A/N: I know I said no more notes, but I have to throw in another warning really quickly at the beginning of this chapter. I sort of took used the infamous author's license with regards to "Things Change" and Terra's memory loss. Also, I'm bad with fight scenes. Working on it, but yeah…let me know if it doesn't come across neatly and I'll try and clean it up a bit.
My Own Worst Enemy
Chapter 2 – Gone
The hawk absently beat its wings against the cool twilight air, oblivious to the biting wind that threatened to freeze its jade feathers off. He glided unnaturally effortlessly through the air while his mind was light-years away. More precisely, it was two years away—two years in the past, reliving a memory he'd tried again and again to banish forever.
Still, it was as clear to him as the night's sky that was beginning to emerge against the orange and red sunset. He could remember every detail about that hallway—every book she held in her arms while she walked away from him for what he'd thought would be the last time.
"Things change, Beast Boy. The girl you want me to be is just a memory."
He shivered, even in his hawk's form, shaking his head furiously in an attempt to clear his mind. Still, her frowning face wouldn't leave it. He could still see her slowly backing away from him, becoming lost in the halls of that school—the one she'd chosen to attend rather than return to the tower along with him.
He had thought that he would never see her again. But it was her—he had no doubt of it. Those sapphire eyes couldn't possibly belong to anyone else. She was the same girl as he'd seen in the schoolyard that day two years ago, only now she was dressed in a black-and-orange ensemble he'd never expected to see her in again.
Terra.
How could it be her? How could she have possibly gone back to Slade before returning to the Titans? He felt cold, but not because of the weather. He felt betrayed, and not for the first time, by the likes of the golden-haired geomancer haunting his mind at the moment.
Beast Boy didn't want to believe it. He wished that his brain was gullible enough against its own methods that he could fool himself into thinking that perhaps it wasn't Terra who had broken into their communications line back at the tower. He wanted to doubt. For the first time he could remember, he was honestly wishing that he was as stupid as his teammates sometimes perceived him to be.
If he was stupid, he could have tricked himself into thinking it wasn't her.
Maybe it was a bionic monkey infused with Terra's DNA. He had to laugh at himself at the thought, his hawk's beak emitting a strange-sounding squawk as a weak relay of the chuckle.
He was disappointed by the sound, oddly enough. Birds couldn't laugh. But then again, birds couldn't cry. The changeling knew that, if his eyes could form tears in their current state, he would have long been crying by now.
His mind slowly drifted back into reality; it suddenly occurred to him that Raven and Starfire had been flying far below him and he hadn't bothered to check their location for quite a while. Glancing downward, he was relieved to find that they hadn't stopped somewhere without him. He was still on track with finding Terra.
The thought crossed his mind and brought a slight feeling of disappointment along with it. Part of him didn't want to see her. If he was ever going to see her again, he'd imagined it as a much less confrontational event—maybe even with smiles and laughter and hugs. A kiss, too, if he was lucky. A part of him dreaded actually laying eyes on her in that wretched outfit yet another time. The first time she'd worn it had been traumatic enough—for the both of them, he would have guessed.
He realized with a remorseful sigh that he must not have been guessing properly these past few years.
At the same time, he wanted to see her more than anything in the world. He wanted to ask her, face to face, what she'd been doing all this time. He wanted to know why she hadn't returned to him before going to the evil genius she once called master. He wanted to get answers for all of the questions running through his mind straight from the mouth of the girl he thought he had lost forever.
Even now, she may be lost forever.
Beast Boy often hated the way his mind worked. Sometimes, it was next to impossible to settle with a happy thought without finding a reason it might be nothing but false hope he was trying to cling to.
Good thing I don't have to use Star's powers to fly. I'd never get off the ground.
Speaking (or at least thinking) of Starfire… Beast Boy looked downward once more, noticing that the girls were beginning to fly downward toward a clearing on the hillside beneath them. Following suit, the changeling banked his wings to the right, beginning a large, downward spiral that he planned to enjoy to its fullest before he landed beside them on the mountain below.
The teenagers below him landed much sooner than he did; Raven pulled her hood off of her head with one hand the instant she set foot on the ground, glancing at the communicator she held in the other to confirm their location. "These are the coordinates," the empath informed her alien teammate, her voice carrying a grim tone along with it. "She should be right along this mountain."
