Chapter One: The Meeting

[backinthsaddle]

Homework, the bane of nearly every student's existence.

Cole's sitting on the couch, surrounded by a modest stack of textbooks, a notebook balanced on his thigh as he takes notes. He's deeply involved in his studies, and has been ever since he got home from class an hour ago. It gives him something to do when he's not out running, or at track practice, although he's still not so sure about his major. But then, what guy his age is? It's not like he's had a long time to focus on what he wants to do as a career.

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[backinthsaddle.livejournal.com]

Cole looks helplessly at his brother, not wanting to argue otherwise.

[victormakesart.livejournal.com]

Liam pulls him aside as Victor digests, already getting some more color to her face.

"I don't think he fed her," he says, voice low so Victor won't overhear. "I'm going to have her stay here for a while."

[backinthsaddle.livejournal.com]

He thinks briefly about how they don't have the room, where will she sleep, surely they should find someone who knows and can take care of her. But he knows they can't just boot her out either, and wouldn't even consider that. "How long did he have her?"

[victormakesart.livejournal.com]

"A week and a half. I think. I don't know the whole story."

On the couch, Victor is rubbing at the side of her face, at the site of that past-broken jaw. She covers up a yawn.

[backinthsaddle.livejournal.com]

The kettle's starting to whistle, and Cole moves on automatic to make the tea. "How'd you find out about this?"

[victormakesart.livejournal.com]

"The guy asked me if I knew any healers, and I recommended Eddie." Liam doesn't hang in a very nice crowd, but it's one thing to know it, and it's another thing to know it.

[backinthsaddle.livejournal.com]

Cole has never approved of his brother's friends, but there's not much he can do about it, even if he wasn't the younger of them. So he just focuses on the part where Liam decided to rescue her. "Should we tell anyone? Try to find her family?"

[victormakesart.livejournal.com]

"I think we need to let her call the shots on this one."

Victor, for her part, is dozing, curled up on her side on the couch, taking up the smallest amount of space possible.

[backinthsaddle.livejournal.com]

"Fine."

Well, now he's got a cup of tea all made and he's not sure if he should just let her sleep or give her the tea anyway. He settles for putting it down on the coffee table - or, more accurately, on the smallest pile of textbooks on top of it. Well within reach, and he can't help but feel like he's putting out food for an abused dog to try to lure it in.

[victormakesart.livejournal.com]

That metaphor is not far off. She's a wreck. Smudgey dark circles under her eyes, cracked lips, hipbones jutting out, and who knows what would have happened to her if Liam didn't come along.

[backinthsaddle.livejournal.com]

"...the tea's done." He doesn't want to bother her, especially if she hasn't been resting, so he says it quiet-like.

[victormakesart.livejournal.com]

She breathes in sharply as she wakes (abruptly, she's a light sleeper), sits up. "Oh. Oh, thank you."

[backinthsaddle.livejournal.com]

"You're welcome." He hasn't put any sugar in it, it hasn't really occurred to him that it's an option she might want at the moment.

[victormakesart.livejournal.com]

She takes a tender sip through split and slightly swollen lips. She's too polite to ask for sugar, and scared of asking for anything out of an irrational fear that they'll sent her back. "Thank you. It's great."

[backinthsaddle.livejournal.com]

"Okay, good." He doesn't know what to do with himself now, whether to sit down or go for a run while Liam sets her up, or what. He sticks his hands in his pockets, his homework completely forgotten now.

[victormakesart.livejournal.com]

"What's your name? I'm Vic. Um. Shoot, it feels so weird to be small-talking again, I'm sorry, I'm awful."

[backinthsaddle.livejournal.com]

"Don't worry about it. I'm Cole. Liam's my brother."

[victormakesart.livejournal.com]

"It's nice to meet you. Um. Ah. Wanna sit down? I guess... you probably have questions and stuff."

[backinthsaddle.livejournal.com]

"You don't have to tell us anything right now." He does sit, though, on a completely separate piece of furniture.

[victormakesart.livejournal.com]

"It, it doesn't matter. It's never gonna get any easier, and the, um, the reality itself isn't ever gonna shift. Tomorrow, a month from now, a year from now, what happened woulda still happened."

[backinthsaddle.livejournal.com]

Now Cole doesn't know what to say, how to respond to that. "At least... take the chance to rest first?"

[victormakesart.livejournal.com]

"I'd made my peace that I was gonna die back there. He gave me a choice, and I chose it, rather than...." She just needs to get a little bit out. She needs to talk through this, figure out what happened, she's in some shade of shock.

[backinthsaddle.livejournal.com]

"Why'd he even have you in the first place?"

[victormakesart.livejournal.com]

"I was... collateral damage. The friend of his enemy. The first time he took me, I was seventeen. Then he got me again. This most recent time I turned twenty on his table. I was really strong for a while."

[backinthsaddle.livejournal.com]

Cole shoots a look at Liam, seriously disapproving of his friendships.