” I sighed as I ran my hand through my bangs in exasperation. “I have no power.”

“You lie!” she snarled, startling Hilde awake. Howard shot awake as well, mind emitting static as he was confused and half asleep.

Trollé wasn’t even trying to watch the road now. She twisted around in her seat to glare at me, being the bitchful, hateful Trollé that I have come to know. Hilde swore and dove for the steering wheel. The van wove erratically as she tried to drive from the passenger seat. Considering that Hilde drove worse than this behind the wheel, neither Howard or I were phased. The other occupants didn’t seem to be troubled either. Trollé was too pissed at me to notice and Coma Guy just swung with the turns.

“Why do you deny what you are? Do you have any idea of what you could do?” Her rage pounded against my shields, giving me a headache. “Do you know how many would follow you? How many would willingly be your slave? Thousands! Thousands, for the chance to be near you.” Then something happened. I didn’t know what expression was on my face, but Trollé went from being irate at me to confused to unpleasantly surprised. “You do not know.” The van started to slow down. Trollé had taken her foot off of the gas.

I sat back, nervous. I had no idea what was going on. “Uh, Trollé?”

“That rat-piss drinking son of a yeti.” Despite her words there wasn’t any venom in her voice. “No wonder he has made you his Untouchable. He wants to keep you ignorant.” She turned back around, shooed Hilde back to her seat and took over driving once again.

I didn’t understand. “Trollé?” She didn’t answer. “Ignorant of what?” No point in asking ‘who.’

“Ignorant of what you can do.”

I didn’t want to, but I had to chance it. “Trollé, do you know what I can do?” I felt Howard tense. I could read from his body language that if she knew, she was going to die. Howard would shoot her without hesitation, and I was going to have to let him.

“No,” she answered immediately. I let out a shaky breath in relief. “But I can tell that you are special, and loved dearly by Her.”

“Who the hell’s ‘Her?’ ” Howard asked.

I raised my hand to silence him. “But why keep me ignorant? Wouldn’t knowing what all I could do help the Shenlong?”

“Yes,” she said curtly. “But if you knew what you could do, would you need the Shenlong?”

I sat back into the seat with a gasp. It felt like I had been punched in the gut. This thought never, ever occurred to me. I tried not to feel betrayed. After all, this was Trollé and I knew not to trust her entirely. However, what did she have to gain by telling me this? Did she intend to cause trouble between me and Wufei? Romantic strife? Shit, Wufei and I did that well enough on our own without outside help. Despite the Pack’s silence on the matter, my issue with him being gone so often was no secret. What else could she be after? Did she want me to be a pain in Wufei’s ass because of the way he treated Quinze? That couldn’t be it, because for one, Trollé already won the gold in that, and two, I could give a shit how he treated Quinze. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve wanted to kick the vampire in the face. I certainly couldn’t get after Wufei for actually doing it. No, Trollé was telling me the truth of how she actually saw things, and that planted a seed of doubt that I didn’t know how to uproot.

Wufei has always withheld things from me. I’ve known that from the start. However, I never thought that Wufei could be withholding things about me from me. That was something else altogether. Could he, though? Could he really know more than what he was letting on? He has always surprised me with what he knew about clairvoyants, but I’ve always attributed that to his age and experience. After all, being a couple of hundred years old gave one plenty of time to go around the block, multiple times, backwards and occasionally in high heels. However, there were older beings that I felt wouldn’t know a clairvoyant if one spat in their faces, and the one individual who did know seemed more interested in becoming lovers than actually making use of my ability. What was making Wufei so knowledgeable but possessive?

I glanced down at the book bag at my feet, my fingers itching to open the stolen Book of Skin. Shit. Maybe I needed to spend less time screwing around with the Creature Catalog…

“The hell?” I heard Howard snap.

I glanced up and my eyebrows rose to my hairline. They then rose to sit on top of my head when Trollé put the van in park. I turned to her, not wanting to ask but having to. “Trollé, why are we in a cemetery?”

She gave me a bored look. “We need body doubles for your sister and uncle.”

Silence.

