Chapter 19 - "What is this really about?"

4.1K 624 486
                                    

As Taylor appeared in Weston's office hours later, she still felt a faint hum of amazement. Besides jumping to the next city over with Clint, they had traveled to two others each one further than the last.

Each time she had taken his hand, preparing to teleport, a coil of fear had squeezed her heart. Clint's reassuring squeeze on her hand was the thing that made her take the plunge anyways. When they landed back in the storage room he had been grinning, more elated than even she was. It was a sight that she decided she liked a lot more than his intense brooding.

Nudging the day's accomplishments from her mind, Taylor focused on her surroundings. Past the office walls night shift police officers puttered about, the late hour stealing away the eagerness the day would have spurred.

Inside the office, another corkboard had been added and it was cluttered with the dozens of photos Taylor had taken the night before. Weston stood in front of the crowded scene, arms crossed and the sleeves of his shirt rolled up.

"I see you got the pictures I sent," she said.

Weston started, for once her presence surprising him. Taylor looked to his desk and spotted a power bar and the wrappers of others in his trash can. The evidence told her that it had been a long day where he hadn't stopped turning over the case.

Weston was slow to speak, his silence putting Taylor on alert. She knew each of her brother's silences. They all held something different. The one he was wearing right then was weighed down with troubled thoughts.

"How did you get these photos?" Weston finally asked.

Taylor stilled, registering a strange tone in her brother's voice. One with a hint of concern and something else she couldn't identify.

"Are you not happy with what I got?" she asked.

Weston ran a hand over his hair. "Shadow, how much danger did you put yourself in?"

Taylor refrained from commenting on the stupidity of the name for once, sensing her brother's tense disposition. When she didn't respond right away, Weston went on.

"This photo right here," he said, pointing to one with a document and a hand resting beside it. "How did you get that close? And here." He motioned to one with a trail of cigarette smoke obscuring part of the image. "What about all these?" He swept his hand over the second corkboard where all the faces of the crime family members were pinned. He jabbed a finger at one face that was frozen mid-sentence. "That was taken from a head-on angle, not from above. How did you get these?"

As he talked, his voice had gotten more and more strained. Taylor shifted out of her darkened corner, aware that her brother was on edge.

"It's a long story," she said. "Why are you so worried?"

Weston rubbed his face. "I've been asking you to put yourself in danger without a second thought. What you can do is incredible and somehow it has blinded me to the fact that you're still vulnerable to harm." He shook his head. "I've asked too much of you. I've put you in a position that you should never be in."

Taylor folded her arms. Danger had become a common occurrence in her life. Whether Weston asked it of her or she asked it of herself, it was simply something she dealt with. Why it should dawn on him now that she could be hurt struck her as strange. Added with his troubled manner, she wondered what was going through his mind. As well as she knew him, she still couldn't pick apart his thoughts.

"I walk into those situations on my own free will," she said. "It's not on you to dictate my actions or take the responsibility for them."

Weston shook his head, whether in disagreement or to dismiss his thoughts she didn't know.

Nothing Super [COMPLETED]Where stories live. Discover now