Chapter 12

Neither Logan nor I moved but watched the older man as he came more into the room and looked around. The bathroom door creaked as Keno came out still in a huff. He stood between Niall Noir and us, arms crossed and standing as tall as he could.

“I didn’t invite you here,” Keno said menacingly.

“You left the door open,” Niall shrugged.

“No, I didn’t,” Keno replied with a glare.

“You may as well have, the locks on these hotel rooms aren’t the best.” Keno sighed with annoyance, not impressed by the whimsical grin our father flashed.

“Please,” Keno took a deep breath. “Leave.”

“Keno,” Logan started. “He just got here!”

“I don’t care,” Keno said and then turned to our father. “Seventeen years. Seventeen years and you just come here expecting us to welcome you?”

“I just wanted to check up on you boys,” Niall said.

“Since when did you start caring?” Keno challenged before moving over to the lounge where the rest of us followed.

“Keno-”

“Shut up!” Keno interrupted.

“There are things I need to talk to you about!” Niall said sternly and then glanced over to me. “Alone if we may.”

“We were just going to go find Kotori anyway,” Logan said and pushed me towards the door.

“What?”

“Let’s go,” Logan sighed and continued to push me.

Apparently looking for Kotori involved Logan and I sitting on the front steps of the hotel for half an hour until Keno came out looking more frustrated and more irate than before.

“The man is impossible,” Keno said to Logan.

“Then you really are related,” Logan sighed and patted Keno’s shoulder.

“He won’t leave,” Keno crossed his arms and sat down.

“Why does he have to leave?” Logan interjected angrily. Keno looked up at him with disbelief.

“You’ve got to be joking,” Keno shook his head.

“No! He’s our father, Keno! We’ve been waiting seventeen years for him to come back and help us!” Logan said.

“No, you’ve been waiting for him to come back,” Keno shrugged indifferently. “I was only looking to research the whole thing with the demons.”

“Did you find anything?” I asked, I knew he had but it couldn’t hurt to try and get an answer. Keno and Niall were talking about me; I didn’t have to be a genius to see that.

“I told you the man’s impossible,” Keno muttered and looked away from me.

“Ozzie, go back upstairs,” Logan said without taking his narrowed eyes off Keno.

“But-”

“Please.” It wasn’t a request but an order. I didn’t really want to stay and listen to them argue anyway, they were usually a little more subtle in their hints for me to leave so they could fight.

“The stairs are a pain,” I grumbled but turned to the door. “And I don’t mean that figuratively.”

I’d barely gotten the door shut before they started fighting. I looked up the large staircase as though they were my worst enemy. I walked over, placing a hand on the banister and taking a deep breath to prepare myself for the long climb.

I stood in front of the door to our hotel room and paused with my hand over the knob. It wasn’t until now that I finally grasped that I really didn’t know anything about my father besides what he looked like seventeen years ago. I’d never heard his voice, never heard about what he liked to do in the evenings after a long day. Nothing. What the hell was I supposed to say to him?

I sighed as I finally opened the door, I hadn’t been talking much the past week and a half anyway. Who said that I had to change that? Niall was sitting at the small, round table patiently with his hands neatly placed on the battered wood.

“You’ve grown up,” I jumped at the sound of his voice and realized that I’d just been standing at the door staring at him.

“That tends to happen,” I replied, going for my usual snarky teenage attitude but it just came out weak and pathetic like I still felt.

“Why don’t you sit? Let’s talk a little.” I stopped in mid step; I knew I should’ve walked faster. I ignored Niall’s grin as I turned and sat in the chair across from him. The awkward silence seemed like an eternity, it looked as though Niall was just as unsure about what to say to me as I was to him. “You look just like your mother.”

I nodded unsure of what to say to that and the silence continued on. I looked out the window, wondering how much longer Keno and Logan would fight and hoping that one of them would come up and save me.

“So,” Niall cleared his throat and I looked back to him. “You’ll be seventeen soon.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I think I’ve got something for you,” he patted his pockets before pulling out a gun and sliding it over to me. It looked new despite a few scratches in the black steel and seemed to be thicker than my other gun. It had a barrel, something I wasn’t used to seeing and the Channeling sphere was on a side where I could use it with my dominate left hand. “It’s a dual-action gun for any kind of attack. Monsters, demons and the like.”

“Thanks,” I said and looked in the barrel. Silver bullets and it was clean.

“No problem,” he nodded and then added quickly. “Happy birthday.”

The silence crept back on us, hanging heavy in the room. Niall tapped his fingers on the table, anxious for the conversation to get moving.

“I know what you and Keno were talking about,” I whispered.

“Do you?” He said as though I were five and he really didn’t believe me.

“You were talking about me,” I said and looked up to see him staring at me, pale-faced. “About how the demons are after me.”

Niall sighed and covered his face, pinching the bridge of his nose as I saw Keno do all the time. After a few seconds he looked back up at me. “Keno said that you didn’t know.”

“As far as he’s concerned I don’t,” I shrugged. “I met the demon last week, that’s when I learned.”

