16: shattered light Through the Aching t r u t h
Present day.
A man stands with Mikhael at the bottom of the bridge, taller and darker than he is, leaning heavily on Mikhael. Both are battered and bleeding, and Mikhael's face is tight with anguish.
"I'm sorry, so sorry," he repeats.
Lissa only stares. She wipes roughly at her tear stained face, swallows the last of them with a hiccup. Her breathing is still irregular. She makes her way back over the bridge, eyeing the boy and the man cautiously.
"What, what happened?" she says brokenly. "What's going on?"
She hesitates at the end of bridge. She doesn't want to get too close. She can't think, what might happen, was he in trouble again? Who was this person with him?
"I- why didn't you leave again, you always do- you disappear-" she says.
She'd told him. She f**king told him to stay away from the bad side of town- oh god, if he owed money again, or beat up someone important- she couldn't do it, not bail him out again- fu**
Mikhael lowers the stranger down to slump against the bridge pilings. He sucks in a harsh, sharp breath as he is forced to bend, and Lissa instantly knows that his ribs are damaged again. He closes his eyes. When they open again, the gold glows like a broken pool of lamplight.
"Ó qué es?" she repeats, almost to herself.
Lissa's head hurts. Did she have a homing device stuck to her, she wonders. How did he always find her? Deep in her bones, she knows that maybe he feels the echoes of her heartbeat, across the airwaves, like he's constantly tuned into her radio frequency. That they couldn't lose each other, even if she tries tries tries.
She swears in particularly filthy Spanish. Up close, she sees the extent of Mikhael's damaged body, and she jumps back to the beginning of summer.
Disappearing without a word.
Turning up, bruised and covered in blood.
No rest, no food, no sleep, no love.
Fighting and fighting and fighting.
No money, no laughter, barely holding on.
That summer was the worst she'd ever seen, when Mikhael pushed himself far out, in a mad, exhausting quest for his-
The pin drops into the deafening silence.
His father.
"I found him, Lissa."
"Found who, who is it?" she says, hoping hoping hoping that it's not who she knows it is, and shields her face.
"Najeem. My father, I found him."
She staggers sideways; the words make her head spin. It is. All that hoping didn't do a thing.
Qué? Why? How, where, how?
There's nothing left, emptiness. All the anger drains out of her.
A mad, exhausting, quest to find his sodding father, full of blood and broken bones, his useless bastard of a father, this thoughtless man who left a beautiful child with a psycho, disappearing and leaving her without a trace; and Mikhael pushing himself so hard, wearing himself so transparent that Lissa was terrified he'd never recover.
This. This. This is why she walked away.
Mikhael looks at her with desperation. Everything about him is tense, taut, coiled like a spring. His shoulders, the skin around his eyes. He barely breathes. He waits.
"Please-" he says.
What's he waiting for? Lissa wonders dimly through the mental fog that is sucking her empty. All she can focus on is the bright, painfully gold eyes in front of her.
"What..." she murmurs, more to herself.
The man looks up. (Naj-? What is his name again?) He doesn't much look like Mikhael at all. He is foreign and dark and unfamiliar, and Lissa's nose wrinkles as she scowls at him.
He says something to Mikhael, come on, let's go, sorry, what, she doesn't catch it, Mikhael replies, dismisses him with a shake of his head without turning back.
"Please," he says. "I need you, Lissy. I need you- for the last time-"
She opens her mouth. He rushes on over her.
"I swear it, Lissan-nee. I'll leave you alone and I won't come back, not ever again, I won't ever hurt you, just this, for the last time, I need you-"
Lissa is bone tired. There's nothing left except an encroaching numbness that is crawling up her throat, up her spine like frost.
"Are you sure?" she whispers. Something should have been screaming in protest, no no no, nonono- I won't let you go- silence. There's nothing.
"Yes," he says. His voice catches, and the gold of his eyes are liquid.
"Ok." she says. "Ok."
she's so broken she
can't
even
swear
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Read chapters 1-2 and 10 if you can't remember what happens. It's been a long time since present tense.
Thank you for reading. You are awesome.
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