Episode: 5.17

--- Ember ---

“And you’ve no idea why they might’ve attacked you?” Ashe asked, having shown up with Sanctuary shortly after the police had declared this an active Deviant case.

“You know the cult hates me, beyond that… my idea is no better than yours.” Aiden shrugged with a shake of his head.

Ashe glanced her way and looked as if she wanted to say something, before thinking better of it. “Alright, well… just take care of the kid.”

“I intend to.” Aiden told her with just a hint of force.

Ashe watched Aiden for a moment before nodding. “Alright, then we’ll finish cleaning up the mess downstairs, and be out of your way.”

“Wait.” Aiden called one hand in his vest pocket as Ashe started for the door. “Catch.”

Aiden tossed a vial full of some black substance at the sanctuary Captain, who caught it out of the air with ease.

“Huh.” Ashe smirked as she held the vial up to the light, before nodding to Aiden. “Good work as always.” With that the Sanctuary agent pocketed the vial and left the room.

Amelia sighed from the spot next to her, where the older woman was rubbing her back the same way her mom used to when she wasn’t feeling good. “At least they aren’t charging us with anything this time.”

“They broke into our home and wrecked the place; castle doctrine is pretty straight forward here.” Aiden explained taking a seat on the floor and leaning against the bed next to them.

Amelia gave him a dry laugh. “And the fact that you're friends with the local Sanctuary captain has absolutely nothing to do with why the investigation is going so fast.”

“Law ‘s corrupt.” Aiden shrugged, before putting a cigarette in his mouth. “Can’t complain when its corrupt in your favor.”

They were silent for a moment, as Amelia shifted from rubbing her back to holding her in a half hug.

“What do you think they were trying to accomplish?” Amelia asked, as Aiden lit his cigarette.

Aiden inhaled his cigarette for a moment, before blowing out a cloud of smoke and shaking his head. “Ran into them at the market, pissed them off when we refused to listen to their pitch.”

She remembered that… (we only ran into the cultists because I ran off…)

“Lots of people ignore them, they usually leave them alone.” Amelia pointed out.

She remembered that… (they didn’t leave me alone…)

Aiden said something she wasn’t really paying attention to, as her thoughts swirled around replaying that scene from earlier, before eventually remembering what exactly the skull masked cultist had said.

(“Oh well.” The cultist picked himself off the floor before cracking his neck once to each side. Pet moved between her and the cultist as he turned his gaze on her. “Wasn’t here for her anyway.”)

And once more she came to the conclusion that (they were after me…)

It made sense... They tried to take her when they found out she was with Aiden, and when she thought about it, she remembered a black masked cultist that she couldn’t quite focus on. A cultist extremely similar to the one Aiden had fought…

“Still…” Amelia trailed off, as she focused back on the conversation, sounding less than satisfied with whatever answer Aiden had given her.

Part of her felt compelled to voice her revelation, but another larger part was scared of how these people she’d known for less than a day would react, and instead let another silence blanket them, this one more oppressive than the last.

After a moment Pet knocked on the door, drawing their attention before making several gestures toward the floor below.

“Alright.” Amelia nodded, having understood the mute woman’s gestures. “Since they’re leaving, I’ll go make sure they haven’t messed up the bar any worse than your fight.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” Aiden apologized, in tone that said he didn’t seriously care one way or the other about the damages.

Amelia gave him an unimpressed look. “Don’t worry, you’ll be the one paying for the repairs.”

Aiden gave a dry laugh, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “Of course, I will…”

Amelia gave her one last squeeze before getting up and leaving for the bar.

Pet stayed behind for a moment, a concerned look on her face as she glanced between her and Aiden, before following Amelia out and leaving them alone with their thoughts.

(The cult… they… attacked us, shot up the place, nearly killed Aiden… all because of me…)

“You doing okay kid?” Aiden asked breaking her away from her thoughts.

(No…) She hugged her knees to her chest.

“Yeah, first fire fight is always a doozy…” Aiden nodded as they both watched the smoke from his cigarette rise into the air. “I was a bit younger than you when I saw mine, took me a couple of days to get my head straight afterwards, so take however long you need.”

She got that he was trying to comfort her in his own way, but she wasn’t feeling much up for appreciating it herself.

“They were after me.” She whispered.

“Huh?”

“They were after me…” She repeated hugging her knees closer.

Aiden watched her for a moment before running a hand down his face and sighing. “Yeah… yeah, they were…”

She wasn’t sure whether or not she appreciated his honesty...

Swallowing past her apprehensions she asked, “Why?” The one part she couldn’t figure out and hoped Aiden would know.

“No telling…” Aiden admitted with a shrug. “The cult, every once in a while, they’ll find someone and…” He shook his head. “They think these people are ‘marked’ by their god, and they, they do a lot of bad stuff to try and get their hands on them.”

“Marked how?” She remembered the cultist with the smiling mask mentioning something about that, but she had no idea what it meant.

“In a way… it’s all in the head.” He tapped the side of his skull. “The higher ups will occasionally find someone young and claim they’ve been ‘marked’ by their god. In reality it’s mostly them trying to get their hands on impressionable Deviants, by telling them they’re special, that their god has chosen them for some higher purpose.”

“So, it’s an excuse to… to force people into the cult?”

“Yeah.” Aiden nodded.

“But why did they want me, specifically?” That’s what she couldn’t figure out.

Aiden watched her for a moment, and she couldn’t help but feel he was about to lie to her. “Maybe they saw you with me. Maybe they thought they could use you to get at me. I don’t make it habit to get into the heads of those psycho-fucks.”

That did nothing to reassure her about the situation.

Aiden watched her for another moment as he inhaled his cigarette before exhaling a cloud of smoke and putting the thing out on the floorboards. “Look kid, I can’t promise you much, but at the very least I can promise you this. No matter what happens, I will do everything in my power to keep you safe, and-”

“Why?” She cut in. “You haven’t even known me for a full day, why would you go so far to help me?”

Aiden stared at his hands for a moment, before running a hand through his hair. “I owe your mom. I owe her a lot. I think that’s why she left you with me, despite how bad of an idea I think it is.”

She scoffed, clinging to the spark of rage rather than facing all of the other emotions swirling around in her chest. “Because you owe her? She left me with you, a complete stranger?! Someone who doesn’t even want me around?!”

“She left you with me because I will burn this world to the ground if that’s what it takes to keep you alive.”

She froze, something about the sheer conviction in Aiden’s voice bringing her up short.

“When I met your mom, I… I was in a bad place…” Aiden admitted his voice soft… vulnerable… “She helped me… saved me from a situation where if I wasn’t killed, I would’ve killed myself…”

Aiden was quiet for a moment, his eyes dull as he stared at the floor, as if seeing something that wasn’t really there. After a moment he let out a shuddering breath and visibly forcing himself to continue.

“And because she helped me, she… she ended up losing something important… Helping me, the way she did… it ruined her life… Hell, if not for you surviving…” Aiden shook his head, before meeting her eyes. “You need to understand: You are the most important thing in the world to your mom, and she left you with me, because she knows that I’m a monster amongst monsters. And she knows, I’ll do whatever it takes to keep her most precious thing safe, even if it means leaving nothing but cinder and ash in my wake.”