No. She couldn’t mean what I thought she meant. “And we’re here because…”

“…we need body doubles for your sister and uncle.” Without another word Trollé opened her door and hopped out. We followed the sounds of her footsteps as she walked to the back of the van. Opening the trunk door, I saw out of the corner of my eye that she took out a shovel. Closing my eyes, I let my face fall into my hands as I thought about how much I hated my life right then. Not bothering to close the trunk, we listened as Trollé walked a few meters away before she found what I assumed to be a ‘suitable’ body. How the hell she knew, I didn’t know. Nor did I want to.

Wrapping my arms around myself, I tried not to grimace every time I heard the shovel dive into the wet soil. Hilde held herself as well, but she was so horrified that she was literally trying not to scream. Howard had seen and experienced much in his life, and so felt more resigned to this than anything. Slipping a cigarette between his lips, he lit it and slowly smoked as we waited for Trollé to finish digging up corpses.

***

It turned out Trollé didn’t have a special way to tell if the body was suitable. She just did the easiest thing, which was dig up the most recently buried. So, our first dug-upper was a Chinese gentlemen roughly three hundred and sixty five years old that maybe weighed ninety pounds. He had a thick head of gray hair and wore a beautiful red silk kung fu outfit. (I hoped he was kicking much ass in the afterlife.) Our second dug-upper was a gentlemen that was more on the half a ton to ton side, white, fiftyish, with his left leg amputated below the knee. He had on a spiffy maroon suit, a yellow bow tie with red polka dots, and a flask was in his breast pocket. Even in death, he seemed like a lot of fun.

Problem was, neither man had any resemblance whatsoever to Howard or my sister. (In Hilde’s case, each had appendages the other didn’t.) Trollé didn’t seem to be concerned with this however. I wanted to be concerned about her lack of concern, except my brain melted about half an hour ago and I was beyond giving a shit about anything. All I wanted right then was to be left alone.

Thankfully, the wind was cool and refreshing against my face. The rain had stopped but the air still had that moist feeling. I tightened my grip around Hilde, just to make sure she felt secure in my hold. When our… deceased friends joined us, my twin refused to remain in the van. In an effort to placate my sister, Trollé squished the bodies into the barely-there trunk in order to make Hilde more comfortable. What Trollé didn’t understand was that my sister was uncomfortable even when the bodies were buried, but it was a nice gesture all the same. So, Hilde sat in the window of the door, fingers gripped tightly around the rails on the roof with her legs hooked around the armrest of my seat. I sat in the passenger seat, both arms wrapped around her waist with my head resting on her stomach. Howard sat in the seat I had, legs draped over Coma Guy’s lap and nursing the worse migraine he has ever had in his life. He was seriously contemplating shooting all of us just to get some relief. I kept a close ‘eye’ on him in case he decided to go for it. If push came to shove, I thought I could get Hilde and I out through the window before he could let off a proper shot. Maybe.

Trollé carefully started to slow down in a nondescript section of road, making a left into a large field. I held on as tightly as I could to Hilde while bracing my foot against the dashboard.

“Duo…” Hilde said, alarmed, as the van rocked from side to side.

“It’s alright Hil, I gotcha,” I murmured, my right arm moving from around her waist to her upper back. “I promise, I won’t let go.”

“Okay… okay…” she whispered to herself until the van slowed to a complete stop. “Okay.”

The area we stopped in was very pretty with grassy weeds several feet high and a few scattered trees here and there. We were a good half mile from the main road, completely unnoticeable unless you were purposely looking for something to be hiding in the grasses. However, I felt that if we were to hide here, we would certainly be found.

The emergency brake clicked loudly as Trollé pulled it up. “Everybody out. Bags too.”

Tired and not in the mood to argue, we all grabbed our shit and got out. I took Trollé’s duffle bag when she held it out to me. Standing several meters away, we all watched in confusion as Trollé got out of the minivan but left it running. She dragged the bodies out of the trunk and sat them in the seats as if they were riding along; the Kung Fu Warrior was placed in the passenger seat while Party-Man was thrown into the middle seat. We all scratched our heads when Coma Guy was put in the driver’s seat. Grabbing her shotgun, Trollé walked a good two meters from the back of the van. Then she about-faced, jumped in the air and fired.

