The End of an Old Life
When the sky goes still, men and women create their own thunder. One such unending roar echoed out from the tunnel-like pickup area. Murmurs of travelers, the putter of idle vehicle engines, and the screeching brakes of endless fleets of buses allied together in violent response to the miles of still pastureland surrounding the airport. This current human attempt to outshine nature distracted Nathan Daler just barely as he took in his first glimpse of Elem Island. On the opposite side of several lanes of traffic and down a short hillside, the sun heated a square parking lot to a near sizzle. Lush, green hills rose and fell beyond them up into the mountains in a parody of the ocean waves that crashed against the shoreline. The spacious terminals of the airport threw out and received planes like a game of tennis set on the world stage, but by lips alone, Nathan said a silent goodbye to those wings that had brought him here to the home of his enemies. This was an end. He would make it into a beginning.
The automatic doors swished open, and the air-conditioning blew against his back. The high population area drowned Nathan’s awareness in noises of a dozen kinds. He felt small. He was small, apparently, at least compared to average teenage males. The world around concerned him more. What was he supposed to do with all the machinery at his front and people collecting behind him? Orders of where to go and how to act usually played foreigner’s guidebook in unfamiliar environments, but the older and much taller man in a black fedora at his side stood stoic.
Tyrese gets to feel calm while I’m stuck worrying about everybody else. Instincts kicked on, and Nathan enjoyed the view while planning how to properly keep from being shot. I just need to keep watch.
Dozens of people dragged their suitcases over the indented, metal flooring striped in felt just outside the sliding glass doors. The wheels clacked as they crossed over its top. If the mass of people didn’t kill Nathan through a growing sense of fear, the ear-thwacking noise would do it. Two military-aged males, strong and lean, spoke beside a column and near a potted fern off to the left. While they gave no indication of ill intent, they had also followed him from the terminal. Nobody else tailed him. His anxiety bucked within him, but if he didn’t give his paranoia a say once in a while… Well, death salivated for moments like that.
“Can we go yet?” Flickers of power from in among the humans, sensory glimpses of the magic-blooded Carnadi, infiltrated Nathan’s head.
“My limousine is on its way.” Tyrese placed his wrinkled hand on the strap of his— actually Nathan’s— suitcase. “Try to relax. If you are attempting to act like a normal young man, you could use some improvement. You are safe. This city is not as dangerous as it appears.”
“Appearances can tell you a lot about somebody.”
Nathan stuffed his hands within the pockets of his white hoodie, one of the many gifts from Tyrese meant to change the appearance and blend in. The soft everyday camouflage felt like Tyrese’s possession rather than his own. His shoulders fidgeted.
The minutes passed slowly, and Nathan took in every movement of things living or not through a gaze that settled on pillars and trash cans so that peripheral vision did its job. Groups of people slipped in and out of sight. Some disappeared into buses or taxis, and a few crossed the street for the parking lot. Beyond the young men whom he had noticed to the left, two guards marched along the edge of the pickup area. Their knee-length coats of a faded yet once pearly white bore crimson trim along the edges, and assault rifles attached with fun and expensive accoutrements hung from slings over their shoulders. Whitecoats were an expectation when coming to their home turf, but seeing their patrols and not having a plan in motion to evade or engage fired a glance from him down at his sneakers
A man in a teal button-down dodged past them and offered apology. He continued toward one of the buses groaning like a giant beast as it waited underneath the grey shade of the canvas roof that arched over them. The man reminded Nathan’s racing heart of the number of unknowns walking nearby. People, goals, affiliations, the vast expanse of human self-mindedness brought Nathan back to the reason he was standing at Tyrese’s side. Lies mauled his dreams and beliefs once. Could he handle betrayal a second time, and where would it come from next?
The Whitecoats set their stern faces toward Nathan, and fear crept out from where it nested.
They’re here to bring me in. At an exhale, he warned his limbs that they would soon be moving, and moving fast. Trusting Tyrese was a mistake.
Nathan wouldn’t go to prison peacefully. His bones ached to fight and maintain his grip on this newfound freedom. Every distracting emotion plummeted deep into his soul like a drop of water into a well, and the ripples of magic came. The lead Whitecoat raised a hand, and Nathan’s power surged toward his fingers, his gloves being the only thing between him and his new enemies. He readied himself to pull them off and fight every man and woman here. Fingers pinched the clasp. It made sense, truly. He had just begun to search for a new life, and it brought him as much death as before.
“Afternoon, Knight Commander,” the Whitecoat greeted Tyrese, then he pointed at Nathan. “Is he family of yours or something?”
“He is from the continent,” Tyrese answered. “Ah, I remember you from the bank heist some years back. Yes, the one where the man opened the walls with Uliecano’s earth magic. I see you are patrolling the airport now. That is good. Transportation safety is an important job that too few consider in their day-to-day. How do you feel about this?”
“Like it about as much as I like being passed up for a promotion by my CO. That’s life, I guess.” The Whitecoat half-grimaced. “Didn’t mean to interrupt. Just wanted to say hi, and welcome back to Elem. We’ll leave you to your business, sir. Take care.”
“You as well.”
Tyrese waved back, and a limousine with tinted windows pulled up in front of them. Nathan swallowed down a gulp. If Tyrese had wanted to bind him in chains, Kelhadda would have been a million times better of a place to do it. Nathan sighed and stepped to the dark, glossy surface of the limo as his rescuer and true friend opened the door for him. Apparently, the world was only occasionally out to destroy him. Tyrese wasn’t. For now. Maybe a certain hope that he found himself seeking more often as of late stretched to bask in the sun of a long horizon, and Nathan merely needed to reach that distant place to soothe his pain. How far away was such a paradise where he could gain a little peace and forget all he had gone through, all he had survived?
I’ll try to make some allies first before finding a happy life. Besides, if I knew how to get to hope on my own, I wouldn’t be here. If I really did know that, I might’ve even killed Tyrese when I had the chance.
