Lost Rain - Seeking Strays - Chapter 94 - What’s Unsaid

I woke up sometime later. I wasn’t quite sure when, but Sylvie was passed out leaning against the couch with my tail in her lap. I watched her sleeping face for a moment before sitting up and stretching out. A small whimper left her as my tail slid out of her hands, but she quieted back down once I scooped her up in my arms and set her on the couch I’d just been using.

My ears flicked as the sounds of fingers on a keyboard abruptly stopped from the kitchen. My nose twitched, and I relaxed once more. Quinn appeared at the kitchen door a moment later. “You’re up? How are you feeling?”

“Better.” I glanced at Sylvie, and motioned for us to go into the kitchen. Quinn nodded her head as we gave my sister some space to sleep. “So…”

”So?” Quinn crossed her arms over her chest. Based on her laptop and the paperwork set up on the kitchen table, she’d been here for a while already. 

“She tell you?” I asked as I stared at her feet. My ears stayed perked up and alert, though. 

“‘Course she did… Do you want to tell me?” Quinn asked. There was no judgement in her voice. Just… exhaustion.

“I’m a… a Psyker.” The words came out brokenly. Despite how my heart throbbed and ached, I logically wasn't too worried about her running away. She wouldn’t still be here if that was the case. “S-sorry.”

”For what? Lying to me all this time, or only telling me when you were forced to?” She said it casually like it was a joke. There was a slight sting to her voice that made me wince.

”Both.” I took a deep breath and flicked my eyes to meet hers. Her eyes glowed with a deep blue light, making me look away instantly. “I should’ve told you.”

”Yeah.” 

My ears flattened as I stared at her shoes. There were so many words I wanted to say. Some many I couldn’t. “I should’ve said something before. We’re partners, and I… I was scared.”

”Of me?” Although she’d been hiding it, the lonely pain leaking through her voice made my heart throb. 

Yes. Of how easily you could shatter the broken pieces of me without even trying. “O-of everything. It’s not just you.” 

I could feel her eyes boring into me. “Did you really think I’d turn on you?”

”I wasn’t sure.” I still wasn’t. This felt like a fever dream.

”We’ve been through hell together, Reyna.” She took a deep breath like she hadn’t meant to keep pushing me, and stopped talking.

I squeezed my eyes shut. “I shouldn’t have let it go this long. I—“ 

Quinn crossed the distance and pulled me into a tight hug. Her arms wrapped around me, running soothing circles across my back. Tears welled up in my eyes as I returned the hug and held her tightly. I stubbornly refused to let them drop as I basked in her warmth. ”I”m just glad you’re okay, Reyna.” 

I thought my world would collapse once it came out that I was a Psyker. I wasn’t a total idiot, okay? I knew it’d leak eventually. Wether because the Hades Syndicate let it leak, or I myself fucked up. Heh… so it was my own fault that it got out afterall. 

Here, wrapped in an affectionate hug I never thought I’d feel again, that dread faded away. It felt so, so very good to get it off my chest. My lips parted as I almost spilled everything else. I stopped just shy as I breathed roughly around the collar. In the end, I cowardly kept my mouth shut and just enjoyed the warmth even as a part of my broken heart shriveled.  

I’d dreaded and dreamed of this moment for years. Revealing my tainted nature should’ve driven them all away. I’d envisioned Tidebreak turning on me countless times, from her suffocating me with her water to driving tide spears through my chest. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine it’d come out because of my own weakness, and they’d be there to hold me up anyway.

For the first time since I was a teenager being treated by Director Roose, I actually felt hopeful that everything would be okay… Pyre, please let this one end okay and not in disaster like Project HND. I really couldn’t take it if I had to live through another Red Night. 

My arms wrapped tighter around Quinn, and my tail flicked forward to curl around her leg. I wasn’t sure how long we stood there like that. Her scent washed over me like a hand reaching through the darkness. It was only once Vigil peeked around the corner to check on me that my arms loosened. He immediately ducked back into the living room.

