Guardians: Away Mission Book 2 of the Guardians Saga COMPLETED except for edits

Ch. 11. 3 The End

Alex found Cale easily, sitting on a bench in the darkened Audubon Park. She sat next to him, touching shoulders. She wiped the blood off her forehead. That had been a message for Gabe, not Cale.

"You dropped a nuclear bomb on your brothers," she said at length.

"Sorry to leave you with that," Cale replied.

"Do you want me to cry all over you?" Alex asked. "Weeping, hugging, emotional catharsis?"

"Uhm . . . do you want that?"

"No, just thought I would offer." Alex leaned on his shoulder. "But, how do you cope?"

"I buried it. I asked to be apprenticed to the healer and the priest in turn. I learned how to help others and some of it was helpful to me. The rest I suppressed. Seeing you, though," Cale stopped.

"Sorry, did I bring back the trauma? Open old wounds?" Alex sighed. "Perfect. I really am a nuke that explodes all over everyone, friend and enemy."

"Not at all. I see you living out all the lies I believed about myself: the self blame, the self hatred, among other things. It's been an education and more helpful than anything else."

"You're just saying that to make me feel better."

"I'm not known for being a liar. How do you cope, Alex?"

She stopped leaning on him and sat straight up. "You've seen it. I trawl the streets of New Orleans and take it out on the scum I find."

"Rile told me that you were worried you would kill one of them."

"He told you? That jerk. That was in confidence," Alex said, moving farther away from Cale.

"I could say that it's best if you don't tell Rile anything in confidence, but to be honest, he wanted help. Help for you."

Alex slumped back on the bench. "Enough about me. What about you now? Will you tell me what's with the green hide thing? I've wondered about it since you were so shocked when I told you I liked it."

Cale looked down at his claws and tapped them together softly. Alex scooted back close to him.

"It's a sign of being illegitimate?" Alex asked cautiously.

"So they say," Cale said. "A son of a Clan Head shouldn't have green in his hide. It's the color of the so called commoners. We're all Agama, all loved by the Creator of All, so this whole commoner and Clan Heir division is artificial. And no, I'm not illegitimate."

"But I see Agama like vicious rumors as much as humans do," Alex said. "I'm sorry for that. It doesn't seem to bother your brothers. Did it matter to your mother or father?"

Cale shook his head. "No, they know the truth of it. Mama Sarai would never cheat on Father. They adored each other." Again he softly tapped his claws together.

"Will you talk with your brothers now?"

Cale stared out over the empty park. "Rile can't help me. Or Gabe. It's why I never told them."

"But you have family who would have helped you, maybe they can help. You didn't have to suffer in silence. You didn't deserve that. You don't deserve to suffer."

"Alex, you don't deserve it either."

Alex jumped up and stood before Cale. "How do you know? Maybe it's exactly what I deserve. Maybe it's why I don't remember anything."

Cale took her hand and pulled her back into a sit on the bench. "You couldn't have deserved what Morgan did to you. Nobody could have."

"He said I do and it's all I knew, before y'all came," Alex said, the slight Southern lilt coming out in her distress.