Hilde and I both screamed and clapped our hands over our mouths as we saw Coma Guy’s head explode. Howard jumped and swore like a sailor. Too horrified to run, we held onto each other and watched wide-eyed as Trollé calmly walked back to the van and sat in Coma-Now-Headless Guy’s lap. The van started spewing dirt and grass as Trollé mashed the gas pedal to the floor, the emergency brake holding the vehicle in place. When it was revved up as much as it could be, she released the brake. We watched in horror again as the van shot forward several yards before crashing into a tree. Trollé’s body was a green torpedo as she was immediately ejected through the windshield, Coma-Now-Headless Guy (Headless for short) ejected right behind her.

The three of us remained as we were, too frightened and unsure to move. The front of the van was crushed, and the remaining bodies inside were flung forward from its inertia. The engine still ran, surprisingly, as if there wasn’t anything wrong. The tires didn’t spin though. The accident looked awful but it appeared survivable… so long as you weren’t ejected from the van. Confused, I tried to reason out what Trollé thought all of this would accomplish.

There was brief silence before I noted the whine of the engine, as well as a thin trail of smoke rising from the crushed hood. There was some very loud rustling before Trollé popped into view. She was walking around the tree, brushing off shards of glass and speaking rapid-fire French. By the way she was biting out her words I could only assume she was swearing like there was no tomorrow. Still too horrified to do anything else, we stood there stupidly as Trollé walked over to where she dropped her shotgun. Two shorts jumps later found Kung Fu and Party shot as well. The troll then made her way over to us. Grabbing her bag from me, she unzipped it and started rummaging around until she pulled out a bottle of MD 20/20 and a long handkerchief.

Wow. Seeing that bottle sure brought back some memories. A smile lit my face as I remembered Hilde and I drinking that as teenagers. Anyone could imagine the headaches we gave Howard. Glancing over to Howard and Hilde, I saw a smile on my twin’s face as Howard chuckled. I could tell they were thinking the same thing. I faced forward and barely glimpsed the foot of Coma Guy. Thankfully, the shadows created from the headlights hid the remainder of his body. My humor instantly died.

“You will walk from here,” she told us bluntly as she started stuffing the handkerchief in the bottle. “Five miles west, there is an abandoned metal house a mile in from the road. You won’t miss it. Stay there until I or someone from the Shenlong gets you. If anyone arrives that you do not know, kill them.” Then she did something that I thought was… kind of cool. Snapping her fingers together caused a spark between her fingernails, and she lit the cocktail. In the next instant she threw it at the minivan. The bottle broke on the side, where a fire started licking along the passenger door. It wasn’t anything major now but we knew that would change in less than five minutes.

Grabbing my hand she shoved the shotgun in it. Running to the van, she stopped about two feet away and turned to face us. “Shoot me.”

I jerked back in shock. “What?”

“Shoot me! Now!” She stomped her foot in frustration. “In the chest. Take my duffel. Then run!”

Not knowing what else to do and seeing the fire really gettin’ going, I quickly aimed and fired. My shot was sloppy. I hit Trollé on the right side of her upper chest, below her clavicle. The momentum swung her around and she landed face down.

I jumped with a gasp, half in pain and half as if surprised that she was shot. Hilde jumped with a shout. Howard cussed a blue streak that I was sure would appall even the devil. Wow. How the hell did his lips not fall off?

Not thinking twice, I slipped the safety on and swung the strap of the shotgun over my shoulder. I swung it back off when I realized I didn’t want my bookbag over the gun in case I needed to use it. Once I had my bookbag on, the gun went back over my shoulder then immediately back off again. The weight from everything was too much. I was already hurting pretty badly. “Take it Howard.” I shoved the shotgun at him before he was ready for it, turning away from him as he wildly grabbled for it. “Hilde, grab the duffels.” I started to go west as instructed, hands clutched at my side as I panted. The kickback from the shotgun did a number on me, and I had a five mile walk to look forward too.

“Duo!” Hilde snapped, duffel bags in each hand slapping against her legs as she caught up to me. Howard was right behind her with another and the shotgun over his shoulder. “You shot her!”

“She told me to!” I nearly shrieked, aggravated. “Shit on a stick Hil, you heard her!”

