Phoenix in the Light

Familiarity

Writers Note: I am sorry this took so long. I am in the throes of writer's block. This chapter is a dumpster fire. Filler chapter. Life and work have been a little nuts right now so please bear with me. The first half of this book is going split POV, Ghost/Ash so the next chapter will be Ghost chapter.

          I could feel the sharpened tip of something push into the artery just below my chin, any more pressure and it would pop the skin and flood the room with my blood. "Who are you?" Alex croaked through his teeth. Taking hold of the caller of the scrubs I had been forced into. The ringing in my head from having it shoved into the dirty concrete moments ago caused my eyes to flutter slightly, but I could clearly see the figure straddling my body. "How do you know my name?"

          "Task-" my voice sputtered slightly as the pain in my head began to subside, only to crash over me again, "-force." I raised my hands, motioning to him that I meant him no harm, but the razor point of his shiv only pushed further. "I'm not your enemy."

          "Unlikely," he said, cocking his head. The shiv remained locked into my skin, the pain was mild but I was far more concerned with its placement, my bloodstream lay just under the skin. He knew what he was doing with that shiv. It wouldn't have surprised me if he had used it before.

        "141, I was one of them..."

         "Very unlikely," he said, even harsher.

          "Agreed," I huffed as his tattooed arm lifted me by my collar from the ground forcing me into the light that filtered in through the slit of a window in the wall. My eyes went from his hand to his eyes again, they were blue and hollow, but behind them was a deep sense of nobility and protectiveness. He had no desire to kill me, that was clear, but his survival instincts stood on the edge of his reality as I tried to come up with the right words to say. "But true, nonetheless."

         "You're not convincing me," Alex shook with rage and suspicion. There was a wild sense of curiosity in his eye, mixed with a violent protective glare that burned into me.

        "Gaz, Price..." I gasped as I felt the tip of the sharpened toothbrush break the skin. "Laswell." The mention of Kate's name caused his eyes to soften and the wrinkles of his forehead scrunch together. Although he kept the point of his makeshift weapon on my neck. Steadying myself on the ball of my hand, I heaved as his grip on me lessened just slightly.

         "Don't say anymore," he whispered as he slowly let me down,"the walls have ears."

         I nodded and braced myself on the floor as he backed away from me, still keeping the shiv pointed at me and a protective stare at the ground around me. An awkward silence fell between us as I came to the realization I was staring at a man that I had seen once already in my life, never knowing the significance he had to my future. His eyes were the same, his tattoos were the same, but his body had been weakened by his imprisonment. Glaring at me, studying the horrid form of my weak and crippled body, his eyes narrowed at me. "Do not use my name," he said quietly.

          "Okay," I said quite sheepishly. "I won't."

          "Come close to me," he commanded. I blinked idly for a second, there was no way I was going towards a man who was holding a shiv directly in my face and was a millimeter away from killing me just seconds ago. When I hesitated for too long, he reached out his hand in a truce-like fashion. Lowering the shiv just slightly, I cocked my head at him. Despite being in the special forces and imprisoned by the same people, I was under the impression that I shouldn't be trusting him quite yet. "We can't talk normally here without people listening in, you have to be close to me for me to hear you whisper."