“So, inhibitors, huh?” Quinn pulled away from the hug, though leaned against the counter with her arm around my shoulders. My tail stayed curled around her leg.

I winced, and tried to clear my thoughts once more. “Yeah. You don’t need to worry about it. I’ve got it totally under control.”

“Really, Reyna?” Her voice had a hint of exasperation to it.

“What?” My ears twitched.

“Do you really not know? Or are you being dense?” Quinn laughed mirthlessly. “Your bedroom was torn apart, and Sylvie was crying so hard I could barely even understand her on the phone.”

“I…” I couldn’t bear to see her expression, so I instead stared blankly at the cabinets across the kitchen. 

She lightly brushed my cheek, drawing my eyes back to her own ones. They pulsed like a storm was about to break out. “You don’t have to tell me everything right now, but please don’t pretend everything’s okay, Reyna. You don’t have to keep pretending around me.” 

“S-sorry.” I tried to smile at her, but it probably didn’t come out right based on the way she winced. 

“I’m serious.” Her thumb brushed my cheek as she cupped my jaw to keep me looking at her. “You can keep your secrets, but please tell me when you’re in danger. I need to know.”

“I can take care of it, Quinn. You don’t need to worry about it.”

“I know you can. You’re the most capable person I know.” Her hand pulled back, and she flicked my ear playfully as she settled back against the counter. “That doesn’t mean you should have to handle everything yourself.” 

“…”

She just sighed heavily at my silence, and ran her hand back through her short blue hair. “Promise me you’ll at least try to get help next time you need it.” 

“I’ll try.” My voice came out small and weak. Even a little kid could’ve heard how confident it was. 

“You’ve been taking care of it this long.” Some of the seriousness faded slightly, and her voice eased into something a little more casual. “Do I need to be worried about your source?”

”Definitely not,” I lied. “I just… I help some people find lost things every once in a while. I’m even helping someone from the cathedral this time!”

“Impressive. My little Reyna’s got such wide connections.” She teased me with a small smile on her face, though thankfully didn’t try to push for more information. The tip of my tail thwacked against her calf repeatedly. “What happened this time, though?”

”I…” My ears curled back slightly as my tail froze. “Something happened. It hit me harder than I was expecting.”

Quinn just watched me with her glowing blue eyes. “Sylvie said you got your inhibitor before you started corrupting?”

Did she? Why would she lie to Quinn about that when the evidence was so clear—my human hand clenched and my new claws dug into my palm. Right, the Genome Stabilizer had me covered. There was no point making Quinn more worried about me. “Yeah. Just, uh, just had a bit of a headache.”

Quinn nodded along like my words were exactly what she was expecting to hear. ”I saw your room. It’s a little touching that only my poster survived.”

“Even out of my mind, I couldn’t bear to hurt you,” I said.

Quinn’s arm tightened around my shoulder. “If you keep talking like that, you’re going to give me the wrong idea.”

”And what wrong idea would that be?” I teased her with a smile, and wrapped my arm lower around her waist—for only a moment before I burst into a soft laugh and backed away from her. My tail unwillingly let go of her. 

”I couldn’t just stay home once I heard the desperation in Sylvie’s voice.” Quinn rubbed at her face and shuffled over to her laptop. “I’ve got some stuff I need to do, but I wanted to be here when you woke up.”

“Heh… thanks for coming, Quinn. Really.” It meant more than she could ever know that she dropped everything to come save me from myself.

”Yeah…” She watched me for a moment with her hand resting on top of her laptop. “Why’d you become a Canary, Reyna?”

”What?” I looked up at her in confusion.

”Why did you become a Canary?” Her eyes stayed locked on my face like my answer was the most important thing in the world. “As a Psyker, you’re at higher risk of corruption than anyone else. I… I’d have to be the one to deal with it in the field.”

Deal with it. We both knew what she meant. “It won’t ever come to that.”

”Still, what was your reason, Reyna?” She asked once more.

”I wanted to help people.” Regardless of everything, that much was true. I genuinely did want to help people. 

