The Best of You

[Connor Kent]

He listened with fascination and empathy. Changed her heart? What did that mean? But then she mentioned her sister. Again he was reminded of what might have happened. He shook his head.

"Those bastards! I am truly sorry for your loss Alex."
His instincts told him she was telling the truth. He hoped he was not wrong, but he believed her. He began to relax a little, at least about her timely appearance. He wasn't one to believe in fate at all. But it was a serendipitous coincidence that he ran into her when he did.

And it seemed she picked up on his jumpiness. He wondered how she did it. Changed her heart? he wondered again. "First tell me what you meant by changed her heart. Why would the Atharim try to go after your family if you're not...reborn gods or whatever?"

[Alex]

"First tell me what you meant by changed her heart. Why would the Atharim try to go after your family if you're not...reborn gods or whatever?"

Not a stupid man, Alex grinned at him. "Very astute. My family are not reborn gods, the Atharim call us Sentient. We have a keen talent dealing with emotions. I can read your emotions, I can dig into your heart and pull out the deepest secret emotions lying there. I can discern whether or not you are lying. But that's only the tip of the iceberg. My father, he can make you feel something permanently changing a memory's emotion so that you remember what he wants you too. That's what he did to the hunter who came."


Alex took a deep breath and pushed back the anger in her voice. "He made the hunter fall in love with him. So much so that they shared a bed, and she became with child. My father turned her away, made her leave and run from the Atharim expecting she and the child to die for her failure. Sadly that wasn't the case, and her progeny is walking the streets of Moscow with a knotted snake biting its own tail on her forearm."
The venom poured into her words. Alex didn't know why she disliked this girl so much. It was probably the fact that she reminded Alex of her father so much. So much like him.


Edited by Alex, Jul 18 2014, 01:05 PM.

[Connor Kent]

Connor listened dumbfounded. She could read his emotions? Yikes. That could have gotten him in trouble if he hadn't already been with Ayden. She was very beautiful...and he was a man, after all. Then all thought of Alex in that fashion completely fled from his mind.

They can make you feel something? He narrowed his eyes as he listened, a sickening feeling coming into his stomach. His mouth turned down in anger as she finished, eyes glaring.

"A knotted snake on her forearm huh? That fucking bitch! you're talking about Aria aren't you?"
He shook his head in anger and hissed. "That bitch made me want her. I very nearly slept with her and lost someone dear to me!"
His words to her back at Jensen's apartment came back to him. You are a good woman. He felt so angry, so betrayed. He was furious with her. Hurt.

"How could she do that to me? I thought she cared. She told me about my son. She said that the Atharim didn't have the right to do what they did. She was so kind to me. To all of us."
He looked at her. He couldn't betray Jensen and Giovanni's secrets. "I thought she was good. And then, when I was at a real low point, I met her again."
The memory was a bad one, but he went on. "I was hurting, in so much pain. And she made me want her, made me feel things for her."
Be fair, Connor. "Well, I mean...I've always thought she was attractive. But I am in love with another woman. I wasn't thinking of her in that way. And then suddenly I was."


He stopped, remembering that night. The constant back and forth. "I kept trying to leave, kept thinking of Ayden...my girlfriend. And then she kept making me feel something. And...well...we started fooling around. But each time I broke away from her, tried to get away from her. And then suddenly, there I was holding her or kissing her."
He paused, remembering the guilt, the shame. He had betrayed Ayden. "And now I find out that she was making me feel that way. Why would she do that? She had been so kind..."
He trailed off. "She gave me peace. She let me say good bye to my son."


He felt so betrayed. And she knew what he had been feeling the entire time, how he felt about Ayden, if Alex was right. But she'd done it anyway. He felt so confused and saddened. Why, Aria, why? Why would you try to hurt me like that?

[Alex]

Alex blinked at the use of her half-sister's name. This was no coincidence at all. Nothing today had been. Alex felt bad for Connor, and she couldn't believe she was going to defend the girl. But she was untrained. "I don't think Aria knows what she is. She couldn't live among the Atharim and know. Her mother was Furia. A strange talent for smelling emotion, most the violent types, more crime stuff. The furies from myths and legend are what Autunna Luna told my father, and he passed down in tales to us to scare us into behaving."
Alex smiled at the childhood memories. He did care, but he was so very wrong too.

Alex sighed. "She may be more like my father, but you don't feel for her now? It didn't last. My father likes to induce fear into others, not because he wants to be feared. Its like this hunger. A hybrid, like my father and Aria tend to feed on the negative emotions. The rest of us can fill the void with anything, usually we feed off each other, it's part of the family dynamic. But my father, he can't. Not unless he wants to hurt us. And he did when I was younger, but after Autunna Luna came, he stopped."


"She scares me. The things she can do, the people she's met. One in particular, he scares me. And the two of them together is frightening. You wouldn't know how I could find her would you?"
Alex didn't want to say why, but her father would be so very happy and he'd be out of her hair. That would be precious.

[Connor Kent]

Connor listened, torn between fascination and anger. She fed on his negative emotions? The idea sickened him. How could a person do that? How could they enjoy the suffering of others?

"Even if you're right and she doesn't really understand what she is, she knows what she is doing. Her...playing with me was purposeful. I'd want her and then feel guilty about it. That had to be what she wanted me to feel, because she kept making me want her, but not as you said, not permanent or all the way. She let me pull back and every time I did it was terrible."
His mouth tightened at the memory. She was playing with me like a cat with a mouse."


