Friday, 8th of April.
"You're a little softy, aren't you?" Harper murmured as she scratched the silver fur of Aloysius. He growled in satisfaction as his tail thumped up and down on the floor, his canines protruded from his mouth as he 'smiled' at Harper.
Sighing, Harper leant back against her bedframe and closed her eyes, trying her best to relax and block out the images of a tortured Luke in her mind, but to no prevail. She couldn't focus on anything apart from Luke, she was an addict to a drug. Her heart hammered in her chest at all the possible scenarios, and Aloysius seemed to notice this as he leant forward and gently nuzzled Harper's neck with his snout. Harper giggled at the sensation and rewarded the large dog with another ear scratch, much to the magehounds' satisfaction.
"I was not expecting that dog to be so friendly," Logan appeared in the doorway clad in his usual blue scrubs that he seemed to wear more than anything else in his closet. Logan glanced at his daughter, with both worry and love in his eyes, and then trailed his gaze further down to the dog that seemed to take up the entirety of the bed.
"Aloysius is a huge softy." Harper stated. Aloysius growled so deeply it sent shivers down the two people's spines that stood within attacking range, and as if knowing the affect he had Aloysius showed his teeth in an attempt to smile and nuzzled Harper's leg as his tail wagged in a playful manner. For a killing machine he sure was playful. . . and loved affection, as Harper said; a complete softy.
"Are you heading to work?" Harper asked as she crawled off of her bed and grabbed the packed duffel bag that laid on the floor by her closet. Upon her father's nod she continued, "can you please drop me to Luke's? I want to see the boys."
"Of course, get in the car I'm already late enough as it is."
Harper rolled her eyes, he arrived to work half an hour early- sometimes more- for his shifts, and rarely ever was he late, and if he was it was always his daughters fault. Nonetheless Harper hurried down the stairs, Aloysius hot on her heels as if sensing where they were going, and into the garage where she helped squeeze Aloysius across the back seats of the car before hopping in the front seat.
Logan came into the garage a minute later, glanced at Harper already in the car before glancing at his keys, and cursed softly. With a quick gesture to wait Logan had gone back inside and grabbed the Audi keys before hopping in alongside his daughter and spoke, "I thought the truck would be comfier for the dog but seems you thought otherwise." He chuckled quietly which was drowned out by the sound of the engine roaring to life.
"I don't understand."
"There's nothing for you to understand because you're not going to be involved in this!" Ashton yelled as his fists slammed on the table, which violently shook with the inhumane force. Harper was surprised it didn't break. However, the human didn't let the force of the Tractatori in front of her startle her into submission. Like a warrior on a battlefield, she would not yield to anyone but herself and her own desires.
"Well I would say I'm already involved in this considering I've met Larkin and- oh! I don't know, maybe the fact that it's my boyfriend missing!" The tension levels in the room increased to the point where a knife could slice through it like a piece of cake. Heavy breathing could be heard as Harper's chest heaved upwards and back downwards from the anger that she was trying to keep in, but she knew it wouldn't be much longer before she combusted like a balloon that had been filled with too much air.
It took some time, full of arguments, tears, yelling and growling (the latter was the magehounds, although Harper wouldn't have been surprised if Ashton joined in at one stage), before the four could come up with an agreement and formulate a plan based off of this.
Harper was to (begrudgingly) stay at the house with Ashton- much to her dissatisfaction, and Ashton's too- to gather as much information as they could, whilst Calum and Michael were to search potential hideouts. Harper had spent a solid hour trying to convince the boys to let her join the search party, but they insisted she would just be a liability. Eventually, Harper had given up upon the decision that her words were better fought elsewhere.
That conversation, was how Harper found herself sat next to a brooding Ashton, whom would continually huff and puff like the big bad wolf he sought to be, much to Harper's frustration. She was finding him more annoying that the people that walked slow along a footpath, or the people that would continually press their click-pens, and perhaps most importantly those that snored. Yes, Harper thought, he was being more annoying than snorers.
She couldn't take it anymore, "Would you shut the fuck up? If you're going to breathe so loud then do it outside, or better yet don't even bother to breathe at all, because it certainly won't bother me either way!". Combust like a balloon indeed.
To Harper's astonishment, Ashton merely blinked and looked at her with his brown eyes that bore into her own green one's. Harper couldn't decide whether to jump with joy or throttle Ashton across the head upon hearing his next words, consisting of the simple two-worded, overused saying, "I'm sorry."
"Good."
"Not just for breathing, but for the way I treated you. It may not seem like it, but I care for your safety, and whether you choose to believe it or not is up to you, but I can be more protective and overbearing than Michael, just in my own way." His voice was soft, merely above a whisper, as if the words spoken weren't meant to be for anyone but herself, not even for the chirping birds outside, that she also wanted to throttle for they weren't easing the migraine that threatened to wash over her like a tsunami.
"Why do it then?" A small part of Harper cursed at herself for not just accepting the apology and moving on, but the bigger part of her wanted to get to the bottom of this situation, if only to distract her and perhaps ease her pent up anger.
"I used to be like Luke once," He trailed off, his brown eyes turned dull, as if he was reliving a past event. Harper waited for him to continue, but it seemed that Ashton needed a little push, for he was silent for a few more minutes.