Her expression softened, and she nodded her head. “Was that the only reason?”

What other reason was there? The Hades Syndicate forced me into the position? Was that what she wanted to hear? Or did she want me to admit that half the reason I hadn’t fought their decision back then was so that I’d have someone reliable to put me down when I finally lost control of myself? I couldn’t voice either of those.

“Well, I’m glad you were assigned to me regardless back then.” Quinn grinned at me as if the last several minutes hadn’t just happened and we were back just like we had been. “I would’ve been deeply jealous if anyone else got my cute Silver Wolf.”

”Thank you…” My voice turned quiet once more. “For not looking at me like I’m a monster.”

”You could rip my heart out and I’d never see you any different.” Her choice of words made me flinch as the memory of Rend digging through the Anarch’s chest flickered through me. My hands tightened at my sides.

Quinn packed up her stuff, and slid it into her backpack. She tossed it over her shoulder while moving past me to the door. “I’ll see you Monday?” 

“Yeah… yeah, Monday.” That… that didn’t go nearly as bad as I thought it would? No one but Sylvie knew about the corruption, and I could keep hiding it as long as I hunted at least a couple Calamities between then and now. 

I saw Quinn out and then returned to my room. The door was knocked off its hinges… but that was something I could fix later. Pyre, my room looked bare. My sweet little sister had cleaned up most of the mess, but the walls were still covered in claw marks. The landlord wouldn’t be happy about that. Nor the door, for that matter.

The stuffing from my plushies sat off to the side alongside a sewing kit. Two of them were even repaired with their heads reattached. Why didn’t she just throw them away with everything else? They were broken. They literally had their insides ripped out. Why even bother to repair them?

Still, a soft smile filled my lips as I picked one of them up. My thumb brushed over the crooked stitches. She must’ve been exhausted while working on it… I hugged the plushie tight to my chest for several moments. It was like I could see the love in every stitch repairing the broken wolf.

I pushed the door kinda in place and took a breath. My room felt… more peaceful, almost. Less condemning. I was used to spending every night huddled in the corner of my bed, watching the closed doors until I fell asleep like a cowardly little puppy. There was an odd calm in the place now, though.

My bike pixelated into existence in the middle of my room with a twist of Redline’s key. I flicked open the saddlebag to reveal Rustbite and the three Reaver components. It was a happy accident yesterday when I unsummoned Redline and found out anything in the saddlebags would also be pixelated and stored. 

I shoved the Reaver components into my secret storage compartment in my closet for now. As for Rustbite… “What do you think, Vigil?”

The plushie had floated behind me into my room. He dropped down onto my bed. “Do you want to keep it?”

”Not really.” It would be kinda nice to have an anomalous weapon of some kind, though. Or just something beyond Rend. After last time I was hesitant to use it in combat situations, to be honest. 

“Then here.” As he spoke, a status screen popped into my eyes.

| Blackwater Asset Retrieval:

Turn in [Rustbite]?

Reward: 15 Vitae |

”15 Vitae?” Wait, more importantly than that, did that mean I could turn in anomalies for Vitae? My eyes lit up as a new avenue opened up to me. ”I’ll do it.”

At my words, the color seemed to leech out of my surroundings as a black rift opened up in the middle of the air. I didn’t even hesitate to toss the rusty crowbar through it. The rift snapped shut the moment the crowbar sailed through the unnatural cut through space, and I had 15 more Vitae in my pocket. That put me at 29? Minus four, which belonged to Vigil.

”Thanks,” I mumbled softly and moved over to my black wolf plushies. I picked up a needle, and threaded a strand through it. Sylvie repaired two. The least I could do was meet her over halfway and repair the rest. It’d take some time, but I needed to practice my sewing for Binding, anyway.

— — —

AN: First time I’ve ever drawn something basically black and white outside of pencil and paper. Eh. I think I’m going to try and learn a way more realistic look. I’ve got a cover I want to try and make, but I’m not quite there yet. The anime-esque style is just way easier.