CONTAINS CONTENT:
Minor action and language
Eventually, the swirling purple and black storm dissipated, but several of the other Valorant members wanted to go inside of it first. Like children, they took turns darting in and out and experiencing the darkness that surrounded them. Kiritani said that you could almost see a storm brewing, lightning and all. Marielle had agreed.
When John’s show was over, Marielle caught sight of Han in a corner talking to Austin, who looked altogether thrilled to be speaking with another beautiful woman. It was difficult to read their body language at first. They were just talking, and there was an occasional smile. However, at one point, Han slapped his forearm as she laughed.
Uh-oh… touching… There was definitely a plan taking place here. Presently, all Austin was doing was leaning against the wall, his thumbs hanging on his belt loops. He was looking down, which Marielle felt was unusual for him. Generally speaking, when Austin tried to seduce someone, he looked directly at them. Maybe this was more friendly and less about something intimate?
Eventually, Austin nodded and Han jumped into the air, floating for a moment. Austin watched her with some surprise and grinned when she landed.
What were they talking about? Marielle wondered. She looked away and went to Vincent. He was working on the control panel just outside of the training room.
Liam stepped forward. “I want everyone to know I’ve allowed Vincent to take charge of training for the next day or two so he can tell us about the ones we don’t know how to fight.”
Vincent nodded his thanks to Liam, who clapped him on the shoulder with a big hand and squeezed before stepping back to get some coffee.
Klara approached Vincent as he loaded information in. “I’m not sure if I should mention this yet. Maybe it’s premature?” she said to him.
Vincent pushed a few more buttons. “What…? The… Oh. Share if you’d like,” he replied with a smile.
Klara turned to the others, most of whom seemed to be waiting. Austin and Han rejoined the conversation as well, sitting down at the end of the long table just outside the training room. They were talking quietly to each other, exchanging glances, and… Did Marielle see a wink? Ugh. It was driving her crazy, which was probably exactly what Austin wanted.
She tried to focus on the others. Jamie and Mateo sat at another table with a chess game. Obviously, neither of them knew how to play, so they were arguing about it. Or maybe one of them did, and the other didn’t? It was hard to tell.
“I did something with the robot that broke last year,” Klara explained. “He’s meant to kill other radiants. I call him KAY/O.”
Tala was leaning on the only vending machine in the entire building, chugging a coke. She stopped mid-swallow and nearly choked. “Wait, he’s supposed to kill us?” she asked, concerned.
“He won’t be able to,” Klara explained. “I’ve programmed him to try but fail for now. We’re putting him into the training room.”
Tala looked a little relieved but still curious, and cautiously optimistic about the situation.“Man!” Mateo shouted, and he flipped the chessboard over, scattering the pieces onto the floor.
“Ayyy, I like this game!” Jamie replied, jumping up and doing some kind of little dance. Apparently, he’d won. Well, according to his rules anyway.
There was a bit of shuffling around. Marielle wandered to the vending machine to get a 7Up. In reality, she was trying to discreetly hear what Austin and Han were saying. She watched them in the reflection of the vending machine glass. Han laughed and reached over the table to touch Austin’s arm just below his elbow. He was grinning at her. Why did that hurt so much?
You’re such a moron, Marielle. This is exactly why you aren’t with him. He was all over you not half an hour ago, and now he’s more than happy to be talking to the next pretty girl who comes along and gives him a little attention that could lead to the bedroom.
Austin’s eyes briefly met hers in the reflection, and hers darted away. She wanted to growl, but instead she took her 7Up and went back to Vincent, who was putting on a training vest. Klara was helping him fasten it in the back, and Tayane helped Klara fasten hers. They had something of a conga line going on. Everyone else suited up on their own, but Marielle noted that Han helped Austin and vice versa.
Vincent cleared his throat. “The first thing I want to talk to everyone about is Finola.”