The girls both glanced around, seeing nothing that remotely resembled a building. Raven bit her lip in an uncharacteristic display of uncertainty.
"Somewhere," she added as an afterthought.
"Our friend Terra has the power to move the earth, does she not?" Starfire suggested, her viridian eyes probing the hillside for anything that she might mistake as a door. "Perhaps she is located within the mountain itself."
Raven shrugged, unable to write off the possibility, and moved her eyes to the sky to watch the finale of Beast Boy's descent. Her heart filled with an unfamiliar feeling that she either couldn't or didn't want to place while she watched the green bird glide toward them. She quickly wrote it off as an uncontrollable effect of her powers—surely Beast Boy was experiencing such a dejected feeling in his own heart, and by looking at him Raven had merely absorbed this feeling into her own being.
Don't I usually have to touch someone to get into their head?
The question her mind posed effectively caused an inadvertent twitch in the empath's eyebrow.
Not if I'm using my soul-self, she reminded herself, breathing out a quiet sigh once she felt she'd justified the odd feeling she continued to experience.
…But I'm not.
Raven scowled, pulling her eyes away from the changeling and returning them to the side of the mountain they stood upon. "I can sense her. It's definitely Terra. And Red X is definitely in there with her."
"Wonderful," Starfire said with a smile in a voice that lacked her usual cheeriness. Grabbing and flipping open her communicator all in one fluid motion, she brought the device to her face, merely watching while Robin's image appeared on it. "We have arrived at the location," she reported, trying a more convincing smile for the image of herself he was surely presented with. Robin could read her well, after all, and she was more concerned about appearing confident for him than for Raven. With Raven's powers, it would be hard to deceive her while such an intense feeling of sadness plagued the girl's emotions.
Robin's face was halfway covered by the helmet he wore; he was riding his R-cycle toward the location mapped by Terra through the tower's computer and probably not even looking at the small screen on the "dashboard" of the vehicle. "Great work," he said automatically—thus assuring Starfire that her poised display was going completely unnoticed. "You guys can go ahead in and get X if you want to. Just be prepared for a fight; Slade could be in there, and I don't want anyone getting hurt."
Starfire peeked at Raven, who had returned to staring at Beast Boy's continually floating form; the alien girl bit her lip uncertainly. "I believe Raven would have mentioned sensing Slade within the mountain," she offered uneasily, unwilling to break Raven from her thoughts to ask her to try sensing his presence again.
Robin tersely darted his eyes toward the screen momentarily before returning them to the road before them. "Okay. Use your best judgment, then. We'll be there soon."
His image promptly cut away from her; Starfire sighed, clipping the communicator back to her belt and turning her green eyes to the air just in time to watch Beast Boy arch his wings into a short dive toward the rocky surface of the mountain. She held in a gasp, fearing for a moment that the changeling had opted to end his life rather than face Terra as her enemy once more—as expected, her fear went unjustified when the boy morphed back into human form only a few feet above the ground.
He landed neatly atop a large boulder, sitting in a very catlike position atop the rock and trying a smile for the girls. "Are we goin' in?" he asked in a very lighthearted tone, looking from Raven to Starfire almost hopefully.
Raven winced; she thought it might literally rip her apart inside if she had to keep watching him act this way. Whether it was her empathic powers or her own personal feelings that made her hurt like this for him didn't matter—she only knew that she needed to stop it before it tore one or both of them apart. "Beast Boy—"
Her sentence was interrupted by a large explosion from the hillside not thirty feet away from the trio. All three of the Titans whirled around, instantly crouching into battle stance in preparation for whatever was being thrown at them.
It wasn't a chunk of rock, or even any sort of deadly contraption. Starfire's eyes went wide—it was headed straight toward her.
"Eep!"
She collapsed beneath him as she was hit by the flailing, black-clad form of Red X, who cursed quietly upon impact. Quickly pushing himself off of the dazed alien, he held out a hand before even thinking about what he was doing. "You okay?" he questioned, immediately freezing up at the surprised and curious gaze she was returning to him.
Now he wanted to kick his own ass. He hadn't felt more stupid since he'd woken up in a bizarre, geomancer-crafted cavern and realized he was at the mercy of a skinny blonde girl.
