So yeah, let's start of with some bad news: it turns out I got a crack in my arm (biking accident, long story) so I suck at typing at the moment, which is why this chapter took FOREVER to write! And I still gotta keep the cast on for like, 10 more days so next update is gonna take some time as well :/...
Now for some good news: only this chapter left, then we'll go back to the Africa gang :D! Omfg, I've been DYING to write about them for SOO long!
AND; we've hit the 50th chapter milestone :'D! Therefore I think some 'thank you's are in order: Thank you all SO MUCH for reading this! And an EVEN BIGGER THANK YOU to my wonderful reviewers (V)! You're so AWESOME! And your reviews are literally what keeps me writing (V)! I LOVE YOU ALL and I ain't afraid to admit it :3!
Let's celebrate with another feelsy chapter, eh? Just this chapter left, then we're off to Congo ;P!
*** Chapter Fifty : Brother Against Brother ***
Skye was hanging up-side down from a tree just outside the borders of the vineyard, not too far away from the road. A soft breeze made her sway slightly in the wind, and she shifted her firm grip around the branch. She did what she always was doing: keeping an eye, or ear, out while Marco is taking care of their business. This time, he was in the vineyard basement looking for important papers that could help them in their case. More specifically; the written down orders Kayden Sheridan had given the Jenkins Gang, telling them to sabotage warehouses for various large companies and enterprises.
Though while she was waiting for him to come back, and listened for any eventual disturbances, she couldn't help but to skeptically frown at the reminder that they were working with the Rangos and their team AGAINST their old friends and allies. She really didn't like it. She felt as if she stabbed everyone in the back! If it weren't for Marco, she wouldn't even have been here in this situation in the first place! Him and his stupid cigarettes...
She took a short break from her bitter grudging when someone was moving around outside the basement. After a while, she recognized the moving pattern as that of one of the Whitecoats, and he or she simply scurried past the winecellar. Skye let out a low sigh of relief.
Even if she had regained a lot of her lost hearing under the course of a few days, she still couldn't hear what went on inside the winecellar due to its underground location and thick walls. Therefore, her main mission was to remain outside the cellar and just watch his back, as she always did. After all, it was the reason Kayden had teamed the two up in the first case: Marco might be a prodigy in stealth, but he's reckless and his sense of judging situations and environments was poor, to say the least. While she was, obviously, blind and despite being able to use her other greatly enhanced senses to her advantage and kick ass in emergencies, there wasn't really a lot of things she could do. She could barely walk up and down stairs on her own!
Marco needed someone to watch his back, and she in turn needed someone to be her eyes. Looking back, it was obvious that Kayden would team them up eventually. But wonder if he had actually predicted how close they would get? If it's possible to predict those sort of things that is. At first, she hadn't been overly thrilled to be working with an arrogant and knuckleheaded punk, and he was equally unhappy to hear that he'd have a blind bat tagging along, but neither of them had complained about the other for a while and now this... Even if Kayden hadn't known before, he definitely knew now...
Skye sighed and shook her head. Okay, Marco was probably right for once; Kayden would never have spared either of them if she returned instead of changing sides with Marco.
Suddenly she stiffened when she heard a sound somewhere further down the road. Her ears perked, hoping it was sheriff Rango and the others returning, but soon she heard that there were only two people; one slithering with the familiar sound of scales rustling against dry ground and the rapidly tapping feet of a running roadrunner. That had to be Esperanza and Emilio returning!
She gulped. They couldn't be far away, so she let go of the branch and set a course straight for the vineyard, silently praying that she'd be able to make her way to the secret room on her own. But when three gunshots suddenly went off from the cellar, she stopped in midair as her heart skipped a beat.
"Marco!" She screeched, though she had no idea why. His name just escaped her mouth on its own, and she hurried to dive straight for where she hoped the entrance to the winecellar was.
…
Marco had just been to get the papers hidden behind the tapestry in the secret room. A couple of formal instructions to himself and Skye signed by Kayden Sheridan, on how and when to assassinate mayor Rockwell, should be enough to at least raise suspicion against the young prince in River Town. Marco remembered that mission, it was one of the first he and Skye had together; it had ended up with them arguing so much that they were nearly discovered by the patrolling night guards.