“Yeah, we haven’t seen much from her,” Kiritani interjected from the back of the room. He leaned against a wall, rolling his glowing teleportation orb across the floor, then bringing it back like he was playing ball.
Vincent ushered everyone into the training room. The entire group stood in the wide, open space filled with obstacles, cement blocks, ladders, and walls. “The first thing we need to do”—the lights suddenly cut out and plunged the entire group into blackness—“is learn how to shoot blind.” His voice pierced the darkness.
The lights slowly came back up, and Marielle’s eyes flicked to Austin and Han, half expecting them to be making out in a corner. They were not. In fact, they were nowhere near one another.
“We’ve done a little of that in preparation for fighting against someone like Kiritani, Erik, or Jamie.” Liam stepped forward.
“Now would be a good time to brush up on those skills,” Vincent said, stroking his chin. “You have three options: hide until it’s over, stand and fight, or die.”
“I don’t like any of those options,” Kiritani muttered.
“I don’t particularly either, Kiritani. But that’s it.”
“Wonderful,” Austin sighed.
“Have you ever fought someone like me?” Jamie asked, turning to Austin.
He shook his head and looked down. “No, I don’t do much fighting.” Marielle narrowed her eyes at him, one word flashing in her mind intensely: False.
“Yeah, no offense,” Sabine began, glancing up from the tips of her black nails to flash Austin a condescending look, “but what are you even doing here?”
John was standing partially behind her, looking off. It was obvious that he wanted to show as little of himself as possible to the rest of them. Marielle’s heart broke for him.
Austin stared right back, meeting her intensity with his own annoyance. “Enjoying the view.”
John lifted his hands and released smoke between them, blocking Austin from seeing Sabine. Marielle couldn’t help but smirk, and a few of the others actually laughed.
Austin lifted his hands and started out, removing his gloves. “I’ll go,” he said flatly.
“No, don’t go.” Han started after him.
Vincent was facing the back wall, doing something with his Trademark, which he’d pulled from his arm. Austin was halfway out the door when Vincent shocked the room by saying, “I want him to stay.”
Austin jerked to a stop and looked over his left shoulder.
“You sure about that, soldier?” Liam pressed, standing near Vincent. He glanced at what Vincent, was doing, clearly unable to make heads or tails of it.
“Oui.” He turned to Austin, who was now standing with his hands in his pockets looking at Vincent quizzically. “We might need him. Now that his big secret is out, I think it is time that he learned how to fight with the rest of us.” He glanced at Marielle, then back down at whatever he was doing with the Trademark. “I want him here.”
“I must have missed it… What’s his big secret?” Kiritani asked.
Marielle smiled knowingly.
“He’s like us.” Kirra beamed.
Austin sighed begrudgingly, then lifted his hands and shot a patch of ice onto the ground in the center of the room. Everyone who didn’t know he could do this stood in awe. Tala bent down to test how cold it was and had to jerk her fingertips back.
“Okay, but I can already do that,” Wei Ling said with confidence. Then she bowed slightly as if realizing she might have said something offensive.
“Yeah, but you can’t do this.” Austin took in a deep lungful of air, puffed up his chest, and blew out a frosty, icy breath that chilled the entire room to the point that snow danced in the air before them. Several of the team stood under the falling flakes. Tala, Efia, and Wei Ling caught a few on their tongues. All of the girls laughed like children, but several of the others shivered and wrapped their arms around themselves. The ghost of a proud smile crossed Austin’s face.
“That was nice in this heat,” Efia said from the back.
“Remind me to invite you to the Christmas party,” Liam chuckled, crossing his big arms over his chest.
“Yeah, I make a great snow machine,” Austin scoffed. Then he lifted his right hand again. “I can do this, too,” he added. He twirled his fingers like a drummer would twirl a drumstick, and a stalagmite appeared, which he proceeded to throw like a knife directly at a target on the wall. Bull’s-eye. Then he did it again, and the second piece of ice split the first—another bull’s-eye.
