Post by Non Compos Mentis on Oct 16, 2015 18:14:18 GMT -5
As temperatures plummeted in Schenectady, Eira's information began to have more than a little attraction. After all manner of mischief and mistakes had been unlocked at Deadly Intentions the brokered truce and sharing of knowledge with the silver-haired warrior was a pleasant change of pace. The cameras had stopped rolling, Showtime and my International Title were long gone and the two of us had taken to a place far away from prying eyes.
In that secluded corner of the Pure Class Arena, Eira told me details that were unsettling in one sense, yet motivating in another. The words haunted me every second of the excruciatingly long journey back to Schenectady. Every scene I could remember played through my mind, every word looped again and again until it sickened my senses, and yet still I couldn't place the new player in this sordid little game.
On my way back to St Jude's Shelter I made a newly implemented set of diversions and safeguards. I had no way of knowing if The Order was still chasing me, whether Calder had me scouted day and night or if he was still none the wiser to my location, but I had become increasingly paranoid of the former. Godfrey was still awake when I arrived back in the early hours, both of us exhausted yet relieved that we'd survived another night. He sank into his seat in what we loosely defined as a lobby, the boards creaking geriatrically in the dim light.
“Glad you made it back safe. How's it looking out there?” It wasn't just the jaded tint of the artificial light, he really did look that tired. The old man had lines etched into his face that were not there a few weeks before, his eyelids fell a little lower, his shoulders slumped just an inch farther.
I'd told him, how could I not have, about The Order and my increasingly disturbing memories after I had seen everything unfold two weeks before. Godfrey knew I had once been a recruit of Cleric Calder's. He knew I had been a particularly promising prospect that had, at some point in my as-yet uncooperative memory banks, fallen from favour and been brainwashed to forget everything. He knew of Calder and the pompous Ryburn who had done the manipulating, but Eira had made more known about that particular nugget.
“Quiet, for now. You shouldn't have waited up.” He also knew that The Order wanted me back. Their contingency, or whatever I was to them, had gone off the rails and now they were playing catch up. Eventually, though, they would find me and bring down anything in the way. Godfrey was a stubborn old man but even he couldn't stand in the way of what would hit him if Calder and his underlings came calling.
“Yeah, well, an old man like me sometimes has trouble sleeping. I got Laurence helping out tonight too, he can cover the rooms for a while.” He tried to sound nonchalant but failed as the stress crept into his words. I noticed the relief behind it, how glad he was to have the help so he could rest. The guilt of what I would have to do that night filled me instantly when I realised it. “Caught the show earlier; I bet you ain't living well with what that rat bastard did. Presidential, my ass. I'd sooner vote for Trump's toupee!”
“It ain't Showtime I'm worried about right now, though I should have kicked his ass half way across the state tonight. No, I... we have bigger worries.” A title gone, lost in the night as Mikey and The Black Hand stole it because of incompetence. Mine? Maybe, I should have been there to stop him escaping. Then again, so should Eira and Kaard but we were too busy squabbling with each other to stop the Presidential candidate from escaping.
But the referee hadn't covered himself in glory, either. He'd thrown himself into a mire with his explanation that certain among us had understood but others, clearly, hadn't. The bell should never have rung. It had, and what happened was an unmitigated disaster. Then Frank Foley had a hand in the farce by not immediately calling the match null and void. To allow that affront, it was a sacrilege to the title he had stolen, MY title.
Eira had lost her North American title fairly, of that there was little doubt, but what else had been taken? She had lost an opportunity at redemption, a chance to regain some pride and gold. Justin Kaard had lost nothing but his fast-earned dual title shot, a chance it was hard to make a justification for him getting in the first place. And me?
A potential fifth North American title. An International Title I hadn't defended yet. The indignity of being embarrassed by a joke Presidential candidate and his reckless abandonment of the rules. A mockery of everything I'd fought for to be able to rip that title from the hands of the Black Hand, then to watch it spirited away back into their fold.
Everything was for nothing, after all. But still there was a possibility of a kind of revenge. The radio had announced a match for Trauma 180 while I was on the lengthy trip back; myself versus Eira versus Justin Kaard for... what? That question and more would be answered later.
“I haven't seen anything hokey all week, if they're still looking for you they aren't here.” Godfrey pressed himself further into the flimsy back of the plastic chair and threatened to flip himself backwards if he hadn't planted his feet. Genuine relief painted his face as he reassured himself that danger was far, far away. But relief didn't save lives, preparation did.