"Sorry," he lamely murmured, drawing his hand back and straightening his stance. Starfire could only blink at him in wonder while he narrowed his eyes toward the newly-blown hole in the side of the mountain. Once again, X found himself exceedingly thankful for the mask that covered his face—blushing this intensely should be banned from human existence. Or capability. If that was even possible.
"It is…not forgivable," she breathed, smiling slightly at the odd joke she managed to crack in the awkward situation she'd found herself in. X glanced back down at her, a small smile gracing his hidden lips as well. He offered her a hand a second time, and this time she took it, allowing the anti-hero to pull her to her feet before hastily releasing it and floating off to the other side of Raven.
He felt a little bit better, now, at least. She was blushing nearly as madly as he was. The mixed expression of surprise and guilt that her face wore seemingly went completely unnoticed by the other two; the glare on Raven's face suddenly commanded his attention, and he realized for the first time that perhaps he shouldn't be sticking around in a spot where he was surrounded by three of the five Teen Titans.
"Guess she's coming out," Beast Boy remarked, adding onto his question a moment ago and grinning weakly at his own joke. Starfire placed a comforting hand on his shoulder; he glanced at it, then sighed, moving his eyes back toward Red X and waiting for Raven to do whatever it was she was about to do to the criminal. He made it a point to avert his gaze from the hole X had been blasted out of—he wouldn't be ready to see her if her small form emerged from it. Not yet.
Instead of hitting the anti-hero with a barrage of incantations as he halfway expected her to, Raven only crossed her arms over her chest, her glare seeming to intensify slightly as she did so. "What's going on?" the empath questioned simply. As though she really expected to get a straight answer out of him without the customary snide remark that usually went with it.
His mouth spoke before he could even think about it; surprising even himself, X found himself giving her the straight answer she wanted, all jokes and retorts aside. "She tried to crush me. I got away. Got my belt." He paused to tap at said device. "Now she's trying to kill me."
"And I'll eventually succeed," the blonde's angry voice sounded from the hole in the hillside. All eyes traveled to her; she was poised atop a floating chunk of earth, her glowing hands directing three equally large chunks toward the group that now stood together just over twenty feet away. Again, Starfire's eyes went wide. Beast Boy found himself gaping helplessly at Terra's slim form, thrown into too many painful emotions to think to move.
Fortunately, he didn't have to. Raven held her hands up, creating a black shield between the Titans plus their extra and the three chunks of rock; Red X grabbed Starfire by the arm and hauled her away, earning another surprised "eep" from the alien princess. "Move!" Raven shouted at the changeling when the first boulder collided with the shield.
Beast Boy suddenly snapped back into reality. The shield wasn't going to hold up. The second rock smashed into it, shattering the top and effectively destroying the rest of the dark barrier the empath had created. Hopping off of the boulder he was still perched atop, Beast Boy lunged toward Raven's wide-eyed, defenseless form, tackling her out of the way while the third and final chunk of rock smashed into the boulder the changeling had been sitting on.
"She didn't get you guys here to save me," X called to Raven from the spot he'd run to, still absently holding onto Starfire's wrist while his attention was focused entirely elsewhere. The two of them stood on a small rise of earth on the edge of a cliff that led down to the river a few hundred feet below them; Starfire was anxiously peering downward, trying to focus her attention on something that wasn't the fact that X was holding onto her like Robin usually did. The thief was oblivious. "I was the bait. She wants to kill you all, too."
"I wouldn't speak so knowingly of a subject I knew so little on if I were you," Terra snapped, unseen by the thief while she jerked her hand in X's direction.
He wasn't paying enough attention; his eyes were on Raven and took time to move to Terra. Too much time.
He completely faltered when he was met with the image of a huge chunk of earth flying toward his face. Losing control of his limbs, X fell over stupidly, releasing Starfire and bracing himself for the impact with the ground. He knew he hadn't enough time to brace himself against the enormous rock, as well.
A blast of emerald light blinded him for a few seconds; automatically, he held up an arm to shield himself from the glare. The light dimmed quickly—X realized just as quickly that he wasn't unconscious or dead. Looking back upwards, he saw Starfire's form standing over him, her palm outstretched and emitting small traces of smoke from the heat they'd just expelled.
She's saved his life. "Thanks," he said dumbly. She warmly smiled back at him.
"Do not mention it."
