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Blackshot Ghosts [Closed]

The elevator muttered and creaked on its way down, doling out a running commentary in between Jaxon's thoughts and his words. Kara tilted toward a half-grin at his assessment of her capabilities, but she didn't interrupt the man who thoroughly filled the confined area they occupied. She let him find his way through the until-now unformed explanation as to the part of his own being, the confrontation in the hallway ebbing away into the immediate here and now, when suddenly it hit her.


He'd never said the word before. Sniper. Kara's guts dropped out from under her. The elevator chuntered to a halt and she realized he was smiling at her, that he'd said something, and it required an answer or at least a nod, and that's what she gave him, but her mind raced around that one word.


Sniper.


He'd taken lives, of course. Before now, the idea of it was an abstract--not all soldiers killed, but all were trained to do it-- yet those two syllables focused fast and sharp on an exactness that hadn't been there before. A deadliness. She remained behind on the elevator for few heartbeats, scrambling internally to bring order to the emotions careening into one another in her mind.


Jaxon was a killer.


Of course he was.


But being behind a scope was different than just a plain old--


Not for the man on the receiving end.


Kara stepped out.


It was still different than being a grunt in the field.


It was more personal.


What, she wondered, circling around to face him, would that do to a man? She'd had her proof near the harbor yesterday. Placing a finger low on his sternum, she pinched his sweater and used it to pull herself closer to him. His break had proved his humanity. He had done monstrous things, but that didn't make him a monster. He felt remorse, even if he couldn't--wouldn't--put a name to that guilt.


He was both simply and a-thousand-times-complicated Jaxon, and she would need to mull the idea of it over in a quiet hour, somewhere in the recessess of solitude to suss the full implications of his revelation. Tucking it away in a secret drawer of her conciousness, she poked at the spot on his chest she'd just touched. It was pleasingly muscular.


"You don't need permission to watch my six," she said, innuendo slinking in under her tone, "as long as you let me watch yours." The sly glimmer in her eyes faded to a resigned cautiousness. "Speaking of which, which I wasn't, don't worry. Your brother'll find you." A head-jerk indicated the upper floor. Moving away, she opened the front door and winter screamed in, setting her teeth on edge. "He's tied to you, which means he'll show up wherever you go, whether he wants to or not. You're like a big, hairy beacon to him and who knows how long he'll stick around. Might want to keep that in mind before you let me come between you two. Catch my drift?"


The city glistened under the steely sky. Plows had yet to reach the street running past Kara's building, and the blanketing snow lay down a layer of quiet. Off in the distance, the elevated train clattered away from her dockside home, hurrying past cleared roads and avenues where the snow was piled on the curbs in gray, oily heaps. A few blocks beyond her threshold, and sidewalks had been churned into slush by so many feet, but here was where pristine found its meaning. Here, isolation joined hands with perfection, a peace offering of the season.


Kara blew a stream of vapor into the air, attempting a ring without success, and then turned and started toward the old part of town. Her hands curled around the plastic bags tucked in her pockets. She didn't let her reluctance to leave her familiar territory show.


"No pun intended."
 
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For a moment, as he watched Kara on the elevator, Jaxon felt the sickening rush of fear he had while before the monk, who had stared through him like he was the phantom instead. He didn't talk about his service, except, apparently, to Kara; at this point, she probably knew more than Ayden, but the marine's information had been gathered from second-hand sources. Scraping his tongue across the back of his teeth, he wondered if he'd said too much, perhaps too callously. Do anything enough, even death, and it became just another thing. As long as it wasn't questioned.

His head moved to follow her motion, and her touch, as little as it may be, brought peace to his mind, at least for now, on this particular subject. Her subtle words were rewarded with a grunt laced with amusement and grin that didn't quite have time to spread to his eyes.

Because of Ayden. Right.

His eyes lifted to narrow at the ceiling, and his lips twitched into a small snarl. He inhaled. Exhaled, and let his face settle into a blankness that couldn't hide his fatigue, even if they had only just begun the day.

And things were only going to get harder.

Not knowing what to say as he sorted out the thoughts left half-empty inside his head, Maverick remained silent as he followed Kara outside. The sudden drop in temperature made his nose wrinkle, and he immediately shoved his hands into his fur-lined pockets, fingers on his right brushing against a small clot of dirt that had entered during his struggle in the swamp mud.

He had only a second to admire the untouched snow, before the racket of the passing train jerked his head in its direction. Glancing over the cityscape, his gaze returned back to their intended path, and his right boot was lifted and dropped into the snow, taking the first step to ruin the serene blanket before the two of them.

"I know," he said at last, and his chilled breath vaporized the words. "But he doesn't get to make my decisions for me." He paused, stealing a look at Kara, before kicking the toe of his boot into a pile of white. "He doesn't trust me enough to believe I can make good ones on my own."

He shrugged his shoulders as if it was nothing. In the front of his mind, within the parts he consciously controlled, it was nothing. Years had been wasted trying to earn back his brother's confidence; he couldn't control the marine's perception, and the energy spent trying could be directed more efficiently elsewhere. "He has good intentions. Always has. Just, uh, a streak of righteousness that makes it easy to become a fuck-up in his eyes."

Throwing a look over a shoulder to make sure they were still alone--well, not being trailed by Ayden--he cleared his throat, and found himself back within the confessional box, speaking sentences he normally left unsaid. "Our mom passed when I was in high school, and he was just finishing up a deployment overseas. I mean, one day, your career just ends, and you've got to take care of your stubborn brother. And somehow hold it all together as your world is burning."

Just like he was trying to now. It was like watching his past play back on a screen, being forced to relive every painful moment. "I honestly never appreciated it back then."

His jaw tensed, and with a look toward her, his expression softened. "You know, I don't talk about this shit. To anyone."
 
Snow crunched underfoot. On the move again, Kara's boot slid just enough to warn her of the sleet buried in the white strata. She stuck close to the wall, but touched Jaxon's elbow for a fleeting second in a silent request for him to stay within easy reach. The storm had covered the ground with at least half a foot of the mix, and she wondered how the suburb north of the city had fared; odd, that she'd not thought of the little town of Battleburg for over a week now. It would be picturesque right now, with all its cankers and bleeding wounds sealed beneath the snow.

"Sometimes the people who love us most wreck us the hardest," Kara started, hunching her shoulders against the chill, "not because they want to, but because they can. We let 'em in. We give a shit about what they say, how they treat us, what they think of us. So, yeah, I get what you're saying about the righteousness. It's kind of like having a bus driver with blinders on. He wants to get you to your destination, but he's not seeing the stuff he's slamming into on the way."

One house in Battleburg would have a light on in the kitchen right about now. Kara checked her phone; it was just before nine. Isabelle would be up, just barely. Barry would have been awake for at least two hours, most likely drinking coffee in his workshop in the basement. Covertly peeking at the misty lines that made up Bernard's outline, she frowned and looked at the time once more, but put that third thought which rose up to nag her about the monk and returned to her former two. The first was Jaxon. The second was her foster parents, nestled neatly away in their brick two-story, well-meaning like Ayden, but perhaps a fraction less damaging. Distance made the heart grow fonder, and Kara had slowly patched up her portion of the wounds she'd given them as they'd tried to keep from doing the same to her in her wild and furious teenage years. Through Jaxon, she was gaining a better picture of his brother, a blade tempered in just the right way to make him hard, efficient, and effective, but riddled with imperfections.

Her jaw inched left. She trapped her tongue between her teeth, deep in thought for a heartbeat. Perhaps Ayden's return was about a hell of a lot more than he was prepared to admit to himself. Perhaps it was less about finding his body and more about--

Kara grunted, unaware that she did so, and continued along her first train of thought, right where she'd left off. "Wanting to protect someone's a powerful reason to come back. You do what you can for family. Love. Obligation," her hand escaped its pocket and swirled in the air, flippant about such heavy ties. "Whatever. He still means well, but maybe you have to start telling him what you're telling me. Get it into the light, iron it all out. He might sense he's fucked up, but it's probably not there on the surface for him. He might have to hear it from you. Then you have to decide if you want to forgive him for it or not. Or if you want to let go of him if you do."

She took a left on Montoya Street and prepared to cross to Eleventh. As for his last statement, Kara chose to ignore it. It was as if he'd commented on the depth of the snow or the bite of the cold; it was there, it was obvious, and she felt it, too. To dwell on it was to idle on what would change if it could, and right now, she was intent on moving forward.

And still her mind snuck off to the cozy little house in Battleburg, returning to pick at an idea not yet uncovered, far from being understood.

Family.

Love.

Whatever.
 
