Secret SSundee 2: Loyal Deception

Chapter 12

We arrived at Headquarters as the sun set, making Crainer run inside the building as fast as he could to avoid the dark. 

Ha, who's the scaredy-cat now. I thought, still annoyed by his remark on my fear of heights. 

We gave Ian to the guards to be put into his cell for the night, and each headed off in the direction of our own rooms. Ava pushed passed me as we went through the door, but I caught her arm and stopped her from going forward. 

"Hey, what was that push for? There's really no need to shove me li-" I stopped when I saw her tears. I could tell she was trying her best to hold them in, and keep up the cool act, but rivers still flowed out. 

"Oh my god, Ava, I'm so sorry." I apologized, feeling guilty all of a sudden. 

"Shut up." She spat back. "You don't ev-aughhh" The girl had collapsed before she could finish her sentence, holding onto me for support. She just gave up and let it all out, completely soaking my shoulder. I just wrapped my arms around her, comforting her the best I could. 

"Shhh, shhh. It's okay. Everything's okay now." I spoke in a relaxed and soothing manner, wondering what had broken such a strong woman.

"F-finn." Ava whimpered, sounding weaker than a kitten. "It was my job... my job to protect him." I just held her tighter, giving her the chance to vent. "Ambrew. I loved him." 

Her confession surprised me, just a bit. She was always staring at him in training, always requesting to be with him, though I was probably the one of the very few to notice these actions. If there's one thing she's good at, it'd be fighting. Hiding things would come in a close second. She was like a large, stone wall. Strong, always shutting things out, and hard to break, but once broken, anything could come through. She was also quite difficult to repair. 

I held Ava in my arms for what seemed like hours. She continued to weep into my shoulder until the ground shook, a warning. Our day wasn't over quite yet. 

Ian's POV

I woke up chained to a cold metal chair in a room I remembered quite clearly as a military high risk containment cell. Though my memories were blurry, I still had an idea of what went down and why I'm here now. Luckily, Seto must have implanted some informative new memories into my head as I slept, as I knew why I was still alive, and mostly angel deprived. SSundee and Derp were nowhere to be found in my body, and according to Seto, it was because of the dragon blood that the blonde boy had given to me. He told me that SSundee had permanently left me for that sake of survival alone, but Derp may have been killed, since he doesn't exactly have that choice. There was apparently still a slight and very small risk of one of them still being alive in my deep subconscious. I just wiped that warning away. 

Admittedly, I was kinda happy that SSundee was gone. Sure, he was a good guy and all, always giving me special powers, but to have him leave was a weight off my shoulders. He had a bad habit of repetition, and was also quite the grammar and perfection freak. 

The cell was completely silent, except for the sound of my own breath and heart beat. I called out for SSundee once or twice, only serving as a reminder of my new found loneliness. I wasn't used to quiet. The sound of the door opening made my head spring up. The chains kept me from getting up. The chair was warm by now, but it only served for discomfort. It took me a moment to recognize the man who had walked in, alone. 

"C-commander Arcaviouse? Holy crap, is that really you?" I spoke, voice still raspy from Derp's take-over early that day. 

"Why, hello." He spoke with a smile, standing in front of me with a black bag in one hand.