"Do you mean lively like Luke? Or perhaps you were once good-looking like Luke?" She meant the end part as a joke, and by the tug on the right side of Ashton's mouth, she had succeeded.
"In love." Ashton paused, his head tilted to the side as he briefly smiled, "I was in love, like a fucking teenager in high school, it was that kind of love. It was real and raw, god did we fight and rile each other up, but at the end of the day she would always happily curl up in my arms and hug me so tight that all my worries would fade away. She was beautiful- everyone thought so- and it was a constant struggle to believe that she was all mine and not theirs, but she would remind me everyday that I was the only man who had and would ever have her love. She had a temper too, one that rivalled mine, and perhaps that was why we belonged together. . ." Ashton sighed, and it was then that that the brown-haired girl noticed the tears threatening to spill out of the males' eyes.
"What happened?" The tone was gentle, questioning but not demanding. Harper would never urge someone to tell her such raw and emotional experiences, not unless they wanted to share them with her.
Harper waited, her green-eyes flickered from Ashton's face, to the floor, the walls, back to his face, and repeated the cycle all over again. She exhaled a sharp breath, her heart not ceasing it's pounding beats, as Ashton whispered his reply, "she died, and it was all my fucking fault. It was supposed to be me who left this world first, but she was taken from this world before I could offer up myself as a trade." Harper glanced up and was taken aback by the orange irises that had replace Ashton's usual brown ones, flickering like wildfire that was fueled by his emotions, however she decided not to comment on it as the male opened himself up to her.
The way the tanned man spoke brought sorrow to Harper's heart. The way Ashton spoke as if he truly did not want to wander this Earth anymore, live this life, and breathe the air that she breathed. Each word was laced with an abundance of emotions; sorrow, fear, anger, they were never ending, but Harper could not detect any positive emotions in his words, in his voice.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry that you had to suffer through that." There was no response, instead Ashton shuffled through a bunch of papers and handed some over to Harper, without so much as a glance. Back to typical Ashton, although Harper wanted to cheer at the fact that he was silently breathing once again, score.
Harper proceeded to search through the papers in hopes of finding some useful information, but all of it seemed to be irrelevant, until she came across a file with the words 'LARKIN' printed out in a bolded format. The name wasn't the only thing that seemed to stand out to Harper, and like gears in a gadget everything clicked inside of Harper's brain as she let out a loud "Aha!", one that startled Ashton as he dropped the file he was holding and scowled at the loud girl.
"I think I got it! So as a child my dad and I would always go into the forest- well, we still do sometimes, but not as much- anyway, my dad would always talk about the quietness of the woods and how you could feel and hear anything even if it was a mile away if you just closed your eyes and willed yourself to listen. So I guess what I'm getting at is that if you wanted to hide somewhere secluded, it would be the forest because you can sense anyone approaching, especially if they are Potestas because they can use their powers to amplify these feelings." Harper deeply inhaled, which was much needed after telling Ashton her discovery.
Ashton blinked, taken aback by how many words just came out of the brunette's mouth in such a short span of time. he opened his mouth and closed it as his brain continued to process the information it had just gotten thrown at it like vomit. Finally, he spoke, "We thought of the possibility, however there is still a lot of forest out there and not enough time to cover it."
"Derelinquetur terra."
"I had no idea you spoke Latin, I'm sure Luke would be proud." Ashton smirked, the boys and himself didn't often encounter people who spoke one of their languages, ones that went back to the founding Tractatori themselves, who had visited this Earth and taught a small handful of humans in different areas, a few of the languages of their own homeland, to which the humans adopted and made their own.
"I don't, well not really. Anyway, it means 'forsaken land' and my dad used to tell me about it, we even visited there a few times. It's this section deep in the forest, overgrown and dark, beautiful in it's own creepy sort of way. It was a house of our ancestors apparently, not that I should believe everything that dad says, but wouldn't it be worth it for us to take a look?" Harper maintained eye contact with Ashton, her green eyes ablaze as she mentally patted herself on the back.
"I'll call the boys and we will go take a look at it."
"Yes! I knew you'd come around. I can't wait to go back there, it's been ages because dad rarely liked to make the trek there-"
Ashton abruptly cut off Harper's rant, "The boys and myself will go, you however will stay here where you can't get hurt." There was no room for argument, Harper knew that much, but that didn't stop her as she shockingly stared at Ashton, a mixture of anger and sadness plastered on her face despite the neutral look she was aiming for.
"That is bullshit, and you're going to have to tie me up and lock me away because I'm going with you guys whether you like it or not." Her nostrils flared in anger, and if it was possible Harper was sure she would have steam coming out of her ears like Harry Potter in the Prisoner of Azkaban.
"That can easily be arranged." Ashton smirked as he pulled out his phone and texted the boys, informing them of the new discovery.
"Fucking prick!"
Hey Guys xx
Sorry I haven't updated in ages but hopefully I'll be able to update more frequently for the next few weeks. And hopefully that will help motivate some readers to come back, as I've noticed there aren't as many anymore and the comments and votes are definitely decreasing which is sad for me to see.
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