They had barely got the mayors family put down before Kayden came to 'question the mayor and destroy the evidence', as he had put it. On his request, and which was also one of the instructions written down, the mayor had been spared until his arrival, since he wanted to know how the elections of a new mayor worked. He wanted to be able to control the mayor of the town, so therefore he had to pick one of his men, this time a random, desperate deadbeat from a local workhouse, to become the mayor (with the help of some cheating and foul play of course). Mayor Rockwell, in his fear, had told Kayden everything he needed to know before Marco was given the order to end him. Luckily, he never found out what had happened to his family before his neck was snapped. At least he died thinking that his family would be safe from harm.
That night was also the first time they had been witnesses to the abilities Kayden possessed: with a sweep of his hand, he had put the entire mayors home on fire. Marco remembered watching the sapphire blue flames devour the mansion and stretch for the pitch black sky, as if it was aiming to consume the night as well. Not even the firemen had been able to put the fires out, not until Kayden allowed them to, that is. Kayden sure knew how to make his men respect him...
The alpaca was too deep into his own thoughts to take any notice to the area around him when he stepped out from behind the hidden hatch in the barrel. Three loud gunshots and its three respective bullets however, zinging past his muzzle, made him snap out of it and instinctively dive back into the huge barrel. He cursed lowly to himself as he tucked the folder into the inside of his coat and tried to get a glance at his attacker, but the gloomy light in the cellar just wasn't enough to help him make out more than a shadowy figure.
"Who's there?! Show yourself! And don't think I didn't saw you!" A familiar voice called out, and Marco drew a laughing sigh in relief.
"Pacha!" He chuckled and got up. He got out from the barrel with his hands up, yet he smiled calmly as he would easily recognize his brothers voice anywhere.
The other alpaca hardened his grip around his revolver and the color drained from his face, making Marco lower his hands and tilt his head with a confused look on his face.
"Pacha?" He said. "You look like you've seen a ghost, hermano!"
"Pequeño..." Pacha lowered his gun slightly and shook his head with a frown. "What... What are you doing here?!"
"I was just about to ask you the same thing; I thought we saw you ride off with the others earlier!" Marco folded his arms. "Is it Loco again? Has he flipped yet?"
"It's just a matter of time; he's been looking really out of shape lately"
"Go figure... But hey! That still doesn't explain what you're still doing here?!"
"I... I decided to stay because I needed to be alone and think..." He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. "But if I had known that you'd come here..." He added with a low mumble, but then he looked back up. "But what about you, pequeño?! If anyone else see you or Skye around here you're dead! Señor Sheridan wants to get rid of your guts as fast as he can!"
"Oh nothing, just came here to get some stuff"
"Stuff?"
Marco nodded. "Si! Y'know, cigarettes and stuff. And now when I've got what I came here for, I better go back" He waved shortly and turned to walk away. "Sorry, bro, but Skye's waiting for me. And I bet she heard those gunshots so she's probably worried about-...!"
"You're staying right here, Marco!" Pachas voice was suddenly a lot sharper than normal.
Marco stopped and turned his head to Pacha, but mostly in surprise than to actually obey. The only times Pacha ever called out harshly like that had been back when they were kids, and mostly when Marco had done something bad and was just about to get a whole stream of reprimands from him. In fact, he seemed very different from when they last met; he seemed tense and concerned, maybe scared even. Something was definitely bothering him, and seeing how he was once again pointing his gun at Marco, his little brother slowly raised his hands again and turned around.
"Pacha?" He asked and frowned. "What's the problem, hermano?"
"The problem is that you're here, hermano. You shouldn't have come here! Now I have to..." Pachas voice trailed of and he glanced up at a dark corner of the roof. He felt watched, and he bet every dollar that he owned that the ghoul was in that corner. Waiting and watching.
"Now you have to what? Turn around and lie to everyone that you've never seen me all day?"
Pacha gritted his teeth as his grip on his revolver tightened. He had Marco in the line of fire, and Kaydens orders kept echoing in his head while the ghoul judged him from the dark. They all would get into trouble if Kayden found out that he had let an opportunity like this get away from him. Normally, Pacha wouldn't have any troubles with these sort of things, except that he'd feel extremely bad about doing it, but now it wasn't just anyone who had gotten in Kaydens way; it was Marco, his little brother.
He should be getting closer to 30 years old by now, but the little bastard still look like he's barely 20. He had looked younger even when he was young! Pacha remembered the times when Marco would run crying and screaming into his room, scared because he just had another nightmare where Supay, the god of death, had chased him and killed him. He had always been scared of Supay, and he bet he still was. He used to even go so far as to praying to Supay and beg him not to harm him before going to bed! Pacha had to admit; he kinda missed those good old days when they lived with their Abuela in Talara. They might have been poor and had to turn to bad people to get by, but those were still the good old days.
