The Reyburn Contracts: Orion

Part 6 - What Now?

Roswell walked up next to Orion and leaned against the bar on both arms. "Or should I call you, Orion?" Orion had completely frozen in place and remained completely silent. Roswell suspected he was calculating his next move carefully. "How about we just go take a seat away from any eavesdroppers and have a discussion?" Orion continued sitting in his seat, staring at his clenched hands on the counter. He turned towards Roswell, and then over his shoulder at the young women about twenty feet away chatting amongst themselves.

Without looking Roswell in the eye, he said, "Let's go." They both stood up and walked to a vacant back corner of the tavern and sat at a small table sitting across from each other. "So how did you find me?"

"I spoke with one of your friends back in Steamwatch," Roswell answered.

"Like Abyss you did," Orion cursed. "None of them, especially Henry, would've told you where I went."

"You're right," Roswell said. "It was the girl, Cherise. I asked her while Henry and his posse were gone where you went, and she said she wasn't sure, but she did say you had told them you were going to stop by the back market on your way out of town. Thankfully, I had an associate selling some livestock out of his back yard there. He told me he had seen someone unfamiliar wearing a dark cloak with eyes black as night speaking to a baker. I spoke to the baker, and she told me that she saw you speaking with someone she knew to be a Valkyrie Dust peddler. He didn't want to work with me too much at first, but he seemed a lot more cooperative after I threatened to light up his supply like a Union Day firework display. He told me you two were talking about the best place to go if you want to disappear, and apparently Downwarren has a strong criminal network presence. If someone wants to disappear, this is the place to go."

Orion just nodded when Roswell finished speaking. "That's pretty impressive investigative work, detective," he said sardonically. "Well, you found me, what now?"

Roswell sighed heavily and looked down as he said, "I would prefer to bring you in alive." He looked back up but turned to look out the window. He then continued, "And ideally willingly. I was told to bring you alive or dead, though, and I will kill you if I have to."

Roswell drew a line in the sand, and he could feel Orion's tension. Orion looked to the young women again, one of whom with a blonde braid looked over with a questioning look, and it was obvious she was silently asking Orion what he was doing. Roswell watched Orion give her a reassuring sign and she returned to the conversation with her friends. "We can avoid letting them get involved here," Roswell said to try and comfort Orion. Orion, just looked back at Roswell and stared at him with anger seething from the void of his eyes. "Orion, you haven't done anything that can't be forgiven."

When Roswell least expected it, there was a great explosive sound, dust and rubble kicked up all around as he ducked in reaction. He looked up but could barely see anything through all the dust in the air, much less hear anything over all the screaming and yelling, both in the tavern and outside. He's getting away, he thought to himself. He quickly made the gust gesture, and a great torrent of air rushed out through the hole in the wall, pushing all the dust out with it. The signs pointed to exactly what he suspected: Orion had broken through the wall to escape. He rushed out the break in the wall, and it was obvious from the commotion being made to his left that Orion had made a break toward the south end of town.

Roswell broke into full sprint in Orion's direction. He appreciated that the road was quite populated at that time of day, making it harder for Orion to just break into a full sprint without any obstacle. Eventually Roswell could spot Orion. "Orion!" he shouted. "You don't need to do this!" He may as well have been speaking to the very brick wall Orion had just broken through.

The pursuit took them through a small market where stalls were being thrown into Roswell's path. He knew it had to be Orion's shade. Whether it was by Orion's will or its own independence was another question. He managed to quickly side-step the first two, however, the third landed right in front of his path. Roswell barely had time to react. He quickly made a gesture, and right under his step just next to the stall, a column of Earth rose upward. He was going to leap at the peak of its rise, but the surface of the ground was so muddy that it grabbed his foot for a split second. Instead of leaping over, he tumbled forward, slamming into a wooden plank of the turned-over stall, and landing in the muddy road where he rolled a few times.

It took a few seconds to snap out of his dazed state, but he finally stood up. A crowd of people kept their distance but watched him with great interest. "Everybody, watch your step. Someone dropped their cart," he said, clumsily gesturing towards the side-turned stall. This didn't seem to ease their tension like he was hoping, but he was losing time. Based off the reactions from a crowd farther down the road, it appeared as though Orion had run into an alley.

After some time of running through the town, Roswell accepted that he may not catch up to Orion. He had to think fast. If he couldn't catch Orion, what could he do? Orion knew Roswell had found him, and Roswell now knew what Orion's first instinct was: to skip town. He could try and catch him at the safe house for the underground network, but if he acted fast enough, he could catch him where there would be no casualties, somewhere outside of town.