“Or they're just that good. They've hidden in the shadows for centuries, millennia even, I doubt a homeless shelter is anything new to them.” A bunch of men and women in scruffy clothing, matted hair and unwashed skin... it wouldn't be hard to recreate. Their agents could be anywhere and Godfrey wouldn't have a clue if he wasn't vigilant.
“You'd be surprised how observant a bunch of hobos can be.” He grumbled, sitting forward a little now as I began to pace worriedly around the lobby.
I thought back to the ramshackle army I'd built below an underpass in Buffalo, for a moment wondering if they were still there, still surviving. They'd been through hell at my hands and they were still standing in the end. “No, I really wouldn't be.” They'd never faced a force like The Order though.
Godfrey watched as I paced back and forth uncomfortably. Part of me worried for my title, in the hands of Mikey Wryght and the Black Hand while its destiny lay in the hands of Frank Foley and his crack team of ambulance chasers. Another part was more concerned with the task ahead, a match against two individuals who could take away whatever gold was on the line and had equal or better motivation for doing so.
There was a drive to Kaard now and he was looking to prove himself and his legitimacy. Say what you like about how he had earned his last title shot but he was a former World Champion, a title not handed to people unless they are worth a damn in PCW. He had no loyalties, no dark organisations on his back and no newly cultivated allegiances to navigate.
“You got restless feet, boy. Sit down or spit it out.” Godfrey spoke it as an order, an attribute he could turn on at will and was hard not to concede to. My pacing halted as my gaze met first Godfrey, then the chair next to him and finally the floor as I weighed up my thoughts.
I knew what I had to tell him, what revelations and choices had already been put into motion at Deadly Intentions and that he would be less than ecstatic with it. Hooking the chair around so that I could sit facing Godfrey, I took a seat and leant forward with an intent of clarity, not intensity. “I had a talk with Eira earlier...”
“That uppity battle-axe again? What'd she want with you?” He'd never seen her in a positive light, not since she'd arrived at the shelter one night and dragged me back into PCW like a siren, some mythical temptress from a far off land. There was more than a hint of the mythic about Eira, but I thought of her more along the Amazonian path than the Greek enchantresses.
“More than anything just a little cooperation, someone to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with against Sadistic and the rest of the Black Hand. Can't say I blame her; she's been going at it single-handed for so long and look where it's gotten her...” Injured, exploited... by myself for my shame but who could blame me? Titles were in the balance and she insisted on competing while unfit for the job at hand. I commended her bravery, but the bravery of one individual never won a war of pure attrition. She needed a partner, or her war would end in an undignified grave. “But she had information too.”
“Information?” Godfrey cocked an eyebrow and leant forward slightly. There was no excitement in this expression, only a suspicion that I had expected. I couldn't tell him everything, but he needed to know... he deserved to know what was going to happen.
“About what happened to me, someone that might know something,” Eira had given me a name. A link to The Order that could provide more flesh for the bones I'd been searching through so far. Ezra's vision had shown me much, but the horrifying detail of his death had ultimately given me nothing to go on. No names, no locations... only images. For this information, I had to be eternally thankful to the woman I'd be about to fight once again.
“That all sounds a little vague, don't you think?” If possible, that eyebrow floated even further up the old man's forehead and he tiredly, frustratedly, rubbed his neck to ease out a couple of kinks.
”I know more, but I can't tell you. I can't put you even further into harms way.” I knew the name and the location of this contact, I knew that it would be difficult to find them but I'd proved myself resourceful in the past. What I didn't know was what exactly would be waiting for me when I got there. “If you knew where I was going then they could get use you to find me. It's safer that you don't know.”
“You're leaving again?” The eyebrow dropped with alarm and Godfrey's face filled with sorrow. I'd been gone in mind and soul for some time, but this signified a permanence that he struggled to deal with. I'd helped to manage the shelter for so long and now my work would, at best, be put on hiatus until I could return.
“I have to. After the next Trauma I have to go, and I don't know how long it's going to take.” I still needed time to plan ahead. While I knew the location of this Order-aficionado I didn't know anything about the place, even how I would go about getting there.
Preparation is the key, blind bravery never wins the war. I told myself these things as I tried to convince myself that this really was the right thing to do. Title in hand or not I would leave Trauma 180 and head straight into this storm, I could only hope that I had the strength to see it through to the end.
