Confessions of a Wanton

40 Digging

Maze pictured above

🎶 Is this Real : Lisa Hall 🎶

Charlotte:

That feeling of peace right before the storm hits is dangerous. Electricity in the air, palpable to the touch, foreshadowing the decimation to come. Some people don't even notice the calm. Their lives always peaceful. Carefree. Until it hits with a force to be reckoned with.

The storm comes suddenly for those people, shattering reality and breaking every preconceived notion of safety.

The truth is that no one is truly safe. It's possible to stay home, hiding, while life slips away, to not meet a violent end. Or you can live life to the fullest, taking on every challenge that comes your way fearlessly and with vigor. Eventually though, life does inevitably end. One way or another.

Whether it's a period in life that's over or death coming like a thief in the night. Most people end up kissing their days away languidly until movement is no more. Nothing is permanent.

I remind myself this as I walk around the place we'd driven to. Knowing full well the people around me distrust me simply for being, well, me. It doesn't really matter though.

I've been through war and these peoples opinions are nothing in comparison to the uncertainty that comes with being sent into unfamiliar territory with people fully disclosing they want to see death.

I'm in unfamiliar territory now, though at least here I can understand the language fluently. I'm certain that these people will either love or hate me. If they want to kill me... well, I haven't had a real fight in a long time.

Turns out we had parked inside a warehouse. A huge steel building out in the boonies. Somewhere over the Canadian border. Used to be that we'd have to have a passport to cross. Now,  just knowing the right roads and the right people can get someone to where they need to go.

I'd missed the armed guards at the border with my meltdown. Guess it's good that both Maze and I had been down and out. The Black Knight Pack is notorious, their neighbors don't really like them very much. They'd trade with Damien, but not Killian.

Apparently Damiens clout was enough that any stragglers left behind can still make it through. One family, the Greys I think they were called, came in a bit before sunset that first evening, injured.

The next few hours had been complete and utter hell. The calm before the storm broken by the sound of a battered engine and the shouts of worried men. The tornado of motion set off a flurry of people trying to offer help to the bedraggled newcomers.

Their truck had sputtered out in the yard. Bullet holes littering the passengers side. Two people I didn't recognize got out, the woman limping, the man furious. They carefully pulled out someone I did recognize.

I'd never actually spoken with Harley-Jean before. I'd seen Maze talk with her though and I'd nodded  in passing. Maze had been a friend of sorts having that personality that either grated or made it impossible to resist her charms.

Harley-Jean had been one of the many who'd be nearly covered in blood when leaving Killian's flat. She'd been the main reason I'd vetoed him ever drawing blood or biting Having watched her being carried out in a stretcher once.

I'd blown up at Killian for hurting her that bad, before forgetting about the whole thing. The residual feeling of mistrust deeply engraved into my subconscious. Hence my personal rules.

The fact that she'd also been kidnapped made my blood boil. I never knew. Guess if I never actually talk to people I'll never get answers. My own introverted ways played against me in this instance. Though, Maze said she hadn't known either. Had any of these women even known they had people at home? That they hadn't gone willingly? Had I?