drake wallace ; dean winchester (likedillinger) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2011-05-05 21:46:00 |
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Entry tags: | dean winchester, zatanna |
Who: Drake and Zari
What: EIT hunting and some hard truths.
Where: Around Seattle.
When: Fuzzy timeline is fuzzy. Recently. :D
Warnings: None.
Drake wasn’t overly thrilled about bringing someone along on an EIT job, especially one who’d been nothing more than a teenager the last time he’d seen her, but if nothing else he was confident enough that he’d be able to get her out if things went downhill. Combined with the recent revelation that he apparently had a half-brother dear ol’ Dad never mentioned (a brother whose name he didn’t even know, how great was that?) the prospect of telling Zari how her father had died wasn’t something he looked forward to either. Eli had always been better at that sort of thing, but this was his failure and his responsibility to give her the truth. Lying would be a coward’s way out.
His version of being prepared involved weaponry rather than protection. He didn’t wear kevlar, and bulletproof vests were only for extreme circumstances. Death was something he’d stopped being afraid of years ago. He was recalling and mourning the loss one of his prized Beretta’s when he reached the first floor, realizing too late that he didn’t know her apartment number. Undeterred, Drake simply played a little game of elimination before knocking on what he hoped was the right door.
The door to the apartment took a full minute to open, and the splash of color was immediately arresting. The young woman at the door was nothing like the awkward teenager that had peered from him around the corner of her father’s study with a moonstruck expression on her face. She was dressed in a wrap that tied behind her neck and trailed to her bare feet, leaving shoulders and arms bare, and she did not look like she was ready to go on anything resembling a mission.
Zari had thought him handsome as a teenager. He reminded her of the actors on the mainland, the ones with light eyes and charming faces. The movies seen at home were old films, black and white and Cary Grant and Marlon Brando. Modern things did not make it to the island, and she had thought him summoned by her gift and her spell. He had not been inclined to pay serious attention to a teenager who thought him her prince charming come from the screen, however, and she had felt the sting of his departure.
Now, here he was, looking much as he had. The gaze she gave him as she pulled the door open was assessing, slow. “Entra,” she said, motioning as she made the invitation. “I think you need more blessings than I originally believed,” she said once she finished her perusal of him, her mouth tipping up in a warm, honeyed smile. “You are smaller than I remembered.”
The image he held of the curious teenager who’d watched him from afar vanished as soon as the door opened. She was still young, since she obviously hadn’t aged that much, but she was also less girl and more woman now. Drake had too much respect for Zari’s father to look at her the way she looked at him back then, age difference aside; she’d been ‘cute’ at best. That word definitely wasn’t the first that came to mind anymore.
Telling her what she wanted to know about her father suddenly became even higher on his list of things he’d rather avoid.
Drake caught himself before he could cross into sleazy staring territory, but he didn’t bother making a show of hiding his appraisal. Aware that she was doing the exact same thing to him, he flashed a trademark grin as he stepped inside. The apartment was probably the most colorful one he’d ever been in, especially in comparison to his own, but after a second glance over his shoulder he decided it suited her. “Am I?” He turned to look at her, raising his eyebrows at her smile. “Maybe that has something to you with you getting taller,” he teased. “Are you wearing that on our little mission?” He gestured to her outfit, which in all honesty he didn’t mind, but it was a little impractical considering what they had planned.
She didn’t mind his perusal, and it was evident in the warm, femininely knowing smile that graced her lips when he finished. She closed the door behind him, moving just close enough to brush against the fabric covering his arm. with her own arm “I do not believe so,” she said, a reference to his comment about her getting taller. “I believe I thought you a hero once. Someone come from the west to rescue me from some villain hiding in the shadows,” she told him as she walked around him slowly. “Do you rescue princesses trapped in towers, Drake?” she asked, walking ahead of him and down the hall in an obvious invitation for him to follow.
She stopped at the doorway to the room with the altar, and she nodding to his shoes. “Remove those,” she said, even as she reached for the neck of his jacket, hands almost touching his back as she reached up to pull on the worn fabric. “And this, too,” she said.
Inside, the room was lit only with candles, the curtains closed, and it took awhile for the eyes to adjust to the change from vibrancy to semi-darkness. The altar at the end of the room dominated the space, and the warm space smelled of honey and cinnamon and incense. She did not expect him to feel comfortable there. It was soft and baring in a way that his clothes were not, and she smiled a little at the realization, entertained by it. “I will change once we are done. Are you worried I will need you to save me?” she teased, stepping past him and into the room.
