Rogue. (IN REVISION)

22

Fallon brought out her things from the room and started to make a bed on the floor, "Go into my room and sleep, Wisp. I won't be sleeping tonight." Leo told his daughter.

Fallon nodded and left for his room, laying on the bed, hoping for sleep to overtake her eyes. She eventually closed her eyes, slowly slipping into slumber. Everything was quiet in her place between sleep and awake, the weight upon her shoulders lifting slowly. Her peace was short lived when not even an hour passed when she heard screaming from the other room. Fallon's eyes shot open, and she bolted from one bedroom into the other to see Leo holding Venner down as he screamed relentlessly.

It was happening, his first stage of withdrawal, Desperation.

Leo was much stronger and taller than Venner and pinned him easily, keeping his arms by his sides as he screamed. "It hurts! I need more, make it stop!" He cried.

Fallon watched the expression on his face, he didn't even look human, it was as if someone else had taken over his body, using his mouth to scream. "You cannot have any more!" Leo told him sternly. He looked back at Fallon who was watching the whole charade. "No matter how loud you shout, you will not get any more!" Leo told him.

Venner's body weakened, and his fighting stopped, his screaming turning to sobbing. His whole body ached from it crying out for the drug, Leo straightened and looked at his daughter again, "It will happen again, I assure you. Look at his skin." He lifted Venner's shirt to reveal the veins in his skin turning dark blue, the drug, even though he vomited most of it up, had entered his bloodstream. Fallon covered her mouth, it was unbelievable.

"What do we do?" she asked.

"We keep him from the drug, keep him from hurting himself and hopefully he will come out of it without a problem." Leo told her. Venner scratched his face, drawing blood as he sobbed horribly. Fallon knelt, taking his hands, holding them away from his face, "Please stop, Venner. You'll hurt yourself." She spoke gently to calm him; it didn't work for he screamed in her face. She fell to sit on the floor from the force of his scream. Leo helped her up and ushered her out of the room, "I will take care of this, Wisp." he said, shutting the door behind him.

The night was filled with awful sounds coming from the bedroom, neither Fallon nor Hawk could sleep and so they stayed up that night until the cries faded away as the morning came. Leo opened the door, wiping the sweat from his forehead as he spotted his two kids stand up upon seeing him. "He is asleep for the time being, Fallon you can go and see him now."

She nodded and entered the room, sitting down next to him as he slept. His face was full of scabbed up scratches and bruises from the tumultuous night. She sighed and felt the weight crash upon her shoulders once she saw his face. She knew there was something about Taris the minute she started talking to him, but she was so upset at the two that she didn't watch over him. She still felt as if it were her fault. Hawk knocked on the edge of the doorway and Fallon looked up to see her brother, "Leo says we have to get him food for when he wakes up, when you're ready you and I can take Faris out to hunt."

"I'm ready now. There's no use for me being here doing nothing." She stood up and they both left the little home with Faris following behind. It was one of the hotter days in Derelict and the sun was blazing high in the cloudless sky. "The worst is over now, Fallon." Hawk told her, slicing the tall branches out of his way. "He will just have to eat to get Elate out of his system and then we have to keep him from-"

"The worst isn't over, Hawk." She interrupted. "He hasn't even hit the second wave of Elation yet and getting him off that will be almost impossible."

"As long as he eats, he will be okay. It should keep him from going too deep into Elation." Hawk turned and clasped her shoulders to meet her eyes, "Venner will be back to his old self again in no time."

"We'll see." She rolled her eyes and started walking ahead of him.

"Ever heard of speaking life, Fallon?"

"Speaking life? That old Ancient Zionite belief?" Fallon looked up at the treetops and smiled as she remembered it. "Speak life and life shall be what you are given, for power is in your tongue. Rulers die and kingdoms fall from the very words they speak." She laughed at the silly notion. "Speaking life...What the hell does that even mean?" She asked. "Speaking life over circumstances that have been set in stone." She shook her head.

"Fallon..." Hawk tried to get her to stop talking, he didn't want her to go too far. "Circumstances aren't ever set in stone. Events can change in an instant; you thought you would never see your parents again and we found Leo." He tried to lighten the mood.

"Oh, yes and then my mother was sold into slavery, shipped to who knows where. Events can certainly change if it is set in stone first..." She fumed. "You know, that is my new scripture for the Zionite Scrolls..."

"Fallon, No." He approached her as she looked up into the white sky.

"Speak life and life shall be what you are given, unless circumstances say otherwise!"

"Fallon, why do you have to do that?" He looked at her disappointed. "Look what the Divine has given. Why can't you just accept that?"

"As much as you see on the interweb, I am surprised you still believe in those fairy tales." She scoffed.

"Seeing that stuff on the web is what keeps my faith. Where has your faith gone?" He asked.

"My faith is dead." She looked into his eyes; he looked on as hatred filled hers.

"What do you see, scratched upon that stone for Venner? Since you seem to know how to read it so well." He asked.

Fallon took a step back from him, "I don't know."

"Oh? The blasphemous Fallon doesn't have an answer to the problem. Where is the writing on that stone now?" He crossed his arms. Fallon looked back at him and grimaced. "Every good thing in my life I have acquired by myself. The choices I make dictate where I go. Not some silly scroll collecting dust in the Lion Rock temple."

"You acquired? I remember distinctively making you leave Desolate."

"I agreed to go."

"Why?"

Fallon didn't want to argue any more, this was ridiculous! Why couldn't he let her be? Why was this all the sudden more important than Venner's recovery?

"This is nonsense." She shook her head and walked.

"Tell me why you agreed to come, Fallon?" He pressed.

"Because I knew that my family was alive!" She whipped around and shouted.

Hawk crossed his arms and nodded, "So, you do have a little faith."

"In. Myself." Shecorrected. "Not in some Divine God." She pointed her finger at him. Hawk heldup his hands, surrendering the conversation to her. He had already proved hispoint and walked in silent triumph.