Marielle’s eyes widened. Wait… Austin flashed her a look that said something to the effect of, “You got me,” and then, “Later.” He looked away from her.
“Cold as ice,” Han said with a shiver.
Mateo let out a disgusted gagging sound, which Marielle was tempted to echo.
“Regardless, I want him here,” Vincent repeated, coming back into the circle.
“Yeah, but… he’s also exhausted,” Marielle protested.
Vincent gave her a sharp look, one that warned her not to argue with him. “I know.”
Sabine began to stalk angrily out of the room. “You could have let us know all of that when it would have been useful,” she hissed over her shoulder.
“He’s doing what he can,” Vincent shot back. Marielle narrowed her eyes at this. Why was Vincent defending him?
“Awww, come on, don’t give me the cold shoulder,” Austin quipped.
Sabine rounded on him abruptly, lifting her right arm. “I’m about to give you a mouthful of gas.” Everyone inched back except Marielle, who stepped forward, one hand raised. Sabine ignored her. “A special kind. It’ll definitely put a mark or two on that pretty face.”
“I was just kidding… and trying to be friendly,” Austin replied defensively.
“I don’t have time for your jokes.” She whirled around. “And I certainly don’t want to be your friend. Coldhearted prick,” she growled under her breath as she left the room.
John followed her to the vending machine and stood behind her, shifting awkwardly as she selected a bottle of water. He swallowed and looked down, shaking like a teenager getting ready to ask his crush to the prom, except there was no cookie with M&M’s that spelled out “PROM;” there were no flowers. In fact, there wasn’t even a handsome young man… just him. The reflection of his face and its bright eye sockets blaring with light made him look away.
Sabine turned to him. “What is it?” she whispered gently, concerned.
“It’s nothing.”
She put a hand on his left cheek and turned his face back to her. “No, it’s something. Were you hurt by their words?”
“No,” he replied quickly. “I am in distress, though.”
“Tell me.”
“Sabine, you’re my entire world. I would know nothing without you.” She cocked her head at him a little curiously. “I don’t like thinking that you are angry with them”—he hung his head—“or with me.”
“I’m not angry, John. I’m bitter.” She exhaled slowly, and again forced him to look at her. She could feel the shifting sands on his skin as they moved and danced, transferring themselves to other dimensions and back again. “I’m shut off.”
“Sabine,” he began as quietly as his deep, gravelly voice allowed, and the way he said her name made her pause, “all I want is for you to love me.” She turned her head for a moment as if thinking. He lifted a hand and placed it on his chest over his heart. “Can you accept… this?”
The moment the words left his lips, he shifted back as if upset that he’d said them.
She scoffed, “I’m not about looks, John,” and met his eyes again, pulling his face back to look at her. “I never have been. Morgan was handsome, yes, but I didn’t need him to be. We just fell in love.” She stroked his cheek gently, then narrowed her eyes, questioning. “Can you feel me?”
He swallowed and closed his eyes. “All I can feel is you… All I want is for you to love me.”
A soft smile spread across her mouth. “I do.”
He looked down, unable to cry because he no longer had tear ducts. “I look like a nightmare,” he breathed, trying to cower back a little. “A ghost.”
She took his face in both of her hands and forced him to look at her again. “Then I love a nightmare… a ghost,” she assured him, her glassy eyes filling. He would have been crying if he could, and she could see the longing in his eyes to do so. Instead, a tear fell from her green eyes. “And I can cry for both of us,” she whispered, stretching up to press her lips to his.
Like a young man uncertain and afraid, he stood still for a moment, not knowing how to respond. The first thing he did was lift a hand and envelop them in a big, swirling purple and black dome of smoke so they were entirely alone. Then he wrapped his strong arms around her and pulled her body against him. She could feel the sands sweeping and gently scraping across her lips, and to her it was wonderful.
She pulled away and smiled up at him. The softest smile lay there for her, too. She stepped out of the smoke, which dissipated immediately, and went to the wardrobe for training gear. There wasn’t much, but she found a hooded black sweatshirt and brought it back to him.
