The Tales of Flesh and Blood

The Dynamic Trio . . . With Issues

I raised my hands, torn between wanting to punch this guy in the nose and the need to ask him what he's talking about.

"Excuse me?" I challenged, going for the latter of my two ideas. While my knuckles were incredibly better than the day before, they weren't all the way healed. "I haven't-"

"Venny saved you, and you turned him in," Redhead seethed.

"Venny?" I repeated. "You mean Ven? You lot knew him?" Funny, that Jaxon said he'd never heard of him. I frowned, wondering why I was surprised. I mean, sure, I wasn't exactly up there in the honesty rank, but I scarcely straight up lie to a person in front of their face like that. Keep things hidden, sure, and I had the nasty habit of not correcting what a person assumed from what I told them at times - but Jaxon literally lied through his teeth without a moment's hesitation.

Blonde looked like he wanted to answer, but Redhead was trapped in his own world of perception at the moment. He snapped his head down to glare at Blonde.

"Remember that guy I told you about?"

"You mean the one that got us into this?" Blonde retorted dryly. Redhead waved away the comment like an annoying fly.

"He had names, Yoshe. He knew who was going to get snatched, and you want to know who he decided to save, of all people?" he gestured angrily to me, and when he looked up, I'll admit that I might have winced a bit at the hatred so easily visible in his face. I knew that look. He was grieving, and he was trying to hide it - and he was doing a pretty damn good job, too. "The white-haired bitch who's too chicken to do what's right."

Okay, so he lost his friend. I understood that, but I wasn't about to let him talk down to me as if I was a piece of shit he just stepped in. I straightened myself and pushed my shoulders back.

"Listen, he asked me to march head-first against these guys-" I began just as Blonde said,

"Not everyone is meant to be a vigilante, Quil . . ."

"Oh, don't you start excusing her-"

We were so caught up in trying to talk over each other that I didn't even realize a fourth person until he shouldered past me, raising his hands in a peaceful gesture. I paused in mid-sentence, doing a double-take as Jaxon strode in the room like some sort of king demanding to be listened to. His jaw was set, but other than that, he had no expression whatsoever on his face.

High-school, I thought numbly. Remember, we're supposed to be in high school.

"Okay!" he shouted over everyone else, and Blonde - Yoshe - and Redhead - Quil - paused in their arguing. Yoshe took the moment to rise from his sitting position on the bench as Jaxon forced a smile to his lips. "Leave you guys alone for a few hours, and you look like you're getting ready to kill each other."

Quil pointed an accusing finger at Jaxon.

"It's your fault he's gone, you know. You're the one who suggested-"

"I wasn't the one in direct contact with him," Jaxon interrupted, his voice cold and sharp. "You could have easily just stayed out of it."

Quil opened his mouth, then closed it. He turned his head away to release a low, bitter laugh, but not fast enough for me to miss the tears surfacing his eyes. When he faced us again, though, they were gone.

"You know what, you're right," he said, throwing his hands up in the air. "That'll be the last time I do you any favors." He went to walk out of the room, purposely bumping into Jaxon on the way. He paused, briefly, when he got to me. Then he scoffed, clearly not liking what he was seeing. "I don't know what he sees in you." And he was off to that cursed door that led to the hallway with all the insane bedrooms and kitchen.