Veil of Shadows ๋࣭⭑⚝ Dick Grayson

10 ๋࣭⭑⚝ Unkindness

"You need to drink more, Jules. You look like you're about to pass out." He pushed the bottled water closer to her face.

"I already drank a whole bottle, Dick." She pushed his arm away and simply leaned into his side.

"I-"

"Go check on Rachel. I'll be fine." She shook her head and gestured toward the teen, her nose buried in the Bible.

He hesitated, but eventually gave in, gently propping her up and giving her a quick kiss on the head before standing to approach the girl.

Rachel glanced up when she noticed him. "Is she okay? I didn't mean to-"

"Rachel, she's fine. She's just worried about you." He reassured her.

"I don't know what to do..." she cried softly.

"What set you off? Were you scared?"

"Was I scared? I'm always scared."

"Listen, I need you to start-"

"What? Trust you?" She scoffed, cutting him off. "'Other people can help'. Is that it? No, they can't. They'll just make promises, but in the end, they'll fail. They'll all leave... just like you."

"Yeah, you're right."

"What-?"

Dick sat down in front of her. "You're on your own. No one can really help you. Not truly. I was just like you once. I thought if I leaned on someone, if I trusted them, all the pain would go away. I was wrong. Anyone who tells you differently is lying. The loss is here for good now. There's no getting over it. But you can control it, channel it. No one else can do that for you. Just you."

Rachel stayed silent. "What about Jules?"

"What about her?"

"You lean on her. You still trust her. You still love her."

He bit his cheek, swallowing hard. "Bruce introduced me to her and her aunt when I was young. She was the first real human connection I had after the incident."

"Did you know about her..?"

"Yeah. Bruce sent her to train with me, to help me process what happened. And how to process what will happen."

"You seem very protective of her..."

"Trying to make up for lost time. I won’t let her get hurt again... Not now. Not ever." He whispered the last part, staring down at the floor before walking away.

.˳·˖✶𓆩𓁺𓆪✶˖·˳.

"Hey... hey..." she groaned softly, feeling someone gently patting her cheeks. She forced herself to pry her eyes open. "We’ve got to go... come on..." she was helped back to her feet.

"What's going on? Is Rachel—"

"She's okay. Something else has come up."

.˳·˖✶𓆩𓁺𓆪✶˖·˳.

"How did you think leaving the keys to your very expensive car with a random—probably alien—woman was a good idea?"

"Even when you're sick, you never lose your sarcasm, huh?" He sighed, his hands gripping the wheel tighter as his eyes darted from his phone to the road ahead.

"You deserve it after making me use my powers to teleport my car here instead of waiting for Laura to bring it over," she spat playfully.

"Sorry. I panicked."

"Can't believe you love that car more than me," she mumbled, jokingly.

"I love you both equally." He rolled his eyes and chuckled.

"Aw... Glad to know that I’m on the same level as a car." She pouted, turning over to lay on her side.

After a long drive, they stopped by a garage of some kind. Inside was an alien-looking pod... and the alien woman herself.

"Hey!" Dick called out, causing the woman to freeze and whip her head around. "You stole my car. I like my car."

"More than me, can you believe it?" she chuckled.

"How did you find me?" Kory walked over.

"There’s an app for that," he replied, sliding his phone back into his pocket. "Is this place yours?"

"I think so."

He scoffed as he looked around, then spotted a collage of photos with strings attached to them on the wall behind her.

"How long have you been looking for Rachel?"

"A few months, I thought."

"Seems like a lot longer than a few months," he mumbled, starting to inspect the walls more closely.

"You think?"

She watched as Dick wandered around the room, snapping pictures of raven diagrams and random notes scattered along the walls. He then turned his attention back to the pictures with scraps of paper featuring symbols pinned next to them.

"Is this yours too? What's that writing?"

Kory opened her mouth and began reading the symbols aloud, but couldn’t even begin to identify the language.

"What does that mean?" She crossed her arms.

"I have no idea."

The man turned back to her, furrowing his brows. "Where did you say you were from again?"

"I didn’t."

"Hm." Jules muttered as she walked over to the wall filled with diagrams of a particular bird. "What’s with the ravens?"

"The raven is the first bird species mentioned in the Torah," Kory said as she flipped through the files and read aloud.

"A man came after Rachel. He had a raven tattoo on his back," Dick said, voicing his concern.

Kory continued reading the files. "Rachel's birthday... The mortality rate spikes every year on that day. Ever since she was born. Over 200,000 additional deaths worldwide..."

Jules’ eyes wandered over the circled and underlined Bible verses. Her hand brushed over a few sticky notes on one verse with a strange symbol.

"Maybe she’s part of a prophecy."

Kory glanced at her, grabbed the sticky note, and began reading it aloud. "I think you might be right."

Silence washed over the trio, but it didn’t last long. The ground began to shake, and a loud 'bang' echoed in the distance. Dick grabbed her shoulders and pulled her closer until the ground stopped shaking. He looked over at a pile of books that had fallen from the shelf.

They exchanged knowing looks and sprinted out the door, where they saw a cloud of smoke rising from a specific spot...

"Rachel..."

She breathed out as an unkindness of ravens cawed overhead, flying in the opposite direction.