[Sarah]

[ Topic Reviewed - Post-War ]

(Italics are flashbacks)

xxxE L
─────────────────── [ #817724 Reader Character ] ─

You felt your name being called. The power of it pulled on your soul and you were shifted from one point in reality to another. You found yourself in some industrial park. Black SUVs huddled in a dark corner and your eyes trained on the being calling for you. There was a moment of hesitation - a single heartbeat of doubt – before your feet carried you to him.

“I need you with me,” he said once you were within apparent earshot. It was sometimes amusing how he assumed you could only hear as far as he could. The reality was you could hear halfway across the universe if you so chose.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

xxxD A R I U S
─────────────────── [ #46B4DC Leader ] ─

”She’s avoiding me,” Darius said. Damn. You hadn’t been subtle. You had been hoping he wouldn’t notice, but a few days ago you’d been attached at the hip and now you were MIA more often than not.

“Do you know why?” Cooper asked. You hadn’t seen who Darius was talking to, but to find out it was Cooper only reinforced your desire to stay away. Cooper was a bad influence on Darius, and you were not about to voice your opinion on the matter and push Darius closer to the man. You were fine keeping your distance and once all this blew over, you’d come back like nothing at all had happened. That was your plan anyway.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

“Are you with me?” Darius asked. You wondered, briefly, why he was asking. Probably because you’d been avoiding him and altogether weird when talking to him. He had no idea what was going on with you. Right?

“I’m here for you,” you said, and you allowed him to interpret your meaning any way he liked. You would be here for as long as he needed you and not a moment longer.

He tilted his head slightly and narrowed his eyes. “Good,” he said. His voice gave away nothing of what he was feeling. He was good at that – at hiding.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

No one had talked to you about Darius’ past life, nor had you pushed him to talk to you about it. You weren’t stupid though. When you saw Cooper roll up and the way Darius began taking risks when he was around you put two and two together about their past. Darius’ father had come in with worry in his eyes and your suspicions were confirmed. You had already begun distancing yourself from Cooper and it didn’t take you long to begin tagging along with the other members of the team exclusively. Darius hadn’t said anything. You assumed he was too busy with Cooper to care which fit conveniently with your working hypothesis that Darius would leave you at the drop of a hat.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

Darius wasn’t a man of commitments. You hadn’t been assigned to the team for long, but you were a quick study especially with people. Darius didn’t trust anyone but himself, and while he was clearly a leader you did not know how deeply his loyalties ran.

That hadn’t stopped you from doing your very best to ingratiate yourself to him and his team. You didn’t like your options, the few you’d been given, outside of his team. The work you were doing was boring and slow, but it beat every alternative, and if you weren’t pushing Darius for information on his past then he sure as hell could not push you about yours.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

“Let’s go,” Darius gave the command, and everyone headed out. You could see a few teams headed around other paths. Cooper and Darius moved right up the middle. You weren’t sure where they were meant to be going, but you were sure Cooper would put himself at the front of line to capture the fugitive. Rush you thought his name was.

Your corporeal body dissolved, and you wrapped around Darius like a second iridescent skin. Every part of your being was sight and sound and sensation. What might overwhelm a human came as easy as breathing to you. You were near omniscient anyway, as all your kin were, but you were up against other humans.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

Darius was your charge. He was the one being in all the world that you were meant to protect. In that moment nothing else mattered. Your fear of being left behind melted away as you focused on anything that could bring danger. Darius hadn’t told you what you were going up against, so you prepared to go up against an army. You prepared for the worst as you always had.

The industrial area was near empty of sentient beings. The buildings were derelict and forgotten by even the vagabonds that must have sought shelter in safer warmer places. “You ready?” Darius asked Cooper as they pushed themselves on either side of a door. Cooper regarded him, you, before nodding. He turned the doorknob slowly and opened the door on rusted hinges.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

The noise didn’t matter once they were in because they were shouting anyway. On their signal, which consisted of them announcing their presence, the other teams were a go to enter the building as well. You eagerly drowned out the yelling for the small noises. There was nothing. Vermin scattered but there was no one in the building.

