Wolves of Haven : Lone

Weight of the Badge

"Just put it in drive and... Damn it," Akia grumbled, smacking the steering wheel again before struggling with the lid on her prescription bottle so she could take a pill. "It shouldn't be this hard!"

"It usually is."

She looked over to the passenger side and smiled. "Hey, Connie," she whispered then patted the seat, inviting him to join her, which he obliged, closing the door behind him. "You're the only person I know that can sneak up on me like that."

Connell smiled wide. "It's a talent, Sis. How are you? You look like hell!"

Akia rolled her eyes. "It honestly amazes me that you've practiced medicine as long as you have because you have no bedside manner in the least." She made a mocking face before popping a small pill in her mouth, swallowing it dry.

He chuckled and pushed his falling black bangs back from his eyes. "You take offense to, as what you've called more than once, pussy footing around the subject so it's safer to be direct."

She nodded her agreement.

"Trying to find the nerve to drive up to the house?" he surmised.

"What's going on?" she asked, instead of admitting she was terrified to drive the three hundred yards to Verulfr Manor. "Varg called and simply said Father needed me and to come home. I get that the asshole isn't one for words, but really?"

Connell chuckled. "According to Kid he has the personality of burnt toast."

"Adopting again?" Akia asked since Kid wasn't a known name to her.

"Lou and Father tracked him across the Ukraine," he explained, his green eyes moving over her appraisingly. "For being young, he is surprisingly resilient and shows impressive control. He's been here for five years. I offered to visit every six months to check up on him, make sure that he hasn't relapsed...the people that had him got Kid strung out on garbage heroine in order to control him. He's been clean since he came home, but you know how Lou worries about relapsing since he was once afflicted with chasing the green dragon. Sadly, when I came for a follow up I got stuck here again."

They were quiet for a moment, neither knowing where to go after that statement; no one spoke of the personal demons that each family member had faced or still dealt with. It was their way of not causing the inflicted to have to vanquish their demons over and over by reminding those harboring it of them.

"How are you?" Connell asked at length, eying the pill bottle she tossed in her purse. "Your follow up isn't for another couple of months, but I'm curious how it's working since you've been quiet."

She shrugged and looked out the window. "Apparently it's regulated, almost like clockwork now, so that's good. The combination you came up with is working for now. I have more control over her, but at the same time I have none. If it wasn't for the pills and...my outlet, I don't know what I'd do."

"Your outlet, that's a person right, and not an impressive collection of sex toys?" he mused, cocking an eyebrow.

Akia's mouth fell open before she softly smacked him, so he smacked her back. "That's disturbing, and I'm not even going to address it with a response."

He roared with laughter, and she chuckled. "I missed this, Sis. I know you had your reasons for going, and I understand part of the reason why you stayed, but you should have vacationed on the Island every so often instead of meeting up with me in seedy hotel rooms."

She nodded. "Only a couple times was it a seedy hotel room, Smart Ass, but we can discuss resolving that later. At the moment tell me what's going on."