The Discarded

The Reject Chapter 2 - 2

Cold and dry, the only blessing of the day was that it wasn't raining. He'd seen his fair share of homeless die in winter's teeth. Rain soaked into clothes, stripping meager warmth from threadbare fabric. Cold came in behind the wet, chilling skin and burrowing into bone. The fangs of winter killed the young and old, savaging the forgotten in the huddled corners of the city. They were the deaths no one wanted to know. So much easier to enjoy life without truths gleeful smile.

As it always did when he was alone, his mind turned along the well-worn tracks of the girls. He shouldn't have left Elizabeth like that, shouldn't have cut her to see her bleed. The words she'd let loose with casual poison burned in his memory. The betrayal flamed with incandescent fire, lighting his soul in all its tortured glory. Despite that, he shouldn't have weaponized his words.

Alexandra would be fine. She had training, and he had to trust she knew what she was doing. Both of them returning to lives they should hate. Lives that had brutalized their bodies and minds, carved away the good, butchering them into sharks with soulless eyes. And like the murders of the sea, there was nowhere else they belonged. This was the only place they fit; this was home.

Anastasia ... he'd wanted to stay with her. He'd gone back on his word, had betrayed something he should have found a way to make work. Cesare had told her he'd be there for her if she ever needed him, and when she needed him, he'd left her. Had he broken his word for pride?

Pride didn't put food on the table. Wouldn't keep a roof over his head, or warm him on a cold night. It was the most useless of emotions. Pride died quick and hard on the streets. No, the thing that had forced his hand was fear. If they saved him, it would poison their friendship. Pity would taint and sicken what they had, coat it in a skim of decaying shit. He'd rather be here alone than have that happen.

Lady Kali ... he owed her, knew that deep in his bones were only truth lived. She'd come through for Alexandra, but only because Cesare had asked her too. He'd needed her, and she'd been there. They didn't know each other, but that wasn't her fault. She'd never wavered in her determination to get to know him, but he'd shied away from her ferocious interest like a kitten being cuddled by a mastiff. Tonight, he'd write her a letter. It was the least he could do, not only for what she'd done but for the friendship she offered.

Hours bled together as the duo made their way over the city streets. It was too cold to walk the streets for fun; the only people out were those with nowhere to go. People used the streets to get somewhere, work, store, friends. The grotesque truth was, the homeless lived on the streets but went nowhere. Stuck inbetween, neither here nor there, they were always travelling but never arriving.

He'd never fit at school, and that had nothing to do with the monsters. He wasn't used to being in one spot for long. Always moving, he was bound for nowhere. Everything about school was foreign to him, and no matter how he tried, it always felt like an irate cat getting its belly rubbed.

But out here ... it was like slipping into an ocean after being caged in a fishbowl. The perpetual tension that rode his shoulders transformed into the wire tight awareness he was used to. The constant worry about grades, girls, and bullies didn't matter on the streets. Those worries were lost in the reality of cracked concrete. A smile stretched across his face as he breathed in the piercingly cold air. He had money in his pocket, a place to stay tonight, and the promise of a meal later. That was all he needed. There was a beautiful simplicity in only surviving, nothing of comfort or friendship to dim his base hungers.

School gave him everything he needed, taking the hunt from his hands. Looking around at the concrete and steel with the icy wind whipping around him and the rush of being free filling his soul, it was hard to remember why he'd sold himself so cheap. The streets offered no peace, no safety, no comfort, but they forcefed you freedom until flesh ripped and guts pulsed wetly on concrete.