Ashes Of The Throne | Part I

Chapter 63 | Be Still My Soul ❤️

"Told you," Jesse sing-songed, bumping shoulders with Toni. It forced him to fold his arms across his chest and nod softly.

"Day three since she left."

"I noticed," Jesse smiled as they slowly walked into the gates of Allegiant, and Toni smirked shaking his head at the thoughts running wild in their minds. 

"You know where he goes at night now?"

"I took a guess," Jesse winked because she found out the hard way when she had gone looking for him that his presence was nowhere on the base.

She scrounged through the system, finding that he turned off his tracking, and the last known pinged location had been Sea-tac, as though it had been an afterthought of anyone knowing where he went. 

The next night, however, he turned it off before he left home. Both facts were as surprising as the other, and he kept it to himself.  That he had followed Eko wherever she went.

"Anywhoo..." Toni offered, "she's at Sea-tac, and that doesn't happen in our world. Your words, not mine."

Jesse frowned, "you take my words literally" her eyes then rolled; she was obviously annoyed now.

"You're the one that keeps hounding at that old saying."

"It's all complicated," she muttered, infuriated that he brought it back up. Weren't they discussing their leader and his sudden sense of monogamy with a servant that wasn't even there with them.

"You said it doesn't happen in our world."

"That was a year ago, Toni."

"So you've changed your mind?"

"Bloody hell, I don't know, man," Jesse exhaled, "I'm a damaged person; we all are. Can we really afford to love?"

Toni stopped briefly, "you just refuse to."

"Can you not start this psycho-babble bullshit? Teddy is the one with the accreditation, not you." Jesse pointed her finger towards him as she halted in his words.

"All I'm saying is, why can't we afford to love?"

Eyes softened at the sentimental man, the softer one of the four of them.

"Toni, it doesn't mean anything if we're dead." With that, she strode past him.

"When will you let that fear go and stop being like this? We're damaged, so what? It shouldn't stop you – you need to find a way to accept it and move on," he called out.

She turned as she continued walking backward. "Doesn't happen in our world. Matthew said that, not me."

Toni smirked as his feet followed the red-haired woman in front, watching as she turned back around and continued onwards.

He, however, knew better with that last statement of hers. Jesse also always followed Matthew in what he did or didn't do. An older brother that she protected. Toni didn't understand it at first- but she was attached to him in a way only a family could be.

Jesse had loved Toni, though, just as she had Richie- he knew Jesse had, but she idolized the man who protected them—placing him on some hypothetical pedestal with her trauma.

If he was damaged in her mind, she could use the excuse not to become attached; she could say she was broken and run with that.

Except Toni knew Matthew wasn't broken – he had dealt with their past more constructively than any of them had. Often he was the one counseling and repairing their damaged lives.