TFS: Burnt Earth

Molly

Having him stand in front of me should bring a sense of relief. Instead, it knots my stomach the same way withdrawal does. It makes me feel things I’ve never experienced before. Uncertainty. Doubt. Hurt.

“Nothing to say?” he asks quietly.

“I have lots to say.”

“You’re different,” he notes.

I shrug.

“I made things weird,” he claims.

I shrug again.

“You aren’t happy to see me?”

“Should I be?”

“I guess not,” he hedges. “She broke the bond, didn’t she?”

He knows untethering me comes with consequences. We have the mighty divide going on, Grand Canyon style, with him on the side of the Tribunal, and me on the side of Sheyla, which I’m relatively sure isn’t the same side as the Tribunal. Thankfully, she isn’t on the Rebel side either. She’s some place in between, fighting for her humanity and humanity in general.

“Fuck yeah, she did. Broke that bitch all to shit.”

“She can’t unmake me your brother.”

“Nope.”

Aside from this obvious rift, there are other annoyances not directly tied to allegiance and stemming from unresolved issues festering for thirty-five years. The car wreck wrecked him, but he wrecked me. I’ve spent my converted time simply accepting what happened, without looking back at what I lost. As Asteria said, There’s no going back. There’s only forward. I’ve lived my life to that mantra, even before my conversion. It’s the one thing about me that didn’t change.

“I’m not here to make things worse,” he assures me.

“You can’t fix this,” I inform him.

“It’s not what you think,” he petitions. “I had to go back.”

“We have to do a lot of shit,” I say numbly.

He had to go back. I had to stay. When all this bullshit started, I stayed for my brother too. I took care of him, but the instant I decided to make a choice between right and wrong, he turned his back on me. He didn’t even say goodbye. He just fucked off with Sheyla’s mother. He’s a damn lemming. Might as well march into Kristoph’s volcano.

“We follow orders,” he reiterates.

“Until we don’t.”

That’s the biggest issue for me. I have no orders. Even in my rebellion, I still followed the general orders given. I’ve never been an independent contractor. Feeling bereft fucking sucks.

“I had to go back,” he repeats. “That was the only way to save the others.”

Of course, he went back. He wouldn’t leave the Sentry. Not even for me. My Sentry induction wasn’t standard. I’m the only one chosen without guidance from the Archives, yet they took me the same way we’re all taken—unwillingly. They gave me fuck all for choice. They simply extricated me from my life, regardless of the fact I was one of the rare few who was perfectly happy with how things were. Plucked me right out of it without so much as a single fuck for me. The Tribunal went along with it since it was what Connor wanted, and they wanted him. Granted, I wasn’t given an alternative, but I stayed all the same. I gave up my entire life for him. Where was his loyalty to me?

“You can hate me if you want to,” Connor offers. I can’t hate him. It’s impossible. I love him too much. He’s the only one I love. “I did the right thing. They’re here with me. I saved them. Now we can save everyone else.”

It takes a minute for it to sink in he’s on my side. We were never truly separated. We were running parallel on opposite sides of the same fence. He was coming over here all along. Just needed to pack some bags first. “How many followed you?”

“All of them.”

“They’re here to help Sheyla?”

“All of them,” he repeats.

What a glorious fucking echo. Getting Sheyla to believe Connor will take a lot more effort than it does to get me to believe him. He didn’t abandon us. He did the most logical thing, protecting Sheyla by taking her mom in her place. Fuck, he did more than that. He protected me too, all of us actually, while doing it. He knew he had to return. That was the only way to save the others, and Connor isn’t one to forget his peers, in spite of Sheyla’s importance. They’re just as important to him.

“If she lights you on fire, I’m not putting you out,” I snipe.

“That’s fair,” he agrees. “It’s not her forgiveness I need though.”

“That’ll take some time,” I admit.

“I’m the most patient person we know,” he reminds me.

“Also the most hopelessly optimistic,” I add.

“I’ll wear the blame, Molly,” he concedes. “I’ve earned it, but I won’t wear it proudly.”

“Wear it later,” I chide him. “We’ve got more important things to worry about right now. The Rebels are on their way. At least twenty strong.”

“We need to free the chain gang.”

“And we need to do it fast.”

“Brody’s untethering came with water-glider gifts,” Connor points out. “What did you get?”

“Wings to fly me the fuck away from here.”

With that, I shapeshift into the eagle form I’ve been given, taking off in the direction Sheyla went walking with Matthew. I don’t trust that fishy fucker, but I wasn’t worried about their stroll. Not when I sent Seán to spy.

I land on a branch rather awkwardly after doing a flyby in front of Sheyla. You know what? Wings are hard as fuck to get used to. Honestly, I don’t mind the learning curve. I’m free. Nothing can take the high away I feel in experiencing it. Aside from the disentangled tethers, I was given the gift of flight in the form of an eagle, which has converted me from a land-walker to a sky-flier.

Seán was given a new ability as well. It comes in the way of a high-pitched shriek making all Black Metal wailers envious. “Sorry about that,” Seán apologizes to Sheyla, who’s covering her ears.

“That was you?” She puts her finger to her ear and frowns.

“Double sorry,” Seán apologizes again. “You’ve got a smidge of something on your finger.”

She nearly passes out when she looks down and sees it’s blood. “What did you do?”

“We got some new gifts,” Seán broadcasts.

“Gifts?”

Seán raises his arm, and I land on it. It only takes her a moment to realize it’s me resting there. The same thing happened with Brody when she untethered his ties. The specialty morphed. He lost his ability to shapeshift but gained an ability to manipulate electricity. That same electricity was his ruination when he overloaded his circuits, frying both him and Phelan. Can’t say I’m disappointed I won’t be frying myself anytime soon. Eagle is enough for me. Less deathy.

“I’m calling mine Brain Bleed,” Seán declares proudly.

“On point.”

“Molly doesn’t get to do anything cool,” he challenges. I promptly lift myself from his arm without releasing my talons. “Yeah, I guess that’s pretty cool.” He wipes at the blood I’ve drawn.

“She’s a sky-flier,” Sheyla remarks. “That’ll come in handy, if we can figure how to keep you from killing us too.”

“Sorry again.”

“Triple sorry, apparently,” Sheyla grumbles.

Seán tilts his head to the side. “What are you doing out here anyway?”

“I was just talking to Matthew about how we’re sorely outnumbered and probably dying soon,” she muses. “Sooner if you pull that trick again.”

“Whoa.” He holds up his hands. “Dark.”

“These are dark days,” she reminds him.

“I’m guessing now isn’t the best time to tell you we have a visitor,” he hedges. “Should I just go ahead and apologize again to get it out of the way?”

“No,” she snaps, “but you can tell me who it is.”

“It’s Connor.”

Fuck, here we go. I fly ahead of them, so I can get changed before she meets us there. I know how she’ll react to seeing him. She’ll feel the same way I did, except she doesn’t have the love I have to stop her from torching his idiot ass.