Rise of the Night/Run of Night

Shadow removed his shirt and for a moment, Lyla stared in surprise. Perhaps being on the bed had been just forward enough...

Then she noticed the scars. New scars. They were scattered across his chest and sides. She recognized the tell tale flicks of a knife and for a moment, her hand darted to her own side. The remains of the injury that had nearly killed her three years ago looked much like the scars on Shadow. She didn’t intend to tell him she had almost died while he was gone, so she quickly moved her hand before he could notice.

"I have a fear growing in my mind that the council will be sending assassins to hurt me and the rest of you,” he said, still standing before her. “It wouldn’t be the first time they sent them.”

“They’ve sent assassins after you before?” she gaped, surprised. She had thought that Shadow had gotten in good with the government. Why would they try to kill him?

He turned to the side and Lyla nearly gasped. The long ragged scar ran from his right hip nearly to his shoulder blades. She shivered lightly at the thought of what that must have felt like.

“An assassin gave that to me after my first mission,” he explained, turning back to her.

“Oh, Shadow...” she breathed, still shocked but beginning to feel an anger in her stomach that someone would hurt her family like that. Before she could react further, Shadow raised his index finger and went dead still. She froze as well, listening.

Shadow’s hand slid smooth as silk to the gun holstered at his side. He raised it, the softness gone from his face as he moved towards the bedroom door. Lyla rose off the bed, quiet as she could be. He moved with a precision she wasn’t used to. Military, exact, practised.

“I know you’re here, so you might as well get this over with,” he called down the hallway. Lyla squinted and spotted the shape in the darkness just as it pulled away from the wall and came at Shadow. She didn’t have time to even shout a warning.

The man barrelled into Shadow, the force of the two men knocking the bedroom door off its hinges. The two went tumbling to the floor, a ball of punches and grunting. Shadow’s gun skittered off down the hallway when it was knocked from his injured hand. The two fought for supremacy until Shadow held the would-be assassin against a wall, pummeling the other man with punches. Lyla stood away, knowing she was no use in this fight. Shadow could hold his own.

The other man tried to free himself but Shadow’s grip was too secure. Lyla’s expression dropped when she noticed the intensity in her friend’s eyes. There was murder there, plain and simple. Something animal and foreign.

"Now I'm going to kill you and everyone of your friends that come after me or mine,” he said as calmly as if he were speaking of the weather. Lyla shifted uncomfortably. This darker side of Shadow was new and disconcerting.

“What makes you think I came alone?” the man snapped, his nose bleeding and probably broken. “The rest will be here and they will kill you.”

Shadow promptly snapped the other man's neck. Lyla grimaced. Killing was never her forte.

"You need to run now," Shadow ordered. "Get to the catacombs and tell Congo they might have some unexpected guests tonight."

"What are you going to do?" she asked, stepping towards him until he pulled what looked like another body out of his closet. She squeaked in surprise when she noticed that the body looked just like him.

"This will pass for me if they want an official record of my death. Now go," he ordered again, more firm this time. "This building won't be standing much longer."

He yanked a bag from his closet that smelled suspiciously of sulfur. She slipped out the window before she could find out what else he was up to. As she found her way to the roof of the nearby building, she glanced back in time to see Shadow vault from the same window she'd exited from. And close behind was several more men. Shadow took off running with the men following.

"You stupid fuck!" she snarled as she realized the direction he was heading. He would never lose his tail going that way.

She started following, running as quickly as she could without drawing attention to herself. It was difficult and slowed her down significantly. As she panted, trying to keep up, all she could think was that she wouldn't get there in time. That one of these men would catch him and kill him.

She pushed herself harder. "Fuck fuck fuck!" she growled between breaths.

She hit the bridge over the railroad in time to see Shadow hop over the fence to land on top of a passing train. The team of assassins followed. She ran to the other side the bridge, leaning over the edge to spot the mess of men on top of the train.

When Shadow leapt from the train into the near frozen river, Lyla made a frustrated noise. What the hell was wrong with him! He'd freeze to death. She began making her way to the shore as she kept an eye on his progress in the water. He hit a section of another bridge and disappeared into it.

"Damn! Come back!" she shouted, though she knew he couldn't hear her. "You...! Argh!"

She stamped her foot and continued her pursuit along the bank of the river. It was slow going with the mud. Her shoes were made for city running, not mud and sand. Finally she managed to catch up to the bridge and duck under where she had seen Shadow disappear into.

