The Formula

Chapter 14

They stayed little over a week cooped up in the top floor of the tiny theatre. Felix needed the time to recover. He couldn't even remember a time when he was so fatigued.

The others mostly kept to themselves. An elderly fellow would come upstairs several times a day to turn on the projectors, but otherwise, he was their only visitor. Even when Felix stared out the projection window, he never saw anybody attending the shows. The first time the owner came upstairs, his reaction was muted at best. He had looked at all of them in turn, lingering on Gustaf, who remained in his dragon form most of the time. He turned then to Marleen, his face turned down in an intense frown, and asked for double the pay while the extra people were there.

Morrison was the only one who would actually leave the building to fetch them food. When he returned, he brought them news of how things were faring outside. Every day it was worse. At least by day seven, the executions had stopped. It seemed the new rebel government wished to rid themselves of the politicians of the old system. Felix was shocked a revolution hadn't started already.

He wondered if their plan even would.

It was the only choice they had, however, this ragtag team of once-powerful men turned into hiding rats. It gave Felix some consolidation, in a dark way, to see them cooped up together, hiding from a world that used to be theirs.

Now, he caught himself thinking once, they all know how I feel.

The air between all of them was tense most of the time. They all hated Leap—that much was blatantly obvious. They all avoided speaking to him, although they had soon stopped blaming him for all their troubles at every chance they got. Whatever Leap had done exactly to bring the situation to where it currently was, he had also done a lot of good in the past, and they at least seemed to appreciate that.

With nowhere else to turn, Leap took to talking with Felix when he wasn't resting and Celia was in the shower or otherwise occupied with Marleen's lessons on how to properly handle weapons. At first glance, Leap's confidence had seemed concrete and unbreakable, but as Felix got to know him better, he saw a reflection of himself in the man. Only to a more extreme extent. He too was a man who had been exploited, hurt, broken and rebuilt several times over.

"What is the difference between you and I?" Leap said suddenly one day.

Felix perked up, sitting up straighter in his cot. Gustaf glanced his way, his eyes void and unreadable, but quickly set back to rubbing his damaged ear with a forepaw. "What do you mean?"

"Neither of us asked for this ability, but what we've done with it is drastically different." He rolled a string between his fingers, a look of contemplation falling across his scarred face. "I never sought power to begin with, you know. All I wanted was contentment. I stole to try and achieve such a thing. I had all the niceties one could ever ask for. As I discovered though, things alone weren't enough."

"How much did you steal?"

Leap sniffed. "I have no idea. A lot. In any case, once I was discovered, that ended my career as a thief. Then, things were out of my control. I realize now that that was truly what I wanted the whole time. Control. And that's why I don't understand you, Felix. I gave you the promise of all these things—as I'm sure others did as well. Wealth, power, control. But you refused it. Why?"

"It was her," Felix replied straightaway. "Celia. She was my anchor. She helped me know what I truly wanted."

"What was that?"

Felix shrugged, and lay back down on his cot. "I don't know if there's one word for it. Comfort, I suppose. I found my contentment through her. She helped me see what was truly important. This last week or so has been the most stressful of my entire life." He laughed. "Incredibly so. But I wouldn't give it up for the world. I wouldn't give her up. Haven't you ever known love, Leap?"