[Sarah]

”You hide them well,” you whispered.

He scoffed a laugh. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” he said, and his eyes held only the smallest glint of mirth. You bit your lip as you thought. After a moment that Kai was happy to let pass in silence you bunched your shirt in your hand and pulled it up. Across the left side of your ribs was a nasty burn. If someone was to look closely, they might notice it was a pattern, a brand. On this side of the universe it only held meaning to you. It was the brand of the captured, the traitorous.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

Kai hadn’t payed your brand any attention though because when you lifted your shirt, he saw the long horizontal scar, thin as a seam, stretching over your lower stomach. You hummed quietly. “They took something from me,” you explained, “something I didn’t want anyway, so,” you shrugged. He looked for a heartbeat like he wanted to touch it. Thankfully he had the presence of mind to keep his hands to himself.

He kept his word though. You let your shirt fall and he lifted his own. His right hip had two jagged vertical scars and the skin around his lower stomach was speckled with burn marks and bullet holes.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

”I got caught out, a stupid mistake, and the man I grappled in the ambush stabbed me twice before he bled out,” Kai said. You could see hauntings of his past ghost behind his eyes, but he seemed at ease with himself now. Maybe he’d gotten help after he returned from the war. He seemed like he had.

“We like you – I like you,” he assured you as he smoothed his shirt. He gave you a calculating look and you tilted your head. “I’ll tell you what,” he said seriously. “I’ll always be your friend. Even when you feel like no one is. I’ll be your friend,” he said.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

“How do you know?” you asked. You sounded distant and small to your own ears.

“What?” Kai asked. You must’ve spaced out for longer than you thought. The streets passed and you found they were unfamiliar. How far away had they traveled only to find they’d been betrayed?

“How do you know he’s not going to leave me?” you asked.

“I just know,” he said firmly, “talk to him.”

“Why does it have to be me?”

“Because he doesn’t know what to say. But… I can tell you he’s just as scared of losing you as you are of losing him,” Kai said.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

You tried not so scowl the whole way back, but you were not very successful. Kai clearly knew something on Darius’ side that he was not telling you. He did seem certain Darius wasn’t going to leave you and that only made you worry more how you’d been pushing Darius away. “When will we be back?” you asked quietly.

“Soon,” Kai said. He took that moment to glance at you. When you looked human you tried your best to be human, and Kai knew it. He knew that you could be omniscient, or nearly omniscient, all the time. He knew you hated to be on all the time.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

Why the office was located outside the city was beyond you. It made more sense to you to have the office within the confines of the big city. There was easier accessibility within the city. Surely the response time would be more significant within, yet you did not begin to recognize your surroundings until the city was put behind you and a new town began to pepper houses and businesses around you. The sprawl had not fully connected the town to the city. Before you the streets became more tightly packed and neighborhoods stood defined against the shopping district and businesses growing fat off the continuing war.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

“What should I tell him?” you asked as Kai pulled into the secure parking lot. Darius had been in the front SUV and you assumed he’d already gone into the offices. He had no reason to hang around the parking lot.

“I think its about time you told him how you felt,” he said. You shook your head solemnly. Both of you knew how he was with relationships. Darius was flighty and quick to give up when things weren’t going perfectly in any relationship. You’d rather be seen as an underling, and maybe a friend, than a burden or nuisance. Kai had turned off the car and was exiting.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

You remained where you were curled in on yourself. That was until a sharp rap on the window next to your head startled you out of your sulking. You stared dumbly at Darius as he looked in on you. He opened the door and you leaned ever so slightly away from him. “Scoot,” he said as he got into the passenger’s seat. You scrambled over to the driver’s side in time to not be sat on and Darius closed the door behind him.

“What is going on with you?” He asked. His voice was calm, if a bit accusatory, and his body language was relaxed as well. That didn’t stop your heart from beating madly in your chest at finally being confronted.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

You opened your mouth but closed it before you could say anything. You didn’t want to lie to him. Clearly something was going on with you. Silence stretched between you as you struggled to put your selfishness and self-importance into words that might not be as damning as they felt.

“You were attached to me, and now… I haven’t even seen you the past three days,” he said in lieu of you answering his question. He sounded frustrated and you knew he had every right to be. Instead of acting like an adult, a professional, you ran from your perceived problems. Darius was not at fault for your misguided feelings of neediness and abandonment.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

“I’m sorry.” You couldn’t think of what else to say. You couldn’t put your feelings into words and expect him to understand. There was nothing between the two of you. There was no history, no connection. The only thing you shared was work despite the girlish fantasies you’d dreamed up.

Before he could stop you, or say anything else, you got out of the car. The upside to living at the office was learning all the places no one else knew about or went around. You were still running, shamefully, but you knew if you were caught in a closed space with Darius again you wouldn’t be able to keep your mouth shut.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

“Hey!” Cooper caught you the second you breached the door and your vision of dark quiet was gone. “Did you finally work out things with Darius?” he asked. You flinched away from him and looked for anything to get you out of having to talk to him. You hadn’t idled around the door, not with avoiding Darius, but Cooper was keeping step with you.

“No,” was all you said when it was clear he wasn’t going to leave without his answer.

“I know you don’t like me, although I’ll admit I don’t know why, but Darius likes you and you like him-“

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

You stopped him with a hand placed firmly on his chest. He stopped talking to look from it to you. Your heart had risen to sit uncomfortably in your throat so all you could do was sigh and shake your head at him. Frankly you didn’t believe him. You didn’t have any grounds, but your first instinct was to think he was lying and the fact you didn’t like him only reinforced the feeling.

“He’s been alone for a long time - and the way you look at each other. Don’t you both deserve to be happy?” he asked.

“I couldn’t stand it,” you choked out quietly. “If he left. It would ruin me,” you said fighting the tears welling in your eyes. Utterly ridiculous. How much did you really know about Darius? Yet you had the gall to fall for this idea of him.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

“It doesn’t matter,” you interrupted firmly when Cooper opened his mouth. “We’re busy. We have too much work to do. This case is too important. I’ll stop hiding, but Darius is my boss and I’m – well. It’ll never work between us,” you said before you turned fully away from Cooper to stalk off to the conference room that had the case work splayed out.

Corbin was lining up some papers and scribbling near frantically underneath them. For lack of anything else to do you watched. You couldn’t grasp the purpose for what he was doing, but it was amusing to watch.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

”So you’re not a cop,” Doron asked. You’d just met the man and the first thing he said to you was this?

“No,” you confirmed. You weren’t a cop. You had no training in enforcing law, whatever that entailed. In this position, at best, you were a glorified suit of armor. At least you could take some consolation in knowing this was the least terrible option. You’d been branded a traitor at the hands of your own people. There were few places in the whole of the universe that you could go, fewer still that offered comfort or normalcy. In this you had to take what you could get.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

”That’s him?” you asked Doron before he could continue questioning the validity of your place on the team. You hadn’t seen the team leader up close. He’d been the one to evaluate your case and decide you were worth everyone’s time, but you hadn’t met him. You’d only seen him dimly behind the mirrored glass of the interrogation room.

“Yeah,” Doron said as the man approached. “El, this is Darius,” he introduced. Darius smiled at you kindly and reached out a hand. You took the offered handshake and smiled in turn.

“Nice to meet you,” you said softly to cover the fact he’d taken your breath away a bit.

[ 3BPs awarded ]