The Calm and the Storm [#NaNoWriMo15]

13. With Flying Colours

Atticus stopped beside his car and groaned.

"God damn it!" he shouted, his fists rolled into the size of balls. Alice looked confused.

"What's wrong?" she asked, looking at the car, and just as she said it she realised what the problem was and her eyes widened in realisation. "Oh," she murmured. "Oh, uh, that's a problem."

Atticus strained his head to look into the car. "I can do it with my right leg, can't I?"

Alice paused. "Are you left handed? And footed?"

Atticus nodded.

"Then it doesn't matter, you dumb human," she groaned, opening the right side of the car to let Atticus in. "You drive with that foot anyway, oh my god."

Atticus blinked, then realised his mistake. "Oh, right," he breathed. "Mm, I see. Alright, okay, I can do that."

Alice looked like she wanted to slap herself, but she held back and helped Atticus climb into the car. Since the pain had almost dispersed completely, Atticus could almost move without the wheelchair, but it exhausted him to the point where he had to sit sometimes. Luckily, he didn't have to get used to it. If he could convince a doctor to fix him up without asking questions, that would make everything so much easier.

Be on your guard.

"I always am," he muttered back. Alice glanced at him as she ducked into the old car beside him after putting his wheelchair in the back, their heads now level.

"What?" she asked, and Atticus shook his head.

"Nothing," he replied, clearing his throat. "Talking to myself."

I'm not even your subconsciousness.

"Then what the hell are you?" he demanded. Alice stared, but Atticus continued talking to the windscreen before him as he started up the car.

You don't need to know now.

"Yeah, and they say cats are the a-"

"Who the heck are you talking to?" Alice demanded. "If you're hallucinating, there is no way I'm letting you drive me to a hospital."

"Just stop talking," Atticus muttered and started up the car. Alice huffed, crossed her arms together and sulked.

Atticus sighed.

It was odd to drive a car without resting his left foot on the ground anymore, and his right leg was doing all the work and it was tiring. He hoped the hospital didn't ask too many questions.

"Okay, I want to tell you something about my- about Reyna, before we find her. It may seem a little crazy, but you're going to have to trust me, okay?"

"Yeah, okay," she breathed. "What's wrong with this 'Reyna'? Is that your girlfriend?"

Atticus snorted. "Not really," he admitted. "Something like that, I guess. I don't know. But, the reason we met was because of my brother."

"The killer-mad one?"

"Yeah, the killer-mad one. He was chasing me, trying to kill me, even, and I retreated back to this massive factory. It'd been abandoned for a while, so I figured it'd be safe and that Nate wouldn't look there for me. But I ran into her while I was there. She'd been living there since she was 2 years old."

"Alone?" Alice asked, and at Atticus' nod she shook her head in disgust. "Harsh."

"Her mum was... well, from what I've heard, she was a nice person. It wasn't her that tried to kill her daughter, it was something else." He paused as he craned his neck to see if any cars were coming from around the corner before taking a steady right. "There are things in this world, Alice. Bad things and good things, but things you have no idea exist. Things like me, and Reyna. If the world was normal and nothing 'magical' or anything existed, neither would we. I wouldn't be here, and you'd be waiting for your sister to come home."