The sound of a revving engine effectively broke his focus away from the girl; he turned his head to watch the arrival of the T-car, followed shortly by the R-cycle. Robin hadn't so much as parked the vehicle before he threw off his helmet and began screaming at the thief who was still sitting helplessly on the ground beside Starfire.
"Get away from her!" the boy wonder shouted angrily, pulling a fistful of explosives from his utility belt while he hopped off of his motorcycle and dashed toward the two. Starfire immediately blushed an embarrassing shade of gold; X attempted to push himself up and hold up his hands innocently at once, resulting in nothing but an awkward stumble while the enraged hero continued to advance on him.
"Robin!" Raven's irritated voice snapped, effectively drawing the attention of all three of the teenagers involved. All of their eyes moved to Raven, who was still lying on the ground next to Beast Boy. She'd managed to push herself up halfway, at least—her legs were still outstretched, but her arms supported her upper body. "Stop acting stupid! We've got bigger problems than X right now!"
Robin shot a glare at Red X, who continued to stare back in return, before begrudgingly replacing his devices to their proper compartment in his belt. Pushing his suspicions about X's intentions with Starfire out of his mind, Robin forced himself to quickly survey the situation, glancing at each of his teammates in an attempt to assess what had happened between when Starfire had contacted him and now.
The changeling appeared to be at least mostly mentally there; his eyes were full of concern and darting between Terra's floating piece of rock and Raven's seemingly undamaged form. The two of them were together on the ground near a conglomeration of crumbled pieces of earth—Robin could only assume that they'd been attacked by the geomancer above them not long before he'd arrived. Cyborg had just climbed out of the T-car and was looking relatively confused as to what was going on. Starfire was blushing a furious shade of gold, which didn't help X's case much; the boy wonder snuck another glare toward the anti-hero before resolving to set his cold stare permanently on Terra.
She was looking rather smug with herself, standing on one of her floating pieces of earth while smirking down at all of them. Probably thinking something about how weak we all are, just like Slade would want her to, Robin mentally fumed, his muscles twitching with the need to pummel the crap out of something. His anger toward the black-clad thief hadn't quite faded—but somehow, taking it out on Terra simply didn't seem right. He decided that he would have to take it up with X personally once the battle they were currently engrossed in was over.
"Well, well."
Terra's voice interrupted Robin's planning for later, bringing him back to reality in a flash; the boy wonder narrowed his eyes a bit more up at her menacing figure, trying to picture a skull mask over her face instead of the image of the girl he'd once considered a friend.
"This is an interesting sight, isn't it?"
"Why are you doing this, Terra?" Robin yelled at her, trying to challenge her. She seemed to take no notice.
The rock she stood on floated slowly downward; all six of them could only stare at it in confusion, wondering what in the world she could possibly be planning. Starfire noticed it before any of the others did—Terra's eyes were fixed solely on Beast Boy.
The changeling hadn't let this slip completely past him, either; he simply chose to pretend that he didn't see it. As she drew closer, however, the presence of her stare was overwhelming. He couldn't avert his eyes any longer. He had to look at her, as much as it hurt him to. Just try to keep the tears out of your eyes until you get home, he told himself sternly, drawing in a breath while she floated ever closer.
"I guess I can understand. You thought I was dead. It's been three years, at least. I guess I should have expected you to move on by now."
"Shut up."
He whispered it more to himself than to her; for this reason, she took no note.
"Still…I can't lie to you, Beast Boy."
Said Titan stared on in shock while he watched the smirk on her face flicker away for a split second. It was quickly replaced, but the look in her eyes remained changed nevertheless. They shone with an odd reflection of the setting sun, much more red than normal.
She opened her mouth to speak again, and quickly closed it, forcing the smirk back onto her face. Beast Boy's eyes widened slightly.
She tried again. "I'm…"
She broke off, the corners of her mouth plunging downward involuntarily while a tear slipped from the corner of each of her eyes.
"…hurt."
"Terra," the changeling murmured, moving toward her before he could control himself. His arms wrapped tightly around her, just as they had a million times before in his dreams. This time, it wasn't a dream. This time she hugged him back. She was crying now, yes, but she was hugging him back.
"I—I missed you so much, Beast Boy," she stammered, her voice hitching uncontrollably while her body shook with the force of her sobs. "I know I—s-said that I didn't—didn't remember, but I—I—"
He shushed her softly, stroking the back of her head with his gloved hand and staring off into the distance behind her. "Don't worry about it, Terra. I missed you, too. We'll talk about it, but not right now…okay?"