“You spoke with the demon?” Niall burst out of the chair, slamming his hands on the table.

“Yeah,” I said and then explained what had happened while I was captive, the strange check-up Hiero had made the doctor give me. “You don’t know what any of that means?”

“No, it’s strange,” Niall said thoughtfully, now sitting again. “Why haven’t you told this to Keno and Logan?”

“I don’t think Logan knows about any of this,” I said. “And I’m waiting until Keno talks to me. He’s been lying to us for all these years. How did you find out?”

“There was a swarm of demon’s outside our house the moment you were born,” Niall said. “So I went to do some research. I would’ve gone home sooner, but…”

“Did you find anything?” I asked. “Besides that mom is gone because of me.”

“Don’t beat yourself up,” Niall demanded and I looked up at him with shock. “Your mother was protecting you three. That was her choice so instead of blaming yourself you should just thank her and make sure she didn’t die in vain. Do you hear me?”

“I-” I paused, unsure of what to say. “I’m just… scared.”

“I know, son,” Niall moved to the chair closer to me, placing a reassuring arm across my shoulders. “I’m scared too and so is Keno but we can’t give up. Alright? We can’t let the demons think they’re the stronger species. Our will is stronger, boy. If we go down then we’ll go down fighting. Show them that you’re not down and out just yet.”

“Oh great, another one,” we looked up at Kotori who stood in the doorway.

“Using the window again, eh, Kotori?” I asked.

“You speak,” he said and shrugged. “Your brothers hog up the front door, it is easier to come through the window anyway. Here is your medication.”

“I’ll go check on the boys,” Niall sighed and left Kotori and I as he went downstairs.

“Keno aged pretty good, yes?” Kotori smirked.

“That was our father,” I said and stood up, taking a few of the pills. “Niall.”

“Oh,” Kotori nodded. I watched as he sat on the desk and pretended that I didn’t see him watching me when, really, I was all too aware. Every move I made he watched; when I picked up the gun Niall had given me, he shifted uneasily on the desk. Finally, I looked up at him.

“I know what your mission is,” I said suddenly. “So you don’t have to pretend that I don’t disgust you or anything.”

“I never said that you did,” Kotori shrugged and frowned worriedly when I glared. “Okay, okay! How did you figure it out?”

“I put the pieces together,” I muttered. “It wasn’t exactly rocket science.”

“So, what? Your brother is going to try and kill me now?”

“He doesn’t know,” I said. “I haven’t told him.”

“Really?” Kotori seemed to perk up. I didn’t know what Keno had been talking to him about but I could tell that the Sa’harielan was actually afraid of my older brother.

“Why didn’t you do it?” I asked and looked at him. “You’ve had several chances and yet you saved my life. Why didn’t you kill me?”

“I already told you that I didn’t feel that the mission was right. It is my fate, right?” Kotori said and watched as I walked over to the window. I couldn’t see Keno which meant he was probably on his way up here while Logan talked to Niall. “After all my elders told me, I imagined you to be some kind of monster but, when I came here, you were just a kid.”

I looked over to Kotori; his eyes, usually bright, were now darker with betrayal. I knew how he felt, going through his whole life with one belief only to find out that it was wrong. Realizing that those that you counted on, depended on for everything in life were either lying to you or just didn’t know the truth.

“At the lake,” Kotori continued. “I was going to let you drown on your own but, I just could not go through with it. I saw how you really were, not what the elders told me you were. Generous and strong, willing to help everything and anything should they need it; you even stood up for a Sa’harielan despite what your country thinks of us. I decided that I would just watch you and only make my move should I have to. But-”

He slid off the desk, his eyes now as fierce as they were when I first met him. He walked over to me, pulling out his dagger and showing me the glint of the steel in the light.

“If you give in to the demons and let them have their way, if you refuse to fight back,” his words were quiet but just as sharp as the weapon in his hand. “Then I might as well kill you now.”

I looked back out the window to see that Keno had gone back after seeing Niall conversing with Logan. I could tell by Keno’s enraged gestures that he was ordering our father to leave and it seemed as though Niall would oblige. He leaned over to whisper something to Logan, I wasn’t sure what he said and it looked as though Logan wasn’t too sure either. Next, Niall moved to Keno and placed a hand on his shoulder. Even from here I could see Keno’s muscles tense up as Niall kept his hand there for a few seconds before letting it slide off and just in that brief second, Keno let slip the slightest of looks. So small and uncharacteristic that I almost missed it; it was a look of uncertainty and helplessness, a look of pleading. Niall looked up at me with a brief nod of encouragement, it was all I needed.

“You don’t have to worry about that,” I turned to Kotori with a quirked smile, filled with so much malice that it felt strange on my lips. “I’m not going to go down that easy.”

Author's Note

Kind of short but that's okay... I'm not sure if I'm exactly happy with the chapter because it played out differently in my head but I felt like I should post one last thing before leaving this weekend... When I come back it may change or I may decide that it's good enough! Yay for laziness!