That sounded more like the starry-eyed teenager he remembered, waiting for a brave stranger to sweep her off her feet and defeat the villains like all proper heroes should. There’d been a time when even Drake believed in heroes, but that was in the distant past and by now he knew better. He assumed she did too. “You’d be surprised at how many princesses can take care of themselves these days,” he said dryly, following a few steps behind as she led him down the hall. “I’ll still end up rescuing one or two every once in a while, though.”
He raised his eyebrows in an unspoken question, but relented a moment later and managed to kick off his boots without touching the laces. The jacket was shrugged off with a smirk and no real sense of urgency, just a careless roll of his shoulders that was all about confident ease. Beneath it was nothing more than a black t-shirt, which along with worn denim constituted his typical casual attire.
The room was foreign in a way not even the bright apartment was, and no amount of pretense could change the fact that Drake wasn’t the kind of man who spent time around places lit by candles or altars of any sort. He stood in the doorway for a moment too long before stepping in after her, wrinkling his nose slightly at the overlapping scents. “I haven’t ruled it out. Not that I’d mind,” he added with a grin. “But I haven’t ruled out you surprising me either.”
He looked out of place, she realized as she looked back at him, worn denim and black fabric that clung to arms that were stronger than they appeared under the jacket he’d worn. She knelt on one of the pillows in front of the altar, and she stretched and reached for a wooden match. She struck it, and she held it out to him. “Ven,” she said, and she looked at the pillow and then at the candle in front of the statue of the woman dressed in blue.
Her father had thought enough of him to work with him when she was young, and that meant something, even if he had infuriated her at the time with his dismissal. “Princesses that can take care of themselves might still want saving,” she said. “Or do you not know many women, Drake?” It was a teasing question, obviously so, intended to poke at his ego. “Would you like me to introduce you to some?” she asked, a touch of jealousy sneaking into the words without her intending to.
She struck her own match, and she lit her own candle. “I think you should count on me surprising you. Should I count on you surprising me?”
He followed her gaze before taking the match, holding it between his thumb and forefinger as he knelt on the other pillow. Despite the obvious differences it reminded Drake of his time in the monastery, when he’d openly refused to participate in church activities yet still lit two candles for the ones he’d lost when no one else was around. He wasn’t sure what he was lighting this particular candle for, but he figured it had something to do with whatever spell she planned on doing.
“Sure, but in my experience they don’t come right out and say it when they do. Makes it hard for us heroes to know when to step in,” he said, countering her teasing with some of his own. That hint of jealousy didn’t go unnoticed, and Drake grinned when he caught it. “If you’re willing to share me. Does that mean I’d have to return the favor?”
All doubt aside, Drake was beginning to think she might be able to hold her own after all. “I think we might end up surprising each other.”
She made a small, unimpressed noise when he asked if she was willing to share him, all tip of her chin and nose in the air. “I have not wanted to keep you for my own since I was very small. I know better now,” she said, kneeling beside him in a swirl of fabric. She lit her own candle, asking casually. “Who would you introduce me to?”
She didnt wait for him to respond before she started the spellwork. She closed her eyes, and she raised her hands, and the words were Spanish and old, slipping off her tongue like water. If there was any doubt that her ability was somehow tied to the spell the energy that crackled in the room the moment she began to speak should have obliterated that doubt. The candles flickered, softly at first and then stronger, the flames rising as hot, moist air surrounded them. It felt like pinpricks on the skin, the spell, and it was done as quickly as it began.
She rested her hands on her thighs, and she looked over at him, cheeks a little flushed from the magic.
“But you did want to keep me for your own once,” he said, clearly pleased with himself. Drake didn’t really have anyone to introduce Zari to even if it had been a serious request, one he intended on following through, but he decided against mentioning that. The people he considered actual friends weren’t the greatest candidates for one reason or another. “I’ll tell you who I’d introduce you to if you surprise me once all this is over.” It was intentionally evasive, though it was more about teasing and less about genuinely wanting to avoid the question.
His answer overlapped her unfamiliar words, and he instinctively fell silent as though any interruption might void out whatever spell she was trying to do. Drake watched her with a grudging sort of admiration as felt the effects of the spell, something he hadn’t fully been expecting.
He grinned at her without thinking. “Impressive. How’s this spell gonna work?” He got to his feet while he spoke, assuming the part that required him to kneel was over.
She looked up at him, and she smiled. “I might have wished for you to fall madly in love with me,” she teased, the quirk of her lips playful enough not to discount it entirely. She leaned forward, and she doused the candles before standing, returning the room to its previous state of mostly-darkness. The candled by the door were doused when she stepped past him, and she looked over her shoulder. “Un momento,” she said.
