Arc 4 | Chapter 119: Yet Another Kidnapping

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about the situation was Emilia

knew

Boundary was going to tell her more, if only she’d been able to stick around long enough for them to talk again.

⸂

We can only be away so long,

⸃ he had said, when they parted earlier that day. ⸂

I will find another opportunity for us to speak soon.

⸃

After the Risen Guard had more or less confirmed that the power bestowed on them by the heartcores caused—usually slow—psychological damage, this being the primary reason most of the heartcores were now locked down, he had asked her a few questions about her own experiences. Apparently, he had been tasked with getting information out of her, and as long as she answered some of his questions, he would be allowed to take her out again.

When she had asked why they weren’t talking in an interrogation room, he had told her the higher ups didn’t want the wrong person overhearing her answers.

⸂

There are spies in our organization, as I’m sure you are aware.

⸃

Unsurprisingly, the Stringer family’s spy status was toast, and Emilia had been more than happy to supply some basic information about them—it's not like any of it was going to be of use to the Risen Guard. The Stringer Matriarch was a bitch. Key was nice, if also a pushover, but seemed to actually want to help the world. Sk’lar was a sadist, as far as she could tell. Harmony had a problem controlling her temper. Rin was conflicted about the Risen Guard, after learning about its corruption.

And corruption it was. The things Key had said about women being killed by the Risen Guard for miscarriages or bleeding outside of their cycle? Another result of overseer corruption. Boundary had been irate to learn of these rumours and had promised to pass them along to the people who were supposed to be searching out corrupt overseers and Risen Guards. Emilia almost felt bad for them because Boundary—even in his normal, not magically created split personality—could definitely be terrifying. Almost.

Other than some basic information about the Stringers and the few other Enclave members and visitors she’d run into, there wasn’t much Emilia could give the man. It was at least enough that he’d been sure he could relay it to his superiors with promises that he knew she was holding information back and with a little pushing he could get it.

Mostly, the only information she was holding back was information about Zach and how much she’d been fucking with her core. Given Boundary had fought her stalker, another visitor capable of using his core, she had assumed the Risen Guard would have known at least some visitors were capable of using their cores. She wasn’t certain of this, however, and she was never given a chance to ask.

“Want to get out of here, little irregular?”

Emilia slid in front of Astra as she turned, glad that the nameless boy had become oddly attached to Boundary and wasn’t here. Somehow, the little boy had convinced the quiet Risen Guard to hang out with him a little longer. She wasn’t sure where they’d gone, but Boundary had assured her the boy would be back for his bedtime.

Well, their haphazardly created bedtime routine was about to be fucked by her getting kidnapped. Again. Technically, her time inside the raid was just a long stream of kidnappings, most had just been less cut and dry kidnappings than what was definitely about to happen. The labyrinths, for instance, had trapped her inside. That was a kidnapping, of a sort, definitely.

This, having no weapons while her stalker blinked lazily at her from the doorway, seemed like it was going to be a plain old kidnapping, unfortunately.

“Hello,” she replied, wishing the Risen Guard had left her with something to defend herself with. They hadn’t, a grumpy old lady stripping her of all her armour and weapons. “Didn’t expect to see you here. How’d you get in?”

“Th’Risen Guard are less observant than they like t’think,” the man replied. “It wasn’t even that hard gettin’ in here. Doubt it’ll be much harder gettin’ out.”

“The Risen Guard can hear.”

“So?”

“So, if you try to take me, I’ll scream.” Emilia wasn’t positive anyone would hear her, only a few Risen Guard wandering the area. As much as they often turned their ears on her when she was with people she could actually talk to, they tended to ignore her when she was alone or with the younger kids. Chances were she could scream and no one would come.

The man’s head cocked, deep purple eyes she hadn’t been able to make out the last time they’d met, several nights earlier, catching in the light. He was such an odd-looking man, with his odd eyes, too big mouth and sharp, dark features. He was too tall, too thin, the fingers once again fiddling with his blade too long and bony. The look wasn’t exactly unattractive, more unnatural. The type of body that got swiped up for ad campaigns because strange bodies attracted more attention.

“I woulda thought you’d want t’get out of here,” he mused, not exactly asking. “Perhaps I was mistaken.”

“I—” Emilia cut off, unsure of what to say to that. She didn’t

want

to be here, not really. Regardless of how

done

she was with this raid, V was still potentially out there, in need of help—not to mention the entire city system needed a harbinger and her own world needed… something. They probably just needed her to refer this whole knotter fiasco to the proper authorities. They could handle whatever was happening on Ship o’ Stars… maybe.

This world—her friend—needed her to at least try to help, however, and she couldn’t do that while she was here.

The man patiently waited for her to churn her thoughts, playing with all her information and facts and how likely a chance to escape would come again. Realistically, this was probably her only chance to leave, even if it seemed too soon—even if she would have loved to say goodbye to all the kids, but especially the ones who had helped so much, before he vanished forever.

That didn’t change the fact that this man was untrustworthy. As much as he had implied he wasn’t fully aligned with how his family did things—had laughed and cheered when he found out his brother was dead—he had still hurt her, still chased her, Astra and Stephy through the streets before fighting Boundary.

“You owe the girls an apology.”

A light-brown eyebrow raised, a few shades darker than the brown of his hair, many shades lighter than his deep brown skin. “Which girls?”