Starfire smiled warmly at the sight she was witnessing, turning toward Robin to see his reaction to such a display. He, too, was wearing a small smile, and while she stared at him he glanced at her. Both of them blushed lightly, and both looked away, returning their eyes to the pair that stood at the center of everyone's attention.
Raven was still seated dismally on the ground a few feet from where the pair stood. The dejected feeling, she guessed, had probably left Beast Boy's heart by now.
That absolutely did not explain why the feeling she felt had only been enhanced tenfold.
Before Raven could think of anything clever to say that would break the two apart, Terra drew in a sharp gasp, interrupting the moment and all the affection it had brought with it. "You have to leave," she said urgently, drawing away from Beast Boy and staring with a panicked expression into his face. "You guys have gotta get out of here, something bad's gonna happen if you stay."
"What? And leave you here?" Beast Boy asked half-jokingly, but the hurt in his eyes at the idea was very real. "You're kidding, right?"
"No, Beast Boy. I can't explain right now, but you guys have to—have to—argh!"
The tiny girl finally released him completely, instantly pressing her hands to her head and recoiling a few steps backward while she grunted in pain. The changeling immediately began to panic. "Raven?" he cried, hoping that whatever was happening to the geomancer was something that could be easily repaired.
Looking to the empath, however, completely dashed what little hopes he had. "I don't know what's happening to her," Raven said, a tone of alarm plainly audible in her voice. "Something's controlling her, something's getting into her mind, but whatever it is has a block on me. I can't get to her."
Her eyes moved to Beast Boy, who was visibly tearing up at the words she was speaking. It could have killed her to say to him what she had to say next.
"There's nothing I can do, Beast Boy. I'm…sorry."
"NO! There has to be something! You can't just let her—but—she's…"
"Get out of here!" the girl cried, panicked, waving an arm toward the group in an attempt to signify the urgency of the situation. Her hand glowed while she did it; Raven jumped to her feet and shrouded Beast Boy with her cloak, pulling him downward into the earth with her dark energy before a hoard of rampant boulders flung in their direction.
The ground began to tremble at her feet. Terra opened her eyes, a look of panic remaining on her face, but this time her eyes were glowing the same yellow that came from her hands. As though she was a doll being controlled by some puppeteer, she lifted her arms, holding them in front of her—as clear a shot toward Robin as anyone would ever manage to get on him.
"I'm…sorry…" she gasped quietly before her eyes slipped closed.
An enormous chunk of the mountain ripped away from the side just beyond her; Robin's eyes went wide in alarm. There was no way he could possibly survive being hit with that thing.
"Move!" he shouted to Cyborg, the only Titan close enough to be impacted by the giant slab of earth as well. The two of them took off to the right, running in the opposite direction of where Starfire and Red X still stood in the hopes that the rock would either hit the spot where they'd been or follow them away from the alien girl and the thief they'd come here to collect.
X watched almost laughingly while Robin fled, wishing he could think of some sort of clever comment that would cause the boy to stop and be pummeled by the slab of rock. He hopped down from the rise that they were still atop, walking a few strides toward the pair who ran from the huge chunk of earth that followed them.
It was while this thought passed through his mind that Red X noticed something. It wasn't going toward them. It wasn't even going toward the car and motorcycle they'd left in the path of the enormous rock slab. It was coming toward him.
No—not him. It was too high. Meaning…
The thief's eyes went wide. "Starfire!"
Robin instantly skidded to a halt, whirling about in horror and repeating the distorted voice that spoke before him. "Starfire!"
Red X held up his palms, aiming for the massive boulder while it hurled toward the alien girl. Starfire, too, charged her hands with starbolts and drew back to take a mighty swing at the object when it reached her. Robin abruptly ran back toward the two, pulling the same explosives he intended to use on X earlier out of his belt. Without even thinking, he shouted a command for the trio to follow, temporarily completely forgetting that X wasn't and never would really be on his side.
"Now!"
As he said it, all three fired at the enormous object. Robin's explosives crumbled a good chunk of the rock off of the far side of it; Starfire's starbolts broke another piece off of the half facing her. Red X managed to take off another piece from the side he was nearest.
It wasn't enough, and it was moving too fast. Starfire's eyes widened in horror, realizing that she couldn't possibly stop it at its current velocity. "Eep!"
