Chapter four
Delsin wasn't the one in the Rowe family to be concerned about others, the only one he gave two shits about was himself. His parents couldn't care less about their second son and Reggie was just there to fucking nag about how he was always doing the wrong things. He didn't need any of them in his life.
It was his game plan, yourself first, the rest comes second and it had worked well till now. Very good actually, but there was something alive in the pit of his stomach that ate away at him. Concern and worries flying through his mind, where was his motherfucking ass of a brother?
He sat on Reggie's couch and zapped through the channels. Reggie should have been home by now, dawn was already upon the people of Seattle and somehow Delsin Rowe worried about his sack of shit brother Reggie Rowe.
At first the younger brother hadn't thought any of it, himself being out all day practicing and his brother supposedly going to his job, but when the clock told him it was already six and his brother hadn't come home yet, nagging at Delsin for not cooking dinner, the pit of worry was planted.
Now it was six in the morning of the next day, precise a full day that he last saw his brother or even more because Reggie had gone to bed at ten, while he'd set fire to the bushes next to their home.
Fuck, where was that idiot? He took out his phone and pressed the '1', he got that fucker under the hotkey. It went over and for a second he prepared himself to release a shit storm of curses on his sibling.
Something like; 'It's great you finally found a living, breathing, walking human being, preferably female, but if you bat for the other team, that's fine, bro, who's willing to sleep with you, but you could have fucking give me a ring you were going to spent the night at your new lover's home. It's not like I worried or anything, you idiot, I just need to know if I need to cook myself.'
Something like that, yeah… but the change didn't appear. He went straight to voicemail. With a loud growl he tossed the phone onto the table and his eyes finally rested on the television screen.
Their local news channel was on and distress was clear. The newsreader, with a frantic expression, told about a riot and Delsin really didn't care. He took the remote between his fingers and switched the TV off.
''Fuck you, Reggie.'' He muttered and maybe that was his first real mistake, because he didn't see that distressed woman tell her story about why she was so fucking distress. Mainly because of the beast, but that piece of information, well that, Delsin missed.
Junior scurried off to the room, more so a closet, where Sasha said he was going to sleep. The young conduit felt terrible not only had he made the woman he wanted to be like angry at him, but he pissed off their leader, Cole Macgrath, the beast. That wasn't something you did, nop, not if you wanted to keep that pretty head of yours.
Junior heard stories from his care taker about how the beast hadn't always been just that, the beast, how he was a normal guy at first and slowly changed in the terrible monster he was nowadays.
Sasha told him the grand tale about a delivery boy in Empire City and how fate had chosen him for greater things. She rambles on and on about a box and a device that glowed an eerie blue inside it, how Cole cracked it open and about one of the biggest explosions she had ever seen. She has drawn it for him once, a big blue and red explosion that left nothing but wreckage and chaos. Inside, right in the middle, she always draws a stick figure with hearts around his head. She never really confirmed it was indeed their leader, but Junior knew and it scared him.
How could Sasha be in love with that nightmare figure straight out of hell? Sasha of all people! Cold blooded Sasha that had picked him up solely for his powers, but began to care a little with time. The same woman that merciless led the Reapers back in the day and killed more humans and conduits than you could count. Yet here she was drawing hearts around the stick figure, that Junior knew was Cole, like a love sick teenager. Disgusting.
The boy shook his head, bangs falling in his face and he scuffed. Why was the beast even so pissed? It was just a mere human he practiced his gift on. Just a human and like he said himself: 'humans ain't worth nothing.' What made this one an exception to the golden rule? Why was this one different than others? Why was this man special… Junior narrowed his brown eyes and a purple glow became visible around the edges, seeping in and coloring his vision.
He dreamed about stupid stuff, monsters that a little kid saw under his bed and picnics. One moment he is completely happy and the other he's tossing around, gasping for air. It wasn't anything Junior didn't see before, back with Sasha and the Reaper gang, she let him feed of normal citizens, not knowing what hit them. Those dreams were filled with the same figures and the same, somewhat boring, stories. Again and again. It was really nothing new and Junior understood it was just the humans unconscious part of his brain reacting to the situation.
