Volume VI: And Introducing Harley Morrow As - Herself

30. On My Honor

        I had been sleeping on and off for ages. I got up, went to work, did my job, went home, slept...I slept a lot. I dealt with the family very little. I had a lot on my mind, a lot to consider. I had just woken up from a late afternoon nap when I saw her standing there. She was leaning casually against the wall, blowing smoke idly. She turned her head to see me, then gazed off into space. I thought for a while about what I was seeing, considering if it was merely a delusion or if it truly was real. I crawled off the couch shakily.

        “Welcome to the waking, sleeping beauty.”

        “Welcome home, Requiem. Or should I say - Mrs. Ransom?”

        She looked away from me, smoke sneaking out of her mouth. “You know what the most powerful thing is, the most influential thing you can do to someone?”

        “What’s that?”

        “Make them believe you don’t exist. Why do you think the Devil is such a trend?”

        “You believe in the Devil?”

        She looked at me curiously. “If I didn’t, who gave me the ticket back from Hell?”

        I crept over to her, she handed a smoke to me before I was close enough to bring myself to ask. She held out her lighter as well. I took a few pulls and leaned on a doorway nearby. She was nonchalant overall.

        “So what brings you here?”

        “Figured I’d say hello, you know, proper courtesy and all.”

        “Well...hello.”

        She smiled a wicked little grin as she stared intently at me. “All the sleep you’re getting and you still look tired. And don’t bother bringing me up to date - I know all the highlights.”

        She smoked in silence for a while, and I with her. We looked around idly. I got up my nerve or as much of it as I could muster.

        “You knew them, didn’t you, the others, the Ransoms? You met them?”

        She shrugged. “Yeah. Once upon a time. That was a long time ago. Longer than it seems. But yeah, I was around.”

        “So what’s Vagrant’s plan?”

        “He’ll set up shop. Clean up loose ends, establish ranks where he wants them. Possibly import some of the contacts he’s acquired over the years. Good people. Loyal to the bone.”

        “And you?”

        She smiled at me, smoke sneaking between her lips. “Me? I’m Mrs. Vagrant Ransom. I think that’s fairly self-explanatory.”

        “No. You’re Mrs. Requiem Ransom. You’d never refer to yourself as his. And you know it. No matter what, you’ll always be Serkis’ baby sister.”

        “We’ll see. I’m a Ransom. Something she could never be. She’ll always be as she is. If anything, she’ll be a Solace. I’ll be a legend - I’m carrying on a nearly extinct line. Serkis will never have this. She’ll never be me.”

        “Would she want to be?”

        Requiem looked away for a moment to hold her anger, to house her emotion. She looked back at me. “No. There’s nobody to be me when I’m gone. It doesn’t matter.”

        “So why the big comeback, why all covert?”

        She smiled, stepping away from the wall, out toward me. “Because I can. And because there are amends not yet made. Prices not yet paid.” She blew a thin stream of smoke at me; I coughed from the shock. She was too close - I was uncomfortable. And she knew it. She was screaming her challenge to me, here, in my own home, at the top of her lungs and I took it and made it silent and kept it in my heart. I was Serkis’ right hand. Not Requiem’s. And I would never be as close to her as I was with Serkis. And it bothered her.