Force of Will

[Quaid McCain]

“Listen, I know, okay? I know. But you knew I was never very big on these things in the first place, but you guys keep trying to drag me along when we all know I’m not going to be having any fun.” The voice on the other end of the phone muttered in his ear as Quaid’s hands busied themselves with the work they had been attending to before he had made the mistake of picking up. The cool glass pressed against his cheek as Adam bitched about his ditching the team, again, for whatever the hell it was he did with himself anymore.

None of them really knew, and he was never one to really offer up information for the hell of it. Adam mumbled something and Quaid gave his wrench a sharp jerk, knocking loose a stuck bolt on his bike as he worked at getting into the engine. The old heap hadn’t been maintained well, as he had suspected when his mother had drunkenly tossed him the keys and muttered a slurred, ‘Happy Birthday.’ He’d spent most of his free time working the bike back to its former glory. When he wasn’t hanging out with Oakley. Often, he did his best to try and do both at once, like tonight. She was due any minute. His mom was likely too drunk to even notice he was home, much less that someone else was over to hang out. Even less that it was a pretty, young woman. Even less than that, that either of them wasn't exactly… human anymore.

“Listen, I don’t really have any interest in hanging out with Erika or any of her friends. There’s only like, one thing they’re good for, and I’m just not interested.” He listened to Adam laugh, and his question was one he was sure was coming, as he knocked the rust from his socket wrench. “Of course I’m not, ******* idiot. I’m just not interested in someone so easy.” he listened again and shook his head with a sigh. “Look. I’ve got my own thing going on. No, you don’t know her.” He moved to another bolt, this one stuck tight, locked in place with a coat of rust. “Don’t worry about her. She’s real enough, and I’m not interested in getting her around you assholes.” Adam laughed as Quaid pulled at the wrench. “Yeah, you’re real funny,” the young Shadow grumbled into his phone as he gave the wrench a sharp yank. The bike tipped over with the quick jerk, landing on his shoulder as it also impacted a lift, the car above him trembling in its supports.

“Damnit, why are we still living in this ******* garage?” he grumbled to himself as he moved to push the bike upright again.

[Oakley]

The quiet suburban street wasn’t what she expected when he had invited her to his childhood home. In her mind, she had pictured a gated community with sprawling mansions and drive ways filled with camaros, hummers, and limousines. Instead, what she was met with was beautifully designed ranch homes, the yards well kept and the cars, while stylish and clean, a far cry from the extravagance she had anticipated. His personality screamed money, and while it was clear he came from it, this wasn’t all he deserved. Stepping onto the smooth cement of the sidewalk, she rested her hand against the single lamp post for balance. While it hadn’t been the smartest idea for her to walk the miles from her home to his, it had been far safer than attempting to navigate the car. She could barely sustain walking on her own two feet, so the thought of getting behind the wheel was… frightening.

Pulling her phone from her purse, she pressed her thumb to the glass to unlock the screen, his message the first thing that popped up. She felt a twist in her chest as she saw the screen - his name the only one to fill the space. She had kept them all. At first, he had tried to entice her into responding by sending message after message, and then there was the moment of quiet, where he tried to reassess the situation. Finally, he had settled for sending her messages every day, letting her know he was okay. The one sided conversations weighed on her mind more than he realized, but the words just wouldn’t form. More often than not she found her fingers hovering over the letters, the desire to respond nearly tearing her apart, but she couldn’t do it. Even now, when the etiquette would be to tell him that she was there, outside of the freshly painted door, she just couldn’t.

Instead, she checked the number with the one hanging crooked above the frame and placed her hand on the brass knob. She could still smell the primer beneath the paint, the scent assaulting her senses until she swung the door open - and was met with the pungent odor of alcohol and sweat. For a moment, she wondered if she had come into the right house, and was about to take a step out when she caught sight of his smiling face from a frame. It was then the entire wall came into view, photograph and photograph of his family lining the nails. Shaking her head with a sigh, she dropped her phone back into her purse and closed the door behind her, ears straining to hear his voice. Catching it - distant and annoyed - she started in that direction, only to stumble to a stop at the first unknown voice that entered her mind. The feminine whine was sluggish and hard to decipher, but the feeling behind it was pure. The pain in the silent, unconscious thoughts had the petit telepath turning from her original path. Winding her way down the hall, she found the woman sprawled on the floor, a bottle of gin resting empty by her pale fingers. Shaking her head, she gave the woman’s cheek a nudge with the toe of her red heel.

Nothing.

