A/N: I'm back :)


Chapter Fifteen: Collateral


Tenzin's face had changed over the past half-century but Lin could still picture the chubby cheeks of a prepubescent Tenzin, the awkward son of Aang, who lost his temper when Lin called him "the waddlin' monk-boy" until his teenage years when a combination of rigorous Airbending training and a much needed growth spurt transformed him from designated local fat kid to the object of much female adoration. His face – its history, its countless expressions, its elongated bone structure and tattooed skin – was something Lin knew. Not even Katara or Aang saw as much as Lin, the one person who had witnessed firsthand how much pain could be expressed through those deep blue eyes whether the occasion was heartbreak or something far more physical.

Crack.

Lin watched with muted fear and rage as one of Zahrul's henchmen deftly broke a finger on Tenzin's right hand. He groaned pitifully, jerking his hand feebly unable to break through the strong grip. Zahrul nodded, and the henchmen broke another finger. Then another. All the while, Lin watched, her mouth dry as dust, every wince and twitch of muscle that contorted that face – that face of Tenzin as a boy, a teenager, and now a tortured, anguished man.

"Stop!" Lin shouted, straining against her bonds. "I said I'd get you the Avatar. Let him go!"

Zahrul grinned, the corners of his mouth curling upward ever so slightly. "I have faith in you, Lin." He said. Then he raised a hand and motioned to someone beyond Lin's line of sight. "I just don't think you have the motivation. Yet."

With a sinking heart, Lin saw or rather felt something pass beside her. To her surprise, that someone was a very young girl. She clutched something small in both hands though Lin barely noticed as she was far too distracted by the blank expression on the girl's face. A gaunt little thing, her hair long and lank, the hood of a cloak casting her eyes in shadow though it was clear that her eyes were those of someone who lived a life of bleak subservience, devoid of the slightest glimmer of life.

Zahrul placed a hand on the girl's hooded head. Lin was surprised to see that the girl didn't flinch. "Luckily for us, Lin," Zahrul said softly, patting the girl on the head. "Tiva here is an exceptionally accomplished Bloodbender. So accomplished, in fact, that she's going to assist with a little procedure that I've been dying to try out."

As though carefully following a well-rehearsed script, Tiva held up the object in her hands, much like a magician displaying his empty sleeves to her audience. A tiny glass vial, barely larger than an adult's forefinger, containing some sort of dark liquid. It could have been anything – soy sauce, oil, poison – but somehow Lin knew just from the expression of excitement in Zahrul's eyes that this was something far, far worse. Her eyes flitted from the glass vial to Zahrul's smug bastard face then back to the vial and the Blood Bender holding it –

It can't be!

Lin's eyes widened in shock, her jaw slackened involuntarily. Her insides reeled as though violently reacting to the truth before the words could even form in her mind.

Blood Bender.

Blood.

Blood Bender.

Blood.

Red.

Dead Red.

"T-Tenzin…" Lin croaked. Her throat caught, her breath uneven.

"No need for dramatics just yet, Lieutenant. Dead Red Blood might be volatile and crude," Zahrul said. "But like all things it can be tamed." He took the glass vial from Tiva's hand and held it up in front of Lin's face. "Of course, your Metalbenders have done a great deal of meddling over the years to destroy them, even going so far as to kill the Dead Reds all together… but I am a very, very patient man and patience has allowed me to modify the sample into something more akin to – how should I put it? – a controlled substance. Tiva here has a very unique set of a skills that allows her to modify blood in ways you could only dream of. The blood might be harmless now but with just one flick of her finger…"

Tenzin did not stir as Tiva approached his side with the vial in hand, innocent as a nurse waiting on an ailing patient. Zahrul nodded to the henchman who was holding the Airbender upright. Tenzin was roughly pushed into a kneeling position, his head pulled back to expose his neck. Tiva uncorked the vial and with a deft wave of her hand, extracted the liquid, and with a second flick of her wrist, a brownish-red crystal formed in the midair.

"If you do this, you'll never get your hands on the Avatar," Lin growled, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "Do you hear me? You put that blood in him, it's over! You're finished!"

Perhaps in a mover film or a detective novel, the cliché mob boss or villain might have laughed derisively at this point. He or she might have waved a taunting finger at the spirited protagonist, displaying all the stereotypical signs of a bigheaded career criminal. But Zahrul was the real thing, and Lin had seen too much over the years not to know a true villain when she saw one. Zahrul did not laugh, did not taunt her, didn't so much as mutter a stinging one liner to flaunt his superior intellect – he didn't need to. He simply nodded at the Bloodbender girl while ignoring Lin's empty threats.