"Starfire!" Robin shrieked, watching helplessly while what was left of the rock collided with her body. It didn't hurt physically, but it was enough to knock her unconscious. She stumbled backward and fell.
Down. Way down. There was no hillside there, Robin suddenly realized. That was a cliff.
"No!"
He was moving before he knew it, running toward the edge of the cliff she'd just fallen from. He would have gone over with her. He didn't care. He needed to catch her, to save her, to make sure she was all right. If she died in consequence of falling so far down into water cold enough to kill a human being, how would he be able to face himself? He needed her—they all needed her. She was always there when any of them needed a friend. How could he live with himself if he didn't do everything in his power to save her?
The hero would have let his momentum carry him over the edge. He didn't care. The only thing he thought of was saving her—the repercussions on a human body falling such a great distance barely passed through his mind
The only thing that stopped him from catapulting off of the cliff along with her was a quick grab by a gray, gloved hand. Robin fell backward, hitting the ground on his back while the hand continued to hold onto his cape. "Don't be an idiot," the familiar voice snapped at him in annoyance. Robin's head was still spinning; he pushed himself to a kneeling position, his eyes following the lifeless form of his closest friend as she splashed into the water below them. He couldn't have discerned the owner of the hand that had grabbed him if someone had offered him a million dollars. "You'll die from the fall alone."
"No," the hero mumbled, allowing the sorrow that was already building up inside him to begin to devour his soul. "I have to save her, she's hurt…I can't let her…"
"She isn't dead," X growled, his tone hinting at his inward frustration with the boy. "She's from another planet—she's strong. She'll be just fine."
"But—"
"Just shut up," the anti-hero commanded, turning from Robin to look to the rest of the team. "Beast Boy!"
As if on cue, Raven emerged from the stony side of the mountain, bringing the changeling up along with her. X pointed toward the edge of the cliff; the pair of Titans didn't need much more than a glance around to realize that one of their numbers was missing.
"I need you to go down there and get Starfire," the thief stated calmly, still pointing past Robin's defeated form.
Beast Boy looked nervously toward Terra, who had collapsed from either the pain caused by whoever had ripped through her mind or the exhaustion from hurling such a large object such a distance. "But…Terra…"
"Starfire needs you," X said urgently, nodding his head animatedly toward Robin, trying to silently add, "Robin needs you, too."
"But…why can't…?"
"I'll go, Beast Boy," Raven interrupted him, stalking angrily away from the changeling's wide-eyed form. She shot X a glare while she walked past him and paused to lean a comforting hand on Robin's shoulder before turning back to shoot the changeling a scowl. "I'm sure Terra needs you more than Starfire does, anyway."
Beast Boy was speechless, only able to gape at Raven's cloaked figure while she dove off of the cliff as though she was diving into a swimming pool. It only took a few seconds for his face to grow hot with anger and embarrassment.
"I didn't—but, Terra just—Raven!"
He quickly found himself storming after the empath, and seconds later he'd morphed into a falcon, plummeting downward after the girl he was both so furious with and felt guilty toward. He wasn't sure what was running through his head anymore, much less why his stomach felt like it was twisting itself into a triple-knot, but he didn't have time to stop and wonder.
After all, Starfire needed him.
X watched the falcon fall from the cliff for a moment before turning his eyes toward Terra. Cyborg was already walking toward her, removing something from the paneling on his robotic armor that X could only assume was some sort of sensor.
The thief looked toward Robin, who still stared dejectedly off of the side of the cliff, watching the empath and changeling while they searched for Starfire's body. "She's gone," the boy wonder murmured, more to himself than to anyone else. X sighed quietly, briefly setting a gloved hand on his rival's shoulder.
"She'll be fine," he said again, tugging gently at the boy's arm to earn a broken stare. X nodded his head toward Terra; Robin followed the motion. "She needs help, too, you know. Those two will find your girl. You two help Terra."
Numbly, Robin nodded, though he still found himself unable to muster the energy required to stand. "What about you?"
The thief grinned behind his mask. "I'm getting out of here before you five decide to follow through on the girl's bargain."
The boy wonder didn't even think of protesting. He only looked toward Terra, noticing X taking his leave from the corner of his eye. Another day, he mused to himself.
Involuntarily, he shuddered.
That sounded too much like Slade.