The Mercury Palace

Chapter 6: Turmoil Tumbling

-Nilly- 🥀

     My phone rang as I was warming up. I glanced at it wearily, already guessing who it was. Livia had headed out a while ago, leaving Perla and me alone.

     "Hey Perla, could you do me a favor?"

     She looked up from where she had been standing. "Sure, what do you need?"

     "Could you answer my phone for me?"

     She raised an eyebrow but did as I asked. "Hello?"

     She listened for a second before glancing up at me. I shook my head at her. "She's busy right now, can I take a message?"

     After a minute more she looked up and covered the bottom of the phone. "Your brother." She listened for a few more seconds. "Yes, just a second."

     "He's asking if it's fine if he brings your bag over, he noticed you left it."

     I sighed and nodded hesitantly.

     She turned back to the phone. "Yeah, that's fine. Alright, bye!" She hung up and handed me my phone. We continued what we were doing in relative silence, Perla not wanting to disturb my concentration.

     The door cracked open a while later. "Nilly?"

     "Aiden," I responded coldly.

     He glanced quickly at Perla. She caught the hint and made an excuse to leave for a few minutes.

     He looked back at me after the door had closed behind her. "Look, I know you're still mad-"

     "My bag?" I held his gaze coldly and calmly, not ready to forgive his insolence.

     He quietly handed it to me. "I kicked everyone out. Aside from the depleted chip stash, everything is back in order. I even managed to fix the door handle."

     It was hard to stay mad at Aiden when he looked so miserable.

     I sighed, my anger melting slightly. "Thanks, I guess. Sorry about that, I just lost my cool there for a minute"

     He slightly relaxed and shook his head. "We're both losing our minds from this." He turned away slightly. "I should pull us both out of this. We won't be able to handle this while still being sane-"

     "No!" I said, louder than I had anticipated.

     Aiden flinched.

     I lowered my voice. "We can't quit when we're this far into it! We're in the perfect position to get information now! You can gather info from the proxies now that you've been accepted into their group, and I take the rest of the creepypastas. It would be a shame to put all our time and effort to waste by ending it here. Plus, if we randomly disappear we'll be chased down until we're found."

     Aiden shifted uncomfortably. "Wells promised us government protection..."

     I gritted my teeth in an attempt to keep myself from yelling. "Do you really trust him? He's not going to give us any sort of protection. He just wanted our help!"

     "Damn it, Nilly! Why won't you just listen to me for once? Why do you act like this? I'm just trying to protect you! It's all I've ever tried to do."

     I recoiled slightly at the pure desperation in his eyes, but I stood my ground. "Come on, Aiden think about this logically. We can't quit now!"

     He sighed. "Why did I ever try to change your mind? You're too much like Cassy. Neither of you know when to stop. Fine. We'll continue on. On one condition."

"And what's that?"

     "You have to come to a movie marathon that Jayden is planning through next weekend," he said, referencing one of his friends. "He mentioned that Emma was asking if you could come so she didn't have to spend the weekend with a bunch of his friends ransacking the house."

     I raised an eyebrow. "No way. You actually agreed to go? You haven't gone anywhere in forever. What movie?"

     "All the Harry Potter movies plus the Fantastic Beasts movies. And yes, I agreed to go, despite what you may think I do have friends thank you very much."

     "Alright, fine. I'll go." Relief washed over me. I wasn't looking forward to it, but if that was the price I would have to pay, I would do it gladly.

-Aiden- ⚕️

     I rolled myself out of bed around 6 p.m. I'd spent most of the day in the training room getting beat up in the name of training. I finally managed to get away a couple of hours ago and went to take a nap in my room, hoping to expedite my healing process. Sleeping normally helped.

     Heading to the stairs I ended up slipping on one of Sally's toys in the hallway and fell down the stairs. All of them.

     "Ow," I groaned and curled into a ball at the bottom of the stairs. Kate wandered over and crouched next to me.

     "You alright?"

     "Noo!" I whined. "We ran out of coffee."

     She snorted. "I was talking about you falling down the stairs."

     "It's directly related, I swear!" I pretested, curling up tighter.

     "Oh?"

     "I didn't have any coffee, so now I'm tired and disoriented, causing me to fall down the stairs."

     "Mhmm." She glanced up the stairs as I heard someone start walking down. "Stay there for a second, alright?" She smirked as she walked away.

     The first person to come down the stairs was Masky. He just gave me an annoyed quizzical look and stepped over me. The second, on the other hand, was Hoodie. He wasn't looking where he was going and managed to trip over me, crashing into Masky in the process.

     I heard Kate cackling in the background as the two of them crashed to the ground. Masky jumped up and ran after Kate.

     Hoodie stood and brushed his clothes off before holding a hand out to help me up. I took it and let him pull me up.

     "You alright? Why are you lying on the floor?"

     "Ah, well you see, we ran out of coffee, I fell down the stairs and started complaining to Kate about the fact that we ran out of coffee... yeah, that's about it. By the way, we're out of coffee."

     "So you've said..."

     "Oh, have I?"

     Masky made his way back to us. "Get your stuff, Aiden. You're coming with us."

     I looked up curiously. "Where are we going?"

     "Quick mission."

     I felt myself stiffen. The moment I'd been dreaded since being named a proxy.

     Hoodie noticed my hesitation. "You'll be fine. We'll pick you up a coffee on the way," he offered.

     They know my weaknesses all too well.

     I followed.