It was stupid. The man upstairs was stupid. The whole fucking situation of Cole being the all mighty leader was stupid. Sasha was stupid for falling in love with the beast. He was stupid for fucking up.
He borrowed his head in his knees, but sobbing wasn't going to answer any of the questions he possessed.
Why did Cole keep the human without any potential alive in their temporary base? Was the man really so reckless? Did he really think he was unstoppable, and he sort of was, that nobody could hurt him any longer? Junior didn't know what Cole was thinking, but he sure as heck was going to get to the bottom of it.
Reggie opened his eyes and immediately closed them again. A blinding white light shone right into his pupils and it burned. He blinked, once, twice and then again tried to look around. This time he rolled on his side first before opening his eyes. The light shone on his cheek and temple, but luckily missed his eyes.
He pressed a cold hand to his forehead and went to sit up straight. The dizziness hit him right on and he fell back down onto the grass with a pained 'oof'. The blinding light from earlier actually was the bright sun that shone onto Seattle that day and Reggie laughed at his own stupidity.
''If you can't laugh at your own flaws…'' Wait, what? He touched the grass that rested beneath his palms and surely it was as real as himself. He scanned the area he was in swiftly and came to the conclusion that he in a park. Which park? Well that was unknown for him. It didn't really matter at the moment, what did matter was to find out why the fuck he was in a park at all.
The last thing he remembered was that he was on his way to work, to just be stopped by some DUP's. They told him he needed to get out the car, so they could search it. He remembered asking why. He remembered the man that was shining in his face with his everlight.
An everlight was the new kind of flashlight the DUP invented around the six year after doomsday. Some crazy guy, Michael something something, came around with the gadget and the higher-ups did like the idea. Shine with the thing on someone's bare skin, and only bare skin, and if it lighted up a light purple you knew. Knew if someone was a bio-terrorist of just a human. The only downside the damn thing had was that, one: it made the skin that it was shone on itch like a motherfucker and two: it only worked on conduits that already were in the third stage A.K.A. as having their powers out and about.
'Why would you need to search my car, for goodness sake?' He remembered the stiff answer he received. The DUP obviously had a long day and he understood that, but it didn't give him the right to shine is everlight right in his eyes.
'Tone it down a little, sir. It is just security precaution.' But it wasn't and when the wall around their city was broken down, Reggie knew why they needed to search his vehicle. Had heard the explosion behind him and he knew he needed to get out of the main streets as fast as he possible could.
He remembered seeing several people came through the gap in the wall and in front of them was a man. A single man with a dangerous aura around him, he'd something clasped tightly in his hands, but from where Reggie stood he couldn't make out what it was. The man radiated power, it came of him in thick waves and it didn't lay Reggie one bit. Too much power for just one man, that could never be healthy.
He remembered the first scream. A woman's, high and pitch and it echoed around in the streets. He also remembered why she screamed, it was rather hard to miss. Something black of massive size was stuck in her chest and she clawed at it, with her last strength. It was like a black mass formed into a spear. It was crazy and surreal, he couldn't rip his glued eyes away from it.
Later, when she already closed her eyes for the last time, Reggie discovered what the black thing was exactly. It moved from where it pierced the woman's body, it uncurled to reveal a woman. A woman with short black hair and vibrant green eyes, she had scales all over her body, but somehow remained beautiful in an unique way. Her eyes were glowing an unnerving black and she let it go in a burst, like she was shooting a gun. Some hit poor bastards, others just bounced through the battlefield.
She grinned and happily skipped farther down the street, her body language just screamed: pleased. Reggie had a hard time keeping his lunch down, the mingled body of the woman was the most disgusting thing he ever saw in his life. He managed to not vomit right there and then, but when he saw the next victim of an conduit he actually did barf up his lunch. Pancakes and sausages right there on the passenger's seat.
The second victim was a short man, flung against Reggie's car door and from where he sat he could see that his lower body was entirely missing, only a few strings of flesh and veins remaining.
People moved around them, frantically screaming and panicking. All Reggie could do was stare and try not to cry. He didn't know if he could have moved, if it wasn't for the DUP officer, who forced him to move along with a crowd.
A thick crowd it was, women, men and children. Every single one more afraid than the person before. Reggie was the one you would find last.