"I'm really sorry, Marco..." Pacha said and slowly shook his head. "But..."
Marco arched an eyebrow. "But?"
"Señor Sheridan has given me the task to kill you and Skye. He says neither of you can be allowed to live since you'd turn to the two Rangos and get in the way of our plans"
At first, Marco flinched in surprise, but after watching his brother with a puzzled frown for a while, he chuckled and shook his head. "Yeah, yeah, you're still hilarious, bro" He said and turned around again. "But as I said; I gotta go. Skye's waiting for me and-...!"
"I'm not kidding, Marco"
Marco snorted and glanced back at Pacha, before starting to walk again. "Right. As if you'd shoot me, Pacha. I'm your brother, y'know!"
"Marco!" Pacha called out, making Marco stop again and frown at him.
"What is it now?"
"Turn around and face me!"
He hesitated for a moment, then he sighed and turned around. "Why?"
As a reply, three more shots were fired from Pachas gun and Marco suddenly felt a sharp pain in his chest. He gasped in pain and staggered, but managed to keep himself standing by putting his hand on a stack of wine caskets and lean on it. His breathing was uneven and painful, and when he managed to glance down at his chest, he saw three angrily red blotches steadily grow in size on his white shirt.
Pacha lowered his smoking gun, his face was expressionless. "That way I won't have to feel bad about shooting you in the back as well, pequeño"
Marco staggered once again as he strained to lift his head to look at Pacha with a confused and pained face. "P-Pacha...?" He wheezed, and clasped at his bleeding chest. But he didn't get further than that before he crumbled to the ground.
Pacha stuck his revolver back into the back of his pants and walked over to his brother. He kneeled down and rolled him over to his back, feeling guilt gnawing at him when he saw how painful it was for him to breathe, and the red blotches had now merged into one big, red stain. He tried to ignore his dying brother as he began to rummage for the papers he stole, and eventually found them partially soaked in blood.
"P-Pacha..." Marco coughed again, this time bitterness could be heard in his voice along with the immense pain and hurt. "Y-you... You shot..."
"Yeah..." Pacha averted his eyes and sighed. "I really am sorry, pequeño... I wish I didn't..."
The younger alpaca angrily narrowed his eyes. "Why...?"
Pacha gritted his teeth and hesitated. "I had to..." He bitterly replied through clenched teeth. "We'd all get into trouble if I didn't"
"Hijo de-...!" Marco discontinued as his body began to tremble and he coughed some more. A trail of blood ran down from the corners of his mouth as he turned back to Pacha. "Puta!" He finished the sentence, and despite the situation, Pacha couldn't help but to chuckle.
"Marco?! MARCO?!" Skyes terrified voice suddenly reached their ears, and Marcos eyes widened.
"S-Skye...?" He whispered, and Pacha sighed and reached for his revolver, but stopped when Marco managed to put his weak hand on his arm. "N-no... D-don't you dare..."
At the same time, Skye appeared around the corner, supporting herself with the help of the walls and fumbled her way forward with her wings. She must've heard them, since her ears instantly perked in their direction and she gasped.
"M-Marco?!" Her voice was dangerously close to a frightened sob when her acute hearing picked Marcos painful breaths up.
Pacha got up from his brothers side and folded the papers before sticking them in his pocket. Marco tried to get up as well, but the gunshots were bleeding too much, and he started to feel dizzy on top of the immense pain he already felt.
"Skye..." He wheezed when he saw Pacha draw his gun in the corner of his eyes. Although his vision was getting dark and blurry, he could still make out the shape of the revolver in his brothers hoofed hands. "Run! Ch-chica, run!"
But she ignored him and started walking faster towards him, but barely got half-way until she tripped on something. She fell forward and winced in pain when she landed on her wings. Marco cursed lowly, but it only caused him to cough up more blood. Instead of giving up, Skye began to crawl the last remaining distance to him. However, when she carefully put her wing on his bloodied down chest, she couldn't help but to let out a scared sob.
"I-I knew it!" She sobbed. "I-I heard... Y-you're... You're...!"
"Corre..." Marco managed to hiss out before he felt his consciousness slip away and become replaced with a soothing darkness. "Corre... Antes de que el..."
