sanctuary | on hold indefinitely

eleven | locator

Farah was woken by the midday sun streaming through the grotty windows of the warehouse. Despite its warmth, there was a permanent and inescapable draught that caused goosebumps to rise on her bare arms. The weight of another body beside her flattened the springs of the old mattress down to the ground and she groaned in discomfort, her limbs twisting the thin white sheet that covered their naked bodies as she turned over.

The weight belonged to Filix. He lay sleeping beside her, his thick eyelashes casting crescent-shaped shadows onto his high cheekbones, his mouth agape as he dreamed. Instinctively, Farah reached out and traced a pointy fingernail across his scar. It was invisible most of the time, hidden by his black hair, but never when he slept. The raised skin was a sharp silver in the daylight, contrasting with his dark complexion as it curled around his hairline and stopped just below his ear. She still did not know how he had gotten it.

Her touch disturbed him and his eyelids fluttered open without warning. He caught her wrist in a swift, defensive motion and looked at her dead in the eye. It seemed impossible that he had been asleep a moment ago. "Do you mind?"

"No," she answered, her voice thick with sleep. His hand relaxed, his fingers curling through hers for a moment. Farah watched the way the movement caused the tattoos snaking around his forearm to ripple. They were nothing but black, dotted lines framing a skeletal hand clutching a rose, but as the light danced across his contracting muscles, they looked alive.

He pulled her closer by tangling his legs with hers, a small smirk curving against his lips as his eyes darkened with lust. As their lips were about to meet, the warehouse door swung open, causing them to jump apart. Farah clutched the sheet to her body as Filix sat up, exposing his lean torso.

Farah's mother marched into the warehouse without waiting for invitation, her heels clicking against the concrete. She held a stranger in her grip, a knife pointed towards his neck. He couldn't have been much older than thirty, though from the way he trembled with wide eyes he may as well have been a child. His eyes were golden: a Locator.

Filix eyed the Locator hungrily, standing up despite the fact that the only thing he wore was his black boxers. He didn't appear to care. "Have you brought us something to play with, Shar?"

Shar seemed not to have heard Filix, her gaze sliding over him and falling on Farah. "Since it is clear that neither of you are in much of a rush to find my daughter, I thought perhaps I would take matters into my own hands."

She pushed the Locator towards them and he stumbled, almost falling head-first onto the mattress.

"Clearly," Shar continued, marching to where Farah and Filix's clothes were strewn across the grey floor, "I have interrupted something. Get dressed."

She threw the clothes at them, waiting expectantly. It had been months since Farah had seen her mother last, and yet she stood in front of them as though she was as at home here as they were, her fingers tapping against her hips impatiently.

Farah obeyed, pulling her dress over her head quickly and standing up, uncaring if the Locator sitting on the floor saw something he shouldn't. Filix did the same, pulling on a pair of black jeans and a t-shirt, though he did not seem to be in any rush to cover himself, his movements slow and laboured. His hair stuck up at all angles, curling at the nape of his neck and framing his face in tangled knots, and yet somehow Farah still felt her lips tingle with the memory of kissing him.

"How did you know about Devan?" Farah asked, flicking her hair over her shoulders in an effort to tame it.

"Do not mistake my absence for stupidity. When, exactly, were you going to tell me?" Her voice was sharp, her eyes narrowed as though she was scolding a child.