Shards of Kairos

VIII.2 - Into the Sun

Julian had left the car, turned a corner down an alley, and disappeared. And as much as Evie hadn't been expecting that, she didn't expect - no more than five minutes later - for Julian to reappear on a black motorcycle down the opposite street and in the opposite direction he'd left from.

Definitely not long enough, or logistically enough, for Julian to make a motorcycle appear. Or to appear on one.

"How the hell." Mitch said, half turning in the driver's side to look down the same alley Julian had disappeared into and then back to the man himself. Who was pulling up alongside the driver's side, next to the squad car, wearing a motorcycle helmet with an impossibly dark visor.

Mitch let the window down on his side and Julian lifted the visor on his motorcycle helmet after he came to a stop beside the squad car.

"Drive. I'll follow." Julian said.

"I hope you didn't lift that." Mitch remarked.

Julian only gave Mitch a flat, amused look but said nothing - pulling down the helmet visor and turning his gaze straight ahead. Obviously waiting for them to go first.

And Mitch did, lifting his foot from the brake and pulling away from the curb.

And there was that thing again that Mitch did when he was stressed - more prominently than before, the sheriff's hands tightening on the wheel for a brief moment, squeezing the leather and working it beneath his palms.

Evie flickered her gaze over Mitch in concern but he looked outwardly fine otherwise. It was a wonder his nose wasn't broken and Mitch didn't joke around much, not without being serious about it. He probably did have a concussion.

"Are you all right?" Evie asked him seriously. But respectfully. None of them, in many different and similar ways, weren't all right.

It was almost a stupid question to ask. And Evie had meant it with multiple, possible meanings but most of those could already be answered with a simple 'no'.

She knew the feeling all too well. Stressed? What was more stressful than the end of the world.

"Yeah I'm all right." Mitch immediately replied, quietly.

"Mitch." Evie said, leveling her gaze at the man patiently. And she didn't mean to talk to him like he was one of her closest friends, practically family. She didn't mean to forget that he didn't know her at all.

Mitch let out a tight, controlled sigh, briefly looking to the rear view mirror and Julian following behind them - before his hands tightened on the wheel again, just a brief squeeze. Mitch turned his eyes back to the front. And predictably, he changed the subject. "What do the Blight look like? The Shard. You've seen them."

Evie suppressed a chill, deep and primal. Reflexive. "Demonic." she turned her eyes out the window on the passenger side, watching the town she'd been born and raised in slowly give way to the outskirts, the outside of town and then the countryside.

Gone. Just like that. Just another town now. It had no recollection of her and probably never would. And Evie couldn't even begin think of what was going on inside the house that she'd grown up in.

"They look like they're made of glass..." Evie turned troubled eyes out the window. "The ones that attacked Katie and I looked like dogs. Sort of. Maybe it's their interpretation. But they're a lot like insects too. About as big as a human being, some larger." Evie forced herself to continue, realize she was sitting beside a cop and a former soldier. He wanted tactical details on the enemy and that reassured her most of all. It was got her through talking about them.