"Marco? Marco?!" She blindly and clumsily moved her wings up to his face. Her heart was throbbing too loudly in her ears to be able to hear his, so she bent down and pressed her ears against his chest in a panicked attempt to make sure he was still with her.
Pacha sighed, closed his eyes and counted to ten before raising his gun again. He aimed at Skyes head and pulled the trigger. However, instead of yet another gunshot going off, he dull click echoed in the cellar instead. He winced and glanced down at his gun, mentally slapping himself in the face for realizing that he already wasted all six bullets. He should really learn how to count better!
The clicking of the empty barrel made Skye stiffened, then she snapped her head to Pacha. Her bluish, blind eyes were filled to the brim with tears as she seemed to be emptily staring at something behind him.
"Pacha..." She said, her voice was barely more than a hollow whisper. "You shot him..."
He nodded. "Si... Lo siente, señorita"
She was quiet and still for a moment, then she staggered up to her feet. "You're... Sorry?" There was a faint growl in her voice this time and her face scrunched up into a scowl. "You're sorry?!"
Completely out of the blue, she suddenly lunged at him with an enraged shriek. He was caught off guard, but reacted quickly out of instinct by changing the grip of his gun so he held the barrel and used the handle to hit her across the face as soon as she came close enough. Her head jerked to the side and she crashed to the ground instead. She coughed as she tried to get up on her wings, but found herself being forced back to the stone floor when Pacha pressed his boot against her throat. He didn't say a word, so she opened her mouth.
"He... He was your brother..." She said, though it was hard to speak with him halfheartedly trying to cut off her breathing with his foot. "Y-you shot... Your o-own brother... A-and all you can say is... I-I'm sorry?"
Pacha bitterly clamped his teeth together as he forced himself to look at his little brother, whose body lay splayed out on the floor. He wasn't moving. He stared at him in silence for a moment, then cursed and took his foot off Skyes throat and stepped back. He still had the gun in his hand, but after a short moment of consideration, he threw it away. With quick-paced steps and a tightly clenched jaw, he started making his way out. Where Esperanza and Emilio waited for him.
As she heard his footsteps slowly fading off, Skye turned her attention back to Marco. Though it was hard to localize him since he wasn't moving at all anymore. She wasn't even so sure if he was breathing still. She on the other hand, was breathing hard, almost hyperventilating, as she made her way over to him once again. Silently praying that he wasn't gone already. At this moment, she was willing to do anything to make sure he survived!
Her wing finally made contact with one of his hands, and her heart skipped a beat. "Marco?" She sobbed and blindly fumbled her way up to his face. "Marco, please, wake up!"
But he didn't respond in any way, and she felt her throat tighten up. She once again placed her ears against his chest and listened for any signs of life. After a while, as she slowly began to lose all hope, she heard a faint beat. His heart was still beating! It was faint and uneven, but beating! He was alive!
She sat up again with a sob and carefully scooped his head up in her arms. "Marco, i-if you can hear me; p-please, stay! Stay with me!" She tried to talk, but a thick knot in her chest made it difficult. "Hang in there! I-I know the other's coming soon! I can hear them! Just h-hang in there for a little longer, eh?" She hugged his head closer to her chest as she recognized the sound of roadrunners stopping outside the entrance to the winecellar. "D-don't leave me! I-I'm sorry for constantly nagging about your smoking habits, a-and for never telling you that I... That I..."
Her voice faltered, and when the others finally arrived, they found her with Marcos lifeless body in her arms, weeping loudly into the crook of his neck.
…
He slowly awoke with a tired groan. The world around him was bright, blinding even, when he tried to gradually open his eyes. When it just stung too much, he gave up on trying to open his eyes and brought his hand up to a face with another groan. He tiredly rubbed his eyes as he tried to make sense of the world, and get his mind turned right instead of upside-down.
He had some faint memories left; he had gone back to the vineyard to get papers they could use against Sheridan (And to get his cigarettes. Going for days without a smoke had made him edgy with moodswings). There he had met his brother, they had talked for a minute or so, and then... Marco tried to open his eyes again as his hand traveled down to his chest, where he had been shot.
To his surprise however, his hand made contact with something else, something thin with leathery skin between long, bony fingers. He finally managed to open his eyes and once his eyes got used to the light, he looked down and saw a familiar wing draped over his chest. Skyes head was resting on his collarbone, her eyes were closed and she was breathing with soft, steady breaths. Although, she woke up when he chuckled.
"I... Thought beds made you seasick?" He managed to whisper out, since he discovered that talking made his chest hurt even more.