It was only by the thoughts in her mind, racing uncontrollably and changing the route from pain to anger, that gave her the relief in knowing she was even alive. That, and the slow, drunken beat of her heart. Rolling her eyes in disgust at the all too familiar scene, she kicked the bottle out of her reach - as well as the half-empty spare - and headed back down the hall. The more she learned about the man she had unknowingly turned, the more she felt a kinship to him. Running her fingers through her hair, she pressed her hand against the warm door of the garage, her fingers wrapping once against the wood before she swung it open. He was the first thing to come into view - the next was the bike, and finally, the car teetering on the edge of collapsing. It was that her mind focused on. There was no smile in greeting, no brush of her fingers through his hair as was custom. Instead, there was a parting of her lips, a sharp intake of breath - and silence from her throat. However, it was her mind that was unable to keep from screaming, and unknown to the redhead, her voice shattered through his thoughts.

‘Quaid!’

Even unused, it was soft and frantic, the Russian accent still heavy despite her years of living among the English. Stumbling on her heels, she reached for him, fingers gripping the back of his shirt as if to pull him from the perceived danger of the unsteady vehicle.

[Quaid McCain]

Inside, as the pointed toe of Oakley’s designer pump nudged at her chin, Kayla offered an unintelligible growl and an uncoordinated wave of her arm, eyes remaining shut as she rolled onto her side. That was about all she could manage before she buried her face into the soft carpet and offered a soft, even snoring as the rest of her response. She was out again in an instant, even as the young woman stepped over her prone form, leaving her alone in the den once again.

In the garage, Quaid’s hands held the old bike steady as he balanced it against the kickstand again, noting now that the support was loose at the hinge, and that was why the bike had fallen so easily. Overhead, he could hear the tapping of the car’s metal frame as it shifted against the lift. He wasn’t even sure the lift still worked, and whoever had brought the car for maintenance had abandoned the old heap. It had been there, jacked into the air, since his father had died. The garage was hardly touched, until the night Kayla had given him the bike. The sound was a familiar one, now. One of the little bits of personality that the old place still clung to with what little life it had remaining. He heard the click of her heels before he saw her, and knew in an instant that it was his sire moving through the house.

He really should have specified the garage. There was no way his mom wasn’t showing her ***, if Oak had managed to stumble into her.

He rubbed the back of his neck as she stepped into the garage and gave her a smile. Her attention snapped away from him in an instant, though, as the car above clicked in the restraints again, and she rushed him. He watched as she grasped for him, and, he laughed as he heard the fear in her voice, even as her slender fingers twisted in the cotton fabric of his tee. He lifted his hand to her wrist and tugged it free with gentle care, chuckling quietly, though it slowly died away from him as realization slowly sank in. He turned to her, his brows knit tightly as he looked at her with an intense, curious expression as he shook his head. “I heard you.” he said quietly, his hand still gripping her arm. “I know I heard you.”

[Oakley]

I heard you.

Those three words spun chaotically in her mind, leaving her breathless and off-centered as she stood before him, wrist gently grasped in his strong fingers. No. No, no no. It was impossible. She couldn’t have spoken to him. She hadn’t moved her lips! Her tongue hadn’t shaped his name, and her throat didn’t ache from using it after years of silence. As fear slithered into her wide, blue-grey eyes, she effortlessly twisted her wrist from his hold and took a step back, her heel catching on the landing. As the strap became twisted beneath the bent metal of the seal, she began to fall backwards, her fingers quickly searching for something to hold onto to slow – or stall – her descent.

Finding nothing, despite her frantic search, she collided with the cold, scratched tile of the kitchen floor. The impact jarred her, and as her teeth snapped together, she felt a sharp crack in her ankle. Pain radiated through her expression, and as it mixed with the fear, it caused her to look almost child-like. Making no sound despite the uncomfortable agony shooting sparks of fire up her leg, she continued to stare at him, her eyes unwavering as they filled with unshed tears. He was never supposed to hear her. That was her one rule, the very thing she abided by in life, no matter what it had cost her over the years.

How had he managed to now?

‘He’s going to find me…
… kill him…
How is this possible…
…I’ll never escape Him…’

Her thoughts whirled around in her mind without any true destination, and as she slid her hand down the length of her calf to curl around her rapidly swelling ankle, she finally dropped her gaze. It had been a mistake – that had to explain it. He truly didn’t hear her. He just thought he had. There was no reason why she should have gotten so worked up, was there? He was never going to find her. She hadn’t broken His law. Everything was going to be alright. So, why did she still feel so utterly terrified?

