Alliance || 1 || ✔️ mature

47 | Eleven

"It's the right age." Archer mutters.

"Twelve injections." I whisper, "What was he doing to her?"

"That's what we have to find out." Clay says, voice hard.

I move the paper back, before reaching for the box they live in, lifting it towards me and opening it before stopping at the writing printed on the underside of the lid.

I narrow my eyes, trying to make out what the smudges ink says, before saying it out loud.

"86 Fairwater Way."

Clay looks up at me, "What?"

"There is an address on the lid, right in the corner. Lot 86 Fairwater way."

Clay pulls his laptop closer to him, and pulls up the satellite, finding the location.

He turns the laptop towards us, "This is all I can find."

Tarnished and broken, the building - if you could call it that, sits. Black soot coats some corners of the leftover property.

The crumbling structure burnt down.

"I wonder what it was."

"Whatever it was, it seems important."

• • •

Sleep evades me, the wounds on my back making their presence known.

I force my eyes to shut, my mind to quiet when there is a knock on the door and it opens seconds later, Archer looking in at me.

I sit up, raising a brow at him, "Can't sleep?"

He steps in, eyes sweeping over me, "No, you?"

I shift, wincing at the pull of the healing wounds, my shirt sticking to the antibiotic cream slathered over them. "Trying to."

He stops at the side of my bed, holding his hand out to me.

I narrow my eyes suspiciously.

He laughs, "I'm not going to bite."

I grin, "Pity." Sitting up full, I slip my hand into his. His palm curls around mine, warm and comforting. He helps me up from the mattress and leads me out of the room, his hand staying in mine.

I stop at the threshold of his bedroom, staring at the contents.

"What's this?" 

"You said you would be an artist."

I laugh breathlessly, staring over my shoulder at him. "Archer, I've never held a paintbrush in my life.

He walks past me, leading me further into the room by my hand, "What a better time to start."

He let's go of my hand, leaving me gaping at the easel and tray of paint he has set out, the door shutting behind me.

He walks back towards me, taking a seat on the ground and beckoning me to do the same.

I do, sitting beside him, hands shaking slightly before I ball them into a fist.

His hand settles over mine, stopping the shake and he hands me a paintbrush.

"I don't know what to do." I whisper.

He smiles and the sight is breathtaking. "Whatever you want, that's the beauty of art."

I smile back, lifting the paintbrush and dipping it in a deep blue, lifting the paintbrush to the blank canvas and leaving a stroke of midnight blue across the centre.