Betrayed By You

Ch.34 - Caution

 I waited and waited to hear from Flint and find out how he was handling my brother. I wasn't worried about my brother dying, but I was worried about how long it was taking. Flint wasn't like my brother and so eager to jump to a mission that he made mistakes and made a mess. Flint was careful. He was cautious. In everything. He didn't open up to anybody, he didn't share his feelings, he kept all of his thoughts to himself. There wasn't really anything that could get him to talk to anyone. Until I was working on the expense report for the budget.

Flint was the only one who ever really had time to sit around the gang house. Luke had work, Sam had his novel and his sister, and Demeter and Devlin were usually off on missions. So, by default, that left Flint as the go-to for questions. "What's all this being spent on these bags? Who's the one ordering these things?"

"I do when Demeter tells me to. I get exactly what he asks for." He said. He didn't look happy that I was interrupting whatever it was he was doing.

"Look, I'm sorry to interrupt whatever it is you're doing by just sitting here, but I need to get answers if you guys want to keep this place and I think that you might like to have some place to call home rather than being homeless or having to seek shelter with someone else or something. Besides, if we stay in our animal forms too long we lose our human selves. Or at least that's the rumor. I don't know if it's really true or not, but better to not chance it, right?"

He nodded and got up with a sigh. "What I was doing was meditating. I was doing that because it's about the only thing I'm allowed to do right now."

"Why is that?" I asked, holding the office door open for him to come in.

He glanced at me as he walked past. "I might share that with you, but I don't open lightly. Takes a hell of a lot."

I shut the door. "I'm a werewolf fighting to live among shifters who hate me, including my brother who doesn't know what I am and would probably kill me if he really did know. Because of what I am I was able to defeat Demeter and we agreed that this would be my job so I didn't have to worry about being found out. It's why I don't hunt with you guys, it's why I don't live here, and it's why I smell different. I have to use a bit of body spray to cover up the scent difference or I have to wear the same thing as Devlin and he doesn't wear the good stuff, he wears the cheapest, crappiest, most horrid scents he can find, probably because ever since I was changed I've had to wear it and he probably thought that I was trying to copy him and he's never liked that because he's always wanted to be his own person and many people have always looked at us as a package deal because of us being twins even though we don't look too much alike at times." I took a breath. "How's that for a secret?"

"Tell anyone and I kill you type of thing, huh? Like you, I beat Demeter. But it wasn't because I'm anything. I'm a shifter just like him and just like everyone else here. It drives me crazy because people think he beat me because that's what he tells everyone. I was here from the beginning with him and because he thinks others are better than I am he thinks he can control me. So he makes me out to be this weak little thing who's good for nothing more than cleanup crew. If someone botches up a mission or job or whatever you want to call them I'm the one who gets called in to clear up the scene. Just because my name is Flint and Demeter thought it would be fun to play off of my name because no one would ever think about someone named Flint starting fires if that happens to be what I need to do at that time. It pisses me off because I've got the best build of anyone here maybe besides you and Luke. By the way, he hates being called Lucian. Your brother knows and still calls him the full name just to piss him off. Your brother is an arrogant little shit who needs his head rammed up his ass by a foot that happens to be attached to my legs. He treats me like shit just like everyone else, only your brother makes me feel worse and worse about being who I am. I happen to be gay and your brother is terrible and has always said nasty things about same sex relations and such and just driving me nuts with all of it. He never asks and opinion and on top of all of that he's just so set in his ways and then there's the whole him making me fight with him so he can get better when it means that I can't hold back when that's what I really want to do is just spar with someone and not have to hold back my full strength and on top of it all your brother calls me his best friend."

He took a deep breath and continued, "I absolutely cannot stand who your brother is and I'm sorry if you take that the wrong way, but it's just how I feel and it's how I've always felt."

That's how we bonded. Those years ago we bonded because we both hated how my brother treated us. Because we were both nothing more than what others wanted to see us as. Flint was my first real friend in the gang and we kept that connection. We sparred where neither of us had to hold back and we got bruised because of it. If it wasn't for that day that Flint and I opened up to each other, that day that we took a huge risk in admitting who we really were behind the masks we wore in the gang house, we wouldn't be as strong as we are and we wouldn't be as good of friends as we are. I hadn't told Angeline all of what had happened back in the gang house, but I had told her most of it. I needed to tell her the rest, to tell her everything, if we were going to be more. If I was ever going to ask her to marry me then I wanted to have a clear mind about my past. I didn't want to leave anything out. I wanted her to know exactly who she was going to marry if she did end up saying yes to me. I had always hoped she'd say yes to me one day. It almost ended up being part of my dreams. Part of my life goals.

Until I got that call from Flint saying everything was taken care of, I had to bide my time and just wait. I had other things to do anyway. Things like help get Angeline a new job.