“Is this all about that Ezra guy? I know you're hurt and they had a hand in what happened... whatever that is.” Godfrey abandoned his seat and began his own pacing, confused and shocked that I would be leaving him after everything we'd been through. We were partners in work, but much more than that we were friends. He knew about Ezra, the bond I felt I had for him and the pain of having that torn away, but it was undoubted that I had another bond to Godfrey also. “But you're gonna get yourself killed chasing this!”
I didn't rise after him, there was no use. The choice was made and all I could do was place my head in my hands and deal with the cards that were dealt. If I didn't leave, eventually Calder would find me. Godfrey would die at the hands of some clandestine assassin and I'd be stolen away into the heart of the Order's dungeons. “And if I don't I risk getting you and everyone else here killed. The Order isn't afraid of bloodshed, it's not afraid of blowing a giant hole in the ground where this shelter is if it means they got rid of a problem.”
Godfrey slumped back against the wall, the apparition of death haunting him from my words. He wasn't an educated man, but he was far from stupid. Death would come here if I stayed, he knew it as sure as I did. The one choice that remained was to follow the only information I had. “Eira's been part of them for a long time, she's seen infinitely more of what they're capable of and she's still here. I have to listen to her, take her advice and follow her lead.”
“And is she going with you on this little mission of yours?” A bitter note followed Godfrey's words, followed by a knowing glare as I couldn't give him an answer to avoid the point he was obviously trying to make. “Then you aren't following her lead, you're being a canary down a goddamn mineshaft.”
Could this be a smokescreen from Eira, a way to get me out of the picture for her own gain? There were easier ways, more direct ways, to get rid of me if that was the plan. The information was trusted, Eira was trusted, whether or not I'd be competing against her for a title in under two weeks. I had no choice but to follow it through or face the consequences. “And I have no damn option but to go down there and try not to choke! The alternative is I stay here and the miner stomps me into a canary shaped puddle with his heel!”
Godfrey resigned himself to the fact that I would not be moved, wiping his wrinkled brow and propping his head back against the wall. Silence filled the air then and all seemed to find its place in a twisted, uncompromising sort of way. I remembered a number of unusually calm thoughts passing through my mind. A title would be on the line at Trauma. Which one... did it matter? The Order was after me, but they weren't here now and that was just fine. Eira trusted me to be an ally. Justin Kaard would forever flip around like a frustrated gymnast. I could become a five time North American Champion... wouldn't that be swell?
“You came here a broken man, I watched you fix yourself. Now I see you broken again.” And suddenly that peace shattered in a bolt of lightning. Godfrey was looking straight into my eyes again and all I could see was concern. Perhaps the same concern a parent showed a child as they moved away to pastures new. “Back then you were just plain crazy, now it's different. You're in pain, and pain can make a slave of anyone.”
“I'm no slave, Godfrey. I know what I'm doing.” I didn't know who I was trying to convince him or me. I could handle myself in a wrestling ring, I could fight Eira and Kaard for whatever title Foley put on the line and I could fancy my chances. But this situation with The Order, it had extended far beyond my area of expertise.
“Do you? You're being chased by some shadowy society, you're suffering because of what happened to this Ezra character, you're relying on this Eira girl to point you in the right direction and she has no reason to tell you the truth... sounds like an awful mess to me, Sean.”
“You don't feel what I feel, like something got wrenched out of my soul and whatever did it cut through everything else on the way through. I'm bleeding out and I need to find a way to stop it; this is the best chance I have.” I pushed myself out of the cheap, plastic chair and stumbled tiredly toward the stairs that led to the accommodation.
Many would be sleeping up there, all blissfully unaware of the fresh hell that would await them if I were to stay here much longer. I'd helped to make this place what it was, put my hard work into helping those who'd found themselves where I was some ten or more years before. Soon I would have to leave though. After my dealings with Eira and Kaard were other, a title in my grasp or not, I'd purchase myself a plane ticket and be on my way, not known when I'd be back.
“What you've made here is a miracle, you need to keep it safe until all of this is fixed. I don't know how long I'll be gone after Trauma...” His eyes mouthed the question his lips couldn't, don't you mean IF you get back? “...but I'll be back when you aren't in danger.”
I started to climb the stairs and heard Godfrey slump back into a seat, the creaking of the boards giving him away once more. Turning to look at him, I thought he'd grown older still in the minutes we'd been talking, weaker and more vulnerable. He gazed into nowhere and I felt my hand brush the note in my pocket that Eira had left me. The name, the location.