Then out of nothing a scarred hand gripped his sleeve and pulled him away from the group. The tattooed arm belonged to a muscled man, the man with the dangerous aura. He faintly reminded him of Delsin, the same grin and the same twinkle to the eyes. One big difference were the eyes though. Where those of Delsin where a warm brown, those of the man were a eerie, red color with a abhorrent golden ring around the pupils. A mouth full, but somehow it was the only right description. Not just red, not just gold.
He tried to get an excuse for the man to let him go and with his brother already in his head, he ranted the reasons of one by one in his head. The roll of devoted sibling was the one, he deemed most likely to work. He watched the shows, read the books and that was what they all did. His life may not have been a book or a TV show, but it didn't hurt to try. Well not yet, if the man decided to break his neck the pain was going to be quite well painful.
It could have worked, if he hadn't said the next part in his haste and fear. The vibe wasn't helping Reggie get rid of the idea of sexual predator the conduit gave off. Said conduit wasn't pleased with his cheeky behavior and when he couldn't breathe anymore, it wasn't a surprise.
Then he was slam dunked to the ground and his head hit the pavement. Hard. And the few minutes that followed were removed from his memory and only blackness remained. The last thing he remembered is how the guy let him go and how he tried to escape the madness that was unfolding. He jumped over bodies, bodies that were already going cold and he dodged bullet and ice (ice!) that zoomed through the air. When he almost made it. Almost. Something, or rather someone, slammed into his side and Reggie went sprawling to the ground and once again his head made contact with the ground.
From then on it was black.
What the hell happened after that? He obviously wasn't in the cold street of Seattle anymore. What kind of crucial event was he missing? What did he miss and where was Delsin, when you fucking needed him?
The shining bright magnet at the back of his coat wasn't noticed by him and that was his fatal mistake.
Devoted sibling roll? Sorry, mister Reggie Rowe, we already have someone else.
Delsin was getting impatient and it wasn't a good thing when he got like that. It meant broken furniture and fried pets to come home to. It wasn't so to say, pleasant, because most of the time impatience also meant anger. And an angry Delsin was bad news for about everybody, including himself.
The smoke gathered in his palm, coming together at the centre and becoming one dark cloud of pure smoky chaos. He gave it a look, a firm glare, and soon it swirled around his head in a small line, straight and clean. His control had gotten better over the months and he didn't just burn his own hair and clothes anymore.
He toyed with his gift a little and tried to keep his mind of his brother, but it just worked for limited time and then he just snapped. And when he snapped, he snapped real good. Delsin jumped up, teeth barred and smoke aggressively shooting through the room. No, Delsin Rowe's temper wasn't a small one.
It went in croaks, squares and circles through the space. One puff of smoke swirled around a chair and with one flick of Delsin's wrist, the chair fell. It bounced of the stone tiling and one of the wooden, half burned legs was broken off when the smoke rushed against it. It was Reggie's favorite chair and the mere thought of the broken look that his sibling would have on his face, made the younger smile.
It was like a big, unsaid fuck you to his brother. Not that he didn't say it out loud enough, he did frequently, along with other insults, which were better left unspoken.
Yet the dark cloud wasn't done yet, not even near done, and it made its way towards the kitchen, opening an cupboard and taking a plate from inside. His smoke was almost like a human, in the way it moved and acted. Fantastic. The plate, once a pearly white, was engulfed with the smoke and it wrapped itself around the porcelain. A crack was heard, then two and three and then the plate, of what was left it, came clashing to the ground and broke in even more pieces, where it slammed against the floor. The ground was littered with the little grey pieces and Delsin needed to remind Reggie to clean it up. When the bastard came home that is.
The grin on Delsin's face widened, splitting his face, and still with his back to the kitchen door, the smoke came back fast. It took its rightful place in Delsin's hand, right at the centre. The bright smile that rested on his lips soon turned to a frown.
'' Where the fuck are you, Reggie?'' And no, he wasn't worried about that idiot of a brother, of course not. Delsin Rowe didn't do worry, he was just concerned his only source of food, money and housing abandoned him. Yup, that was it, totally. He didn't want to cover that shit for himself now, did he? No, that was Reggie's only real propose in his eyes. Yup, that was it, totally.