Algernon Black

(Chapter 8) The Leftovers of a Home

When Jared was suddenly transported to the familiar doors of his childhood home he was relieved only for a moment until it opened to a man with dulling dark hair.

Jared looked up with dead eyes as all his strength had long since left him. "Hello, father." He barely even had the strength left to hate him.

Lucas Lahue glared down at Lucy still unconscious in his son's lap, or as far as he could tell, dead. "Why did you bring her here?"

Jared found the energy to be angry just then. "It's fine as long as mom doesn't see. Right?"

"Leave now before she does."

Lucas meant to shut the door, but Jared stuck his hand between the frame as it closed. The pain didn't even register—at this point as it was the least painful thing he was feeling.

"Do you not care at all?" Jared asked, his voice boiling. "That you're only children are half dead on your doorstep."

Lucas examined his son, whose eyes were the same clear light blue as his wifes, but that was the extent of their similarities.

"That's not my concern."

Tears threatened to fall from Jared's eyes at their father's callous abandonment, but he choked them back. "I promise to never come back here if you help us now. You'll never see me or Lucy ever again. But I need to get her somewhere safe. And the longer we're here the less safe it is for you and Mom."

Lucas peeked at the girl, unlike her brother she had grown to remarkable resemblance of his wife. With the same wavy golden hair and soft features as Alya, but he remembered from her childhood the gray of her eyes were misty and lackluster, just like his own.

"Fine. Whatever makes the both of you leave faster." He walked inside, leaving the door cracked open only because his son's hand still lodged in the frame.

Jared threw his head against the door of the house he grew up in, covered in blood and with Lucy unconscious in his lap—silently apologizing for bringing her back to the one roof he swore she'd never have to suffer under again.

Lucas grabbed an old military satchel he hadn't used in years and some other extra belongings around the house that were decades old and abandoned in closets and dressers. Jared was just about his size and Lucy was just about her mothers, or the size her mother used to be before her condition worsened and she lost so much weight that everything now slumped off of her gaunt frame.

He threw in enough money so they'd stay away for months—just so he didn't have to worry about them coming back to coerce them for any more. Anyways, with all the talk of the approaching war, he only gave it six months at best they were on this side of the world, and both still alive.

Jared didn't thank his dad as he took the bag. It infuriated him instead—that this was the extent his father was willing to offer his children in their most desperate state. There once was a time when his father had risen to the responsibilities of one. Before Lucy was born and Jared wasn't even yet a teenager. But just as his mother's health slowly deteriorated into the frail shell of a woman she was now over the years after Lucy's birth, his father developed the opposite. Everything about him hardened. Time had turned him to stone, and Jared was convinced even his heart had petrified.

Lucas handed his son a transportation stone last, only with the intent to rid of him faster.  

Jared grabbed the crystal.

"That'll take you to the Sharde district."

Jared examined the modest crystal. Transportation stones grew bigger the farther away they traveled from their intended destination, and by the size of this one, he was a couple of hundred miles away.  "I won't ask why you have one on hand." Jared peeked past his shoulder to the upstairs where he was sure his mom slept. "I think I already know."

"Well, you're going to use it too," his father shot back. "Aren't you?"

Jared squeezed the stone. Of course he was going to use it—as little as he wanted too, he had no choice but to.

And he couldn't judge his father for why he did either, as horrible as an act it was, they both committed it with the best intentions.

Lucas locked the door on his two kids as the flash of light let in from the bay windows signaled their departure. He exhaled a heavy sigh, suspecting some kind of drama was going to be involving that girl soon enough. The rumors of war made him certain of that. He just had to do his all to keep himself and his wife away from any part of it. As he always had.

"Lucas, who was that?" His wife's sweet voice broke the silence of his thoughts. She was even skinnier of the late with hollow cheeks and pale skin, but still as beautiful as ever. Seeing her out of bed wasn't a common occurrence of late, and he hurried to her in case her legs failed her.

"No one," he softly reassured his wife, reaching her at the top of the stairs. "Let's go back to bed." He kissed her forehead before pressing her gently into his solid chest. Alya rested against her husband's warm body, but when she looked up, noticed a shadow of uneasiness pass his face. The unsettled nerve in the nape of her neck began tingling again.