Meliora - Extricate - 34

[lady_mab]

Zoné Altair

"And you're sure she's fine?"

"Totally sure," I say, hands shoved into my pockets.

Glen hunches a bit lower in his scarf. He makes a noise, as if trying to say something, but it doesn't work.

"You okay there?"

"It's just..." His words are muffled through the knit fibers. There's a roughness to his voice, the remnants of the cold still clinging to his lungs. "I haven't seen her in two weeks. She returns my texts but something always sounds a little off in them."

I flip my phone over and over in the relative safety of my jacket pocket. Jun and I spoke at length over the phone on New Year’s Eve about what she wants to tell the others.

And, after a lot of hesitation, I made the choice of how much I want to say.

Glen coughs and my thoughts jump back to our conversation. I roll my shoulders to ease the tension that has settled there. "She wants to see you, if that's any consolation."

The tips of his ears are pink, though that can be from any number of causes. "Yeah. Yeah I guess."

"You guess."

He laughs and emerges from his scarf. "No, it's good. A part of me was wondering if she was upset with me."

"Why?"

A shrug and a shake of his head are my answers. "I'm just paranoid, okay?"

"Yeah, okay, sure."

We stroll through the park to where Jun will meet us. And even though it's still very cold out in the early January afternoon, there are quite a few people wandering around on the walking paths. Not very crowded, but enough that we have to weave our way through the bodies every so often.

Our conversation shifts to school work (or in my case, the lack thereof that has been completed over break) when my shoulder collides with someone going in the opposite direction.

I whirl around, prepared to apologize, when the words freeze on my tongue.

Cold amber eyes glare at me through a pair of tinted lenses, and the first thing that either of us say is his tired, disgruntled, "Oh."

My brother. Here. Of all places.

Ironically enough on the day I was finally going to tell Jun and Glen the truth.

Catoir doesn't say anything more after that initial startled sound. He glances from me to Glen, then back to me.

"Out of all the paths in the park to take, you have to be on this one," I say without thinking. Because my default reaction to him being snark. Because I'm upset that he's here.

"It's a public park," he says, smooth, any sort of surprise immediately wiped away as he falls into routine. "There's no law against me walking around."

I roll my eyes and he responds with a slight pursing of the lips.

"Um," Glen starts, and hesitates when both of our attention swaps to him. "Hi."

"Hello." Catoir doesn't offer anything further than that. Instead, he nods, hugs his wool coat closer, and shifts his weight on his feet. "If you'll excuse me." He starts to move away, but my hand snaps out with a mind of its own and hooks onto his elbow.

"Wait."

To his credit, he stops. He frowns a little, but it's not at my presence. I can tell that much. Probably annoyed he can't figure out my motive -- which, to be honest, neither can I.

"Glen, go on ahead." I don't take my gaze off of Catoir, as if he'll disappear when I look away. "I'll catch up."

Glen hesitates at my side, and I know that he's trying to put things together. "So I'll just... go then?" He jerks a thumb over his shoulder. "Should I tell Jun?"

"You can tell her I won't be long, if I don't catch up with you first. It'll just be a moment."

He wavers in his spot before nodding and resuming his walk.

I wait until his footsteps fade, and then I finally drop my gaze to our feet. I watch Catoir shuffle, move to face me, give me his full attention. "Listen... About what you did for Jun... Thank you."

I can't see what sort of expression that he's making, but I do hear the heavy breath. "I am glad that she was found. Relatively safely, from what I understand from Jonas."

"Safe enough." It takes me awhile to form the words that I want to use, to find the sincerity that I feel. "We don't... know what happened to her. But it would have been worse without your help."

Catoir doesn't reply for a long time. When I finally force myself to look up, his gaze is distant, focused somewhere to the side. "It is unfair that something like this should have happened to either of you. To anyone, certainly, but..." He trails off and pinches the bridge of his nose with a gloved hand. "Jun was a victim of circumstances that she shouldn't have been."

"No," I agree. "But..."

He waits patiently for me to find my footing. Even though he had clearly had been heading somewhere, he doesn't look put off or annoyed at my delay tactics. I think back to my conversation with Glen on Christmas, about my conversation with Jun on New Year's.

I have to know what he thinks about the situation.

"Do you think that... what happened might have been connected to teams that are cheating?" My voice is small, almost lost in the hum of the crowds. Jun and I discussed the possibilities of what circumstances might have landed us in the situation we found ourselves on the twenty-second, but it's my first time putting it out there in words.

