What Lies Within Us.

124: Warming Up.

Rome's P.O.V.

"There's no way around this." Kai said to dad. "We have to retaliate. We have to do something! They can't get away with this! There's no way in hell you should even still be trying to make peace with them! They killed 20 of us, over 50 of the Rifters, and damn near 70 from the Rift in Minnesota! Our people need justice!"

"Kaiser you don't want justice. You want revenge. And you're right, our people deserve justice but there's nothing we can do right now. None of you are strong enough to even walk by yourselves let alone fight. And even if so many of you weren't hurt we still wouldn't be able to retaliate because we don't have the numbers for it and we can't afford to lose anymore of our people."

"So what do we do now then? Just sit around and wait to get better?"

"No. You all need to heal emotionally now before you can do anything. And that's gonna take time. Every single one of us have lost someone over the past two weeks. We can't move ahead until this passes over."

"Whatever." Kai said under his breath as dad patted his shoulders reassuringly and went back inside the main house leaving Kaiser and I alone on the porch steps.

"I swear as soon as I'm off of these crutches I'm gonna do something about this." He said to me. "Its not right that the people who did this are still alive."

I didn't even reply. I looked him up and down, trying to figure out who he was.

"What?" He asked. "Why are you looking at me all weird?"

"I don't know. You're just different."

"Trust me you're not the only one who's told me that."

"Just because uncle Sehrem isn't alive anymore doesn't mean you don't have a choice Kai."

"What? What are you even talking about?"

"That's why you've changed. Why you've become this person. Because you feel obligated to help uncle Raes. You're used to having options because uncle Sehrem and Raes taught you two completely different ways and left it up to you to decide which of their ways you wanted to latch onto. Now you feel like you don't have that anymore because Uncle Sehrem isn't around to give you those different options opposing Raes'. Therefore its as if you're forced to follow Raes' ways. You're your own person Kaiser. You don't have an obligation to uncle Raes. Especially when he's doing things you don't agree with."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes I do Kai. You're my little brother, I know you better than you know yourself. This isnt you."

"People change."

"Yea but not this much. You've always been a person of high morality ever since you were a kid. You were literally a less aggressive, more reasonable, version of dad. And if dad has managed to go through everything he's gone through and kept his sense of morality, there's no way you've lost it."