She disappeared into her room, returning within minutes in jeans and t-shirt, a wrap draped over her shoulders that was a little too soft looking to go with the rest of the outfit. She had no weapon, no bulletproof anything. There was nothing for protection on her person save the prayer beads around her wrist and throat, which were a soft yellow, and she nodded toward the front door. “It will keep us safe,” she said, not explaining further, because magic didn’t work in a logical way, and she would not know the results until they arrived at their destination.
“What sort of man would you introduce me to?” she asked, opening the door and waiting for him to follow, his jacket held in her outstretched fingers for him to reclaim. “And tell me how you came to be involved in this EIT. Were you working for them when you came to the island?”
Drake shook his head, a hint of fondness in the movement. “Starry-eyed little girl,” he teased, watching as she doused the candles and disappeared into her room. It gave him a moment to glance around, though the lack of light didn’t do much in terms of visibility. He looked up when she returned, taking in her choice of clothing with practical approval with a brief twitch of his lips for the wrap over her shoulders. Spells to keep them safe aside, he was definitely taking the lead on this one.
He didn’t answer right away, taking his jacket as he passed through the doorway and tugging it back over his shirt. “One who can tell the difference between when a princess wants to be saved and when she needs to be.” Without giving her enough time to respond he changed the topic, falling into step beside her as they made their way down the stairs. “We crossed paths when I was looking into one of their cases. I figured I’d give working with a team a shot, they needed more members, and here I am. I hadn’t been with them for too long when I met your father.” He was a good man, like his own father, and the fact that they’d both met similar ends didn’t escape him.
She made a softly indignant sound at his insistence that she was a starry-eyed little girl, and she gave him a defiant look that said no, she was not, and she held back a comment at his statement about princesses.
When he started talking about what he did and about her father, though, all the teasing left her expression. She locked the door behind them, and she nodded toward the lobby before beginning to walk. “Why did you decide to fight this particular fight?” she asked. “There are many things wrong with this world, why fight this one thing?” Her father had picked no side, not exclusively. Even in his work for the Sentinels, he had assisted a variety of men and women, human and Creation alike. “My father only worked with men and women he respected, who he felt were not intending to bring harm upon the world,” she explained, looking over at him with a smile that held more than a little respect. “You may be impossible, but you are a good man,” she said, even though she knew there was a darkness in him. She could see it in his eyes and the way he held his shoulders.
“Tell me who I am going to protect you from?” she asked, opening the door to the building and turning her face up to the sky a moment in thanks for the stars.
That was a heavy question, more than she likely knew, and there were a number of reasons varying in importance that had swayed his decision. “I spent a lot of time as a one-man army,” he said carefully, trying to balance between saying too much and saying too little. “There’s strength in numbers. Humans can be just as bad as Creations, don’t get me wrong, but the police are less equipped to handle people with abilities. They can’t arrest someone who kills people in their sleep, or a woman who has the power to turn people into puppets.” Drake had a feeling Zari’s father might not have respected him so much if he’d known the entirety of his past, but he hadn’t been that man when they’d worked together. “Your father was a good man too,” he told her, and unlike most things he meant it.
A moment later his serious demeanor vanished, and he frowned in mock insult as they reached the building’s doors. “You still think I need protection?” He stepped outside without a glance up at the sky, waiting for her to follow around the block where he’d parked his car. “Tonight it’s a guy who likes flexing his telekinetic muscles, but don’t think I’m gonna let you play the hero and steal my spotlight.”
She followed, staying close enough to speak without raising her voice, but not crowding him, either. The words he spoke, they were important to him, and so she listened, and she did not tease or banter. Her father had not been the kind of man to look into the history of others. The island was a poor place, and by the time Drake had come there they had moved from a hut to a veritable palace, but it was still a poor home by the standards of the United States. Jose Zaldana had not possessed the resources to run background checks, not from an island where communication was locked down, but he had not needed to. He looked into the hearts of men, he had always said, and made his decision based on what he found there. He must have seen something in this man at her side, something worthwhile.
“A one-man army?” she asked when he was done speaking. “Is that not dangerous? You do not have magic,” she said, knowing he did not. She did not remember his ability, but she knew he was not one of the magic men that came to collaborate. She pulled the wrap closer to her body when he mentioned what others did with their powers. “The universe will repay them,” she told him, though she did not think he would believe her; he had never struck her as a man of faith, not then, and not now. “Y, si, I think you need protection more than most,” she admitted, stopping to look over the cars they had arrived at, looking for something that looked like it would be his.