Tiva moved her hands, grappled with air as she tensed and relaxed her fingers. The tiny crystal floating before her seemed to vibrate slightly before it moved towards Tenzin's exposed neck. Before Lin could say another word or curse or struggle, the crystal pierced the skin, the boundary between blue Airbender tattoo and unblemished skin. In an instant, the crystal disappeared into flesh and beads of blood oozed where the crystal had inserted itself, trickling down Tenzin's collar bone like a slowly forming river.

"Once you have the Avatar, I will know, Lieutenant," Zahrul said as his henchman left the basement, Zahrul stayed behind with Tiva standing quietly by his side while Tenzin lay motionless on the floor behind him. Lin, still tied to the chair, was speechless. "If you fail, Tenzin dies. Try anything, Tenzin dies. Run or hide, I will find you. I trust you understand?"

Lin couldn't answer. Not that he needed one. Her head bowed low, she wondered if they would leave her tethered to her chair. Then she felt a momentary flash of heat as Zahrul Firebended, tearing through the ropes in seconds. Freed from the chair, Lin keeled over, collapsing onto the floor hard. As her head spun, she watched as Zahrul and Tiva left up the stairs, their footsteps echoing as though from afar. It didn't occur to her to fight, to try and stop them. All she could do was stare dazedly across the floor where Tenzin lay, his expression oddly peaceful, his skin bruised and cut. It was a face Lin could not read, a face she did not recognize.


.


Mako spent the next day recuperating in his tiny room. As he grew stronger, he noticed something strange. Once he was well enough to get up and move about freely, he found that his usually bouts of headaches, the sudden anger that came and went in flashes, and his sensitivity towards fire had all but vanished. It was as if he had been living with a swarm of gnats all his life biting and clawing at his sides day and night, only to wake up one day to find that them all dead at his feet. There was no way to explain the strange feeling, the feeling that he was free and yet unable to figure out how or why.

After a few days of being confined to his room, being served three square meals in bed by the man called Clock, and spending almost every waking moment pondering the sudden disappearance of all his usual afflictions, Mako was finally allowed to leave his room. The joy of being allowed to escape the room was quickly swallowed by the confusion of finding himself not in an ordinary house but some sort of underground cove. Just outside Mako's room was a large central hall made mostly of bleak concrete and the peeling remnants of what used to be plaster and wallpaper. The hall led out into different areas of what might have been a basement level home with no windows. The only signs that anyone else lived there was a room farthest from Mako's. A small stove, icebox and a table made up a kitchen area. At the back of the kitchen, a curtain separated what served as Clock's bedroom consisting of a single mattress, some sheets, a pillow and a box full of old books. Down the hall from the kitchen was another room, this one an odd mixture of a gym and a library. A dusty boxing ring complete with an old sandbag took up half the space while the other half was covered in stacks upon stacks of books. The room across from this was what appeared to be an old bathroom with holes in the walls. Mako guessed that someone had long ago ripped out all the toilets and shower heads. All that remained was a single grimy sink and a row of cracked mirrors.

"I know you're confused and all," Clock said somewhat sympathetically the first time Mako stood their gawking at his surroundings. "But just know that this is the safest place you can be right now, all right?"

"Where are we?"

"Ah, well see, that's the part that keeps it safe. No one know the location, no one comes a-knocking unwanted."

After that, Mako was allowed to go anywhere inside the basement area while Clock either cooked, read books or slept. After a few days, Mako found it hard to believe that Clock, a man of great breadth and no doubt some intelligence given all the books he read, could live like this. What was more, there didn't seem to be any explanation for where the food and water was coming from.

"Where did you get this?" It might have been a week or more since Mako had woken up in the strange basement dwelling. After a meal that might have been either breakfast or dinner given that there was no way to tell the time, Clock had handed him a bucket of water to bathe with.

"Where we get all the water," Clock said.

He was referring to the single tap in the kitchen that produced water for all the cooking and washing. Mako knew this because he was in charge of cleaning all the cutlery after each meal. However, he also knew that the tap produced a weak stream and that after a while the water dried up for a few hours. To fill an entire bucket such as the one Clock had handed him might have taken days. Yet, Mako knew that same bucket had been empty just a few hours previously.

"And where does all the food come from?" Mako glanced at the dirty dishes still laid on the table from their breakfast-or-dinner. The usual meal of baked beans, cooked vegetables and dry bread had appeared seemingly out of nowhere despite the now-empty icebox where yesterday's fish had been kept.

Clock shrugged his huge shoulders as if this were the most trivial question in the world. When Mako just stood there waiting for an answer, the huge man laughed loudly. His whole being seemed to shake, everything from his old brown coat down to his boots.

"Kid," Clock managed in between guffaws, "you're more of a nomad than them Airbenders used to be. Before you know it, you'll be out of here and you won't give a damn whether this grub came from the ground or the sky, no sir!"

And with that, Mako was sent off with his bucket to wash, Clock still booming with laughter behind him.


To be continued...


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