“Still-!”

“She’s fine,” I interrupted. I wasn’t sure how. Maybe it was because of my clairvoyance, but I knew that she wasn’t dead. It was strange, the sensation that I felt. She was hurt, sure, but this wasn’t the end of her. She would be back to disapprove of me another day. “We can argue about this later. We gotta go!”

So we left.

***

The walk was very quiet, punctuated only by the sounds of our feet on the gravel. It was completely black out, and to my unpleasant surprise that was something I hadn’t really experienced growing up in Texas. Going through this now, I realized that there was a difference between dark and an absence of light. Dark was where there was a light source somewhere, it was just dim; that light source could be a streetlight, the glow from a computer screen or the stars. We didn’t have that. The further we got from the fire, the less we could see until we could see nothing at all. It was as if we were blind.

Our feet had to do the seeing. We knew we were on the road because we knew how asphalt felt underneath our shoes. When we felt grass, we knew we were straying. Some parts were cracked and that would trip us up, since the three of us were walking one behind the other. We felt squishy things and furry things felt us. Sliding my feet along the ground worked better but took longer. Walking went faster but we kept drifting. I was tired, stressed, and scared. I was worried about my family and wanted them safe.

My thoughts ping-ponged against the inside of my skull and off of each other, giving me the kind of headache that made my teeth ache. This night had been nothing but an absolute nightmare, and in all honesty I was hoping I would wake up. Who the hell dug up bodies? Who fuckin’ did that? The sound, the smell… Christ! I could even taste the dirt in the air! How Howard was able to enjoy a cigarette while corpses were being tossed into the trunk was beyond me. Actually, who fuckin’ did that? My uncle apparently. If that was how he was coping then I shouldn’t complain about him. If there had been beer in the van, I knew I would’ve gone to town.

All I could think about as we wandered down the road was that this shit was my fault. Not because I didn’t realize that the Hunters were about to blow down the door (heaven for-fucking-bid they knocked and sat down for tea). This was my fault because I knew better. Siberia smashed the hell out of my rose-colored glasses, but for some reason I insisted on gluing them back together again. My reality consisted of danger, homicide, and greed. We were all fighting to be at the top of a hierarchy that probably had no real meaning. I should have realized this from the get-go. Even when this shit had started it wasn’t fun and games. Hell, I still had nightmares about finding Harvest’s head on my car, and about Mrs. Darlian’s eye. I could still hear the sound it made when Quatre was being beaten with his own vehicle. I saw the scars on my shoulder and back every time I showered. All of this happened before I even mated with the son of a bitch.

What the fuck was wrong with me?

I wrapped my arms tighter around myself as I asked that question. Did I want to be loved that much? Did I need to be? Was I that goddamn bored? Wasn’t Meizer enough? If I needed adventure, he has it in spades as a cop. My god, he has told me some stories that gave me chills, so that couldn’t be it. What was I after? What was one lacking that the other—

“Shit.”

I felt Howard and Hilde tense up. Something was coming. A couple of somethings. “Quick!” I whispered. Turning left I ran as fast as I could through the field towards the trees. Howard and Hilde were right behind me, no questions asked. Unfortunately, I was at my limit. My foot caught in what I figured was a rabbit hole, and I went down hard. I cried out from the pain, and cried out again when Howard and Hilde each grabbed an arm and pulled me up. Throwing an arm over their shoulders, they moved as fast as they could with me.

We made it to a huge tree. Howard released me in order to aim the shotgun in the distance, searching for whatever I sensed. Hilde laid me down between two large roots and pressed against my back, wrapping her arms around me. I was hurting so bad I couldn’t breath.

“Duo!” Howard whisper-shouted. “How many?”

It took a second but I shook my head. I was too distracted to get the information we needed.

“Shit.” He sighed. “We dropped everything to carry you. We need the ammo—”

Hilde’s head shot up. “I’ll get it.”

“Hilde, no, I don’t want—”

“We’ve got time,” I broke in as the pain died down to more manageable levels. “We have a few minutes. She’ll be fine.”