“If it helps,” she explained. He nodded, taking it and slipping it on over his black T-shirt.
They returned to the training room and shuffled in in time to hear Vincent talking about needing to know how to shoot blind again. He was demonstrating something they’d apparently missed, but both were able to jump back into it with everyone else.
The rest of the day was a blur to Marielle. She remembered them all taking turns five at a time to shoot against the bots, including the new one that was programmed to act like them at times… KAY/O. She was certain Vincent set it up so that she and Austin were never on the same team. At one point, however, he was on Austin’s, along with Sabine, John, and Tala.
“Let’s plan this out,” Vincent said, kneeling down in the middle of all of them. “Austin, take left. I’ll go with you and set up Trademark there.” He gestured to a set of boxes, and Austin nodded his compliance. “I’ve programmed one of the bots to put something down on the ground to mimic a spike. Let’s pretend we’re actually going to defuse it, because we absolutely will in the next few days. Klara and I already discovered three or four areas in Venice that look like possible plant locations. That is why Han’s double was there, and caused the destruction she did.”
The others nodded in response. “Here’s how this is going to work. Austin and I to the left, Tala in the middle.” He looked at her with raised eyebrows as if to ask if that was okay. She nodded. “Parfait. Sabine, John, you two stay near each other, but John should stay hidden.”
Vincent turned to Sabine, addressing her now. “I want you to practice laying down your Viper’s Pit, and then not dying,” he growled, referring to her ultimate. “Stay alive, stay hidden. John will cover you.” He looked to John, who nodded. “If Sabine is hit, John will teleport in and defuse the spike.”
“I’m not certain bout the teleporting.”
Vincent stood, giving John a pat on the forearm, “No better time to learn, my friend.” John nodded, accepting this. “Once Sabine has her gas up, we are all onsite protecting her and defusing the spike, no exceptions.” He glared at Austin. “Are we clear?”
Austin agreed.
“How are we going to defuse the bomb?” Tala asked, raising her hand.
“In this particular game, it’s a simple button. In real time? Klara and I are still working on that,” he said with a heavy sigh. “We’ll be working on it for at least another day or two, but we’re doing it.”
“Well, it better be soon,” Sabine noted.
Vincent nodded. “Okay, what does everyone have in the way of weapons?”
All of the weapons were fake, but they raised and waggled their fake guns over their heads as if they’d all planned it like that. He chuckled and shook his head. They looked like a bunch of loony toons. “Weapon choice, it is so personal, no? You pick a gun, and it tells me who you are.” He took them to the wall in the back where all of the weapons were. “Okay, so who knows about guns and how much?”
“I’m trained,” Sabine said dismissively.
“I’m trained,” Austin parroted.
Tala raised her hand. “I… have no idea what I’m doing.”
All eyes turned to her. Tala was the newest and youngest of all of them. Maybe her lack of knowledge made sense.
Vincent nodded and put his hands on the table with the weapons. “Okay, so in this part of the match I’m going to call the buy phase—”
Austin broke in. “Why?”
Vincent shrugged and turned his head to him. “It… sounds cool?”
Austin raised an eyebrow.
“It’s as good an answer as any,” Sabine quipped.
Vincent turned back to the others and continued, “I’m going to teach you about the weapons available, what they do, how hard they hit, and why, as well as teach you about gun safety and how to use them.”
“Sounds good,” Tala replied.
Talking to them about the firearms took Vincent a while, and those who already knew weapons well dispersed to the waiting room. Marielle went back out into the waiting room and sat with the others for a while.
“Do you want to talk?” Jamie asked, and it was obvious that he meant about Austin.
“Nope,” she replied with a heavy sigh and strong emphasis on the P. She was leaning on the table, cupping her chin.
“You sure?” Jamie pressed.
“Nah,” she replied with the hint of a wink.
