Uncovered

Chapter Six - Finneas

Finneas slowly rode his large, grey horse to the Manor on Salem Street with the most unlucky stow-away ever. He ground his teeth to almost nothing as the frustration pulsating through his body grew stronger and stronger, the more noises came out of the boy.

That boy was the reason he was in this situation in the first place. He should just push him off the back of his horse, leave him behind and forget all this ever happened. He couldn't work out what was making him more frustrated, the fact that there was something niggling at the back of his head that told him to help the damn kid but he didn't know why, or that he had been belittled by the hand of an old lady.

Olga had slapped him. The worst part was he didn't even see it coming. The left side of his face was still burning as the thought again crossed his mind. No one has ever gotten away with striking him like that before and lived to tell the tale. She should have died.

But that creepy old bitch would have haunted him forever and that's not something he wanted weighing him down amongst everything else.

A muffled voice from behind interrupted his thoughts.

"Please..." a long pause and a loud inhale of breath, "stop."

"No."

They had only been travelling ten minutes and he was fucking complaining already.

Loky's loud moan was heard over the silence in the street as Finneas made his way through the small crowds of people beginning to get on with their day. Everywhere he went silence and inaudible whispers followed, whole streets full of people cleared him a path and avoided eye contact. They feared him, and that's the way he liked it. Anything he wanted, he got, without questions.

"Be quiet."

Finneas growled through clenched teeth and looked behind him at the boy.

He'd started sliding off the rump of his horse. A foul word escaped his mouth as Finn threw out his arm and grabbed a fist-full of Loky's shirt and halted his horse. This is going to take forever if he put off giving him the medicine to heal him any longer.

In one final act of stubbornness Finneas pushed Loky down and he landed in a heap on the stone ground in the middle of the street.

"Bastard." Loky said between gasps of air.

"Shut up."

But Finneas choked on a laugh at his defiance and watched as the kid dragged his body up against a nearby wall. Only then did Finneas hand Loky the small vial filled with the blue healing tonic.

"Drink this."

"Go to hell."

Damn this prick and his stupid courage. If Finneas didn't need to bring back his excuse for his mistake earlier in the day, he would have just left him there, but he needed him as proof.

Plus, there was also the fact that there was a tiny part in Finneas that couldn't help but commend him. For someone so small and young, he made up for it with his sheer determination. Finneas usually respected people like that. But this kid had a seriously long way to go before that would happen.

"Stop being a fucking moron and take the damn medicine. You won't last the day or find whatever or whoever it is you're so desperately looking for if you don't. What a waste."

Moments went by as they stared at each other in silence. The people in the streets began getting on with their day, obviously considering what would happen to them if they caught Finneas's eye for being nosy. The look on Loky's face was a mixture of stubbornness and defiance but the internal battle he was facing clearly lost-out because the kid finally stood up, drank the vial and without any help, hopped onto the back of the horse himself, then offered out a hand.