She whispered something under her breath, the same feeling of electricity crackling in the air that had overtaken the room with the altar swirling around them. A moment later, a pigeon landed on the hood of an Impala, and she made a soft sound and moved toward it without hesitation. “How do you plan to stop this man?” she asked, stopping in front of the passenger’s door.
“I didn’t care,” he said after a brief pause. “No magic, but I had other things.” Weapons. A near-obsessive thirst for vengeance. His ability came in handy too, but he’d been without it until he crossed over. Zari was right in thinking that he wouldn’t believe her; faith had never come easily to Drake, if at all. In his mind the only way people would get what they deserved was if someone gave it to them. Most of the time not even the law could do that right, restricted by its own corruption and structure, which was why he preferred to do things himself. “Never had much faith in the universe.” He looked at her when she said he needed more protection than most, but by then they’d reached his parking spot and he didn’t want to ask what she’d meant.
Drake was about to point out his car when she started whispering, and a moment later a pigeon landed on the hood. Birds were every vehicle’s worst nightmare, especially when said vehicle was a classic like the Impala. “You could’ve asked,” he frowned, gesturing at the pigeon. “I know his hunting ground. My ability keeps me hidden as much as it can without being invisibility. We might have to play the waiting game, but once he shows himself… I’ll take him down before he even sees me coming.”
He knew it sounded basic, but actions were always his forte. Using force didn’t bother him and he was more willing than most to push boundaries. “You should know now,” he added, opening the driver’s side door and sliding onto the seat, “that I’ll do whatever I have to short of killing him. I try to avoid fatal injuries.” It was a little late for a heads-up but at least he’d given one.
“I did not call the bird,” she said, climbing into the car after he did. “I only asked which car was yours. I do not control what comes,” she said, but she was surprised all the same. The birds had gone missing from the city lately, and she considered it a bad omen. The fact that one landed on his car surprised her. “You came, once, after all,” she said.
She crossed her legs, and she thought about his warning. “I know you would not kill without cause. My father would have seen this in your heart and not worked with you,” she said, but even she knew her father thought highly of potential, if he had seen enough potential in this man, he might have bent his rules. She did not know what he had been working on in Seattle, her father, but if it was with Drake it must have been more violent than she had anticipated.
She looked over at him. “I will have enough faith in the universe for both of us, then you will admit I am not a little girl any longer,” she said, the question as much of a challenge as the fact that she was sitting there, in his car.
“I’m not a fan of birds, and neither is my car” he said by way of explanation, though when he thought about it Drake realized he hadn’t seen many around lately. “First one I’ve seen in a while, actually. So that’s how your spells work? In mysterious ways?” He chuckled, mostly to himself, as he turned on the ignition and backed out onto the street. “What were you asking for when I came?”
If there was anyone he could believe capable of seeing who people were beneath their exteriors, it was Jose Zaldana. Even when they’d worked together Drake had the uneasy sense that the man somehow knew things just by looking at him, though whatever he’d seen must not have been bad enough to destroy any chance of trust. Or he’d simply seen some good that wasn’t often acknowledged. He’d never specifically said.
He almost rolled his eyes at the mention of faith, but a small part of him recognized that it couldn’t hurt. For a long moment he was quiet, turning onto a darker street away from the lights and heavier traffic. Drake had already scoped out a spot to hide his car without compromising his master plan. This time he looked at her, managing a smile that was a little fonder and less teasing. “Alright. Sounds fair enough.”
“I was wishing for a boy to take me away,” Zari admitted. “I had spent the summer before in Paris with father, training someone there, and then we returned home. The boys on the island were not like the ones in France, and I did not like them as much as I had before,” she said, remembering. “But then you came, and you were not a boy, and you did not look like the rich boys in France, and you were not intelligent enough to notice me,” she said, the ending definitely in a more a teasing tone than the rest.
“My father did not tell me why he came here in January,” she said, looking out at the city as he drove. “It took me four months to leave the island and come here. It was not easy, and I was worried I would not find him.” It was an odd statement, present tense and not past tense at all. “Have you found anyone with abilities to raise the dead?” she asked with perfect bluntness. He would know, she thought, given his line of work. “Someone on the computer said it could be done.”
Drake didn’t doubt for a minute that he had nothing in common with the rich French boys she’d met, but that was just fine with him. “Just the opposite. You were a teenager and I wasn’t stupid enough to push my luck with your father.” Despite the teasing it wasn’t very far from the truth. He was hardly the ideal choice for anyone’s daughter now, never mind back then.
