In Huck's Hands

Chapter 2: How Droll

Please leave a comment I really am curious if you guys think this chapter is well-written or not!

"You gambled back there that the locals would'nt pick you apart too Huck" I was sitting in the passenger seat this time around as Aiko made her way down an abandoned freeway. The road was devoid of any human life as gazelles grazed beautifully on the river bank running perpendicular to the main highway of Buriti.

"What, Koi nah--I had been bumming around this sector for the last week." She seemed to be contemplating something as her brown freckled face remained stony; eyes on the barren road. I don't know what her problem was-she was my sister's keeper, not me. Well, I guess she was mine now. Culture dictated that both the Vascan king and his female kin be followed by a lone bodyguard that was meant to only answer to him and the family he deemed worthy of the Shadow Sentry's titanium-like loyalty.

"Can you listen really quickly?" Her voice was rough as always as Aiko slowed down from the high velocity we had maintained since the incident with Dennis. I've never been one to dwell on the past but since this morning-the morning air has kept forcing my mind's eye to the shattered mural that is my past. Listening was also never one of my strong suits...

I had spent an unhealthy amount of time with Aiko leeching her Shadow training as a royal sentry. Every summer when she and Kash would come back from Svetlo-Vascan boarding school. Terrorizing the onyx marble walls of our gaudy palace with their talk of stratagem and use on my chubby body for endless games of torture and sarcasm. Kash was a fierce debater while Aiko always solved everything with the swift physicality of someone twice her size, which had tapered to a confident 6'4 by the time we were eighteen.

When my sister had fallen asleep in her vapidly jeweled royal bed. We had spent nights attempting to find ways away from Buriti and all its follies...cutting our arms and legs on screws jutting from vents--Spying on my Father and uncle for hours as they planned their next ill-fated assault on our own people.

Aiko's brown eyes almost seem to glimmer in the moonlight brighter than any star in the vast desert night sky...Now we were just two adults who seemed to not care about anything but the paths we had set. I considered her my friend though it was a messy subject.

"Sure, you basically have me hostage. Like back when you would sneak from my sister's guard duty..." I let my eyes wander over the road again as the clay dirt was whipping small vortexes against empty houses. We entered the outskirts of the capital quickly. The drive felt so empty, all things considered, yet peaceful.

"Huck...I'm going to leave if you aren't taking this seriously--I've never left Buriti my whole life, I've rarely even been alone since I was assigned to your wonderful late sister" She pulled off the main highway abruptly. I felt her eyes finally breaking slightly from the normal thousand-yard stare. "We need to go by foot from here so we don't catch a stray air raid," I noticed she wiped a single tear from her melancholic face, I caught myself from reaching out and wiping it...too soon for something so intimate again.

I'd never seen Aiko cry. She had been there when her younger siblings were dismembered and used as bargaining chips to her father...The head-Late head general of Vasca Myus Ewabatta. The situation itself paled this one in my seldom-taken opinion--even if it was my family this time. I remembered my father's leathery face nearly cracking in the hot sun at the news.