A Light Touch (Eustass X Reader)

Chapter 15: Repulsion

After two weeks of exercising with Hip and Emma, and working on your fine detail rehab with Eustass and Killer, you were doing pretty good all things considered. The only issue that was still looming was Vander Decken.

Coby had been officially barred from looking into Decken and had called to inform you a few days earlier. He apologized for not having more information, but he still had his own connections looking, and the only thing he could say was that Decken was dealing with his own issues. Coby had said that as far as he could tell someone was keeping Decken from keeping his feet under him, and so he was moving around the city.

Not enough to stop him from sending things in your direction, but enough to stop the barrage from being more brutal or focused than it was.

What concerned you was that there weren't any signs among Eustass or his crew to say that they were what was keeping Decken off-balance. Besides, if Kid was getting close enough to knock the stalker off his game he would just kill him. You were, at this point, completely certain of that.

You weren't comfortable with how comfortable you were about being okay with it either. Especially because you were quite certain you wouldn't be part of a murder investigation if it happened. Decken's money and assets were protecting him, but Eustass Kid and his crew weren't poor either, and you were sure there was plenty of potential ability this crew had that you still weren't aware of. Chances were you'd never know their full potential, or the number of skeletons in their closets, unless you joined the crew.

It had been two and a half months of being protected by Kid and his crew. You move the fingers of your prosthetic as you muse about the idea of just... staying. You could imagine your mother's reaction and felt a little guilty about considering the idea of it, but you were going to have to decide soon, with the way things were going.

Stretching you roll out of the wonderfully big bed and land onto the cold floor. Your time with Hip is paying off – you're sore, but not in pain, and you've been able to run a mile in just under 10 minutes, which is a bit better than the average. You weren't going to win marathons or start competing in the Olympics, but you weren't going to be easy to catch either.

You didn't have much time to consider your improvement as an all too familiar sound caught your attention, and you looked over to see a large battle axe headed toward your window. It was larger than anything you'd seen so far, but the sound of it slicing through the air was a terribly familiar noise at this point. It was like someone had taken the propeller off a helicopter and tossed it in your direction.

You're running for the door barefoot and are immensely grateful that your pajamas are practically clothes as is. Not that you would've been able to do much about it if you had slept in frills or the nude – you couldn't stay in your room long enough to grab anything.

You twist the knob and throw the door open as the battle axe crashes through the window, knocking itself off course from the impact and sending glass into the room. The axe wasn't going to be an issue anymore, you'd learned that the items coming for you wouldn't keep trying, once they hit something they were done. The problem was it was never just one item, and this was the first-time things had come so early in the day that you were still inside the house.

"KID! KILLER!" You yell as you came out into the hallway. There was a terrible shower of impacts coming into your room, and there wasn't anyplace on the top floor that didn't have windows. You heard another window shatter and ducked down instinctively from the sound. The feeling of something flying over your head nearly made your heart stop, but you couldn't stay put.

You were moving toward Kid's room when his doors opened. A sharp sting in your leg trips you up and you tumble into the floor. The sting burned red hot, and you realize from the sound of things whizzing by what was going on. Killer realizes it as well.