He knew what it was like to lose a father, and since he still occasionally caught himself referring to the man in the present tense he didn’t think much of Zari doing the same. Not until she mentioned raising the dead, at least. Drake glanced at her, expression turning troubled for a brief moment before he looked away. “No.” It was the truth, but he seemed exceptionally focused on the dimly lit street ahead. “This someone give any details?”
“No. They would not give me a name,” she admitted, watching the scenery around them change from the warm safety of Bathos to something else entirely. “We are coming closer to darkness,” she said, looking over at him and giving him a questioning look. “Do you spend much time in places like this, that make your skin crawl?” Whether she could tell how he felt or whether she was just assuming was not clear, and she spared him a smile after asking the question. “I was not so young as that,” she told him, though she had been. She felt some strange need for him to take her seriously, to not look at her like a child, and she touched the space between his hand (on the steering wheel) and his sleeve.
Raising the dead was a dangerous ability, and it was also one that Drake knew wouldn’t work perfectly. There were bound to be side-effects and consequences like all abilities had, but these would likely be even worse. As much as he’d wanted his own loved ones back in the past, and still did now, there were lines not even he would cross; death was too permanent to allow a full reversal. He didn’t answer her question until the car came to a stop, headlights illuminating the walls of the alley he’d backed in to and the street beyond. The Impala would be safe enough here until they were done.
“Not as much as I used to.” Drake stilled at the hand on his arm, unsure of what the gesture was supposed to mean but strangely appreciating it at the same time. Instead of a reply he shook his head, a small smile playing on his lips, before letting go of the steering wheel. “There’s some stuff I need to get out of the trunk,” he told her, pushing open the door and getting out while he spoke over his shoulder. “Capable or not, you stay behind me once we start moving and if he shows himself you’d better not do anything impulsive before me.” The last part was a little less serious, but he still meant it.
She laughed a soft laugh, and she got out of the car and walked around to the truck. “It is good to see you are just as unnecessarily confident as you have always been,” she said, bumping her hip against his when she looked into the trunk. “If he throws something, I will be sure to duck,” she told him, but it was more bravado than anything else. She had never learned how to wield a weapon, and she had never wanted to. Her father’s ability, to manipulate matter, had meant he did not need firearms of his own. But she clung to the tricks he had taught others - smoke bombs, tiny stars to throw, things that made noise elsewhere and distracted. She had a few things in the pockets of her jeans, but not many, and she had not told him as much.
“This place,” she said, looking up at the walls of the alley, “does it frighten you?”
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” he shot back, turning they key in the last lock on the trunk (of course there was more than one, better safe than sorry) and pulling it open. The look he gave her when she bumped her hip against his was a poor attempt at exasperation, and Drake had to remind himself that this was a potentially dangerous job and required some level of focus. At least. He settled on turning his attention to the contents of the trunk, which primarily consisted of weapons, but there were items like rope and electronic devices thrown in. Most of the time he kept it all hidden unless he was on a job, like now.
The question surprised him, mainly because he figured the answer would be obvious. “No.” After he’d chosen his weapons of choice and the trunk was locked again, Drake turned his attention back to Zari. “Does it frighten you?”
She would not own to any fear she felt, but this was a strange situation for her, one she intended to see through to the end with bravado, in order to prove she was not the child he remembered. Her gaze returned to the weapons in the trunk, and she sobered somewhat. This, whatever he did, was important to her father, and so it would become to her. If it had drawn him here, to this place to die, she would not minimize it.
She considered taking a weapon, but she did not, not in the end. She merely turned to look toward the alley. “Are we going into one of the buildings, or behind it?” she asked him, and maybe pulled the wrap a little closer, perhaps, at the prospect.
Even if she was afraid, Drake wouldn’t have thought any less of her. He realized that his lack of fear wasn’t common and most people weren’t as accustomed to these kinds of situations. In a lot of ways it was a good thing; he’d never wish his lifestyle on anyone else.
“In,” he said over his shoulder, ensuring that she was behind him and he could get her out of the way if he needed to. “Just for cover. Jumping out of windows higher than the second floor isn’t as awesome as it looks in the movies.” He’d scoped out the area before and clearly knew where he was going, expecting her to follow. “You okay with that?” He paused just outside said building, keeping his voice low.
She nodded, but she did not interrupt their progress. Once or twice as they walked her hand touched the small of his back, a reminder of her presence and a movement instinctive when he wandered within reach of her arm. It indicated fear, but she stubborned it out. The air crackled around them, but she didn’t need her magic to know there was danger. “It will not be easy,” she told him, voice quiet and strange, and she wished she had understood and done a stronger spell. She whispered as they moved, something small, and addition to the protection, as much as she could manage without stirring whoever was inside.