His eyes narrow and he stares at me. Just when I think he's going to brush me off, he tilts his head to the side. "What do you mean cheating?"

I don't know how much Jonas told him about what happened to Jun, and I don't know how much Jun might have told Jonas. Though considering the fact that she hasn't told Glen, I don't know if she would have let someone else know before her closest friends.

"It's just a theory that we have. And really it's only based on what Glen said happened to his team and what happened to Jun and I."

"You are referring to those monsters, then?"

“It seems to be a pattern.”

There's a hint of a smirk that passes far too quickly to register as any real emotion. "Cheating would be an interesting theory. At least, those who ALICE has solid evidence of cheating would be attacked."

"As a show of force?"

"I think so, yes. To put fear into them. That's what the Halloween event did, too."

I consider this to the best of my ability, but one thing stands out more than the fact that Jun and I would be the ones pinned for cheating. "Why attack my team and not yours as well?"

He lifts an eyebrow and lets his hand drop away from his mouth. "Need I remind you that I am a respectable librarian in this city. I am not cheating."

A snort escapes me and, again, there's that hint of a smirk on my brother's face. "Yeah, keep telling yourself that."

Catoir extends a hand and somehow manages to give the impression of a mocking bow with the gesture. "And thus we just crossed paths with those monsters."

Exasperated, I shake my head and ruffle my hair with my hand. "Fine. Whatever."

He huffs a sigh and returns his hands to his pockets. "I'll have Jonas look into it."

I give him a suspicious look, uncertain of how much this will cost in the long run. "Don't go out of your way to make me feel like you care or anything."

"On the contrary. I'm not doing this out of fraternal concern, if that's what you're thinking." He pins me with a look over his glasses that I don't know how to interpret. "You're a participant in this game right alongside me. I'm not about to go and let anyone else get hurt because this game has messed up rules."

My jaw falls slack, and I spend a moment deciding if the surprise I feel is genuine or not. In the end, my anger towards him in the grander scheme of things wins out. "Whaaaat? Really? Color me impressed. I don't even know who I'm talking to anymore."

He rolls his eyes and it's such a familiar, annoyed gesture that something lurches in my chest. "I might be friends with criminals but that does not make me a bad person."

"No," I say, and I can feel the bite to my words before they've even finished forming. "I think running away from your family and not giving them a second thought makes you a bad person." My hands shake, and I ball them into fists at my side to try and keep myself steady. "But what do I know. I'm just an idiot, according to you."

Catoir's gaze sharpens, and this is when I realize that I truly don't know who he is anymore. There's bits of my brother in there, but these last few years have changed him in ways that I'll never learn. "Don't you dare play the victim here, Zoné."

"Why, because you're afraid you might actually care? When your little brother shows up in this city, in this game--"

"Forget about Catoir Altair," he says, and even though his voice is soft, it cuts right through me. "Pretend he's dead. Pretend he never existed. I don't care. Whatever is easier."

My blood freezes and boils at the same time. My stomach has dug itself through the paved path at my feet and something burns in the back of my throat. I swallow it down and speak as evenly as I can manage -- because if he can be cool as a cucumber, so can I. "You'll let Starling remember you, but not me?"

There's a tightening in his jaw. "She has nothing to do with this."

"Wrong fucking answer, my man." I have to resist the urge to jab a finger into his chest, because I know it won't drive the answer home. But the physicality of it might satisfy my anger. "You can't be selective about your past when I'm standing right here in front of you."

"I didn't ask you to be."

"But you asked her?"

Everything about him tenses. And the stillness that had hung over him at the start of the conversation is gone, replaced with something far more pointed. He takes a breath, opens his mouth, but hesitates.

When he finally speaks, his voice is quiet, tired. Confused. "Why did you call me, Zoné? Out of all people to call, why me?"

I feel the exhaustion weighing heavy in every inch of my limbs. "What does it matter now?" I manage, equally small.

For a moment, we stand there, facing each other, every ounce of fight gone from our tone.

And then the moment is gone.

Catoir straightens his posture and the indifference returns to his features. "It doesn't," he says, and about-faces before I can get another chance to react.

I let him leave, and I try to take his advice to heart as I swallow the sudden rush of emotions that threaten to overwhelm me.

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