Bandages and Salt (PJO X BSD AU)

Chapter fifteen

I went back to the mafia building to report what Chuuya and I had found. It was the first time that I was alone all day. Chuuya had split before Randou's body was even cold, saying something about needing to get back to the Sheep as soon as possible to 'fix this mess.' I didn't tell him that his efforts would be futile in the end, nor did I try to stop him from leaving me there. I had no reason to make him stay with me. Chuuya will find his way to the mafia eventually, but for now, it was okay to part ways. I can survive alone for a little bit longer...

I'd be lying if I said I didn't watch him go...

It's been a long time since I've fought alongside someone that could keep up with me. All day... I felt like I was back on the first quest with Annabeth and Grover again, doing crazy shit and breaking more laws than someone our age should be. He made me want to see the end of the fight.

It was night by the time I made it to mafia headquarters. Even though the sun had only set a little bit ago, it seemed much darker now than it should, like the night was hanging from the building, consuming all that came close to it.

Staring up at the building and the office on its top floor, it felt as if there was a claw digging into my chest, pulling and shredding at the thing that used to be my heart.

Heavy gazes fell on me, weighing me down with each step, as I walked closer to the private elevator that brought the occupants straight to the floor that the boss's office is on. They're always like this. Someone who moves throughout the mafia without being an official member of it themselves... They don't like it. It's not normal. All the owner's of the gazes knew was that I've been Mori's right hand man since before he rose to power last year. I'm an oddity in their eyes. Someone that they didn't yet know how to comprehend.

Not that they'd try to anyways.

The guard standing next to the elevator barely spared me a glance as I walked up to the space next to the man. He just continued to stare forward, looking for actual threats. After all, what was a child going to do, especially a favorite of the boss. He's right to think lowly of me, my ability is my only defense against others. I don't even have a gun like everyone else in the building.

I treated him with the same attitude and pressed the button at the man's side without saying a word to him. All of the guards know who I am, and they all know that I'm one of the only people to be able to go see Mori without an appointment, and to survive when I did.

The doors closed behind me moments after I stepped inside. They clanged together loudly, the noise as heavy and damning as the closing of the doors of death. The clawing sensation worsened with each passing second as I rose higher and higher. Dread pooled at the bottom of my stomach, filling my body with irrationality. I'd never felt such an impending sense of doom when going up here before. It's as bad as my first trip to Olympus, but at least then I had three hundred floors to collect myself.

I couldn't shake the feeling that something was about to go wrong, that something was about to be done that could never be undone.

It's not like I'm going to the clinic for one of his endless tests. It's just an office...

But Mori is in it, so it can never be just an office. Mori is a man that possesses an overwhelming talent of twisting everything in his presence, warping it into something... or someone... unrecognizable. He could turn a holy place into one of sickness just by stepping foot on the grounds.

A resounding ding echoed through the small room as the elevator finally reached its intended floor. I left the safety of the metal coffin, dragging my body down the doorless hallway to the office at the end of it. The guards outside of Mori's office gave me a pitying look when I went to knock.