[Quaid McCain]

He shook his head and watched as she began to slowly back away from him. His hand lifted to push back through his dark hair, a dark slick of grease left on his brow from the dark spot on the heel of his palm as he gave her a disarming, yet nervous smile. "I didn't mean to startle you, but you started it. How do you do that?" He watched as she continued to step back, his smile melting into a concerned expression as she continued to move without looking. He lifted his arm as she edged her way to the threshold back into the kitchen.

"Hey, be careful you don't..." but he was too late. He'd seen it before it even happened, as her clumsiness struck again, and her heel caught in the crack between the concrete floor of the garage and the threshold of the kitchen. The entire thing was like watching one of those horrible live leaks videos in slow motion, like he knew something horrific and gruesome was coming, and there was just nothing he could do about it. The sharp, wet pop of her ankle was a sound he'd heard a thousand times on the football field, and that still didn't make it any easier to hear.

He felt his stomach churn, threatening to vomit in the floor, even as he was already on his feet, rushing to where she slammed against the old, brittle tile of the floor, the door shoved out of her way and smashing against the wall, shattering the glass window with an explosion of sound. That, of course, was enough to rouse Kayla from her stupor, where she started shouting from her place in the living room floor, until she rolled herself to her knees and vomited into the floor, the sounds of her bitching lost on the wet heaves of her stomach emptying itself into the carpet.

Quaid ignored her barbs, and immediately fell to his knee, where Oakley lay all but prone in the floor, her ankle twisted at a sickening angle and the conspicuous shape of her flesh told him that, as well as the sick sound of tendons popping apart, the bone was definitely broken, a huge, bulbous lump forming on the joint as it swelled in an instant, quickly turning a dark purple. "****, Oak... you've got to be more careful! Here, here, come on. Let me help you..."

He leaned down, arms sliding beneath her knees and the other circling her shoulders as he hoisted her from the floor like she was little more than a child's doll. In the living room, the sound of vomiting paused just long enough for Kayla to shout for her useless, piece of **** son to get her some water. He ignored her, again, and carried Oakley back into the garage, letting her lay on an old, beaten up couch that was shoved back against one of the walls covered in dirt so thick that the original color was lost beneath the black grit. He carefully adjusted her on the leather seat, and propped her ankle up on the arm. "Wait right here. I'll get you some ice, and we're going to talk about what just happened. Don't you dare move." He turned, and rushed back into the house, heralded by another bout of screaming from the woman crawling through the living room, until the sound of her vomiting replaced her harsh reprimands.

[Oakley]

Narrowing her eyes on the man, she slowly ran her fingers along the throbbing swell of her ankle. You started it, he said, as if they were nothing more than children bickering on the playground. With a huff of pure irritation, she clenched her teeth and curled her fingers, causing her nails to bite into the skin just above the cracked bone. The pain had brought tears to her eyes, the crystalline drops escaping over her lashes and creating a wet path down her cheeks until they dripped onto her knees. She was trying not to openly sob, her teeth sinking into her lower lip until she tasted the first bite of bitter blood.

He was at her side before she had a chance to stop him, arms lifting her with careful consideration, even as he continued to lecture her on her lack of grace. It was as if he thought she could help it. If she could, she wouldn’t have endured life as she had. Being unable to speak was one thing; being unable to operate her own limbs without worrying of bodily harm coming to someone was another. Easing her back against the tattered cushion, she crinkled her nose as the scent of must and mold assaulted her delicate senses. I need to get him out of here, she mused, even as his mother continued to shout between thick, wet heaving.

And I need to find out how to shut her up.

Despite his sharp command, she twisted around on the couch until her feet touched the ground, the simple amount of weight causing her to hiss out a breath. Inching her hand down her calf, she carefully attempted to work at the strap that had begun to cut into her skin.

[Quaid McCain]

Moving quickly through the kitchen, he collected a clean rag and the cleanest glass he could find, most of them used up since he had left that evening, and Kayla had gone on her nightly binge. It was clear she had, at some point, realized she’d used all the glasses and abandoned any notion of dignity and began drinking straight from the bottle. It was a typical week-night in the old McCain house. He sighed, opening the freezer to the old, beat up refrigerator unit and reached into the ice tub, collecting several pieces and dropping them into the open rag. He dropped the crushed bits from the bottom of the tub into the glass and filled it at the sink.

Quick as he could, he moved into the living room and knelt next to the woman that, at this point, had made her way to the coffee table and clutched its edge for dear life as she dry-heaved again, before collapsing against its dirty surface, the soft flesh of her face smushed against the sticky wood. He sighed as her snoring took up again, and he set the glass of water in front of her face, where it would be the first thing she saw when she woke up again. He shook his head and ran his hand back over her hair, pulling it out of her face and plucking the loose strands of gold from her mouth. “It’s alright, Kayla. I’ll be back,” he murmured, before returning to the kitchen and swiping the makeshift icepack from the counter on his way back to the garage.