Without a word, Jaxon granted Kara her silent request, walking by her side so that she would have him to grab onto in case of a slip, careful to make sure his naturally long strides were timed to line up with hers. And as they walked, he listened, even though what she was saying was hardly what he wanted to hear. His eyes were kept in the distance, scouting out the rooftops, the people, the occasional noise.

At first, his only response was a reflexive half-hearted grunt that neither confirmed what she said nor denied it; it barely even gave recognition. He had brought the subject up, and already, he was shutting down upon it. Stone settled over years was hard to break through. Old habits--ones created to keep his sanity--were hard to conquer, particularly when part of him was still reluctant to do so.

It was true, though. He knew that, deep within in his gut, though it was a bitter pill to swallow. He needed to talk to Ayden. But he didn't talk. Ayden didn't talk. It was a learned behavior, engrained so long ago that it was difficult to even acknowledged.

But forgiveness?

His eyes narrowed, jaw clenching at the thought. That shovel had hit too closely to the grave buried long ago within the farthest reaches of his mind.

He had nothing to forgive. No right to ask for it.

Didn't he?

-----
That look in his fucking eyes. So brazen, so full of hypocritical, righteous fury, that it brought anger deep inside Jaxon's heart. And yet His Honor didn't even speak, couldn't form the damn words he wanted to say so much.

"Fucking spit it out," Jaxon growled, tired of waiting.

The marine kicked the backpack across the floor, spilling the contents, his brother's sins, upon the wooden planks beneath his feet. The plastic bags remained intact, though the metal of the gun made a thrashing sound as it landed.

"I am done," Ayden said firmly. "Get out. Get out of my house."

One last act of rebellion. The flames burned in the hollowed pits of his eyes: "It's not your house."

The glass of the picture frame shattered as it landed on the floor. "Get the fuck out."
-----

Jaxon cleared his throat, withdrawing a hand from the safety of his jacket to rub at his beard. As soon as he was able to stand, after his recovery from receiving his near fatal wound overseas, he had begged to be sent back. Yelled. Threatened, even. Then retreated in defeat, back to nothing.

He felt a similar urge now. What battle he wanted to flee to...He couldn't say. It didn't really matter; at least under that heat, he had clarity, no doubts. Direction.

"Iron it all out," he repeated, shoving his hand back into his pocket to pick at the lining. "Yeah, I know."

He didn't know what else to say on the subject. He didn't even know what else to think on the subject. Some things he just wasn't ready to admit; some wounds were so deep--cut by his own hand guided by another--that perhaps they couldn't ever heal. Jaxon was who he was, and he owned everything single step he had taken in life, including those that led to falls.

Besides, with the soundless air left after his last admission, he felt tired of talking. And he hadn't really expected anything different, at least, that's what he thought.

Tilting his head in Kara's direction, his gaze shifting to landed on her, he came to the realization that she knew a lot more about him than he did her.

He blinked slowly.

"So...what about your folks?" A heartbeat of hesitation later, and he added, "...And I still don't know your middle name."
 
Warehouses gave way to businesses. A brewery. A two-star chiropractor's office. A pawn shop. All the odds and ends that couldn't make rent any deeper downtown, ugly little half-forgotten children of the city. Just as she had done during their first walk together, Kara led Jaxon along a zig-zag path past these buildings, across streets, and through alleyways in order to avoid the least desirable hot spots of paranormal activity, although Spooner Street was going to be interesting. Curling her thumb and forefinger around her right ear for warmth, she watched a bricked-up doorway at the end of the block, her attention split between it and the man she now comfortably bumped elbows with.


She hadn't expected Jaxon to respond favorably to her suggestion. Whatever the width of the rift between him and Ayden, advice wasn't going to mend it, even though there was always the chance of a miracle--he might listen to her, one day. Just not now.


Construction jammed the opposite sidewalk, keeping her from crossing over onto the other side of Spooner. Snow decorated the scaffolding which climbed three stories high, turning the wood-and-metal gridwork into frozen art. As if sensing her approach, a shadow jittered in negative in the archway she watched, grey to black and back again. Kara's fingers dipped into the graveyard dust in her pocket. Jaxon's question thrust her focus off its tracks and back into Battleburg with alacrity. Craning her head to peer at him, she followed his train of thought and nodded as if to say: fair enough. Quid pro quo and all that.


"It's Kara-Elizabeth, actually. Hyphenated. No middle name. Elizabeth was my birth mother." She spoke with the same clinical detachment she'd used earlier when speaking of Catholic school. "She gave it to me. Kazinsky's from my foster parents."


Her stomach clenched and held tight. It wasn't the subject which stalled her from revealing more, but the act itself. Volunteering information unbidden was easy; one parceled it out as one wished, in increments large or small, without the surprise of being asked for it. This was harder.


"And there's not much to tell about them. They're nice, whitebread, well-meaning, and upper-middle class. Barry's a retired math professor and Isabelle's an attorney." Gently, she nudged Maverick over to the edge of the curb, implying the sideways movement one step at a time rather than overtly. The specter undulated only yards away now. Kara watched it out of the corner of her eye, keeping Jaxon on the other side of her peripheral vision, monitoring whether or not he saw the thing, too. "No siblings, at least none that I know of, but it wouldn't be impossible. My mother wasn't... wasn't exactly picky about her boyfriends, or so I found out a few years ago." She hesitated, then barked, "Piss off, Seamus, don't you fucking start."


The mist coalesced into the muddy shape of a man, his tattered bowler tipped back on his head, his eyes black pits in his head. His shade was thin enough to see the bricks through his waistcoat and plaid trousers, but solid enough to telegraph his sneer and the hand slinking down to his crotch in lurid suggestion.
 
This stretch of city reminded Jaxon of what Tenth Street used to be, before gentrification swallowed his block whole. The change had happened so suddenly, at least to him; in between deployments and training, each scarce trip home, part of once was had been erased and replaced, sometimes as if it had never even existed. Leo liked to rant against it, but Jaxon didn't quite know how to feel. Places of his past were being wiped away, and part of him felt like it was a blessing. The thought was half-empty and fleeting, leaving his head almost as soon as it had entered. Instead, with a tilt of his chin to show he was listening even if he wasn't looking at her, his attention was directed toward Kara, as his eyes continued to scout out their surroundings like they belonged to a bird of prey.

He couldn't ever turn it off. The USN spent a lot of time and money pounding into him the instincts that made him effective in the field. And after relying on them for a good chunk of his life, he couldn't--didn't know if he even wanted to--simply flip the switch, put his body at ease. Not when there was an added layer of danger now present in his life.

It was hard to catch, mainly because he was still figuring out what to look for, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw the shadow, so faint that before he would've thought it was imagined.

But Kara had told him he wasn't crazy.

Setting his jaw, he took a quick glance at her, before looking off. Following her lead, he kept the faded image within his sight, though kept his focus elsewhere, as to not make it obvious that he was watching.

She spoke of her history the way he imagined he would his--the parts that involved pulling the trigger. Emotion was an open door to a lot of nasty thoughts and doubts that could crawl inside and rip apart the matter of the mind. Emotion was dangerous.

She had no family around, not by blood. He was starting to get a closer look at Kara-Elizabeth Kazinsky, and it was like staring into the reflective surface of a rippling lake: the image shown back wasn't quite the same, but it was still recognizable. For all of Ayden's flaws, he wondered--but stopped before it went too far--where he would be without him.

Well-meaning. The path to hell was paved with good intentions.

He ran his tongue over the back of his teeth, feeling an odd urge to speak, though he didn't exactly know what he wanted to say. He knew he wanted to know more, and as she gave him bits and pieces, he felt an urge to share things he had never spoken out loud, never allowed his mind to linger on for too long.

His lips parted just slightly, but he was halted before he could even begin. The sudden appearance of the phantom stole his attention, and his head jerked in the disheveled once-man's direction.

The ghost's blatant, lecherous motions earned him a snarl.

The former SEAL took a step forward, angling his body to partially cover Kara. His feet were spread apart, his right boot pushed ahead, and his other held back. His hands were freed from his pockets, and though they were yet to be raised or made to form fists, they were kept ready to move.

These were insticts primed over years of training, years of fighting. Though he no longer just had to worry about the living, they couldn't be altered in but a few hours. He wasn't prepared for this, like the last time him and Maxson stepped off a plane together. But he would go to battle nonetheless.
 
Being protected wasn't something Kara was used to-- at least not by anyone still alive. Bernard stepped in from time to time when he was absolutely needed, but to do so could potentially drain his energy, and he knew and was comfortable with the measure of her abilities. For him, Seamus was just one of a dozen ghosts to be ignored, a mouth without teeth as long as one didn't venture too close to his doorstep, all piss and wind. Therefore, Maverick startled both the monk and the woman he was tied to with his readiness to lash out, causing them both to halt in their tracks.

A moment later, Kara flattened her hand against Maverick's chest and pushed back, curling her fingers so that her nails dug into his skin through his clothing, a painless yet forceful order to stop. "What are you going to do? Huh? What're you going to do, you going to hit him?"

An uneven grin underpinned her stern words. It was clawed and sharp, unveiling the wild streak she worked hard to keep in check and yet rarely had the opportunity to let free. Her thumb flicked across his nipple, a secret message made louder when she captured her bottom lip in her teeth; she was neither angry at him nor put off by his brutishness, but she could still be amused by it--and more.

"That won't work, considering he's dead,," she continued, speaking low and closing the gap between their bodies, her eyes roaming his face with hunger. They lingered on the furious line his mouth made, then snapped up to meet his gaze, demanding he return it. "My mother. My real mother, Elizabeth. I don't remember much about her--I was three when she died--but she left something for me in a safety deposit box that I found out about when I started looking for her. She was like me, but couldn't handle it. Drugs, booze, checking out early. She didn't want that to happen to me."

Kara put faith in Maverick and stepped to the side; moving back would put her in grabbing range of Seamus, and with the perversions he was hissing at her right now, she knew he'd be in fine form to attempt a snatch and grab. Dipping a finger into the bag of salt in her pocket, she held it up to show Maverick, then did the same with her opposite hand. Brick dust and grave dirt darkened the tip of her left first fingers.

"So she left me instructions on how to deal with shitheads like Seamus. This guy?" Kara turned and waggled her fingers at him, giving him healthy pause. "We've talked before. Too many times, if you ask me. He doesn't learn, but as you and I both know, ghosts nothing if not single-minded."

Kara raised her hands and took a step toward Seamus, who coiled in on himself, broken teeth bared in apprehension. She spoke both to him and to Maverick. "Salt and goofer dust. They ward and protect, and tend to burn the darker spirits. Badly. Sounds like bullshit, but they work, J. Might want to start carrying them." Kara feigned a lunge at the dead Irishman, whose curse spread in a viscous black vapor off his tongue. "You want to dance again, Seamus, or are you going to keep your dick in your pants, you fuckin' pig-faced rapist?"

Tight as a spring, her muscles voiced her want, her need for him to retaliate, so that she could bring down the hammer of righteousness against his being. Seamus strobed in shadow again, uncertainty on his blurred visage, and with a last, slurred insult, faded into the wall.

"Prick," Kara grunted, and spat on the bricks, the third and most ancient ward against his ilk.
 
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What are you going to do?

Jaxon hadn't thought that far ahead, having acted on impulse instead of taking time to think. But he was determined to figure something out; he'd be damned if he did nothing. Unfavorable odds had never stopped him before. The hand against his chest kept him from advancing, but his eyes, tinted with determined rage, never left his target.

Until he felt her thumb glide across his peck, and her body press against his.

With a tilt of his head, his gaze shot down to examine Kara’s, though the phantom was kept within his sight. While she wasn’t anywhere near calm and collected, she didn’t seem phased by Seamus at all; instead, she was reacting to his actions.

It was hard, forcing his hands to drop, but he had faith that she knew what she was doing. The tension in his shoulders refused to relax, however, and he couldn’t make it unwind. His lips formed a tight line, and as she stepped off, he gave her a nod.

It was harder to stand still, motionless, as she threatened the vile thing with dust and salt. His jaw remained rigid, and his eyes ever so watchful; his boots hadn’t been moved, kept in the same position that would allow him to make quick movement should it be needed.

The part of his mind not occupied with keeping track of what was unfolding before him made notes of what she told him, and the effectiveness of the simple materials she used to get the phantom to back down. More importantly, though he had little time to process it, he pocketed the little bit of information about her past, her birth mother, she had chosen to share with him.

It wasn’t until the threat was out of sight that the muscles in his shoulders finally gave. Eyes still locked on Kara, gleaming with approval, a smirk tugged at his lips. She was a fighter; the way she had moved against Seamus, the outright challenge in her voice, all were evidence of the fire that burned in her veins. And because of it, he felt drawn to her like an arsonist.

Moving forward, he reached out to wrap his forearm around her chest, pulling her body inward toward his own. His head lowered, lips brushing against her neck, as he stated quietly, “I always mean what I say.”

I will fight for you.

A low, rumbling grunt later, his lips twisted into a grin around the word, “Impressive.”

Reluctantly, he pulled away, stepping to the side so that his body acted as a barrier between her and the wall, which was the last place he had seen the banished ghost. His hand pressed against her back, urging her forward, as his feet picked up at a brisk pace, desperate not to linger around the spot for too long.

Once they had advanced a comfortable distance away, he withdrew his palm, raising his fingers to scratch along the side of his jaw, before he shoved his hands inside his pockets to keep them warm. “And…about your mom? I’m sorry.”
 
Damn it all. She could have said a mighty fuck you to the freezing temperature and dragged him into the alley the moment his gaze met hers. He didn't condemn her for the spark in her blood started by his willingness to defend her, nor was he disgusted by her aggressiveness toward the wraith. Instead, Jaxon blazed along with her. Clamping her hands around his forearm as he drew her close, she leaned into him and shuddered at the feel of his lips grazing her skin above her choker. A tiny sound escaped from behind her clenched teeth. The whimper turned into a dissatisfied grumble when he withdrew and nudged her into a quick walk. Normally, she'd have given him an earful for ushering her down the sidewalk in such a manner, but if she was reading his expression right, Seamus had given Maverick the willies.

And why not? He was still new to this. Agonizingly new and easily spooked.

No pun intended.

The coffee shop wasn't too far away now, and she had just enough time to wonder if their end goal--the bar and its occupants--wasn't putting a nervous energy in Maverick's pace in addition to his ghost-wariness, speeding him toward the one thing he'd probably give an arm and a leg to avoid altogether. Just as she was considering steering them around Constanza's, Jaxon spoke.

Kara blinked. Tipping her head briefly to the side, she lifted a shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. "You too, J. And for all the bad you had to deal with." And put into the world, she mused without rancor. What was, was. Couldn't be changed. "But it made you who you are and put you here today, so... it had to mean something." She sniffed and rubbed at her nose, which was turning bright red in the cold to match her cheeks. Swallowing, she squinted at the corner which touched the street where Miguel was working at this very minute. So quietly as to nearly have her words lost, she continued. "I don't blame her. My mother," she clarified. "I thought about doing the same thing a few times, myself."

Gliding through the snow ahead of them, Bernard heard the comment and turned an ear toward her, a brow cutting low over his bright, blue eye.

"She was still a kid herself when she had me. I had Barry and Izzy and then B to help me keep my head above water. I don't know that she had anybody. That's the scariest fucking thing in the world to think about, Jaxon. Not having anyone at all. Dealing with this shit," her hand did its familiar flicking at the air as she fought for the right phrasing of her thoughts, "Life. Death. Everything in between. You don't have to do anything to Miguel, you know," Kara said, her conscience suddenly needling her. "It'd probably be enough just to let him know he's out of my light now."

Fire and brimstone, everlasting torture, pitchforks and demons? That wasn't the true definition of Hell. God was love, love was light, and the damned were condemned to die without that light of God's love, forever. Let Miguel taste just a little bit of that darkness, the coldness that came with rejection, and that might be enough.

And he'd move on to his next illumination without the bitterness that being alone taught a person.
 
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Nearing his home turf, Jaxon felt comfortable enough to slack in his vigilant watchfulness, and turned his eyes to Kara, hanging onto every word that fell from her lips. By now it had crumbled, the stonewall that had once composed his features; he felt no need to guard them, no urge to hide and bury every emotion that surfaced to the top of his being, every feeling that made him human.

He stared at her, his bright gaze dulled by years of fatigue and bitter hopelessness. It was evident, though he didn't utter a sound, that he didn't quite belief her assertion that everything he had been through, everything he had done, had meant something. Because often times it hadn't. The death he had witnessed--the lives he took--they were nothing more than footnotes in humanity's history of violence and cruelty. And trying to slap meaning on top of them led only to more death, more pain, more suffering. Some things just were. But he wouldn't dare speak on the subject out of reluctance to challenge what comfort she found within her own words.

Her next revelation shook him, and left his expression blank. It was a dark whisper echoed within the furthest corners of his mind, isolated, caged, and ignored. His throat felt dry. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. The path that led them toward each other could have been destroyed--in so many different ways--before they even knew. And where, he wondered, would he be now?

Alone.

Miguel and his fate were hardly the most important thoughts in his mind. Stopping in his tracks, Jaxon reached out to wrap his arms around Kara, shielding her body against the cold and the world with his own. His hand lifted to gently press her head into his chest to warm her face, and he nuzzled into her hair, taking a few moments to simply breathe in her scent, and feel the heat that radiated off her body.

"You have me," he said softly. He wanted her to know that, so much so he that repeated it, and placed a kiss on top of her head.

"My mother didn't make the best decisions," he whispered a heartbeat later. "Her husband being one of them. But I remember sitting next to her on a piano bench, and how she would guide my fingers over the keys." He didn't know why he was sharing this--it hardly seemed relevant--but the words were falling freely from his mouth. "She would read me stories too, from Norse mythology, and make up some bullshit tales about how we were descendants of Vikings." And then his voice became hollow, and was underlined with a black, sickening rage. "She'd tell me to be strong like a warrior, when he--" He halted suddenly, clamping his jaw shut.

Putting distance between their bodies, his jaw clenched, and his eyes drifted off, before slowly focusing on her again. He ran his tongue over the back of his teeth before speaking once more, "About Miguel? I'll do whatever you want me to. Whatever you need me to."
 
His arms gave her shelter. Every embrace, every touch, every breath that passed from him to her rolled back her reluctance to be embraced, to be touched, to share. She wrapped herself around him in turn, her former tension almost--though not entirely-- nonexistent in her limbs. It didn't matter that the future might prove him a liar, whether it be by accident or from intention; she wasn't about to challenge his assertion that she had him. She'd let him take his comfort from it as he might, and she'd steal a little bit for herself in the meantime.

Especially on the heels of what he told her. The fury his past had forged surged into both his voice and his embrace, and what he hadn't said dropped frost into her guts. Her eyes fluttered wide and her breath caught in her lungs. Too soon he let go of her, and the separation felt like falling with no ground in sight. Drawing in a deep breath, she jammed her hands into her coat pockets and moved in closer. A DOT truck thundered by, spraying another layer of salt across the asphalt, the noise of it too much for Kara to speak right away.

When it finally rounded the corner, she stared at Jaxon in the relative silence, worrying the inside of her lip between her teeth.

"You're not my weapon, Jaxon. I won't use you like one, and I'm sorry I asked you to be. It was wrong of me, shitty. Even if you are a--" No. She couldn't say it. Somehow it would ring false, the word his mother had used to brace him up against the violence of his own home. "A Northman," she smiled a little, although the expression was wary, tired. There was so much pain he'd paid forward, and she'd nearly increased the tab.

"We're both busted up enough as it is. No need to bust anyone else up, and I'm not saying that because I want to get back together with him. It's gotta stop somewhere, or at least pause for a little while, all the hurting. Yours, especially. And," she sighed, aiming a frown at Bernard, who'd halted a handful of yards beyond them, "don't look at me like that. I said thought about it, not attempted. They're not the same thing."

He answered her in clipped Latin, hands fisted and body tight.

Kara chuckled, but the humor was gossamer thin. "Only if you masturbate after," she responded, and curled a pinky around Jaxon's available fingers. "You still play?" She asked him. Ignoring the unknown dead was easy. Evading the muted pain in B's gaze put a rawness at the back of her throat she found she couldn't swallow. She'd been with Jaxon less than twenty-four hours, and already she was grinding her heel into whatever good she'd built up in her solitude.
 
She moved forward, lessening the gap he had created between them. The roaring of the passing truck was hardly enough to silence the rustling within his head; he was afraid that after this frozen moment, she would ask him a question he didn’t know how to answer, and that fear tainted every thought. His eyes, unable to keep contact with her own for too long, drifted off to watch as the cause of their paused conversation drove away.

And he was able to exhale, thankful that she didn’t force him to finish the sentence he had left dangling in the air. What she said instead, however, jerked his gaze back to hers, and left him simply staring at her.

Weapon.

It was a sharp word. Dehumanizing. Weapons didn’t think. Didn’t feel. Didn’t question. They were forged for war, and useless without them.

Warrior was the only word that fell from his tongue in description of himself, the only one he had tied to his very being, clung onto to give himself purpose, to make sense of his place within the world. And without a battle to fight, warriors were also useless.

His lips twitched as he glanced down at his hands that curled around Miguel’s belongings, wondering, not for the first time, what the hell he was supposed to do in the quiet. He didn’t even know what to think, or what to feel, about her claim that she wouldn’t use him as a weapon.

He wasn’t a weapon.

Was he?

Her exchange with Bernard gave him time to gather himself; it was something he couldn’t completely follow anyways, as he was lost by the language and within his own thoughts. Her touch, though small, reassured his restless soul, and her question offered him an opening to ease back into their conversation.

Swallowing, he shrugged his shoulders, and spoke softly. “Sometimes. Not as often as I wish.” He paused, and almost timidly, his lips lifted in a small grin. “Thought I could get more chicks with the guitar.”

He stole a glance in the coffee’s shop direction, before looking back to her. “I’ll just give him his stuff, the message, and grab some breakfast while I’m there…” Perhaps he should’ve left it at that, but he couldn’t.

Sternly, in a tone that brokered no argument, he went on, “…And it wasn’t shitty, Kara. He hurt you. Hurt your friend.” His head tilted just slightly toward the monk. “I offered, because…I honestly can’t bear the thought of someone getting away with it.” A heartbeat later, and with renewed fire in his eyes, he clarified, “Hurting you.”
 
"I just don't want you to have to... it's too much after everything you've--" Kara stopped. There was no way she could explain it to him. The urge to protect him from hurt by stopping him from hurting someone else; it was a convoluted idea, one she was capable of putting into words, but not well enough to make the notion wholly understandable. Service as a SEAL had forged him into the weapon he was, and his wetworks as a sniper had further dulled the edges of his humanity. She could see it in his eyes, feel it in the tautness of his carriage, and she did not want to add to it. But how could she explain that to him, when she'd gladly tear the throat out of the world to avenge the ones she loved?

And he was right. Miguel hadn't just caused a disruption in her life. Shifting her weight from one foot to the other, she peeked at Bernard. The monk waited patiently in the snow without feeling its bite, lost in whatever musings she'd set into motion. Death was supposed to end at least some of life's sorrows. Instead, in a matter of minutes, the man who was now pouring coffee for the mindless herd had heaped more onto one of the few people she could truly call friend. She'd spent too many hours peeling back too many of his agonies to have them layered on again by a careless, frightened idiot like Miguel.

In an unguarded moment, her face revealed her retreat from compassion, back to the hard reality of what needed to be done. Maverick needed to try to set things to right again in the only way he knew how, perhaps in the only way available to them, and she needed to allow him to do it.

And Miguel needed to know that for all of his conciliatory language lately, what he'd done was inexcusable. Not that she'd planned on excusing him for it.

"Yeah." Her chin lifted. She searched his face before nodding. "Yeah. I know you can't. And... Speaking of B, I need to go clear some stuff up with him. We'll hang out across the street until you come back, since it'd probably be a bad idea to let him near Miguel. Do what you think's best, as long as it's legal."

Kara brushed past Jaxon with her head down and her jaws clamped around the thanks she couldn't offer him. They were connected now, she and he, but the chitinous shell she'd built around herself over the past two decades couldn't be chipped away in just one night. Besides. What could a thank you change? The last one she'd given was nothing if not sardonic.

"Hey, Bernard," she called to the monk, gentleness softening the edges of her voice, and slipped easily into the Latin they shared between them.
 
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Jaxon wasn't equipped to understand Kara's hesitance. And the way she had derailed his intended course, leaving confirmation of what she wanted up in the air, didn't sit well with him. With one simple word--weapon--she had shaken the carefully placed foundation of the wall kept around the less pleasant parts of his mind, the guards that kept doubt from chipping away from his sanity while he had been in combat. It was all very simple and complex at the same time; the lives of his men had been his priority, and to keep them alive, he did anything he had to.

Mercy was an abstract concept: art to be admired in an gallery, and abandoned once reality came into focus. In the real world, mercy meant leaving your enemies with options, and human nature demanded that those options would be used to destroy you, people you cared about. Jaxon never took those risks, not when it wasn't his life to give; he never gambled with the safety of the few that had earned his loyalty. These circumstances were less extreme, hardly life or death, but the underlining principles were still present. Miguel had hurt Kara, and because of that, there needed to be consequence. Miguel needed to know what would happen should he fuck with her ever again.

Perhaps it wasn't right, but good and evil were always relevant, and the world wasn't ever right to begin with. Nice guys too afraid to pull the trigger always died first, and if anything, Jaxon was a survivor.

Warrior.

Staring at Kara in his thoughts, his features had set rigidly, burying whatever hollowed, residue emotion running through his body deep within the recesses of his mind. It was a familiar process, like gearing up for war. And he welcomed it.

To feel the rush again-
It always made the universe so quiet.

He turned to watch as she brushed by him, noting the look on her face a few moments before, and taking that as his mission. For more his benefit than hers, his eyes closed briefly, and he nodded. Then with a roll of his shoulders, he marched toward the coffee shop.

As the SEAL crossed over the building's threshold, Ayden's image appeared a distance away from the spot his brother had been standing. The marine's eyes, which were stern, disappointed, and as ever these days, angry, followed Jaxon's back, a troubled frown settling across his lips, as he folded his hands behind his back.

Inside Jaxon stood tall, his full, intimidating height on display. His steps were slow and deliberate, and with his steeled eyes set on the counter, he made his presence known by the precise way he moved, not striving to mask himself in his surroundings. He wanted Miguel to know that he was here. Finding a lone table in the corner, and with a careless shrug of his shoulder, Jaxon dropped the guitar to the ground, letting it hit the floor with just enough vibrance to make noise. The other belongings were laid on the tabletop with just as much attention, and their carrier took a seat afterward. His back far off the chair, boots spread apart, Jaxon kept his cool stare glued to Miguel, wanting him to know that he was being watched.

And he waited.
 
A broken house.
Another dry month waiting in the rain,
And I had been resisting this decay...

The song filled Constanza's, spilling over its walls and tables, warming the tiled brick floor. Soft lighting illuminated the artwork on the west side, each piece an amalgam of wood, metal, and paint, works of extraordinary depth and candor. Their creator bounced to the music on the balls of his feet, stationed behind the coffee counter, a mug shoved under a brass steamer that spewed fragrant vapor into the air. His free hand picked out the notes of the tune, dancing over ghost strings at his hip. A striped cardigan clung to his body, sleeves rolled up to reveal the tattooed canvas of his arms, its colors matched by the knit cap clinging to his skull. At the moment Maverick entered, he was grinning at a joke told by his coworker, a girl with body-mods and a streak of pink in her bleached hair. His smile was an illumination, a benediction set in an angel's mien, and it wavered when the guitar dropped a sour note.

He half-turned toward the door, seeking out the sound, then flicked a glance to the corner table where Maverick sat.

Fragile sound...
The world outside just watches as we crawl
Crawl towards a life of fragile lines
And wasted time...

"Hey, man," Miguel called out a cheery greeting, recognizing him from a number of early mornings spent selling Columbian hangover cures to him and dozens of others just like him. "How's it going? Come on up to the counter, hey? It's not self-serv--"

Full stop. His attention stumbled over the objects which had been tossed on the table, then hitched up to the frostbite glare daring him to continue. Miguel put down the cup he was holding, sensing something was wrong, but unable in that split second to process the connection between what looked like his shoes and the man in possession of them. Taking a step to his right, the sight of his guitar wiped any remnants of his smile from his face. His shoulders dropped. Without realizing he did so, he picked up a towel and wiped his hands with it, wringing it hard around his knuckles before depositing it on the counter.

"Be right back," he said to his coworker, his voice barely heard over the chorus of the song.

But this is all I ever was!
And this is all you came across those years ago.
Now you go too far...

Every footstep that brought him nearer to Maverick cried out his reluctance to fulfill this encounter. Wiping a palm over his goatee, he stopped with a few yards between them as a buffer to what was to come, and he crossed his arms in readiness of it. Suddenly pale beneath his tan, he cleared his throat, his Adam's apple bobbing.

Don't tell me that I've changed because
That's not the truth...

"So, that's how it's going to be, huh?" he asked, unable to keep the bitterness at bay. A mix of shock and agitation thickened his Tijuana accent. "She gets you to do her dirty work, can't drop my stuff off by herself? Nice." He sucked air through his teeth and threw his head back as if the idea itself had delivered a physical blow, but the motion halted half-finished.

And now I'm losing you.

Miguel's eyes had lighted on the black-clad figure loitering across the street and his expression blanked. Muttering a string of Spanish curses under his breath, he started in a rush for the door, oblivious to both the weather awaiting him and the giant to whom dirty work had become second nature.

Outside, Kara stood with her back to the coffee shop and spoke quietly to Bernard. She ignored Ayden, keeping her responses to the monk's questions in Latin so that their tag-along couldn't eavesdrop on this conversation, too.

"Please, B. Don't be angry."

"You never told me of it.

"Because it wasn't important. I wasn't serious about it. It's just one of those things you think of in the middle of the night when you're feeling like shit, but would never in a million years actually do. I wasn't like that. I'm not like that. You know me. I wouldn't give up like that, and I wouldn't leave you that way."

Bernard shimmered in the morning light, doubt shading his features. After a few moments, he dropped his chin.

"This is the truth?"

"It's the truth, promise."

Forgiveness touched his blue eyes. He nodded. "Good."

"You know it is. Anyway," she said, checking her phone for the time, "aren't you late for Terce?"

Bernard peered at her, his thoughts hidden behind hooded lids. A slight inclination of his body toward the coffee shop might have signaled a dark and buried desire, but with a little bow, he reached out to her, his palm held up--an offering. Kara breathed easier. She placed her palm against the specter's, able to feel the electric pulse of his being. It was a familiar gesture, one repeated frequently over the course of their years together, and she didn't give two goddamns if anyone passing by gave her the side-eye for doing it. After a bit, Bernard folded his hands inside his sleeves and slowly faded out of sight.

As he disappeared, so did her smile. She sighed and set her jaw, then slowly swiveled on her heel to face Jaxon's brother head-on.

She murmured his name aloud.

It was all the greeting he'd have from her.
 
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Silently and stoically Maverick sat, his face composed of immovable stone. His eyes never once moved from Miguel, never once faltered in their cool stare. The assertion rolled easily from his shoulders--dirty work was something he was used to being accused of, and it wasn't the worse he'd faced before.

Stupid.

The thought chimed throughout Maverick's head as soon as Miguel showed him his back. The pointer finger on Maverick's right hand twitched, and like a wolf on the hunt, he felt the need to take advantage of the displayed vulnerability.

Not yet.

Yet his target's retreat, with the knowledge of exactly where the man was heading, only sparked his blood, bringing to life his desire to cause Miguel pain for what harm he had done to the woman he was currently trying to flee toward. Maverick wouldn't let him get that far.

For a giant, he could move quickly. In a seamless motion, he rose to his feet, and took a large step to follow Miguel, his intention originally being to block the man's path. A thought entered his head, however: while he sure as hell wasn't letting Miguel around Kara--at least, not without her consent--taking this outside wasn't a bad idea. Less witnesses. Less interference. More control.

So it wasn't until Miguel exited the shop, Maverick hot on his heels, that he reached out to tug at the back of Miguel's shirt; the gesture was neither gentle nor too rough, but just enough to give the man pause, halt him in his tracks, and Maverick time enough to circle around him, blocking his way toward Kara with his sheer size. Immediately his feet were spread apart, giving him mobility should he need it.

"She doesn't want to talk to you," he asserted. His voice allowed room for no argument, and was tinted with a barely contained fierceness that could've shaken lesser men. "And you lost that right the moment you decided to take out your pathetic, fucking hang-ups on her, so you deal with me now. Understand?"

Then he went further, and just to push buttons, closed in on Miguel's personal space, his massive body overshadowing the shorter man's. "And trust me, she's capable of dealing with her own shit, but that's how much she doesn't want to see you. Because you're a fucking coward who tears others down."

----
With his gaze still set on the door Jaxon had entered through, Ayden didn't even acknowledge that Kara had spoken his name. In his motionlessness, one could easily, mistakenly assume that he hadn't heard her at all, until his head finally tilted in her direction, and his jaw clenched just so. Even then, he didn't open his mouth right away, taking a little more time to decide on his course of action. The knowledge of the fiasco currently happening out of his sight--that was until the two men exited outside the building--did little to help keep his much needed cool. The way his fingers tapped rapidly against his back were a marker of his agitated state.

Finally, he inhaled deeply, though he didn't need the air, but it was a motion he had often done in life during situations like these, trying to be the one level-head under a roof of boiling emotions. And then he turned his head to face her, his unwavering glare falling onto hers. As the saying went, if looks could kill. While both of the brothers could steel their features against whatever came, their eyes were such tellers of what went on underneath their well-placed armor.

His lips part first, but he had to run his tongue along his teeth before he could let any sound out. "You must know how this looks; you're smart enough for that." He was sure she knew what he was referring to, but because he also wanted it out in the open in hopes that hearing it out loud would help hammer his position home, he clarified, "After hopping into bed with him--what, not even after a day of knowing him?--you send him out, a veteran with PTSD that he refuses to acknowledge, to shake down your ex-boyfriend."

The rage had crept into his voice, so subtle, yet so strong, and his eyes blazed bright with something more than judgement.

"I love my brother," he stated with vigor, as if trying to make up for the times he had left it unsaid. "And I will not let you use him."
 
Fire scorched Miguel's blood. The argument that had split them apart blew through his memory like ashes, blanketing his current mood with a fury born of confusion, betrayal, and humiliation. Like so many lovers throughout history, he recalled the events that had broken their relationship through a skewed lens. He had been right. He wasn't the one who kept parts of dead men in his apartment. He didn't have unexplainable shit happening around him all the time. Not ghosts-- even after all that had happened, after all he'd seen that night, Miguel's subconscious refused to give full credence to that particular bugbear. But his self-certainty mixed with the other phenomenon jilted lovers had and would always suffer from--the obsessive need to be wanted. It was easy to reject, but hell to be rejected.

This obsessiveness blinded him to Maverick's pursuit. It wasn't until he was plucked backwards by his sweater that he connected the sound of footsteps behind him with the realization that he'd just walked away from the dickhead who somehow had his belongings, and that was probably a really bad idea. His guts sank into his boots. The man was huge. Miguel stopped, forced to listen to the verbal sewage the man spewed at him.

His brows leapt up behind a dark curl of hair. Try as he might, he couldn't keep himself from taking two involuntary steps back when Kara's bulldog came close enough to dance, and the violation of his personal space lit his anger like gel ignite.

"Qué chingados?" He took another step back, putting himself out of range of a swinging fist, his body poised to leap back further, willing to dance away should Maverick pursue him. "Keep your hands off me, you stupid cabrón! This is between her and me, not you! You fuckin' say I've got hang-ups?" he jabbed a thumb at his chest, then flung his forefinger at Kara and shouted across the street, "I'm not the one with a god damned skull in my living room! I don't manufacture side-show magic tricks to scare people off! I tried to work it out, Kara, tried to explain, but you had to go and pull this childish shit? Who's the real coward, huh? Who?" By the last word, he was gesticulating wildly, garnering stares from the few passers-by stalwart enough to have braved the elements.

Kara attempted to maintain her composure, but the increased rise and fall of her chest belied an underlying agitation in response to Miguel's barrage. She kept Ayden in her line of sight, taking as much time to answer him as he had her, matching his death-glare and then redoubling it. She would not. Could not. Retreat from it. From one wraith to the next, Kara had stared into the pit of hell more times than she could count, and Ayden's anger hardly breached the cusp of the worst of it.

"Let's see," she started, and her voice was frighteningly calm, "which part of all that should I address first, Ayden?" she spoke his name as if it rhymed with filth. "The fact that I'm pretty sure you were slinking around eavesdropping when I tried to stop him just now, so you know I don't actually want him to do it? Or maybe if you think either of us could stop him from doing it once he got the idea into his head, then you don't know him anywhere near as much as you should? You came back so you could 'protect' your brother, right? Only I'd call it controlling him." Kara tapped her forefinger against her chin, feigning deep thought, and then spoke as if she'd just happened upon a strange and wondrous idea. "And lest you forget, we are still talking about your brother, a veteran with PTSD that he refuses to acknowledge who you just happened to lead out into no-man's land to view your god-damned murdered body without so much of a 'hang on, J, I'm right here, don't look'. Oh, yeah, while he had a gun on him."

Kara stepped closer, her eyes shards of obsidian. "So don't you dare fucking talk about using people, you pile of crap. We don't have a fifty-minute hour to break down all the psychological bullshit you just puked up, and I know you think you're doing this out of love, but fuck that. There's one important thing I need to ask you: You think you can hurt me?" She shook her head. "Nothing you could do could come close to the shit I've been through. You're a fluffy little kitten in comparison to the evil I've seen. Threaten me again, Ayden Asher, and I'll dig up your grave, split you open, and salt you to your fucking bones."
 
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Fingers flexing, knuckles joints working out kinks, Maverick curled his left hand into a fist, considering all the things he wanted to do to Miguel, the first of which involved shattering his jaw to prevent him from talking anymore. Had he been younger, Maverick might have advanced right then, but he had learned patience, and how to time a shot. He didn't like it, but that skill made him one of the most deadliest snipers in American history.

And he had made Kara a promise.

Yet the longer Miguel's rant went on, the more Maverick's blood began to boil; insults tossed at himself had no effect on him, but the other shit the man was spewing made his jaw set. Black, cold rage darkened his eyes, though the former SEAL seemed eerily calm, was unusually quiet, like the silence before a storm.

He couldn't hit Miguel, not yet, but he could sure as hell make him sweat. The shorter man gave ground, and with a step forward, Maverick was determined not to let him take it back. He wanted him cornered, and the wall outside the coffee shop was getting closer. He kept on advancing, leaving minimal distance between them, and watching Miguel's body with the sight of a predator, blood-thirsty stare examining Miguel's muscles for any hint of tension.

"This is what's going to happen," Maverick demanded. His voice was gruff and low, on the surface contained, but the underlining anger, hunger for violence, slipped through just enough to be known. "You're going to walk back into the coffee shop, and you're never going to contact Kara again. But first, you're going to shut your damn mouth, or I'm going to do it for you." During a short pause, his lips twisted into a small, sickening smirk, and then he continued, "And rip your fucking tongue out." With that his chin lowered, heading tilting as if to say your move.

Across the street, the rage that flickered behind Ayden's eyes burned deeper with each word Kara spoke. His fingers tapped more rapidly against his spectral back, until at last, they curled inward. He didn't move as she approached, yet he did break the stare dismissively, turning his blazing eyes onto the two men on the other side of the road. That was proof enough to keep her claims from planting the seeds of doubt within his mind.

When he had first spoken, he had made an attempt to be diplomatic, and taken his time to carefully phrase his thoughts. Now he simply opened his mouth right in the aftermath of her threat, voice low and quiet, though darkened with his anger, and growled, "Bark all you want, bitch, but you don't frighten me. My brother getting one of those ideas about you stuck in his head? That frightens me."

And then he turned his sharp gaze, forged of unbreakable iron, back to her, and his lips curved into a snarl. "You throw out assumptions as if you know, but you know nothing. I raised him. I guarded him against our father. I was the one cleaning up the messes he left behind when he got involved with that fucking dealer. If I wish to control him, it's because he makes decisions with what's between his legs instead of what's between his ears."

For the briefest of moments, the air around the marine sparked, coming to life with energy. "And I can promise you this, Kara Kazinsky, hurt my brother, and I'll show you how a kitten can grow into a tiger." And then it dispersed, sizzling down as quickly as it had built up, as the ghost quickly shifted his gaze in Maverick's direction.
 
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Miguel backed into the wall and skittered sideways, seeking escape. His thoughts were blazoned upon his features: this shouldn't be happening. Nobody acts this way. This shouldn't be happening. The reality of the situation had finally connected for him. This man was serious. He wasn't just threatening him with violence, he wanted it to happen. Miguel didn't have to glance down at Maverick's fists to understand just how brutal a punch from him would be; it was scrawled across his coiled and massive muscles.

"You lay one finger on me and I'll call the cops so fast..." not fast enough to save him from a broken nose, a shattered jaw. "This is messed up, man. Fuckin' messed up." Miguel hesitated, drew a breath, and rallied one last ounce of bravery. "Fine. Whatever. You two deserve each other."

But the hands he held up, palms displayed like a man surprised by a firing squad, signaled his defeat. He glanced past Maverick to the woman who'd caused all of his current woes. Unsurprisingly, she seemed to be engaged in open conversation with herself.

"And what about the way you hurt him?" Kara asked her unwanted companion. She'd boxed her anger up efficiently during the space of Ayden's reply--despite the bitch he'd lobbed at her--and now stood with her arms loose at her sides, her expression as beatific as a saint's. This was the Kara who wove her way through the dead without flinching, who saw all the darkness, the anguish and hate, the left-behind despair and betrayal and walled herself off from it without losing her empathy. It was hard enough for the living to change, but the dead? They were locked into their own prisons of emotion, and she knew there'd be no argument she could ever pose to Ayden that would coax him out of the love-control-force relationship he had with his brother. Nevertheless, she spoke, because the words wouldn't stop and the need to protect Maverick was growing, even against his own kin.

"You know what you're actually afraid of, Ayden? Breaking the pattern. Letting go of a man who's not a kid anymore. Acknowledging the fact that he's his own man and that he might possibly have someone else he cares about besides you. You're jealous and you're scared that you won't be able to work him, shape him, mold him like you want to if he gets away from you, and--"

She paused. The southside breeze was a constant companion to this street, and it stopped as suddenly as if it had been snapped off. The air grew thick, weighted with all the oppressiveness of a humid summer day, minus the heat.

"--that would leave you without purpose. You overwork steel and it becomes brittle, Ayden. You have to know when to stop--" Kara put a hand to her head, her brows knitting. Her eardrums ached, pressure growing against them as though the city block was losing altitude. "--hammering him."

Her words petered out, flattened by the sight of a wrinkle in the sunlight a few yards to the left of Miguel. Taking a step toward the curb, Ayden forgotten, Kara turned her head and squinted sidelong at the spot, chasing the abnormality from the corner of her eye as one would chase a shadow at night.

Had she not been looking for it, she wouldn't have noticed the traffic light dimming on the corner. She wouldn't have felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck, nor would she have tasted the salty tang of ancient blood on her tongue. But the energy building in the immediate area had dried her throat and sent her heart into inconsistent, panicked flutters.

"No," she whispered. "Nonononono..." Kara stumbled over a pile of plowed snow and stood in the street. "Jaxon. Jaxon! Jaxon, we need to go, we need to move right now, right now, J, come on!"

Because the neon sign over the plate-glass window was sizzling, its pretty pink lettering bleeding into gray.
 
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Miguel's threat to call the cops--a toothless bite that made Maverick inwardly sneer--was a man's last act of desperation, and his final insults were nothing more than a helpless coward trying to scrounge up shattered pieces of control. Maverick's sharpened stare remained unwavering. He was disappointed, but even if Miguel's surrender was filled with insolence, it was still a white flag being waved; with a grunt tinged with dissatisfaction, the former SEAL took his time to take a step back, creating space between him and the man that had been his target. "Well, she certainly deserves more than you."

And Miguel certainly didn't deserve her. Little did the man know that the only thing keeping his bones and dignity intact was the promise Maverick made to the very woman Miguel had scorned. Because if he had his way, Maverick would've first sent a fist for the shorter man's ribs, and then while he was recovering, used the wall to help drive home a hit to Miguel's noisemaking jaw. And then, perhaps, the man might start taking into consideration what came out of his mouth.

The opinion apparently was not shared by the marine's brother, who had shot his glare back to Kara, and tightened his hardened jaw. The circle they danced in was endless and useless, yet neither one was willing to give ground. And had it not been for her sudden dismissal of him and her departure from the sidewalk, the marine would've given her more venom dripping words. But something clearly was wrong, and she was screaming Jaxon's name.

The SEAL felt something change around him before he heard Kara's yelling. He couldn't describe it, but his hindbrain was setting off alarms, causing blood to start pumping rapidly throughout his body, gearing his muscles for the most fundamental, animalistic decision: fight or flight. And it was old and dark, whatever shifted the air, reminding him of--

Blood and bullet-casings mixed in sand.
The body next to him, meat spilling out of the dead man's cranium.
Footsteps and chatter in a foreign tongue as he was surrounded.
Laughter.
He reached for his pistol.

Or freeze.

Not now, not fucking now, not when he needed to act.

For a moment he was a wall of ice; even his rapid breathing stopped, as his mind started to slip, eyes slipping past Miguel to stare off a thousand miles. But he heard Kara calling his name, and with what little willpower that wasn't ripped from his being, he pulled himself from the brink. He was already turning on his heel as he growled the warning to Miguel, hoping he'd heed it, "Get the fuck out of here."

Kara was his first priority.

And then Jaxon was running toward her, boots crunching against the snow as quickly as the terrain would allow. When he reached her, his eyes first jerked toward his brother, who had approached, yet was hanging a few feet away--that in itself was a problem, but it had to wait, and then settled on her. His irises were filled with worry, tainted by the residue of his near break, but also sharply focused. Taking a glance over her body, he quickly asked, "What the hell's going on? Are you hurt?"
 
***************
Well, what is this I can't see
With ice cold hands taking hold of me?
When God is gone and the Devil takes hold
Who will have mercy on your soul?
***************

Blood.

It roared in Kara's ears, shaking her to the quick, flooding her with adrenaline. She hadn't seen Michelle's attack in high school, hadn't been present to hear the crunch of bone when Delia had hit the football field after her fall from the bleachers. She'd caught a glimmer of the fury behind the act which had shattered Jaime Dale's foot while waiting for Mass that Wednesday afternoon, and had clamped her ears shut against the unearthly screams of a Rider denied and destroyed in the middle of the night eight years ago, but she'd never actually been there when any of it had happened. He'd been careful. Even in his violence, he'd considered her, shielded her, protected her. But now.

Now.

Blood.

It choked her nostrils. Kara reached for Jaxon when he drew near, dragging him close, locking her body in an attempt to keep him from turning back to look at the coffee shop. He had to feel it, he had to sense it, how couldn't he, when it crammed itself down her throat and compressed her lungs with everything dead and angry and broken? She opened her mouth to answer him, but the sound didn't come. Fear ground into terror behind her eyes. She shook her head in desperation.

Miguel had taken Jaxon's warning as little more than another threat tacked on to the man's already irrational behavior. Heading for the shop door, he fumbled in his back pocket for his phone, determined to snap a photo of the madman and Kara together, should he need it later for the police, when lower-brain instinct halted him. Slowly, his head swiveled to the left, his attention drawn by the thing that snapped into view an inch from his face.

Bile and viscera, rot and tendons, eye sockets gouged and weeping. Black blood smeared acoss death-mottled flesh. Limbs hacked to the bone at their joints dangled limply from a body bent double. A moldering, grey robe hung off the thing's hips, sliced into shreds and partially veiling the damaged rosary it still carried. Its mouth was a hate-pit stretched past breaking, disgorging a high and ghastly shriek from its dangling jaw, and the sound was full of rage.

Miguel dropped and scrambled backwards on the concrete. He screamed, took a breath, and kept on screaming, even as the window beside him cracked with an ear-slamming thump. Shop patrons on the other side of it scattered, turning over chairs in their haste to escape the glass that might at the slightest touch slip its cobweb patterning and explode inward into glittering shrapnel.

Kara grabbed Jaxon's hand.

The thing winked out of sight.

"We gotta go." Half-gagging on the shockwave of the wraith's residual emotions and the stench of decay in the air, she tugged Jaxon toward the bar. "We gotta go."

Because it would follow and they'd be blamed, and neither of them needed the cops on their heels right now.

**************
No wealth, no ruin, no silver, no gold
Nothing satisfies me but your soul
Oh, Death
Well I am Death, none can excel
I'll open the doors to Heaven or Hell
**************
 
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Maverick saw it in Kara's eyes: the same fear that had clung deeply to his very soul the day before, during his break, when he had been sent back to the very moment he thought--knew--he was going to die. It shook him to his core, that look, awakening his need to shield her, guard her against whatever was happening out of his vision.

He heard Miguel's screaming, so filled with the agony of unfiltered, edge of oblivion terror it made his skin crawl. He couldn't keep his head from turning, instincts preventing him from keeping his eyes off a potential threat. Kara's hold impeded his view, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw the aftermath of the thing he had felt's rage. Heart-racing, gears of the well-trained soldier turning, like a machine he shoved everything else aside, and acted in the moment. The implications of what had just happened could wait; for now, he had to focus.

Perhaps a better man would've checked to see if Miguel had incurred any damage. But Maverick had his own set of priorities, the first of which was to always protect his own, and that currently consisted of getting Kara the hell out of there.

He squeezed her hand to offer what little comfort he could at the moment, and began walking briskly, as fast enough as he could without drawing unwanted attention. Resisting from looking back, he stepped behind her to block her from sight, in case anyone from the coffee shop decided to step out and have a look. While the patrons might have connected Maverick from his trip inside Miguel's workplace, Kara's appearance was, he hopefully assumed, only noted by the man left broken on the sidewalk. He would have to worry about the cops later, should they show up on his doorstep with questions.

Ayden kept a few feet behind them, head turned to keep watch on whatever was behind the two. Though the marine's presence--more accurately, how the marine had chosen to appear when Maverick hadn't been around--was another problem that called for attention, the former SEAL was grateful to have his six covered.