Marielle felt someone standing behind her. She knew he was big; she could sense his presence like it was everywhere. “You will, however, be talking to me,” Liam said.
“Darn,” she said under her breath. She turned and looked up into his handsome, fatherly face. “Hey, Liam. How are you?”
“Shall we go to your office?” he asked, gesturing.
She stood, and they went to the elevator and up to her personal space. Once inside, Marielle sat down at her desk, and Liam stood facing her with his arms crossed. “You know I am not one to judge,” he began. “Lord knows I’ve had my fill of good times and bad in my life. I’ve definitely been through the fire.”
“Ha… ha,” Marielle said under her breath.
“When you’re standing in a house that can get to be six hundred degrees at eye level, you know it’s time to bail long before that. You also know it’s time to drag out the hose.”
“Okay, I understand the metaphor from your firefighter days, Dad.” She hadn’t said ‘Dad’ sarcastically; she meant it—she loved the guy. “But what are you saying?”
He leaned over her desk, getting into her face a little. “It’s your life. Do what you want. I’ll love you regardless. When I lost my little Molly, my world ended, but when you came here? I knew that part of me was still alive. Take that as you will. I love you. That’s all I’ll say. Now, listen to me, sweetheart. Austin Rancor is a wild flame… and you’re the house those flames have decided to devour. I’m not suggesting that he’s a bad guy, an evil guy, or any such thing. But if you play with fire, you’re going to get burned.”
She had been expecting that particular phrase somewhere in his speech. Liam gave her a nod, and then turned to leave. He paused, showing her his profile for a moment. “He’s got a lot of changing to do first.” Then he walked through the door.
That shocked her. First? What did he mean first? She wanted to run after him and ask him to explain himself, but she’d do no such thing. One didn’t ask Liam to explain anything.
Marielle leaned forward, checked her watch, and checked the schedule. It was 2:30, and she had no other appointments for the day. She growled in frustration. She had promised Han she’d go out with her, but apparently Austin was her date. She could already feel knots of jealousy twisting in her stomach.
You have no right or reason to be jealous, Marielle, she told herself. Just get over it and go out like you said you would.
She stood and went to the door. I’ll buy a dress first, she thought. All of my dresses at home are freaking red. Or the wrong style. What do you wear to the club?
She went to her car, and then drove to the nearest mall after she shot Vincent a text about her plans. He replied with a smile emoji and, “I’ll be here a while teaching the few who know nothing about guns anyway. Have fun.”
Strangely, no matter what store she popped into, she couldn’t find something that seemed appropriate. The list of potentials included too short, not short enough, too much like a tea dress, a summer shift, red… red… more red! None of them were right, and several were too warm for the temperature right now. Her car dash said it was ninety-six.
Marielle went into one last dress store, and after a few racks, she found a white, pearlized spaghetti strap cami dress with a boned corset top. It was fun and sexy, but certainly nothing like the dress she’d worn to the party last night. She would be far more covered in this, even though it would accentuate her curves and do wonders for her bust line.
She ran to try it on, studying herself in the mirror. The mid-thigh length was great, and it fit her beautifully. She bought it and went back to Valorant, thinking in the back of her head, Austin will still love it, but oh well. I can’t always dress down for him.
When she got back to Valorant, she went to see Kirra in the morgue. They had a brief discussion about the bodies that had been there for several days, all of whom had been dying. Varun’s artifact had been removed from his wrist at Liam’s direction and stored somewhere until their own Varun returned. No one knew where it was except someone trusted. Marielle guessed that meant Sabine.
“Where are the others?” she asked Kirra.
“Still down in the training room with Vincent, if you want to go see them. I had other things to do,” Kirra said as she put some white gloves on. Marielle nodded, and turned to leave. “Marielle?” She stopped. “Doctor Rancor… do you love him?”
She shook her head, hanging it between her shoulders “My goodness, Kirra, does everyone know except me?”
There was a long pause. “I guess you’ll work it out,” Kirra said, signaling the end of the conversation.