He stopped, thinking about her question. "No, I don't know where she is. But if I ever do see her again..."
he'd what? She could make him feel whatever she wanted. He was angry but he didn't know what to do about it.

Yet another way the Atharim had intruded into his life. First Hayden and now Aria. He just didn't understand how she could go from being so kind and understanding to wanting him to suffer. What made a person do that? Had she gotten in trouble with the Atharim for letting them all go? Had they done something to her? Maybe some kind of reeducation or something?

"Well you said it. Fucking Atharim."
And then he remembered what he had. He looked around and got quiet. They both hated the Atharim. He pulled his bag onto the table and opened it enough to show her the drive. Quietly, he said, "Do you know what this is? It's evidence against the Atharim. On this drive is a database that shows all the 'reborn gods' they have been tracking, including the ones who have been killed. It has the names of Atharim handlers assigned to specific people, as well as kill orders. Everything!"
He put the pack back down after zipping it up. "I got this today. It could destroy them, if it got out. But..."
, he hesitated. Ayden. He couldn't lose her. "I honestly don't know what to do with it though. I could send it to a news outlet. Or maybe the police. I don't want them to know it was me that did it, though."
He breathed in frustration. "I came here to think and to look at the exhibits. Maybe something would hit me. But instead I meet you and suddenly it seems like we both have a vendetta against them."
He looked at her. "You're used to all this magic stuff with furies and sentients or whatever. What do you think I should do? They have to be stopped before they kill any more people. I can't let it continue."

[Alex]

Alex didn't blame him for feeling that way. She had manipulated so many people in the precinct when she visited, she even manipulated her friend. Why a man like that could let her, maybe he didn't even know what was going on. He definitely didn't object. Alex pushed them away, that was another matter, something she'd deal with later. Connor's revelation of the information he had made sense to his jumpiness.

Alex wished she hadn't heard. He should have left well enough alone. The Atharim were dangerous. Even the mere hint that he had what he had could mean his death, and hers. But what do you do with incriminating data, you use it. Chief Inspector Drayson seemed to have a keen eye for such things. Others were always telling him those weird things they see. It was like he was part of some group like that classic tv series, the X-files. Cases dealing with the weird and strange.

Alex leaned in and whispered. "There is a Chief Inspector who might take the information seriously. But I don't want to be connected to this anymore than you do. But I doubt one person can stop a secret society that has been ravaging this world for centuries."

[Connor Kent]

"There is a Chief Inspector who might take the information seriously. But I don't want to be connected to this anymore than you do. But I doubt one person can stop a secret society that has been ravaging this world for centuries."


Connor listened intently. She was right. They were both only two people. And more than likely, if any word of this got out, they'd be dead. But....he couldn't just leave it. He owed it to Hayden. Even if his son was now dead and had never run across these Atharim, his death lay at their feet. They'd created the environment- the fear and the secrecy- that had resulted in his dying unable to control whatever power he had. He couldn't just let them get away with it.

And then there was Ayden. They would put a bullet in her head given a whiff of what she was able to do. They'd kill her and her family in the name of humanity. He was not going to let them go on. There was only so much one man could do. But he would do it. For Hayden. For Ayden. And for all the others who would be judged and executed merely for what was possible.

"Tell me the inspector's name. I'll take it to him. I may not be able to stop them. But I'm not going to hide from them either. If I can help stop it I will."

[Alex]

Alex pulled her card from her purse and turned it over and wrote in a practiced hand, it wasn't doctor's scratch as many of her colleges. She liked to be able to read her notes later. She wrote Chief Inspector Drayson Mccullough and his direct line on the back of her card. "His name and direct line are on the back."
The front of course was her information.

Alex stood up and offered Connor her hand. "A pleasure. And if you ever see Aria call me, my numbers on the card. My father would love to meet her."
There was a sly smile crossing Alex's lips when she parted ways. She really hoped he didn't meet Aria again after what he'd told her. But she still had to get her father out of town and the only way that would happen is if Aria was found.

[Connor Kent]

She pulled a card from her purse and wrote on the back, after which she handed it to him. Dr Alessandra Pirozzi, CCDP Psychologist His eyes rose. "You work for the CCDP?"
A slow smile spread across his face as understanding dawned on him. Given her...abilities, her work made perfect sense. He was reminded of that show he used to watch with his dad back when he was a kid. Star Trek. There was that counselor Deanna Troi, who was an empath. It made her effective at her work. That was what Alex was too. She could call it sentient or whatever it was. But the bottom line was it was the same.

At her words, he looked on the back of the card and saw the Chief Inspector's name. Drayson. He looked from the card to her, thinking. "So he's the Mulder of the CCPD, huh?"
He pursed his lips. Going to the man was...precipitous. If he was being watched- something he was still worried about- that might tip his hat. It was clear Alex didn't want to take the drive to this Drayson. He exhaled, unsure of what to do.

"Thank you Alex. I'm not sure what I'll do."
He frowned at the card. And at her words he also thought of Aria. His eyes narrowed in anger. "I don't think I'll see Aria again. She's not someone I'd care see ever. I can't forgive her for what she did to me."
He stifled his anger. He stood up to shake her hand."It was good to meet you. I'm glad I did."
He smiled at her.

It had been interesting. He had a lot to think about. And the drive remained in his pack.

<small>[[continued in The Seeker]]
</small>


Edited by Connor Kent, Aug 27 2014, 04:01 PM.