A Winding Road to Revenge

Maybe We Aren't All What We Seem

Back in the Den, the TV was playing on the big screen and people were absently listening to the evening news as they lounged around, it had been rather a long day for most of them between the raid and the small number of members who managed to find day jobs - which seemed to be becoming more like gold dust every day.

...President Avido announced today that the voting fee will now increase by a further four pounds, bringing the new rate to fifty-two pounds a month per voter...

"He really doesn't need to keep putting it up," Aila said. "It's not like anyone outside of Eden could afford it anyway." She walked around the other side of the pool table, investigating the position of the balls.

"He knows that just as well as we do. He's just showing off now," Zetta replied as she watched Aila pot yet another ball. "Bit like you."

Aila smirked, "Not my fault you're shit."

"What a bastard," Rowan muttered. She ignored the usual squabble over Zetta's lack of pool skills - she had never beaten anyone, ever.

Instead, Rowan was twirling her knife around her fingers with her eyes fixed on the screen, the inventory sheets she was updating from the morning's raid abandoned on the coffee table in front of her.

The knife had a deep green handle and leaves she'd engraved herself twisting around the silver blade, not too dissimilar to the ones tattooed on her left forearm. She paused her fidgeting as President Avido's face was displayed front and centre of the screen, the reporter narrating over the clip.

....The President defends the fee increase - saying that the Dòchas police force needs the funding in order to battle the rising knife crime around Bone Towers.....

Oh, what she would give to drive the blade straight into that man's eye while his husband watched.

"Where's Myra?" Zetta asked, dumping her cue down in defeat.

"With the kid, I think," Orchid answered from where she was draped across one of the threadbare sofas. "Said she'd check on them after Asr."

As if she'd heard her name, Myra came into the den with Keels, who was scrolling around on their tablet. She walked straight over to the sofa, lifting Orchid's legs to sit down before lowering them back onto her lap. She reached over and twisted her fingers around gently in their hair, Orchid's eyes closing contentedly.

"Hello you," she said softly.

"Well," Rowan asked, twisting around in her chair to face Myra. "Who are they?"

"He's fine by the way," Myra muttered. "In case you care."

Rowan ignored her and looked expectantly at Keels. It wasn't that she didn't care, it was just that she had other priorities - mainly figuring out what kind of stranger they had dragged into their fairly secret headquarters. She watched as Keels fiddled around with their tablet and connected it to the main screen.

"Well, his name is Luke Daniels."

"Daniels?" Zetta said, squinting her eyes at the floor in thought. "Why does that sound familiar?"

"That would be because his father is Officer Benedict Daniels."

There was a collective groan from the group.

Benedict Daniels was the Deputy head of the police force and a general twat. He loved to mess with the press and had an uncanny talent for blaming everything on anyone but himself.

"What do we know about him?" Rowan asked.

"Not a lot, unfortunately." Keels said, flicking through tabs on the screen. "As Deputy head of the force, and therefore security, he is able to keep his private life pretty under wraps but from digging we know his home address and that he has a wife and kid - who presumably is Luke."

"Can we confirm the kid's name?"

"Nope, we only know they exist from this photo-" Keels pulled up an image of two people walking down some hospital stairs, the woman with a baby in her arms-" which was roughly seventeen years ago. It's the only one I've found so far but I'm still looking."

Rowan looked over at Zetta, who smiled.

"You thinking what I think you're thinking?" Zetta asked.

"Blackmail?" They had the son of a powerful man in their grasp, Rowan could only wonder what sort of leverage that could have. Though, how Officer Daniels' son had ended up knocked unconscious on their side of town, far away from the Eden Colony, was a concerning and puzzling question.

"Knew it."

"Jesus Christ," Keels said, turning his attention back to his tablet. "No, wait."

"What?" Myra asked, her fingers pausing in Orchid's pink curls.

"I've found another image, which rather...confuses things." He brought up a picture of Daniels and his wife at some event. With a long-haired child in a dress.

"This appears to be from five years ago."

"But that looks like him," Zetta said. "But also not like him at the same time. Are you sure he doesn't have a sister?"

"Pretty positive."

"That's because it presumably is him, just not looking like himself," Rowan said.

"I think that might explain the situation then," Myra said quietly. "Possibly there was a disagreement and Luke ran off, straight into our raid."

The room had gone uncomfortably quiet.

It seemed that their group having an overwhelming majority of queers sometimes blinded them to how unaccepting some people could be. Of course, they knew the world wasn't perfect, they knew better than most, but with their little safe space with each other, it was easy to forget. The world had come a long way but it always had further to go.

Just like that, it seemed that at least part of Rowan's question had been answered.

"I'll go talk to him," Rowan said finally, getting to her feet. She made a mental note to finish the inventory sheets before she went to bed. "See if I can't get a little bit more out of him and tell him his options as to where he goes from here."

"That sounds like a good idea," said Keels, shutting off the screen.

Zetta caught her arm as she reached the door. "Be nice."

"I'm always nice," Rowan replied with a false smile that definitely made her look more creepy than friendly.

Zetta just burst out laughing.