Drake had a tendency to become too focused on the task at hand, a side effect from working alone most of the time, but Zari’s occasional touches went a long way to both remind and reassure him of her presence. “I know,” he muttered, silently withdrawing his gun from inside his jacket as they moved. Admittedly his plan would’ve worked better with bait to draw the telekinetic, but he refused to put someone else at risk like that. Not anymore. The buildings in this area were near empty at best, mostly used by those who needed temporary places to stay, so he doubted anyone they encountered would be an innocent bystander.
Maybe it was the protection spell. Maybe it was pure instinct. Hell, maybe it was a little of both; he couldn’t be sure, but something caused him to turn towards one of the front windows just in time to see a dark shape coming towards them. A second later Drake reacted, pushing Zari out of the way with urgency and just managing to dodge the flying object (a rather hefty brick) himself when it hit the window, shattering the glass and sending shards in all directions. “Stay down,” he hissed, getting to his feet and firing in the direction the projectile had come while inching towards the window. Once he had a decent visual he’d be less likely to miss.
She muttered in Spanish. “¿Que piensa este hombre?” she asked, what did he think? because she was not going to just wait quietly while someone threw things at them. It took her a moment to right herself into a crouch, and she fished a small explosive out of her pocket. It was a small thing, no bigger than a marble in the palm of her hand, and while it could not kill it could most certainly injure and distract. She threw it into the window, even as he shot and inched forward, and she listened to the roll and counted, uno, dos, tres, until it exploded, the tiny pieces of the ball going everywhere in sharp tiny, shards, surrounded by enough smoke to cause a distraction.
Did it help with his visual? No, but it meant nothing else flew through the window for a few seconds. “Anda,” she said, nudging his leg with a very smug little smile on her lips.
Drake didn’t even know what the hell Zari had thrown, not until he heard something roll on the ground outside and explode moments later; the result was just the distraction he’d needed. That didn’t mean he refrained from shooting her a look over his shoulder, one of frustration and a hint of reluctant gratitude. “You’re unbelievable,” he told her, not unkindly, before seizing his opportunity and moving forward. If she had any sense at all she would stay back this time.
He listened for any sounds of human pain as he slid over the windowsill, ignoring the broken glass that caught on his jeans, and when he heard a low grunt there was no hesitation. He fired one shot in that direction, but it was meant as a lure; when he saw another dark shape moving amidst the shadows, towards him, he fired again and threw himself to the side. Two more shots went off before bits of gravel and stones stopped coming his way, none causing much damage aside from a little stinging, and he felt a stab of apprehension as he approached the now-unmoving human shape sprawled on the pavement.
Fuck, don’t be dead, he found himself thinking. A second later he heard a moan, and a rare sigh of relief escaped his lips; more for Zari’s sake than his own.
She stayed back until she heard a pause between shots, one that indicated that one (or both) of the men were down. When she climbed over the windowsill, it was hurried and without care to the glass, and with a concern for him that she hid the moment she got close enough to see him moving as he approached the body sprawled on the ground.
She ran up beside him, swaying a little to the side, just enough so that her arm brushed his a moment. Her shawl was lost somewhere outside the window, forgotten in the moment, and she looked very young when she looked over at him. “De nada,” she said, a touch of the smug grin returning. “You are welcome.” But there was something in her eyes that said she was glad he was not hurt. She looked back down, and then she crouched in front of the man on the floor. She whispered words, thanking the Orishas for causing no death that evening, and then she looked back up at him. “What is it that you do with him now?” she asked, brushing hair out of her face with glass scraped hands.
Drake ensured the man wouldn’t bleed to death anytime soon and glanced back a moment later, just in time to see Zari’s approach before she brushed against his arm. It was completely irrational to think that she might have been hurt considering she’d stayed at a safe distance, but that didn’t stop him from giving her a quick once-over just to be sure. Physical injuries he could handle. How she felt about this man lying injured at their feet, well, that was something else entirely.
“I never said thank you,” he pointed out, but reluctant or not he knew that the little explosive thing had helped and that much was evident in his voice. He kneeled beside her, momentarily distracted as he caught her wrist and studied her hands for any glass that might be embedded in them. He could give himself the same inspection later. “We get him to a hospital. I’ll call in advance so they know what’s coming. Someone takes care of all the details and there’s one EIT uses a lot.” Turning his attention away from Zari, Drake focused on the man and leaned forward so he could whisper in his ear. “Try anything and I’ll throw you out on the road,” he hissed, waiting for the man to nod before pulling back. He looked like he was in quite a bit of pain, and hopefully that would be enough.
