The Clan of Outcasts [Season 3]

Part 5: "Family Matters"

Twenty Years Ago...

The sun had not yet risen, but the eerie green glow of her shadow-vision helped her navigate the house without running into things. She needed to be gone before anyone in the family awoke. The dark-clothed young girl covered her magenta-colored hair with a black cowl, and checked to make sure she'd left nothing behind.

Next it was onto the kitchen, where she slipped into the larder and lifted one of the cheese wheels, along with a loaf of bread. A jug of cider wouldn't be missed. She slid herself in the narrow space between door and lintel.

A metal claw reached out from the shadows and grabbed her arm.

"Take me with you!"

The girl bit back a scream as the cheese plopped out of her arms and rolled across the floor.
"Plague take you, Markus!" she swore under her breath. "What are you doing there?"

The lanky form of a young man shifted into view with a creaking thud. He was more or less normal-looking: shaggy hair, keen eyes, sharp features, standing half a head taller than her. The only difference was that the whole left side of his body, from his shoulder to his sole, was made of metal, constructed special by a friend of his father's.

Markus tapped the left side of his head. "Motion detected," he murmured, mimicking the voice implanted there. "The real question is, what are you doing, Denni?"

She sighed, trying her best not to let her eyes focus too closely on what they called his prosthetics. They functioned more or less like the real thing—although with so many tiny moving parts, and unexplained machinery, that they were about as much of a Gift as her own Sight.

"I told the family at dinner," she muttered. "I've got a job in The Citadel."

Markus followed her out of the kitchen, and up the back stairwell to the roof, high amid the skyline of the twinkling, glittering city below. At least if she was going to have him clunking around after her with his one metal foot, he could do it out where it wouldn't wake the rest of the family.

"But I thought Dad offered to take you!" Markus protested. "You were going to leave after breakfast."

Denni pursed her lips and blinked until she could see the contents of the row of bins lining the rooftop in an array of deep hues. She plunged her hand into the wheat berries until she connected with a weighty leather purse in there. "I can't wait till then," she said, pulling it out. "Gotta leave now."

Markus gasped, and something in his mechanical side gave a whizzing sound. "You're stealing?" he dropped his voice to a hoarse whisper.

Denni snorted. "No, you goober; this one's mine. I needed to save up enough money to make it to the—" She stopped talking just short of telling him where it was. She'd been sworn to secrecy by the contact that got her this position, and she could not jeopardize it.

Markus was too quick for his own good. "Where are you really going?" His eyes followed her as she opened the panel in the wall where she kept her weapons: two burnished pistols in twin holsters. Whatever this was, it was more serious than just a job. "Come on, Denni..." He reached out his right hand--the normal one--and tugged her shoulder. "Denahlia," Markus used her full name, something he only did in the most serious and personal moments between them. "Please don't keep secrets from me," he begged. "What is this really about?"

Denahlia sighed, thumbing the pistol butts resting snugly against her hips. "If I tell you," she said in a low voice, unwilling to meet his gaze, "you've got to promise not to tell Uncle Feston and Aunt Winda."