When he returned outside, his dark brows knit in frustration as he took a calming breath, hand lifting the rag with ice in front of him. “I was coming back. Sit back down, and at least take care of that swelling. You and I need to talk.” he said firmly, his eyes meeting hers. “Now that I know we can.”

[Oakley]

Finally managing to ease the strap from the wound it had dug into her swollen flesh, she lifted her eyes to his when she heard the familiar sound of his frustration. It was a sound he seemed to make often around her, and while it usually managed to amuse her, tonight she was irritated. She could tell by the glint in his coffee colored eyes that he was convinced by what he had heard. With a quiet click of her tongue, she eased her back against the couch and crossed her arms over her ample chest.

What did he expect from her?

Blowing out a quiet, useless breath, she worked her fingers through her hair as she followed his every movement. How had they gone from the first night they met, where he could hardly stand her presence, to now, where he hovered over her as if she were a wounded dove? If she hadn’t formed a connection with him, if she had kept him at arm’s length, this wouldn’t be happening. He wouldn’t be standing in front of her, his lips twisted with grim determination and his eyes narrowed, waiting for an explanation, one that she couldn’t give.

Instead, she stared at him, her own eyes wide and filled with feigned innocence as she lifted her slender leg, offering him the wounded ankle with a saccharine smile. Before he had a chance to take a single step towards her, she brought her leg back down and moved to her feet in one fluid movement, though pain quickly etched across her features. Teetering towards him, she flung her arms out and curled her fingers into his shirt as her body propelled forward, sending them both sprawling towards the floor in one quick, unstoppable motion.

[Quaid McCain]

With a quirk of his brow, he watched as she offered him that sweet smile he knew meant mischief any time it crossed those lips, and let his gaze follow the line of her leg as she offered him the injured ankle. It was easy to forget, sometimes, that she was a vampire. It was easy to forget sometimes that vampires were even a thing, and that he was, in fact, one of them. He was one of them because she had made him one of them. He’d forgiven her that a long time ago, though, when he saw how lonely she’d really become since that fate had befallen her. In that respect, they were a kindred spirit, and he couldn’t hold a longing for companionship against her. He just couldn’t bring himself to do it.

He made a move to inspect the ankle, even though he knew it would be fine in a day or two, and that it was hardly something he would need to worry about in just a few hours, when she suddenly, and abruptly dropped her foot to the dirty concrete floor and stood. He shook his head and prepared to scold her when she made to advance, and instead, as she put weight on that foot, tumbled into him with a violent force that he frankly wouldn’t expect from someone so small. The impact caught him off guard, and as he tumbled to the floor, he put his arms around her, keeping her small figure on top of him as his back hit the floor with a heavy thud on impact. With a groan, he shifted her on his chest as he lifted her up to look into her eyes when he spoke to her. “What do you think you’re doing?”

[Oakley]

Placing her hands on either side of his head, she quickly scrambled off of his muscled chest, her eyes wide. This time, there was no feigned innocence in her unique gaze as she swayed on unsteady feet. Taking a step back, she reached a hand out to place it on the cracked cemented wall, manicured nails scratching the dust covered surface as she curled her fingers into her palm. His voice still resonated in her mind, the question playing like a broken record. He still expected to her to answer, that much was evident in the sharp, stubborn gleam in his dark eyes. He was glaring into her soul with a set jaw.

‘… kill me… knew…’

She wanted to tell him, it was made obvious by the tears shimmering in her eyes. Blinking them away, she followed a thin crack in the wall with her fingertip, nail tracing each splintered line. How easy would it be to part her lips, allow her tongue to form the words, her throat to hoarsely choke out the truth? The chances of Him finding her after all of these years were slim, yet, she couldn’t. She opened her mouth, and could only manage a choked, painful sigh. Shaking her head in frustration, she spun on him, ankle smarting at the sudden movement, and flung her hands out in agitation.

‘Why? Why do you have to know? Why can’t you leave me alone?’

The thoughts were louder now, entering his mind with the force of a wrecking ball. Each word, each pent up emotion, every thought she had ever wanted to say, breaking through his skull without warning. None of them were what he wanted to hear. Not a single one answered his question. Instead, they were filled with anger and frustration. She wanted to tell him. She needed someone to know, to share the darkness that had haunted her, that had weighed her down for years. Yet, all she could do – and even this was with her knowledge – was mentally attack him as tears streaked her cheeks.