[Updates Every Monday]
• Book 2 of the Daegelus series •
Lyca Corp. would never stop hunting for Elijah; he had something they wanted. The only way he could ever be truly free would be to destroy them, but with their chimaera army growing, he was go...
The internet didn't reveal anything else that might help Elijah understand Maverick and Ysmay and whatever their plans were. The tahawal were a mystery to most; the tiny scraps of information that he managed to find were surrounded by the same re-worded paragraphs of facts and history that every site repeated. It was almost as if someone had erased as much about the tahawal as possible.
He sighed quietly and put his laptop aside. When he checked his phone, he didn't find any messages from Haru, who was probably still asleep.
Before Elijah could fall victim to the despair again, though, a knock came at his door.
"What?" he grumbled.
The door opened, and Lucian and Zoe stepped in.
"Hi," Zoe said with a smile.
"We're getting you a motorcycle," Lucian said. "Let's go."
Elijah frowned at them both as he sat up. "Why?" He didn't want to go anywhere; he just wanted to lie there and wait for Haru to wake up.
"So you can get around a little easier," Zoe said.
Lucian rolled his eyes and said, "Because they want you to stop stealing."
"I don't want to go anywhere," Elijah grumbled and laid back down.
"What a coincidence. Neither do I," Lucian muttered. "Let's go."
"No."
"Fine," his cousin said with a scoff. "Zoe, come on." He walked past her and left the room.
Zoe frowned in confliction. "Oh...okay," she said, watching him leave. Then, she set her eyes on Elijah. "Are you sure you don't want to come? I know you're worried about Haru, but our dads will tell us as soon as they have updates, I promise."
He sighed and glared up at the ceiling. "I—"
"And maybe you can buy something for Haru for when he's back here with us. What does he like? There's a store for probably everything in the city," Zoe interjected, clearly trying her hardest to convince him.
Elijah turned his head and shifted his glare to her. "Why are you trying so hard to get me to go?"
She shrugged. "I don't know, I just...thought it would be good for you to get out for a little while. Sitting around here worrying constantly isn't good for you, you know. But you don't have to come if you don't want to; no one's forcing you."
He still didn't want to go, but he did want to find out if Lucian had managed to obtain any more information—information that he hadn't yet found. Trying to work out Maverick and Ysmay's endgame was the only thing keeping him from worrying so much about Haru that he tried to get to Samayō-Akuma and extract him himself; it was the only thing preventing him from starting the war that his parents were trying to avoid.
With a deep, tired sigh, he sat up and glanced at his phone.
"Are you coming?" Zoe asked with a hopeful smile.
He huffed as he stood up. "Might as well," he mumbled.
"Yay," she replied excitedly. "Have you ever had bubble tea?"
"No," he muttered as he grabbed his jacket. He pulled it on as he moved past her.
"Oh, uh..." Zoe drawled as she followed him downstairs. "Just make sure you don't have guns out when we're there, please. It's not gonna be a good look for us," she said with a nervous laugh.
"Where's Lucian?" he asked, ignoring her.
"Probably waiting in the van."
"What van?" he said, stopping in his tracks.
"Oh, just one of our vans. We have to bring security with us, and it's easier if we travel discretely." She quickly lost her confident expression and frowned. "Or Lucian could probably drive us if you'd prefer that, and security can meet us there."
He didn't like the idea of being in a van at all, but he wasn't going to make a huge deal about it. So he just sighed and continued walking downstairs.
When they got to the bottom of the stairs, he let Zoe lead the way. But once they passed through a doorway, they both spotted Lucian standing at the bottom of the stairs to one of the towers. He was staring up like he was listening to something—like he was concentrating.
"What are you doing?" Zoe asked, stopping beside him.
"Shh," Lucian dismissed.
Elijah listened, too.
And Zalith's voice echoed from upstairs, "What possessed you to share that information with them, though, Sinclair?!" He was furious.
"He was practically crying!" Sinclair retorted, sounding angry, too.
"Lucian?"
"Yes. They came to my office, and I turned them away, but then Lucian poured his heart out to me about being alone and how he's afraid to even get a pet, and then I don't know...it just felt like Varana wanted me to do it. I felt back for him, Zalith. He's an orphan. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Tell him no?!"
"Yes! He manipulated you. He knows exactly what he's doing, Sinclair."
Elijah glanced at Lucian, who had an amused, devious grin on his face.
"Stop," Zoe then said, ushering Lucian away from the stairs. "We shouldn't be listening to this."
Lucian muttered something under his breath in response but didn't fight; he walked away as Zoe pushed him.
As he followed, Elijah kept listening.
"He's just a kid," Sinclair replied.
"You need to do yourself a favour and start giving Lucian a little bit more credit, Sinclair. Don't be an idiot."
"I didn't want to turn Xaiden away, either. He's been through so much, and—"
Elijah stopped listening. He didn't want to hear them talking about the things he'd been through. Instead, he listened to Zoe tell them both about all the places she wanted to go to once they arrived in the city. He wasn't interested, and he just wanted to go back upstairs and wait for Haru's text, but he needed to talk to Lucian if he was going to continue his investigation and find out what Ysmay, Maverick, and Lyca Corp. were doing. So for now, he'd put up with the trip and wait for the right moment to speak to his cousin.
⊳⊱ ♕ ⊰⊲
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