Pacifier

🥀Van🌹

"Where did you go tonight?" Larry's hand caught my shoulder as I left the Balcony, head bowed to light a cigarette.

Now wasn't the time for a smoke but as the dawn threatened us, the street was caught in a lull of faux peace and the temptation to feel a little peace for the last time was too much.

"Saw Si's brother," i said quietly, "and then i saw your Grandma," i said even more carefully than I had said the first, knowing that both would concern and confuse him into a frown and a shudder of doubt.

"I don't have any grandma's anymore Van," he smirked, hesitant to take me seriously, lighting up a cigarette of his own as we both surveyed the street over the glow of our lighters.

It was quiet enough to hear the crackle of the papers smouldering between our breaths. Quiet enough to kid ourselves that the streets were empty, that the whole world was sleeping and unsuspecting.

But suspicion stained all the streets of Manchester now.

"What did these ghosts tell you then?" asked Larry, he was watching the same spot as I had been, the cobblestones where Kita had been placed. Where she had laid almost as if only sleeping under the spotlight of a glowing streetlight. As if heaven had opened above her and began flickering for our grief.

"She isnt there's,"i said it firmly, as if i had never been in doubt at all, as if it mattered dearly and deeply. As if had she been the daughter of a Reid it would have changed anything at all.

And Larry laughed because he had always believed that very sentiment.

That it didn't matter who her father was, that she was one of us and always would be. And he was right.

Deep down I knew he was right but until I'd been certain that killing her wouldn't rob her of a parent, I'd felt torn and unsettled. Dishonest as I was still being dishonest now.

"Bond needs to know," said Larry, "and we need to kill them all, why are you so hell bent on leaving Billy alive?" he asked but I only gritted my teeth. Sucked in a harsh drag on my cigarette and let it burn, held it in until my throat felt raw.

I couldn't answer, I couldn't admit my own bitter soul wanted to see him suffer a fate worse than death. See his life dragged out and laboured, see him tortured the way men like him and my father had deserved.

"Self indulgence," i smirked, shot him a wink and dropped my cigarette. "Billy Reid will have his moment Lau don't you worry,"

But that was the thing about Larry.

He'd always seen straight through my lackadaisical front. He always knew how to push me to a confession and that was what he did when he stuck his foot out and tripped me at the door.

"Who's gonna give it to him Van?" he asked brow raised, knowing that in my mind it was me. I was the one who would do it. I would watch him suffer and wither away for all the suffering he had inflicted, for all the lives he had stolen from us. I would watch him die and I was draw every drop of pleasure to be drawn from the close of his eyes and the final sigh.

"You're a narcissist," grinned Larry, shoving me forward over the step, laughing and crying out in mock pain when I shoved him back, tried to trip him over as he shut the door. The two of us stumbling in laughing like teenage boys as we returned to the study.

But the atmosphere inside was growing grave.

Dawn was nearing, the new day closing in, imposing upon us all that we had to do.

"Look after her," mumbled Blakes pulling his sister into his arms, holding onto her for a moment longer than he would have on any other night. And Camille let him, she held him close to her chest with the love of a mother, and when she kissed his cheek she reminded me of the girl she had been at only 12 years old. Her eyes certain with hope and belief.