Ducking inside, she began to follow the long concrete tunnel. It was dark and moss and slime grew all most of the surfaces. Lyla continued on as quick as she dared, knowing a good slip could result in a broken bone. In her line of work, that was death. And in this case, it could mean both her own and Shadow’s.

The place smelled awful and she covered her nose as she moved, calling out to Shadow several times before deciding silence was the best idea. She decided that once she finally did find Shadow, if he wasn’t dead, she would kill him.

Stubborn, pig-headed, stupid... she growled in her head. Who do you think you are? Me?! You’re no runner...

Then in the distance, against the wall, she could see a pile of... something. She slipped towards it, then poked it gently with her foot. It was solid enough. She bent down and grabbed a small flashlight from her back pocket and shone it down on the pile.

Shadow.

Hours later, Lyla sat in a comfortable chair, her feet propped up on the cot in front of her. One of the Diamond Dongs lesser members poked his head in and she found herself letting loose a snarl.

“Congo wanted-”

“Get. Out.” She managed.

“Look, you need to relax-”

“Relax?” she snapped, advancing on the other gang member. “My friend could have died. I could have died. Fuck you, I’ll relax when he wakes up and you’re the hell out of my fucking sight.”

He seemed to consider it for a moment until Lyla took a quick step forward, her teeth bared. He backed off and finally slunk out of the room. Back to Congo, she could only presume, to report on her further insolence. She didn’t care. He could forgive her later.

For now, Shadow lay on the cot, unconscious. She’d managed to get him back to the catacombs and into a safe location that was rarely used by the rest of the group. She’d stripped him down out of his wet clothes and bundled him up with every spare blanket or jacket she could find. But he had still been shivering. Out of options, she had crawled under the blankets with him, holding him to her to try and warm him. The cold had been intense and left her shivering as well. She always forgot his connection to ice magic. And being in the freezing cold river didn’t help his situation. He was like ice itself.

But slowly, very slowly, he started to regain some colour. She got out from under the blankets when she couldn’t take the cold anymore. Bouncing on the balls of her feet, she’d made a circuit around the room until her own shivering ceased. She re-bandaged his torn hand and checked him for any new wounds, helping where she could.

Now all she had was to wait.

It had been hours when she finally noticed movement. She put her feet down off the edge of the cot, leaning close to him. It was almost like he was asleep. But there was a twitch at the edge of his mouth and behind his eyelids. She watched closely as his eyes finally opened, blinking a moment until they focused on her.

“...Lyla?” he croaked.

“Shadow...” she said softly, touching his cheek. He reached up and touched her hand, looking confused but relieved to see her. She glared. “What the HELL did you think you were doing?” she growled. “It’s the middle of fucking winter, Shadow! You could have died! What were you gonna do, huh? Crawl off into the sewers to die like a drowned rat? Fuck that.”

“Uhm... I...” he tried, more confused now that she was snapping at him.

“You’re not me, Shadow! Luna above, you should know better! What the hell was the stunt with the train? I wouldn’t have even done that! You... You just... Arrrgh!” she continued, finding herself with her arms over her head or smacking her thigh as she spoke. By all that was, she was mad at him. “When I couldn’t find you after your dumb ass decided to jump into a damn near frozen river, like it’s some kinda fucking sport... You could have died. Seriously! Do you even... What if I hadn’t found you, huh? Didn’t even ask for a tail, I had to follow you all on my own... Shadow, geez, c’mon!”

Lyla looked away sharply, leaning back to hug herself and suck her lower lip in. “Don’t... Don’t do this shit to me. You could have died.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, reaching out to touch her leg. He glanced down a moment before looking back at her. “Am I naked?”

“...yes.”

“Why.”

“You were freezing. I had to get the wet clothes off of you if I was going to have any chance of warming you up,” she explained. He had the sense to blush. “I’ll help you find some dry clothes in a bit. I just... wanted to be here when you woke up.”

This time it was her turn to blush and look away. She felt silly for yelling at him but, damnit, he had scared her shitless. The idea of losing more people she cared about was too much to bear, not when she could help. She forced herself to look back at him, knowing full well the fear and pain that was plain in her eyes. She didn’t care if he saw it. Maybe she wanted him to. Maybe then he’d understand why she yelled. The idea of losing him scared her and he needed to know.