It was easy to see where the shade was coming from. The timing was damned convenient and it had pretty effectively ended any opportunity there might have been to question the man. Still, it didn't really feel like that's what was going on here. She couldn't be certain about anything but letting the paranoia gnaw at her wasn't something she was interested in doing at this time. Way too easy to get wrapped up in your head, to spend more time considering the possible outcomes of every possible scenario when the reality in front of her was much simpler.
This man had had access to some information about her and had managed a convenient ambush when she'd been alone. That spoke to a certain level of weakness within her security, be it actual members of the team being unreliable or something more sinister like them actively engaging in the plot for her life. She'd have to be more careful from here on out, even if it meant making more enemies. Still, it wasn't something that she could waste much more time on than she already had. She'd have to start taking a few steps, though...
"All right, I'm heading back. Clean up this mess, will ya?"
"As you command, Head," said Taylor in a mock-serious tone that made Len laugh a bit. It probably wasn't a great sign that she'd reached the point where she could laugh over a dead body, but no use in worrying about that, either.
She left Taylor to do whatever she had in mind with the corpse and snagged the dagger he'd left behind. It probably wouldn't be that useful, but she could at least keep it handy in case anything similar came up. She made sure to bind it carefully and made a mental note to let Kes know exactly what it was before the girl headed off to school. All in all, the minor gains in relaxation that she'd gotten from her trip to the spa had been quite thoroughly erased by the time she made it back to her bed but given what a day it had been, it was good enough just to have the bed again. She sealed up the dagger as she'd planned and gave up on existence.
* * * * *
Her sleep was blissfully dreamless for once and she found herself waking at her normal time. Actually, a bit earlier than that. She noticed Pitch looming over her before she registered anything else but when she caught sight of him, her attention snapped into perfect clarity.
"Just what the hell are you doing?" she hissed at him (she couldn't really peg whether he cared about gender or not, but his form was male for the moment, making it especially creepy that he was looming).
A moment later, she realized that they were in his timelock.
"I wondered how long it would take you to wake up," he said, amusement permeating his voice.
"What is this about, jackass. I really don't have the patience for more of this."
"Well, I'm awake. What the fuck do you want?"
"Well, I should think that the question is more about what YOU want, my dear."
"What are you getting at, why are you hear. