Havoc

Chapter Eighteen

First off, I editted Chapter Seventeen. Chaos and Berto did not take Lilac out of the Den's protection. I'll explain that in a later Chapter.

Chapter Eighteen

The Den

Logan

“We haven’t heard a whisper concerning Chaos.”

Braden’s voice brought me out of my stupor. I straightened up in the chair and smoothed out the crinkles in my tie. I shrugged my shoulders and rubbed my hand over my eyes, trying to remove the lines of exhaustion. “I'm not surprised. Would you still want to associate yourself with us, if we did what we did to her, to you? Because, I sure as hell wouldn’t.

Braden’s shoulders stiffened slightly. His arctic ice blue eyes penetrated mine. The anger and hatred still lingered in his eyes, but now those emotions were overshadowed with guilt. Braden shook his head, “No. If that was me, I’d have done the same thing. No that's a lie. I'd have ripped out our throats if anyone did that to me.”

I glanced up from my paper work in front of me. “Has Kade been able to find the ruling Chaos mentioned?”

“No. But apparently there are a lot of fucking bullshit documents involving the Cabinet Ruling 13.”

“Okay.” I stated. My stomach twisted on itself. Ever since that night, I've had this sick feeling deep in my gut. I looked over at Braden and if I had to bet my last penny, I’d say Braden has been punishing himself just like me. 

We both sat in silence together. Suzie poked her head into the room, indicating to the phone. I nodded my head in acceptance. Suzie disappeared as I leaned forward to grab the phone. Braden stayed silent.

“Hello, this is Logan."

Derek’s scruffy voice came over the line. “Hey, Logan. Look, I just wanted to let you know that I’m taking the girls to the arcade in about an hour. Is there anything you need to pick up in town?”

“No, there’s nothing. How’s Lilac doing?” I asked curiously.

For the past couple of days, Lilac was more trouble than Tracee and Lily put together. She refused to listen to anyone, doing what she pleased, when she pleased. Lilac stopped playing with Tracee. She stopped eating her vegetables. And she also stopped going to bed at the designated time.

Derek sighed into the phone. “To be honest, Logan, I have no clue. She’s playing with Tracee again. Early at lunch, she even asked for second helpings of carrots. It’s like she just flipped a switch and started acting normal again.” 

“Do you want me to talk to her?” I was worried about Lilac. I wanted to make sure she was okay and to know what was going on inside her head.

“No. I don’t think she’ll talk. That’s one trait she’s learned from Chaos. She won’t talk until she’s good and ready.”

Now it was my turn to sigh into the phone. Derek was right. If Chaos was one thing, she was stubborn. Absolutely, positively refused to be rushed or give information if she wasn’t ready. I nodded my head even though Derek couldn’t see the gesture. “Alright. Have a safe trip.”

I hung up the phone and looked towards Braden. “Apparently, Lilac has settled back down.”

Braden grunted. “Yeah? Does anyone know what was wrong with her in the first place?”

“No, she still refuses to speak.” I shrugged my shoulders, not knowing what else to say.

We fell into another lapse of silence. I shifted the papers on my desk and began to scan through my itinerary of tasks that needed to be completed. My eyes landed on the last bullet of the list. It informed me of my meeting with Kade. It was to take place in two days, on Thursday. Kade was going to be proposing a game plan on how to proceed with the PC. 

This time I broke the silence between the two of us. “What are we going to be doing about the PC? Kade’s going over the book, but we need to formulate a strong plan. If anything Chaos said about the PC is true, then we should be planning for the worst situation possible.”

Braden’s milky eyes drifted over to the window, staring out and beyond to someplace only he could see. “I have no idea. Do we even know what the worst situation could be? How do we plan for something like that?”

“I have no idea. All what I have is the half-cryptic warning that Berto left me.” I unfolded the scrap of paper and read aloud the message. “She’s still here. This world, it’s dangerous. Keep your mind sharp and protected. Keep your face blank, just like your emotions. Remember the Fae can’t lie, but they are masters at hiding in their words. The King and Elves are pleasant, but fickle. The witches are wily. And the Humans, they can read everything. We may need your help; we would appreciate if you could reciprocate.” 

I ran my hands through my hair in frustration. “Braden, I don’t know what half of that means!” Braden leaned forward and took the note from where I threw it on the desk.

“Okay, so I think we can agree on the ‘she’s still here’ was referring to Chaos. The part ‘This world, it’s dangerous. Keep your mind sharp and protected. Keep your face blank, just like your emotions’ is an obvious clue. The bastard PC members will use emotions against each other, so we need to keep our minds and emotions on lock down. Control of our emotions isn’t hard. We can check that off our list. He also gave us the tiniest hint towards the member’s attitudes. Is there any way we can research the main players?” 

“I have no idea. The only game plan I’ve even thought of was to try and get feelers out to our contacts on the streets. And we still have access to Chaos’ friend Joe Mika.”

Braden raised an eyebrow, “What about Mika?”

I huffed out a breathe before I dropped my latest idea of what to do with the PC. “Well, I was thinking that we could see if he could try and get a message out to Chaos. See if she’ll try to help us or give us some information.”

My comment was met with a deep silence of disapproval. Braden’s eyes glazed over and harden to lumps of frozen tundra. “No. Fuck no, you want to ask the devil for help? Are you insane?” 

I sat up straighter in the chair. “No, I’m not insane. I’m trying to be realistic. We don’t know shit about the PC. We have a book and a cryptic as fuck message. That’s all what we have for this meeting. If Berto was telling the truth and Chaos was our representative for the past several years, then why not ask her? What’s the worst she can do, not answer us?” 

Braden sat back in his chair, contemplating on my suggestions. Finally, he said, “Joe Mika isn’t in Chaos’ circle anymore. He told us once he was outted by us, Chaos stopped contacting him.”

It was my turn to raise my eyebrow at him, “First off, I didn’t say Mika had to directly contact Chaos. He just has to get a message out to her. And I don’t think Mika is as far out of contact with Chaos as he suggested. He is a compulsive liar. Also, his circle is Chaos’ circle.”

I looked at Braden. I pushed the papers away from my desk, realizing that I wasn’t going to get any work done today. “Besides, it’s just an idea. I didn’t say we had to do it.”

“Well, Logan, like you said, what’s the worst that can happen besides Chaos not helping us. I’ll get a team ready to find Joe.”

I grabbed the phone off the desk, “No need, I have his number right here.”

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Hey guys, I am back and I think I am back for good. I have the next several chapters outlined so hopefully I'll be able to publish several more chapters relatively quickly. I'm on a long semester break from college, a much needed break if I must say.

Sorry for the long wait and ever single one of yous are appericated for staying my fan and surfing out my tidal waves of emotion and moods. It must have not been easy and I THANK YOU, everyone of you for the deepest part of my heart. THANK YOU.

Oh, and Chaos and Berto now have a twitter. Follow them! @Its_Me_Chaos and @ShadowBerto!