Howard hesitated another second before nodding his assent. Hilde immediately jumped up and took off towards where they abandoned our supplies. Without me slowing things down, she made it back with everything in under a minute. Handing Howard the duffel bag full of ammo, Hilde stuffed the other bags around me to make some sort of nest. She then went to stand on the opposite side of Howard, pressed against the tree. This way, no one would be able to sneak up on us. My uncle was locked and loaded, but I could tell that he’d rather not have to shoot.

It was four minutes later when I sensed a handful of people where we had been walking. Peeking at their thoughts, I realized that they were Hunters. They were searching for us, but they weren’t expecting to find us. They thought we went towards San Antonio due to the car wreckage. They didn’t buy that we died, but there were curious as to who shot the troll.

“Don’t move,” I told them. “They aren’t expecting to find us. Be still and they will pass us by.”

Sure enough, the Hunters made it past without a flicker of thought in our direction. I waited until I felt that they were a healthy distance away before raising up a bit to look over the tree root. There were three of them, and each Hunter had a flashlight. They were doing a decent job of searching if I was honest, but they really had no reason to check near the trees. I certainly wouldn’t have.

As quietly as I could, I rose up and limped around Hilde’s side of the tree. They didn’t see me. It was too dark, and as long as we were quiet they would have no reason to look back. I had an idea. “Howie, Hil, come on.” Holding onto my side, I slowly edged out from around the tree and followed in the direction of my would-be killers. I could feel my sister and uncle’s shock at my audacity to follow them in the open, but I didn’t see any reason to sneak about. It was dark, and so long as we didn’t make a loud, sudden noise, we would be fine. After collecting our things, Howard and Hilde caught up with me as we continued cautiously to our destination.

***

The Hunters stopped twice; once to look at a track that was a few days old, and another to shriek in horror at stumbling upon a dead possum. (Damn things were ugly enough in life, let alone death). Both times we just stood still and waited patiently for them to continue. Finally, after a night that didn’t seem to want to fuckin’ end, we saw where we were supposed to go.

The metal house was as welcoming as the ninth circle of hell. All I could make out was a yawing blackness that might have been where the doors were supposed to be. The building was large, the size of a two-story house. Actually, it was a steel farmhouse that was probably abandoned. All other detail was swallowed up in the darkness, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.

Without even reading their minds I knew the Hunters were going to check it out. They might not have looked up every tree, but to not search a building that would provide shelter was just plain idiotic. After tugging on their wrists, I lowered myself to my knees before laying down face first in the grass. They followed my lead without a second to spare. As soon as Howard’s chin touched the dirt, one of the Hunters turned around and flashed her light right where we had been standing. Taking another few seconds to scan the area, she turned back around and followed her companions into the farmhouse. With nothing else to do but wait, I closed my eyes and tried to rest. Despite the horrors of the day, my sister and uncle were safe at my side. I let that thought calm me down.

The Hunters didn’t take long. I waited until they were nearly out of sight before I stood and started making my way to the farmhouse. Howard and Hilde slowly followed as well, tired but also sensing that we weren’t in any danger. The walk to the farmhouse took longer than I thought it would, nearly five minutes from the road, but being that close to the finish line seemed to make it harder to reach. I was so tired I was tempted to just lay back down on the ground and let whatever wanted to eat me, eat me. In the end, we made it.

Stepping inside, all we saw, felt and smelt was hay. It was old hay too, exposed repeatedly to the elements. Regardless, it was a layer separating me from the ground so I wasn’t going to complain. Spotting a large pile in a shadowy corner, I hobbled my way over and plopped down on it. The pile was large enough for a horse to comfortably lie on, if horses were to ever lie down. Howard and Hilde stood in the center of the room, looking around. After a moment Hilde plodded over to where I laid and dropped down beside me, tossing the duffel bags against the wall. She curled up against my front, nose to nose like we used to do when we were toddlers. Howard stood a long time after that staring at us, before moving to sit at our heads. He leaned against the wall with his head tilted back and closed his eyes. “How’s the pain?”

I sighed. “Bearable.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“All right.” He sighed this time, laying the shotgun across his lap. The last duffel remained at his side. “Sleep, troublesome child,” he said with a tired smirk. “This ain’t over. Not by a long shot.”

“Okay, uncle.”

Exhaling, I fell asleep.

(tbc)