She quietly withdrew her wing slightly. "And I... I thought you were gonna die..."
The faint smile disappeared from Marcos lips. "What happened to me?" He asked after a short moment of silence. He rubbed one of his eyes with his hand again. "And where am I? How did I get here?"
"Pacha shot you three times" She replied without skipping a beat. "You're in Lady Luck, they brought you here as quick as they could and got you a doctor..." She paused. "You were more dead than alive... We all thought you..."
Marco snorted. "It'll take Pacha a lot more than that to finish me..." He scoffed bitterly and tried to get up, but fell back down with a painful grunt. "Just wait 'til I get my hands on that pedazo de mierd-...!"
"Don't strain yourself!" Skye said warningly and stopped him from making another try at getting up. "You have to stay here until you're well enough to-...!"
"I'm fine, Skye! Just tell me where we keep those little..." His voice trailed off when she sighed and shook her head. He frowned. "Please tell me we got them!"
"Sorry..." She shook her head again. "They got away... And..." She paused and closed her eyes. "And we lost someone else..."
Marco gritted his teeth and asked lowly. "Who?"
"Joseph... Lil' Joe, the bartender. Loco turned into the Monster, and killed him" Skye replied sadly. "The Captain's still in grief; she's locked herself up in her office for days now and refuses to talk to anyone!"
"Oh..." Marco bitterly averted his eyes. "Joe, huh? Man, that-... Wait!" He suddenly looked back up at Skye with a frown. "Days?! How long has it been?!"
"Three or four days" She shrugged. "It's impossible to tell time when you can't even see what's going on around you..."
He nodded. 3-4 days, not as bad as he feared it might be. But that would also explain why he was so damn hungry. "But how's everyone else doing?"
"We're fine. We're low on energy, but fine... Though I think the other Rango's blood pressure is through the roof!"
"His blood pressure is ALWAYS through the roof! At least since we came here..."
They both went silent for a while, he just watched her and if she could've seen him, she'd look right back at him. Still without uttering a word, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her closer. She felt a lot thinner than he remembered.
"Skye..." He eventually said, and one of her ears flicked. "How long have you been here?"
She hesitated. "Ever since the doctor declared your condition stable and left"
"How long, chica?"
She hesitated once again. "A couple of days..." She paused and leaned her head against his collarbone again. "I didn't wanna leave you in case you'd... Take a turn for the worst..."
He didn't know what to say. He just slowly and automatically hiked her closer, put a pair of fingertips under her chin and carefully turned her head to him. Without hesitation, he leaned his head down and kissed her on her lips. Though he quickly had to pull away as it caused a massive, jabbing pain to flare out in his chest, and he turned away from her to cough, barely noticing that he coughed up some blood in the progress.
"Oh! That reminds me!" Skye said and turned away as well. She began to clumsily fumble around for something in the nightstand next to the bed. It took a while, but then she returned to him with an unopened package of cigarettes and a lighter in her wings. "I-I did promise you that I'd give you them if you woke up again..."
Marco smiled, even if he couldn't recall it when she made that promise to him, and took the cigarettes and the lighter. He hurried to break it open and popped one of them into his mouth, though he managed to stop himself when the lit lighter was just a few inches away from the cigarette in his mouth.
He stared down at the little flickering flame for a moment, then he closed it, took the cig out of his mouth and put everything to the side. Then he turned back her and wrapped his arm around her again. She frowned slightly.
"Marco? Aren't you...?"
"Nah" He shook his head. "I've been thinking 'bout quitting, y'know" He snickered and glanced at her from the corner of his eyes. "Just so that you'll stop nagging 'bout it!"
She rolled her eyes, but smiled and went back to cuddling up beside him. He dug his fingers into her dirt-blonde hair and leaned his cheek against her head. Though despite how much he tried to, he couldn't push away the feeling of hatred and betrayal he felt by just thinking about Pacha. He got shot down by one of the people he trusted the most in the world. His own brother betrayed him, and would've done the same to Skye if he hadn't run out of bullets! He would've killed Skye as well...
Marco couldn't help but to bitterly grind his teeth. The next time he met Pacha, he wouldn't give him a second chance to correct his error. The others could take care of the rest of the Division; now it was his turn to take care of Pacha...
GAH! Finally done! You won't believe the cramp I got in my left arm right now D: ! Gee! I'm both excited and horrified to start working on the next chapter o.O...
Anyway, I'll see y'all then! Whenever it gets done...
