Surviving Chapter 3

"Jesus, Finn, did you really have to go shove that one in my face?" Adair exclaims now, angry and hurt about being reminded of what Dad did for him. We all know it, but we've avoided discussing it because not one of us is happy about it, least of all Adair. He's obviously not willing to let the discussion go any further because he spins on his heel and heads back for the living room at high speed. Instinct begs me to go after him, but I know from experience that Adair will need to cool off for a bit now.
"That was smooth, " I say sarcastically, walking off to take up the post by the window.
"What can I say? I'm not exactly operating on an even keel just now," He tells me as he sits down next to me.
"I'll say," I agree, looking out of the window and not at him as I can see the Shades stirring restlessly and the Revenants seem a little agitated. I don't like it. Did they hear our little argument? The old wards on the doors on the mansionette are strong enough to keep out Revenants, sneaks, creeps and shades, they might even managed to hold off a lesser demon for a bit, but they won't stand a chance against anything stronger. And if the Legions figure out we're here, believe me, they will send something stronger. I left my chalk and salt at the bookshop, but it wouldn't have been enough anyway.
“We might have to move out,” I say, leaning back to give Finn room to look. He leans across me, and I am ever so conscious of how close he is. I can feel the warmth of his body.
“Shit, you might be right,” he curses, but he doesn’t move immediately. I feel him go tense, as if he’s spotted something, and I instinctively roll out my sixth sense. Something seems to be coming. No, that’s not quite right, something seems to be calling, I can feel it’s pull through the Legions on the street.
“Wait, it looks like they are moving,” Finn says, seeing what I’m feeling about a heartbeat later. He waits, watching as they slowly move off, heading north along the road, back the way we ran from the bookshop. Back towards the church. Finally, Finn sits back and we both exhale, although I also suddenly feel the lack of his body heat. I really need to get a hold of myself.
“So, Finn, why did you do it then?” I ask again, this time speaking, albeit quietly so that Adair can’t hear.
“Ah shit, we still haven’t cleared that up have we?” He answers me, reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket for his hip flask. Well, it’s Dad’s hip flask actually, but Finn took it before we put Dad’s body on the Pyre. We had to burn him, because it doesn’t matter to the Legions if you’re dead, they can still raise you and use you. Finn takes a slug on it, winces a little at the strength of it, then holds it out to me. I take it, grudgingly and while avoiding any slight chance of contact with him. Not until I have some idea of what the hell is going on between us anyway. The whisky hits me right about where I am currently feeling choked up with tension. It burns, and threatens to bring water to my eyes, but I’m well trained on Refuge’s Finest rough stilled Firewater. It’s cooked up on a well tuned but entirely ramshackle still in the deep caverns of the Mound that Refuge sits on. Dad always insisted it was ‘cheap and nasty’, but I’ll take that right now. Every bottle of good whisky Dad ever managed to salvage, he savoured over weeks, but it didn’t stop him drinking the Firewater. It certainly has it’s place.
“Quit stalling,” I say as I hand it back to him, but I have to admit part of me doesn’t really feel ready to hear this anyway. I can sympathise a little with him for it.
“All right. Do you remember when you were 15, that last winter before I had to go out on Patrol with O’Connell and Jackie?” He asks. He’s got to be kidding me here.
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“It was bloody freezing, and there was that snowstorm that lasted for weeks,”
“I do, but still, what’s that got to do with anything?”
“There wasn’t a teenage boy in that place that didn’t look at you. God, you know I spent a lot of that snowstorm fighting,” He explains, and something does slide into place.
“You did all that fighting because of me?” I ask, but I know the answer, even before he nods.
The front gates of Refuge stayed barred tight while the storm raged. Simply crossing a courtyard was a frigid and unpleasant experience, so everyone spent most of the time indoors, congregating in the Great Hall at night. That’s where all the fighting took place among the younger men. Of course Finn was right in the middle of it, and while Dad wasn’t exactly happy about it, there was a certain sense that Finn had to establish his place in the pecking order.
“The first time, it was Micky Clark. I caught him staring all the way across the hall at you. He was a cocky son of a bitch, if you remember, and I really didn’t like the way he was looking at you,”
“What big brother ever actually likes seeing morons like him drool over their sister?” I have to ask. I’ve seen other Big Brother’s flip out like that, although I’ve never needed protecting like some other girls.
“Well, yeah, but that wasn’t why I hit him,” Finn begins, “See I walked up to him and whispered in his ear, “You know if Cat catches you looking at her like that she’ll rip your head off,” and he turned to me and said, “She’s fair game pal, and when I’m done with her, she’ll be purring like a kitten,”,”
“He actually said that?” I was indignant. Micky did try it on with me, but, while I didn’t exactly rip his head off, he most certainly never made me purr like a kitten, and he knew in no uncertain terms that he would never get the chance. Micky was the same age as Finn, and he was also heading out on his first year of patrols after the winter. He didn’t make it back though.
“Yeah, he actually said that, and then you looked across at the pair of us standing there, well you looked across at me and smiled, and Micky said, “See that Finn, I am so in there with your sister!” and that was when I hit him,”
“I remember, he went down hard and broke his nose on the floor, then you started kicking him and I had to come and stop you,”
“Well, he did say, “Thanks, Finn, maybe now she’ll give me a sympathy fuck,”,” Finn tells me, taking another gulp from the hip flask.
“You never told me that before,” I accuse him. His excuse, the one he had given to Dad and me, had been that Micky was saying unrepeatable things about me. I guess that’s true, but he never went into detail before.
“Nope, because I didn’t want anyone to realise that part of it was jealousy,” Okay, I get that, although it’s doing really uncomfortable things to my stomach right now.
“So, after Micky what happened? Why did you end up in so many fights?”
“Because hitting Micky didn’t stop the rest of them from looking at you, and it just got worse. They all thought I was being the overprotective brother, but hell, I remember what you did to Jimmy Doran. You never needed protecting,”