Adalina Gatti. I repeated in my mind over and over. Then just once I remembered the location, reminding myself of the task ahead. Chieti, Italy.
”Get some sleep, Godfrey. We're both going to need our rest for what's ahead.”
In that secluded corner of the Pure Class Arena, Eira told me details that were unsettling in one sense, yet motivating in another. The words haunted me every second of the excruciatingly long journey back to Schenectady. Every scene I could remember played through my mind, every word looped again and again until it sickened my senses, and yet still I couldn't place the new player in this sordid little game.
On my way back to St Jude's Shelter I made a newly implemented set of diversions and safeguards. I had no way of knowing if The Order was still chasing me, whether Calder had me scouted day and night or if he was still none the wiser to my location, but I had become increasingly paranoid of the former. Godfrey was still awake when I arrived back in the early hours, both of us exhausted yet relieved that we'd survived another night. He sank into his seat in what we loosely defined as a lobby, the boards creaking geriatrically in the dim light.
“Glad you made it back safe. How's it looking out there?” It wasn't just the jaded tint of the artificial light, he really did look that tired. The old man had lines etched into his face that were not there a few weeks before, his eyelids fell a little lower, his shoulders slumped just an inch farther.
I'd told him, how could I not have, about The Order and my increasingly disturbing memories after I had seen everything unfold two weeks before. Godfrey knew I had once been a recruit of Cleric Calder's. He knew I had been a particularly promising prospect that had, at some point in my as-yet uncooperative memory banks, fallen from favour and been brainwashed to forget everything. He knew of Calder and the pompous Ryburn who had done the manipulating, but Eira had made more known about that particular nugget.
“Quiet, for now. You shouldn't have waited up.” He also knew that The Order wanted me back. Their contingency, or whatever I was to them, had gone off the rails and now they were playing catch up. Eventually, though, they would find me and bring down anything in the way. Godfrey was a stubborn old man but even he couldn't stand in the way of what would hit him if Calder and his underlings came calling.
“Yeah, well, an old man like me sometimes has trouble sleeping. I got Laurence helping out tonight too, he can cover the rooms for a while.” He tried to sound nonchalant but failed as the stress crept into his words. I noticed the relief behind it, how glad he was to have the help so he could rest. The guilt of what I would have to do that night filled me instantly when I realised it. “Caught the show earlier; I bet you ain't living well with what that rat bastard did. Presidential, my ass. I'd sooner vote for Trump's toupee!”
“It ain't Showtime I'm worried about right now, though I should have kicked his ass half way across the state tonight. No, I... we have bigger worries.” A title gone, lost in the night as Mikey and The Black Hand stole it because of incompetence. Mine? Maybe, I should have been there to stop him escaping. Then again, so should Eira and Kaard but we were too busy squabbling with each other to stop the Presidential candidate from escaping.
But the referee hadn't covered himself in glory, either. He'd thrown himself into a mire with his explanation that certain among us had understood but others, clearly, hadn't. The bell should never have rung. It had, and what happened was an unmitigated disaster. Then Frank Foley had a hand in the farce by not immediately calling the match null and void. To allow that affront, it was a sacrilege to the title he had stolen, MY title.
Eira had lost her North American title fairly, of that there was little doubt, but what else had been taken? She had lost an opportunity at redemption, a chance to regain some pride and gold. Justin Kaard had lost nothing but his fast-earned dual title shot, a chance it was hard to make a justification for him getting in the first place. And me?
A potential fifth North American title. An International Title I hadn't defended yet. The indignity of being embarrassed by a joke Presidential candidate and his reckless abandonment of the rules. A mockery of everything I'd fought for to be able to rip that title from the hands of the Black Hand, then to watch it spirited away back into their fold.
Everything was for nothing, after all. But still there was a possibility of a kind of revenge. The radio had announced a match for Trauma 180 while I was on the lengthy trip back; myself versus Eira versus Justin Kaard for... what? That question and more would be answered later.
“I haven't seen anything hokey all week, if they're still looking for you they aren't here.” Godfrey pressed himself further into the flimsy back of the plastic chair and threatened to flip himself backwards if he hadn't planted his feet. Genuine relief painted his face as he reassured himself that danger was far, far away. But relief didn't save lives, preparation did.
“Or they're just that good. They've hidden in the shadows for centuries, millennia even, I doubt a homeless shelter is anything new to them.” A bunch of men and women in scruffy clothing, matted hair and unwashed skin... it wouldn't be hard to recreate. Their agents could be anywhere and Godfrey wouldn't have a clue if he wasn't vigilant.
