UNTITLED [PREVIEW]
© Fred Dumpling. Redistribution is prohibited.
It was the next day when I met the rest of what was to become my replacement family, although some of the members were not a grand improvement upon those of the last.
Deck graciously allowed me to sleep until nine in the morning, something he would henceforth refuse to do in favor of rousing me at the crack of dawn to train. When I awoke, disoriented and confused, Deck was still lying on the bed beside me, playing with the thin chain necklace he always wore and looking extremely bored.
He noticed me, said, "Ah, finally," and stood and exited the room. As soon as I recalled the previous day's events, I scrambled out of bed to follow him.
"Get out of the bathroom, Poss. I need to use it," I heard him say. I followed his voice down the hall to where he stood leaning against a door frame. He glanced at me as I arrived, then returned his attention to the door. He rapped on it. "Hello, you in there?"
"Hold on! Hold on!" a high feminine voice said from beyond the door. Deck rolled his eyes.
I heard footsteps behind me and turned to see a young man about Rufin's age staring at me. We locked eyes for a moment, and I saw that his were a vivid yet cloudy blue. Then he turned his gaze to Deck. "You just got up?" he asked. "That's unusual."
"I woke up hours ago," Deck replied. "I was waiting for him." He jabbed his thumb in my direction. I looked at the floor, ashamed of the annoyance in his voice.
"If it was that much of a bother and you didn't want to wake him, you could've gotten a book to read," the young man pointed out.
"There weren't any books in the room, so that would involve leaving him. I didn't want him to wake up while I was gone and start screaming or something." The speckled tiles were irregularly shaped, I noticed. I traced the edge of one with my shoe.
The young man chuckled and squatted down in front of me. "Hello. I'm Azure."
"I'm Elpidius," I said.
"Dagger," Deck corrected.
"I'm Dagger," I said.
Azure grinned. "Nice to meet you, Dagger." He took my hand and shook it. I smiled. It made me feel grown up. "I wonder," he said, "do you know why you're here?"
"I'm in foster care," I told him. It's what the too-friendly lady at the police station had told me.
Azure considered. "In a way, I suppose, but it's a bit more complicated than that. What I was really asking, though, is do you know what you're here to do?"
I shook my head.
He ruffled my hair. I twisted away and patted my hair back into place. He laughed, then he looked me so squarely in the eye that it seemed I would not be able to escape. He told me, "You're here to save the world."
We were all children back then.
"Possum!" Deck slammed his fist against the door.
It swung open, and a girl about Deck's age scowled at him from the doorway. Her skin was a darkish olive-brown in color, and she had the round face typical of a little girl, set with big black jewels for eyes above her upturned nose. Her hair fell in rich black waves to her shoulders, and she appeared the perfect little princess, with a bow on her head and her skirt grazing her knees.
Deck countered her scowl with a smug smirk as he shoved past her. She glared at him, then exited the bathroom— and stopped. She stared at me.
"What is that?" she asked.
"What is what?" Deck followed her gaze, then looked in irritation at Possum, who was still staring at me. "That is a boy, and his name is Dagger."
She narrowed her eyes and looked me up and down. I squirmed under her scrutiny, and she grimaced at me as if I were a particularly disgusting piece of garbage. "What is it doing here?"
"'He,'" Deck corrected. "I found him." He considered. "Or Rufin did, with his Gift, but I physically found him."
She scoffed at me, and I think her expression in that moment held all the contempt containable by the face of a seven year old girl. "It's repulsive," she said.
With movements too swift for me to comprehend, Deck had slammed Possum against the wall with his forearm pressed against her throat. A silence filled the hall. I froze and felt a shiver creep up my spine. I heard Azure shift uncomfortably behind me.
"'He,'" Deck repeated. His eyes had turned cold. "I expect you to listen to me when I talk. You are of lower rank than me, girl. I will not tolerate your disobedience." He released her.
Possum swallowed, and her lip quivered, fat tears squeezing out from her eyes. She turned her glowering face to me, then ran past me down the hall.
Deck shouted after her, "Show those tears to Rufin but not to me!" before looking down at me and smiling. I smiled back. "My annoying little sister," he explained. He rolled his eyes and shut the bathroom door.
Even having witnessed his treatment of Possum, I did not think of Deck as terrible. Possum had, after all, insulted me. (I did not know, at the time, what "repulsive" meant, exactly, but it her facial expression had provided more meaning than any dictionary could have.) Besides, my father had, at his best, been much worse, and my mother, too, had had violent tendencies. It was only natural that I idolize Deck. He was the most positive role model I had had.
Some say it was my own fault that I became a member of this dysfunctional "family," that I should have escaped the moment I realized something was wrong, but up to this point, my life had been far from conventional; it would be years before I realized anything was wrong.