Running Red: Lost Moon

Chapter 40: Dirty Skin

TW: Implied sexual harassment**, self harm, mentions of eating disorder, panic attack, abuse
**Edited, you can find the unedited version on my AO3 or patreon.

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Andrew looked at Tate as he held the grimoire in his hand. "You sure about this?" An old baseball hat was sitting on his head, turned backward. He was wearing his old leather coat. The feeling of old magic that came from the coat felt like a hug he hadn't received since he had been a child. It had been years since he used his cousin's magic. He might have to reach out to her for help.

Tate turned to Celest, who was standing with her arms crossed. His shoulder length hair was pulled back into a low tail. "Celest?"

She let out a long sigh before nodding, her long dark brown hair braided back out of her face. "It'll be safer, something attracted those men there, and none of them wanted to talk. Would rather take their lives than talk." She rubbed at her bare olive brown shoulder where a bear tattoo curled around the ball of the shoulder. It was odd to see her in a tank top showing off the rest of the animal tattoos that peeked out from under the collar of her tank top. Most times she wore a sleeved shirt to cover up the tattoo markings that showed up with her abilities.

Tate looked at Andrew, "They know what we look like now, so he'll need to be hidden."

"The family is offering to take him in..." Celest trailed off. "But I'm worried he'll end up with a target on his back just because he's the only male mediator in the Rosso family. It'll get people to poke around, and that's not good."

When Andrew looked at Tate, he shook his head. "They need safety to be themselves."

He watched them. Both of them were still dressed in the clothes they had been wearing during the fire. He could see the traces of soot along the edges of Celest's tank top. Andrew let out a sigh as he turned his attention to the grimoire. "Alright. It'll take time, but we can seal his abilities. We'll need to pick a way to unseal everything when it's time to teach him how to use his abilities."

Celest's voice was small when she asked, "Do we have to?"

Tate looked at Celest in alarm, "Him not learning how will hurt him in the long run. I know personally how dangerous untrained abilities can be, and I'm not about to watch Levi go through it."

"It would be safer if he didn't know about this world. We've all seen the horrors, and I just want him to have a happy life."

Tate let out a growl causing Celest to snap at him, "Don't you start." Her dark green eyes were glaring at Tate, but they held fear along with her anger. "This world is awful and ugly, and I don't want him to know that sometimes you have to kill to survive it."

Andrew sighed, "It may be ugly, but it has its good points. We'll just have to make a security net should anyone come after Levi before he is ready to step into this world."

Celest wanted to bare her teeth. "I want him to be safe."

"And I don't." Tate scoffed. "You're always trying to make it seem like I don't care."

Andrew sighed when both of them glared at each other. "Right, we're talking about Levi here."

Both Tate and Celest looked away from each other as Andrew rubbed at his forehead. There was a headache already forming. "Levi needs to be safe, but his abilities will also be a danger to him. We don't know if he'll be an elemental or a tamer."

Celest shook her head, "I doubt he'll be a tamer. We're mostly women."

Andrew also pointed out, "But there have been male tamers."