Leo's Bar was a two-story, old brick building situated on the corner of Tenth and Grant. The bar's name was displayed on a neon sign above the wooden door, though was currently off, along with the rest of the lights that lined the building. The place didn't open until just on the verge of noon, but the Viking that owned the joint would most likely be arriving in a few minutes, based upon his usual schedule. Instead of heading inside the bar, Maverick ushered Kara through a clear door that lead inside a narrow, side passage built alongside the building to give a private entrance to the apartment above. Up the stairs he dug his hands into his pocket to pull forth his keys, and after turning the lock, pushed open the last door to take them inside his abode.

"Make yourself at home," he told her softly, squeezing her shoulders after tossing his keys onto the top of a closed, worn piano by the entrance. "I may have some hot chocolate if you'd like me to make some."

The outer walls of the apartment mirrored the brick of the outside, and were covered with a variety of movie and comic posters. The place, while certainly not neat--pieces of clothing dangled over the back of the aged leather couch and covered the wooden floor, guitar picks were scattered randomly among tables, CDs and movie cases thrown about, some used as coasters, dishes pilled in the sink--it wasn't dirty. He wasn't organized by a long shot, but the military had taught him to at least keep things clean.

The most well-kept area was a small, open space meant for a dining table, yet had been repurposed for his musical interests. Both his electric and acoustic guitar sat beside an upholstered chair shoved up under a window, flanked by an unplugged amp. A bookcase lined with vinyls rested against the back wall, and beside it sat an old record player propped up on top of a sofa table.

"And if you're hungry, I can, uh...make you toast."
 
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togetherkeepittogetherdon'tgokeepittogetherdon'tgodon'tdoitdon't

They moved. Forward. Toward the bar, away from the crowd that was gathering outside Constanza's to gawk at the window buckling from the inside out. Away from the man who couldn't be calmed. The man who once was her... who had shared her... who just kept screaming. Kara's vision tunneled. She was aware that she breathed only because of how shallow each breath was. Behind. Behind, Jaxon walked behind her. If she turned her head, she could hear his footsteps on the salted pavement, but she didn't care. That he walked at her back didn't matter. The only important thing was fleeing, getting away, making sure she was out of sight before she broke the fuck down.

Kara didn't look up at the bar's facade. Keeping her eyes on the pavement a yard in front of her feet, she focused on the pain her nails drove into her palms, fists tight under her crossed arms, and let Jaxon lead her into his home.

She jerked her shoulder away from his touch, curling her chin inward to deflect further physical attention. Furniture and artwork, instruments and discarded clothing--all of these were just background noise, unseen throw-away details that had no purpose. Thoughts sparked and fizzled out one after the other, undefined and unfinished, lost in part and recovered twisted, only to fall away again, but each time they kept coming back to one thing and one thing only, the blackened bruised bloody hacked apart torn down shredded body of--.

Keys jangled on wood. Slowly, unbidden, her hands rose to cover her ears not so much to block out the ambient noise beyond the apartment's walls, nor to hide her from Jaxon's voice, but to stop her reeling mind.

"--may have some hot chocolate--"

no

"--make you toast--"

jesus, no, shut up shut up!

She sprinted for the bathroom at a full tilt. Blind luck helped her find it. In one fluid motion, she slammed the door behind her and dropped to her knees, sliding across the tiles toward the toilet where she groaned and threw up the meager contents of her stomach.

A hitch in her breath shook her body. She fumbled for the toilet paper but couldn't find it with her eyes closed, so she cursed and lashed out at the roll which unraveled by her leg. Swiping at her mouth to clean it, her face crumpled, regained its composure, then crumpled again.

"Hail Mary, full of grace," she whispered, all too aware of the violent tremble in her voice, "the Lord is with Thee, blessed art thou amongst women... blessed art thou...fuckfuckfucknoplease."

She couldn't break down, not here, not in front of him, not in front of anyone, but the sobs burst forth and she collapsed in a tight ball by the tub, unable to change the horror that she'd seen.
 
For a few shameful moments, Jaxon simply stood as a statue, watching as Kara recoiled from his touch and retreated into the bathroom. The harsh sound the door made as it was forced inside its frame vibrated throughout his eardrums and left an empty silence in its wake, one that made the place feel foreign. Recognition was ripped from his center of being, leaving him with a dry throat and hands dangling uselessly at his sides.

Put him in a fight, let his instincts take over, and he knew exactly what to do. Reaching for that higher emotional functioning that was supposed to make him human, he realized how deeply ill-equipped he was to be something more.

And then the silence ended. The size of the apartment and its thin walls gave no cover to cloak the sounds of Kara's torment.

His jaw tightened.

Pain.

He knew he could've fix it, perhaps couldn't even mend it to make it tolerable, but he couldn't--wouldn't--do nothing. He would try. At least he would damn well try.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see what remained of his brother, who had taken up a post by the kitchen island, arms folded across his chest. Jaxon couldn't discern the complicated expression written across what was left of the marine's face, but with a narrowed-eye glare, he gave an unspoken warning and command, before departing swiftly down the hall.

His immediate pull was to the bathroom, but before his lifted hand could rest against the barrier between him and the woman he was connected to, a thought whispered at the back of his mind, like a red flag buried in dirt.

The axe.

With a swift look toward the front entrance, Jaxon's jaw shifted, his teeth grinding together. Chances. He couldn't take chances, not with so many unknown factors at play. Assumptions got people hurt. Assumptions got people killed. Though it took every ounce of willpower to keep walking, he did so, and quickly entered his bedroom.

The weapon hand-forged by his Norwegian brother--a cherished gift from years ago--was taken down from its home on the wall, shoved carelessly into the bottom of the metal footlocker kept underneath his bed, and then covered with a few stray tan undershirts. After kicking the box back into the place he had dragged it from, Jaxon exited to find himself back outside the bathroom.

He hesitated for a split second, worrying about how he didn't even know what the hell he was going to say, before ironing his resolve, and turning the knob. It wasn't a big space, and when he stepped inside, his sheer size shrunk the room.

The sight of her--

"Kara--" Her name fell from his lips, and the walls around his soul came crashing around him.

--crumbling. In pain.

He couldn't stand it. He would kill, he would die, to force it away.

Even still, words escaped him.

So he simply let her know he was there. Lying by her side, he reached out to wrap an arm around her, resting his head against her back, and told her softly, "I'm here."
 
There were patterns in everything, even in the gradual disillusion of carefully-mortared walls. As Kara lay on the bathroom floor, Maverick's humble attempts to comfort her doing little more than keeping her back warm, a part of her hindbrain tracked the decisions she'd made since meeting him. She should have seen Bernard's revenge coming; she hadn't stepped foot down this street since Miguel had pulled his stunt six weeks ago for fear of what would happen, but the monk's connivance, his sideways betrayal had ripped a layer of trust out from under her and left her hanging.

But she hadn't told him not to do it, so how could she catalogue it as betrayal? She'd been blinded by her task to get Jaxon to the bar and her own need for revenge--carried out not by herself, but, as Ayden had so deftly pointed out, by a veteran with PTSD she'd only just met-- that she'd not only ignored her friend but led him directly to Miguel's doorstep. Two mistakes, more if one counted the side she'd taken between the brothers. Her job was help the dead and the living, not to drive a wedge between them.

A snippet of poetry slithered in between her lessening sobs.

turning and turning in the widening gyre,
the falcon cannot hear the falconer

Bernard. She'd lost sight of him, Jaxon the sun that shut her eyes to what was to happen. She knew who--what--the monk could be underneath. Talons and rage and viciousness, all covered in a veneer of lofty holiness.

things fall apart
the center cannot hold

"Stop it," Kara whispered. The sound disappeared in the crook of her arm. Mouth dry, her immaculate hair mussed, she sat up. The act was slow, her body limp like marionette picked up by a listless puppeteer. She made no motion to push Jaxon away, but wore an aura of aloofness, an air of absenteeism that clouded every movement.

"Gimme a towel, J," she said, her voice thickened by sinuses swollen from crying. "Please. A wet one." Holding out a hand, she splayed fingers that were stained with mascara and eyeliner for him to see. "I can't have this... I need to..." A knuckle met her cheek, came away black. "I look like him. I can't let you look at me like...not like this. I don't want to see myself like..."

Kara halted her broken explanation and took a breath like a sleeper just wakened, her chest expanding with an ache she was grateful for.

How long had she lain on the floor, vulnerable and raw? Time was irrelevant. What wasn't irrelevant was the urge to stand up, push by the man who'd set her on a course from one bad decision to another, and just leave, heading back to the safety of alone, where her choices were clear-cut and involved nothing bigger than which pizza to grab at the corner market or if she should wear her gray pants or her black ones.

But she'd made a promise, and some dark instinct inside her knew it was a promise that was going to chip away at her very existence.

"I'm a mess," she continued tonelessly. "I gotta fix it."
 
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