You noticed, as Darius cleared rooms, that someone had been there. It seemed they’d been there recently too. There were food scraps the rodents had not gotten to and places where dust and debris had clearly been moved away and cleaned. Darius took notice too.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

Someone had tipped off the fugitive. You realized that about the same time as Darius because you could feel him seething beneath you. His frustration translated easily to anger

“I need a perimeter!”

“Can we get some dogs?”

You crouched next to the makeshift bed and wondered if staying in prison wouldn’t be better. “He’s not here,” you said to the room. The uniforms were already processing the scene. You doubted there was more you could learn. It wasn’t like he had maps out with red arrows pointing to where he was going next. Rush had been given an out.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

Someone trusted had given him an out. That was where your focus now lied. Someone being corrupted from within posed a constant threat to Darius. You found him not so far away talking to Cooper and Doron. “He’s not here. He’s not in the area. We’d be lucky if he’s not in another country,” you grumbled as you approached the group. Doron had heard you and you shared a look of exasperated agreement.

“Doesn’t it burn you that he got away? Come with me to bring him down,” Cooper was saying.

“Mole’s more important,” you said quietly. Darius hadn’t taken his eyes off of you since he’d called on you and now you carefully shrank back from the attention.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

xxxD O R O N
─────────────────── [ #88DAC5 Police Officer] ─

“I agree with her,” Doron said. He held more of a presence against the two men, but he wasn’t thrown off by their history as you were. Doron probably didn’t care if Darius stayed or left, or he didn’t care to sway Darius either way.

“So do I,” Darius said firmly. You made no external indication how you felt about his statement. You could put up a mask just as good as his, if not better. The difference was you didn’t like to do it to people you were meant to trust. Doing so felt like you were admitting to Darius you didn’t trust him but, how could you?

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

xxxK A I
─────────────────── [ #40332A Interrogator ] ─

Inside you couldn’t help but be a bit thrilled. You kept your eyes dutifully trained on anything besides Cooper and waited for what Darius had planned next. You imagined throwing darts at pictures of cops involved in the case would be more accurate than trying to run down a mole with the information they had now. There were people smarter than you on the case. People you knew were good. Darius would call them back to the drawing board.

You felt a soft touch on your arm and snapped back to reality. “You coming?” Kai asked. You nodded and followed Kai into one of the black vehicles.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

You smiled to yourself as he drove with the fleet back to the office. Kai was your best friend. You knew you made an unlikely pair. He was a ‘meat head’ ex-military interrogator and you were an extracorporeal being treated more as a tool than a person. He sighed next to you and you looked at him.

“He’s not going to leave you, you know,” he said but his eyes stayed on the road. You gave him a sort of stunned look and opened your mouth to say something. All you ended up doing was scoffing and crossing your arms over your chest. You turned back to look at the road.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

The night was dark and tiring and dragging on in ways you were not used to. Darius had given in some time ago and gone home and now only you and Kai remained in the office. Darius hadn’t invited you to go with him, nor anyone else from the team, and being a weapon for the police did not leave you with lodgings outside the office.

Kai was finishing his reports, something he was chronically behind on, and you were watching idly over his shoulder. “You know I can take any form I want,” you mused. Kai grunted some agreement and you felt you could continue your line of thought if you wanted. “I have scars,” you admitted. Immediately you were surprised with the shaking emotion in your voice. You had not thought the admission would affect you when you’d decided to say it.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[Sarah]

Kai’s head snapped from watching the computer screen to studying your face. There was clear concern, curiosity, calm. You had the sense that he had scars too. “I – well its hard to scar something that has no form,” you said when the silence began to stretch on. He still didn’t say anything, but body language indicated you should continue. “I’ve never felt anything about my scars, but I had options when I decided to come here…” you trailed off. You were feeling insecure, unwanted. The feelings were ludicrous – so ludicrous your mind was pinning the blame on anything.

“We all have scars,” Kai said in his usually gruff tone.

[ 3BPs awarded ]