Gallows of Transgression (ON HIATUS)

e i g h t

A/N: prepare to meet yet another one of the eccentric people in Remi's family! Hahaha I love writing them. (: Enjoy!

Remi hurried to catch up to Killure, quickening her pace until she spotted him, his broad shoulders and muscular back clearly visible through his tight, black shirt. His hands were shoved in the pockets of his dark trousers and his long strides were lazy and drawn out, walking slowly so she could catch up.

When she jogged back up to his side, Killure didn't bother to acknowledge her. She pursed her lips and frowned before her attention was quickly stolen, pulled to a painting that stood out to her more than all the others.

Remi burst out laughing as she lifted a hand and traced the frame of the vaguely familiar painting. While this one's background was just as beautiful and abstract as the others, it had been painted over with hard, careless strokes of different colors of paints that were entirely out of place, smeared at random. A small, cyan blue hand print of paint had been pressed into the middle of the painting, on top of everything. At the bottom right corner, two letters had been drawn with an ugly shade of yellow--R and S.

"I thought the other paintings were strange, but this one is worse yet," Killure said from beside her. She looked up at him to find he was raising a dark brow in confusion and staring intently at the painted image that could hardly be called a painting.

Remi grinned up at him. "I can't believe Uncle Shaam kept this painting all these years."

"Oh, this is a painting? I thought a pig might have gotten into a few cans of paint, lapping it up like water then later puking it out and creating this mess."

Pursing her lips, she jabbed him lightly in the side with her elbow. "Killure! Soren and I did this!"

"Hopefully not recently—that would be quite pathetic."

"No!" Remi laughed, turning back to the painting and looking at it once more as nostalgia washed over her once more. "We were really young. This was before all that drama between our families happened."

Killure gave her a questioning glance, glancing around the long corridor once before turning back to her and asking, "What drama? You keep mentioning it without giving much for details. Aside from him being upset about the experiments your other uncle used to do on you and your cousins as kids. If . . . you don't mind me asking."

Remi thought for a moment and realized he was right. In fact, there were a lot of things she briefly mentioned without fully explaining. Perhaps she'd developed this habit because she didn't spend much time—aside from business, of course—with people outside of her family, and her family already knew most of the details. However, there was still a lot she herself didn't know, but over the years she'd gained suspicions.

She parted her lips to fill him in, but was cut short as the large, burly figure of her uncle popped back into sight. He waggled a long, fat finger at Killure. "None of your business, Kitty!" he mocked in a chiding voice. "That's for family only. And even then, not all of them!"

"Uncle," Remi hissed, annoyed with the intrusion. Just because her uncle was one of the people involved in what happened didn't mean that it was only his story to tell. She also didn't appreciate how he had so blatantly been making sure Killure knew he was an outsider since the second he met him.

Shaam seemed to dwarf the hallway with his large, round frame, the hair covering his body making him appear like a bear standing on its hind legs. His shirt had hiked up slightly, showing off some of his large belly, which protruded from the waistband of his pants. Remi suddenly noticed that all his clothing was dry—he must have gone to change and come back while she and Killure had gotten . . . distracted. Blood rushed up into Remi's cheeks at the thought.