“You'd be surprised how observant a bunch of hobos can be.” He grumbled, sitting forward a little now as I began to pace worriedly around the lobby.
I thought back to the ramshackle army I'd built below an underpass in Buffalo, for a moment wondering if they were still there, still surviving. They'd been through hell at my hands and they were still standing in the end. “No, I really wouldn't be.” They'd never faced a force like The Order though.
Godfrey watched as I paced back and forth uncomfortably. Part of me worried for my title, in the hands of Mikey Wryght and the Black Hand while its destiny lay in the hands of Frank Foley and his crack team of ambulance chasers. Another part was more concerned with the task ahead, a match against two individuals who could take away whatever gold was on the line and had equal or better motivation for doing so.
There was a drive to Kaard now and he was looking to prove himself and his legitimacy. Say what you like about how he had earned his last title shot but he was a former World Champion, a title not handed to people unless they are worth a damn in PCW. He had no loyalties, no dark organisations on his back and no newly cultivated allegiances to navigate.
“You got restless feet, boy. Sit down or spit it out.” Godfrey spoke it as an order, an attribute he could turn on at will and was hard not to concede to. My pacing halted as my gaze met first Godfrey, then the chair next to him and finally the floor as I weighed up my thoughts.
I knew what I had to tell him, what revelations and choices had already been put into motion at Deadly Intentions and that he would be less than ecstatic with it. Hooking the chair around so that I could sit facing Godfrey, I took a seat and leant forward with an intent of clarity, not intensity. “I had a talk with Eira earlier...”
“That uppity battle-axe again? What'd she want with you?” He'd never seen her in a positive light, not since she'd arrived at the shelter one night and dragged me back into PCW like a siren, some mythical temptress from a far off land. There was more than a hint of the mythic about Eira, but I thought of her more along the Amazonian path than the Greek enchantresses.
“More than anything just a little cooperation, someone to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with against Sadistic and the rest of the Black Hand. Can't say I blame her; she's been going at it single-handed for so long and look where it's gotten her...” Injured, exploited... by myself for my shame but who could blame me? Titles were in the balance and she insisted on competing while unfit for the job at hand. I commended her bravery, but the bravery of one individual never won a war of pure attrition. She needed a partner, or her war would end in an undignified grave. “But she had information too.”
“Information?” Godfrey cocked an eyebrow and leant forward slightly. There was no excitement in this expression, only a suspicion that I had expected. I couldn't tell him everything, but he needed to know... he deserved to know what was going to happen.
“About what happened to me, someone that might know something,” Eira had given me a name. A link to The Order that could provide more flesh for the bones I'd been searching through so far. Ezra's vision had shown me much, but the horrifying detail of his death had ultimately given me nothing to go on. No names, no locations... only images. For this information, I had to be eternally thankful to the woman I'd be about to fight once again.
“That all sounds a little vague, don't you think?” If possible, that eyebrow floated even further up the old man's forehead and he tiredly, frustratedly, rubbed his neck to ease out a couple of kinks.
”I know more, but I can't tell you. I can't put you even further into harms way.” I knew the name and the location of this contact, I knew that it would be difficult to find them but I'd proved myself resourceful in the past. What I didn't know was what exactly would be waiting for me when I got there. “If you knew where I was going then they could get use you to find me. It's safer that you don't know.”
“You're leaving again?” The eyebrow dropped with alarm and Godfrey's face filled with sorrow. I'd been gone in mind and soul for some time, but this signified a permanence that he struggled to deal with. I'd helped to manage the shelter for so long and now my work would, at best, be put on hiatus until I could return.
“I have to. After the next Trauma I have to go, and I don't know how long it's going to take.” I still needed time to plan ahead. While I knew the location of this Order-aficionado I didn't know anything about the place, even how I would go about getting there.
Preparation is the key, blind bravery never wins the war. I told myself these things as I tried to convince myself that this really was the right thing to do. Title in hand or not I would leave Trauma 180 and head straight into this storm, I could only hope that I had the strength to see it through to the end.
“Is this all about that Ezra guy? I know you're hurt and they had a hand in what happened... whatever that is.” Godfrey abandoned his seat and began his own pacing, confused and shocked that I would be leaving him after everything we'd been through. We were partners in work, but much more than that we were friends. He knew about Ezra, the bond I felt I had for him and the pain of having that torn away, but it was undoubted that I had another bond to Godfrey also. “But you're gonna get yourself killed chasing this!”
