Aiden Beaks's Arc

Chapter 4 of 10

His uncle's hand crushed Aiden's shoulder. The alarm rose thin behind them. Aiden's mind ran fast. The man was strong, but old and bent. His fingers dug into skin, not bone. Aiden slid his free hand up and pressed his palm flat to his uncle's wrist. He thought of stillness. He pushed the calm into the man the way he had pushed it into Junn. His uncle blinked. His grip loosened for one breath. That was all Aiden needed. He tore backward, twisted, and ran. The drive stayed in his own fist. His uncle stumbled after him, dazed, but Aiden was already gone past the wall of black vines and red roses. At the base of the towering cobalt building, a heavy young man in a hoodie stood laughing. Ethan crouched in front of him, barefoot, shoes and socks piled at the edge of a mud puddle. "Walk it," the man said. "All the way across. Then I'll let you sit inside." This was the massage worker from the ground floor. He was rough, but he was not cruel to Aiden. He only wanted a laugh, and Ethan was small and easy. Ethan stepped into the mud, crying without sound. Aiden barely slowed. He needed distance from his uncle, not a weeping boy. "Aiden," Ethan called. He grabbed his ruined shoes and ran after him, mud on his ankles. "You said stay close. You said I'd be free." Aiden kept walking. He crossed open ground and reached the edge of a wood. A pale weeping willow stood there, its thin branches hanging like white hair. Ethan followed the whole way, sniffling, asking again and again. Aiden's fear finally broke into rage. "There's nothing I can do for you!" Aiden shouted. "I never promised anything. My father is dead. A man wants me dead. I have hours, not days. Stop following me. You'll get us both killed." Ethan's face crumpled. He stood in the mud he'd carried on his feet. "You're like the others," he said, low and flat. "You watch and you don't help." He turned and ran into the trees, weeping. Aiden sank down under the white willow. His hands shook. He had used his power to break free, and it had worked. But he had driven off the one person who chose to trust him. He was alone with the locked drive and no way to open it. Hours passed. The light thinned. Deep in the wood, Ethan sat against a stump, feet caked and cold. Then something moved. A black wolf stepped from the shadows, its eyes burning icy blue, a soft glow around its fur. It did not growl. It watched Ethan the way Ethan once watched a locked door. And Ethan felt, for the first time in a long time, that he was not the smallest thing in the dark.