It took a couple minutes to maneuver himself properly, but he managed to get a decent grip on the man’s upper body. “Can you get his legs?” If she couldn’t he’d just figure something else out, though it would be easier with two.
“I forgive you for not thanking me,” she said her smile lasting until he looked at her hands, which were only scraped and nothing more. If he had looked up at her then, he would have seen a fond look on her face just then. When he was concerned and his walls were down, he reminded her a little of that teenager he had been, the one who had come to her father.
When he asked if she could get his legs, she made a soft, indignant sound that said she would do it, even if it broke her back. Luckily, he was not that heavy, and she took the man’s ankles and lifted, while giving Drake a smugly satisfied look that was so innocent it could easily be a figment of his imagination. “You made me a promesa,” she reminded him. A promise.
Despite the fact that they were carrying a wounded telekinetic between the two of them, Drake still managed a chuckle when she made that indignant sound. It was another point in her favor, which also happened to go a long way towards earning his respect. Most women he knew would’ve been more than happy to play damsel in distress and let him take charge. “I remember.” His grin faded, but he had a feeling she’d look at him differently once she knew about her father’s death. Hell, he knew she would, and it shouldn’t have bothered him in the first place.
“I’ll admit you’re not a little girl anymore,” he said after a pause, a teasing tone evident in his voice even though it was a way to stall the inevitable. Once they reached the car he managed to open the back door, even though there was a clear effort to keep hold of him with one arm, and lowered him onto the seat with more caution than he’d usually show. Hopefully the makeshift bandage he’d constructed from the guy’s hoodie would be enough to keep him from bleeding all over the seat. “Once we get him to the hospital, I’ll hold up my end of the deal.” Drake paused to gauge her reaction, but it’d be easier to talk when they didn’t have Mr. Gunshot Wound in the backseat.
The way he intentionally extended the amount of time before he told her what happened to her father was worrisome, and something clicked in her that said he had something to do with his death. She glanced once at the man in the backseat, and then she looked up into Drake’s face with a stubborn tip of her chin and knowledge in her eyes. “¿Necessitas tiempo?” she asked him, do you need time, which he did. “To be brave enough to say what you must say?” There was something in her eyes that spoke to wanting to cling to him, as much as she wanted to stamp and demand he tell her right then. “Esta bien. We shall do it your way,” she said, turning and climbing into the front seat without looking at him. Her heart was racing, and she kept her expression calm and quiet, despite the stormy waters beneath the surface.
Drake’s expression hardened into something practised, an exterior meant to conceal and protect. His delay had nothing to do with cowardice and it hit a nerve for her to suggest otherwise whether she meant it or not, but beneath that was the guilt he always carried just below the surface. He made his way around the back of the car and slid into the driver’s seat without a glance in Zari’s direction, and he said nothing during the entire drive to the hospital except for one brief phone call. The only time he took his eyes off the road was to cast a quick glance back at the man, who thankfully kept his ability to himself, to ensure he was still breathing.
Someone was waiting near the hospital’s entrance, a woman EIT had dealt with a few times in the past after people started asking questions and drop-offs became risky, along with a man in scrubs and a wheeled stretcher. The man was removed from the backseat and transferred onto the stretcher without much difficulty, and after a quick muffled conversation Drake got back in the car and hit the gas, using enough speed to put distance between them and the hospital without drawing too much attention to themselves.
It wasn’t until he found a nearly empty lot to park in that he turned the engine off and turned to Zari, giving her his full attention for the first time since they’d left the scene. “You want to know how your father died?”
She knew something she had said had hit a nerve, as the saying went, but she did not know what. The silence made her nervous and angry by turns, and she was thankful when they had dropped off the man at the hospital. His conversation with the other woman, as quick as it was, made her realize that he did this regularly, this risking of his life, and she was not sure she liked the way that pressed at her chest. As he drove, she took in the set of his shoulders and the hardness of his expression. Anger. It was anger, and a wall meant to hide it, and she was momentarily sorry for what she had done to cause it. It was chased away, the feeling, as quick as it came when she reminded herself that he had something he was not telling.
She was already looking at him when he turned his attention to her, fingers nervously tugging at the ends of her shawl, chin tipped slightly upward in a show of defiance that was more childlike than she realized. “To get to this place, to Seattle, I risked my life on a raft no bigger than this car for days and weeks at sea. I spent time recovering in a hospital, and I had to fight my way into your country. Si, I want to know what happened to my father.”
Her show of defiance did little to reassure him, because he saw it as an intentional effort to disguise how she really felt. Drake knew that if he were in her position he would have hated the person who delivered news of his father’s death, just as much as he hated himself for being there and letting it happen, but not being there felt just as worse. Even if he’d been the sort of person who was good with words there was no way to lessen the blow. It would only make things worse if he treated her like a child and tried.
