Upon These Wings

Others

My first impression was that they were opposites.

One of the men was lounging back on the couch. He was skinny, a look made more drastic by the tight pants and t-shirt. He wore what almost looked like a dog collar snuggly around his neck and had black gauges in his ears. The top of his head was dyed a bright green that matched the color of one of his eyes; the other was bright, crystalline blue. His skin was incredibly pale.

The other man was standing and looked surprisingly... professional. He was tall and muscular with broad shoulders, filling his suit in what I would have said was fetching if he didn't intimidate me so much. His black hair fell into his face, but only a little. His skin was a little darker than the other and he looked like he might be of Asian descent.

"Gentlemen, this is Three," Jakes continued. I gave him a confused glance. Why did they get names and I just got a number?

The darker man straightened his suit jacket before striding across the room to offer me his hand. "Good to meet you, Three," he inclined his head slightly, eyes flicking up and down my body briefly. I was used to this when meeting new people by now, but there was something about his almost-black eyes that made me suppress a shudder. They seemed... dead, in a way, yet had an intelligent spark behind them that gave me the impression he was not what he seemed. "I'm Dark," he finished.

I hesitantly took his hand. Something in those dead eyes flickered; amusement, maybe? He glanced over his shoulder at the other man - Anti, I presumed - who rolled his eyes with an exaggerated sigh and dragged himself off the couch to saunter over and meet me. He was very twitchy and when he shook my hand it almost looked like his body flickered, like an image on a computer with poor internet.

"I'll let you three get to know each other. Three, I'll be back for you in an hour." Jakes turned and walked back through the doors we'd come through, once again entering a short code and vanishing behind the click of a lock before I could get more than a single, "Wait!" out.

I was suddenly left alone with two strange, intimidating men that I was pretty sure Jada had called 'dangerous'. Dangerous to the point they had limited handler-only contact.

I swallowed and slowly faced them again. "Hi," I said sheepishly, face heating up. "My name's Arin."

Dark arched an eyebrow while Anti simply giggled. It was a decidedly creepy noise that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

"You don't get a name yet," Anti said, almost taunting as his laughed caused his twitching to get worse. I flinched away from him slightly as his form blurred and flickered again.

"You're glitching," Dark told him flatly before beckoning to me to follow him to the kitchen.I hesitantly did so, wings shifting to curl around my arms a little and also keep Anti in my line of sight.

Dark glanced at me as he walked around the counter. "There's no need to be nervous. We're not going to hurt you."

"Yeah, they're watching us," Anti snickered, following us. I kept myself angled so I could see both of them. While I felt the smaller man was a more immediate threat, being on the same side of the counter, I knew Dark was more dangerous than he appeared and I wasn't about to let my guard down.

Dark stared at his counterpart for a moment before discretely placing a small black object on the counter before rummaging around, collecting various ingredients and beginning to make tea. Anti flinched slightly, grin fading with a grumble. He jumped onto a barstool and balanced on the balls of his feet, perching like a bird.

"We wouldn't hurt you anyway," Dark assured me with low irritation in his voice. "You're one of us."

"One of you?" I cautiously sat on the other stool, which was thankfully backless so I could comfortably drape my wings behind me.