Potent Potential

Potent Potential - Nine - Interested or Inebriated?

Nine – Interested or Inebriated?

______________________________________

“I told you to stay away until she’s been released,” Dante said firmly. He was leaning over me, his broad shoulders hunching.

Pulse was pale, his skin an off-yellow in colour, and he was glancing between his brother and me worriedly. He didn’t look as energetic as he had been when I’d first met him and his hair was less bouncy, draping over his face floppily.

“Shouldn’t I talk to her? I saw Rowan, he said that it would be okay. And I need to… apologise.” Despite his concern for me and his brother, he said ‘apologise’ like it was a distasteful word.

Dante gritted his teeth for a moment and then glanced down at me. “Next time, kid, when I say for you to do something, you do what I tell you to. I dealt with enough of your messes…” he stopped himself with a shake of his head and sighed. He raised his hands in surrender and then gestured towards me before folding his arms.

Ugh. Pulse plonked himself down in what I now dubbed the ‘annoying attractor stool’. I copied his brother and glared at him. I was tired, my emotions had been strained today and my body felt like it was in constant fatigue, so all I wanted was to be alone. And the stubborn expression on Pulse’s face made me think I wasn’t going to enjoy this conversation.

“You know a hell of a lot more about your stupid school and the people that go there so I’m leaving most of this task to you,” he said with a scowl.

I was right. I could just tell we were going to get along.

“Fuck that. You owe me one right now so I don’t think I’m going to shoulder all of this work.” Heck, I didn’t even want to bother with any of it. I wasn’t a fucking spy.

He looked up, glaring, but didn’t actually look me in the eyes. “I don’t owe you shit. It’s not my fault that you can’t defend yourself. It’s not my fucking fault that the Ghosts see me as some kind of threat, so they’re giving me this stupid ass warning.”

“Pulse.” Dante’s voice was low but the cautioning in it carried strongly.

I wasn’t having his brother soothe things between us. We were going to have to work together, somehow, so we needed to hash out a few things now.

“If you really think that it wasn’t your fault, look me in the fucking eyes,” I growled. “Look me in the eyes and tell me that I’m the idiot for running into you at the school and opening my stupid mouth to make it look like we were having some kind of conversation.”

He looked at me properly, right into my eyes, his own darkening to a point where I couldn’t depict their usual brown. His brows drew in as he frowned and his was scowling ferociously but he didn’t speak. He clenched his jaw and sneered before turning his head away. At least I knew now that he wasn’t someone who lied to save his pride over someone else’s. But that didn’t mean that I liked him.

“You could’ve fought back a little instead of just letting them cut you up,” he said harshly, turning his gaze back onto me. “You’re in advanced jujitsu.”