“I asked your father to come here,” he began, and it sounded a lot like he was admitting to that fact. “EIT’s always been lacking in numbers. Sometimes we need outside help to get the job done. Back in January we had our hands full with a Creation who could control electricity. Produce it too, to a certain extent. We couldn’t get him before he escalated and by the time I contacted your dad he’d killed two people. I needed someone I could trust, someone capable; and his ability was more useful than mine.” The pause that followed was brief. “We had a plan. It went fine at first - we lured him into a contained area we’d set up before, modified by your dad to absorb electrical charges. The problem was a miscalculation on our part. His power was stronger than I’d thought, but your dad... he knew more about the technical aspects than I did. He knew how to fix what was wrong, and what he did with that ability of his worked. The Creation was weakened, but he lived. Your father didn’t have the same resistance built up and he didn’t make it out.”
Drake hadn’t actually looked at her while he spoke, instead fixing on a point outside the window behind her, but once he finished he met her gaze and steeled himself for her reaction. “I’m sorry. It shouldn’t have been him.”
It reminded her of that moment in the old, black-and-white peliculas back home when you knew something was sneaking up on the beautiful blonde actress, but you did not yet know what the monster was. She felt the same twisting and turning of her stomach as he told his tale, and she already knew she would not like how it ended. She watched him the entire time as he spoke, and she did not look away or try to hide from this thing, this storia of nightmares that he was telling her.
Her father, she knew, had liked him. He had only Zari, only a daughter, and he was always fond of the young men he trained. He thought he gave them a little bit of himself to carry off into the world, and he would not (Zari knew) have turned Drake down - no matter how dangerous the job. Her jaw tightened a little bit, and she wanted to reach out and hit him, to make him hurt for not realizing an old man should not be doing such things. The air around them crackled, turning the car warm and uncomfortable, and she had to hold her tongue a moment lest she curse him without thinking.
When he looked at her again to apologize, she reached out and placed one finger at the center of his chest. It was a light touch - no force, no magic. “My father was not estupido. He would have known the power was too much. He did this for you,” she said angrily, and she knew it would hurt, and part of her wanted him to hurt as she did in that moment.
She opened the car door, and she did not ask him before stepping out. “Where did you bury him?” she asked, tears already streaming down her cheeks messily, fast.
Drake didn’t argue with her. He couldn’t, not even if he’d wanted to, because she was right. Jose Zaldana’s death was on his shoulders and he would bear that guilt just like he did for his own father, along with his brother and all the others he hadn’t been able to save over the years. Deserved or not, her anger still stung more than he would have liked.
He got out of the car after she did, opting to stay on his side instead of following her. “Maltby Cemetery. It’s small, just outside of Seattle.” At the very least he’d had a proper burial and resting place, not that it changed anything. Drake didn’t get back in, not yet. Zari may have hated him at the moment but he wasn’t leaving her out here alone.
She registered the fact that he had gotten out of the car, but she did not turn or look at him. She waited for footsteps, and when she heard none she took two steps of her own forward, toward the street and the end of the quiet lot. She stopped midway, and only then did she turn and look at him. She said nothing then, either, not at first. She just looked at him, this man who she had wanted for her own before she was old enough to understand what that meant. He was as handsome now as he was then. Not a conventional prince, no, but something stronger. There was hurt in her eyes for a second, and then a defiant tip of her chin. She did not know the cemetery, but she would find it.
The bus stop was near enough for her to see, and she considered turning and walking toward it without saying anything at all. But the hurt in her chest did not overpower the fact that her father had died for him, to keep him safe, to help him. It ached, that, but it meant she could not leave things as they were. “My father died wanting to help you, to keep you safe,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over the wind and city noise. “I will help keep you safe in his honor,” she told him, emphasis intentional, jealousy tangible, something more than that hidden beneath the words. She turned, then, for that bus stop and the distantly approaching bus. It didn’t matter where it was going; she would get on it.
He waited for her to say something, anything that would break the tense silence now hanging between the two of them. Drake knew from the way she looked at him that she wouldn’t be getting back in the car, and he thought it better to give her some space for now.
When Zari did speak, it wasn’t something he wanted to hear. Her father had died trying to help him and he wasn’t going to let the same happen to her, no matter how stubborn or headstrong she was. Drake didn’t want or need anyone’s protection, least of all hers. “No, you won’t.” It wasn’t said loud enough for her to hear, and he waited until the bus actually came before getting in the car and pulling back out on the road.