I didn't rise after him, there was no use. The choice was made and all I could do was place my head in my hands and deal with the cards that were dealt. If I didn't leave, eventually Calder would find me. Godfrey would die at the hands of some clandestine assassin and I'd be stolen away into the heart of the Order's dungeons. “And if I don't I risk getting you and everyone else here killed. The Order isn't afraid of bloodshed, it's not afraid of blowing a giant hole in the ground where this shelter is if it means they got rid of a problem.”
Godfrey slumped back against the wall, the apparition of death haunting him from my words. He wasn't an educated man, but he was far from stupid. Death would come here if I stayed, he knew it as sure as I did. The one choice that remained was to follow the only information I had. “Eira's been part of them for a long time, she's seen infinitely more of what they're capable of and she's still here. I have to listen to her, take her advice and follow her lead.”
“And is she going with you on this little mission of yours?” A bitter note followed Godfrey's words, followed by a knowing glare as I couldn't give him an answer to avoid the point he was obviously trying to make. “Then you aren't following her lead, you're being a canary down a goddamn mineshaft.”
Could this be a smokescreen from Eira, a way to get me out of the picture for her own gain? There were easier ways, more direct ways, to get rid of me if that was the plan. The information was trusted, Eira was trusted, whether or not I'd be competing against her for a title in under two weeks. I had no choice but to follow it through or face the consequences. “And I have no damn option but to go down there and try not to choke! The alternative is I stay here and the miner stomps me into a canary shaped puddle with his heel!”
Godfrey resigned himself to the fact that I would not be moved, wiping his wrinkled brow and propping his head back against the wall. Silence filled the air then and all seemed to find its place in a twisted, uncompromising sort of way. I remembered a number of unusually calm thoughts passing through my mind. A title would be on the line at Trauma. Which one... did it matter? The Order was after me, but they weren't here now and that was just fine. Eira trusted me to be an ally. Justin Kaard would forever flip around like a frustrated gymnast. I could become a five time North American Champion... wouldn't that be swell?
“You came here a broken man, I watched you fix yourself. Now I see you broken again.” And suddenly that peace shattered in a bolt of lightning. Godfrey was looking straight into my eyes again and all I could see was concern. Perhaps the same concern a parent showed a child as they moved away to pastures new. “Back then you were just plain crazy, now it's different. You're in pain, and pain can make a slave of anyone.”
“I'm no slave, Godfrey. I know what I'm doing.” I didn't know who I was trying to convince him or me. I could handle myself in a wrestling ring, I could fight Eira and Kaard for whatever title Foley put on the line and I could fancy my chances. But this situation with The Order, it had extended far beyond my area of expertise.
“Do you? You're being chased by some shadowy society, you're suffering because of what happened to this Ezra character, you're relying on this Eira girl to point you in the right direction and she has no reason to tell you the truth... sounds like an awful mess to me, Sean.”
“You don't feel what I feel, like something got wrenched out of my soul and whatever did it cut through everything else on the way through. I'm bleeding out and I need to find a way to stop it; this is the best chance I have.” I pushed myself out of the cheap, plastic chair and stumbled tiredly toward the stairs that led to the accommodation.
Many would be sleeping up there, all blissfully unaware of the fresh hell that would await them if I were to stay here much longer. I'd helped to make this place what it was, put my hard work into helping those who'd found themselves where I was some ten or more years before. Soon I would have to leave though. After my dealings with Eira and Kaard were other, a title in my grasp or not, I'd purchase myself a plane ticket and be on my way, not known when I'd be back.
“What you've made here is a miracle, you need to keep it safe until all of this is fixed. I don't know how long I'll be gone after Trauma...” His eyes mouthed the question his lips couldn't, don't you mean IF you get back? “...but I'll be back when you aren't in danger.”
I started to climb the stairs and heard Godfrey slump back into a seat, the creaking of the boards giving him away once more. Turning to look at him, I thought he'd grown older still in the minutes we'd been talking, weaker and more vulnerable. He gazed into nowhere and I felt my hand brush the note in my pocket that Eira had left me. The name, the location.
Adalina Gatti. I repeated in my mind over and over. Then just once I remembered the location, reminding myself of the task ahead. Chieti, Italy.
”Get some sleep, Godfrey. We're both going to need our rest for what's ahead.”