“This one,” Emilia said, tilting her head behind her, where Astra was busy being the chill child she naturally was, continuing to eat her food and barely glancing at the adults, “and the other one. If you remember, her legs are broken. We can go to the infirmary.”

The man looked incredulous. “You want us to waste time—to risk getting caught—so I can go apologize t’that girl? And don’t try an’ tell me I broke ‘er legs or anything like that. I know they were already broken when I stepped in front of you.”

“Oh~ so you chased us even knowing the girl was seriously injured and the jostling would hurt her?”

“I didn’t chase you, you ran an’ I followed. An interview for a runnin’ partner, I believe you said.”

“Oh yeah, cause I was just going to wait there and assume you had good intentions?”

“Who says I didn’t?”

“Then what were they?”

The man glared at her, eyes filled with annoyance and a healthy dose of amusement at their arguing. It was a good thing his body was thoroughly disconcerting to look at. Emilia had already slept with one visitor, she didn’t need to keep adding to that list—not that she found herself with any desire to seek anyone else out.

Mostly, she just wanted to find V.

“I was a medic in the war. I thought maybe I could help the girl,” her stalker said, sounding almost… sincere. Probably. That or he was an excellent actor, but everything the man had previously said to her had seemed sincere as well, which was… strange.

The man was strange.

Emilia shifted her weight uneasily. “Why didn’t you just tell me that? Or help her when we stopped? I seem to remember you just chatting with me, while the girls tried to crawl away.”

His eyes shifted away, towards the bed she and the children shared. Someone had been kind enough to send over some of the fluffiest blankets she’d ever had the pleasure of sleeping under—a feat, considering she’d spent a significant portion of her life collecting blankets for making nests and forts. She suspected they’d been sent by Boundary, but had forgotten to ask about it.

Now, she supposed she may never get the chance, unless he tracked her down again—assuming her stalker didn’t just off her the moment he got them out of here.

“I got caught up in the moment,” he replied. He didn’t blush or look particularly embarrassed at having gotten

caught up

in chasing her and scaring the shit out of a couple of kids, but neither did he look proud of the fact. More… accepting, like it was something he couldn’t control. Another note in Emilia’s list of why the man was strange.

“Skills and magic in this world are different. How in the world could you help her?” Emilia asked, although she already knew the answer. Medics were trained for emergencies, and those emergencies included situations where using skills might not be possible. Plus, given the control the man had of his core, it was possible he may know how to leverage it for treatment as well.

The man answered as such, passing Emilia’s little test. As far as tests went, it wasn’t particularly impressive—ever solider knew these things about medics, after all—but at least he hadn’t fumbled and proven himself a liar.

“Why are you here? Like, I want to get out of here, but you’re basically stalking me at the moment.”

Her stalker didn’t look at her as he told her that he couldn’t stop thinking about her. “I told you,” he said, cutting off her remarks about how

that

wasn’t exactly encouraging her to go along with him, “you remind me of m’brother. If he were you, I would want t’burn the world down, gettin’im out.”

“Want to?”

A wry smile pulled at the man’s lips, and he finally looked at her again, deep purple eyes bright in the light filling the world. “He wouldn't believe ‘is life worth the collateral damage, even in the real world, let alone in one where he couldn’t really die.”

“Low self-esteem?”

The man snorted, pushing himself away from the door frame to step inside, the door sliding shut behind him. A moment later, the sound of children chatting slid through the aether, obscured by the door and walls, but kids will be kids, and kids are loud.

“No. M’brother just dogmatic in what he believes is right and what is not. If someone deserves to die, he’ll kill ‘em and feel no remorse. If they do not, well…” A humourless laugh escaped the man. “My brother does not believe in collateral damage, unless it is for a good reason.”

“This—randomly breaking him or me out of here—would not be a good reason,” Emilia noted. “Does that mean you'll treat our escape like that? Like we’ll die before harming the kids and anyone else who doesn’t deserve to be hurt?”

“Yes.” The answer came faster than Emilia might have expected. The man was clearly earnest in his dedication to following this brother’s philosophy, even if he didn’t completely agree with it.

His behaviour reminded her of members of The Black Knot, in a way. The organization had rules its members followed, no matter what. Their superiors could override those rules, but that was rare. Those rules were in place to keep civilians safe—to keep the people within its organization from losing control and letting their lack of empathy drive them to do terrible things.

Not that this man seemed to have a black knot, something similar, perhaps. Not a standard black knot, for sure.

“We should go,” the man said, cutting off the million more questions Emilia had about him—about his family. Why was he in this raid with his family when clearly they had different values? If his brother was so serious about his ethics, why was he allowing his family to run wild? Was he going to take her to his family?

Actually, that last question was too important to ignore, and as Emilia dumped the few belongings the Risen Guard had left her with—mostly her stolen clothing—and the items Astra had had on her into a bag, she had to ask.

“No. I used my other brother’s death as an excuse t’leave them. The Enclave they joined may be able t’call me back t’them, as they did when I was fighting you and your Risen Guard, but they will not be able t’take you.”

Emilia glanced over, intending to ask how that worked, but the man had already pulled up his shirt. Across his hip, a complicated looking array had been burned into him.

“Something to call him back with,”

she supposed, stuffing a few more items, including some snacks she’d conned Lanaira into leaving with her, into the bag and grabbing Astra, who seemed content to be dragged along wherever they were going—not that Emilia would be able to stop her from coming, even if she tried leaving the girl behind.

“Alright. Infirmary?”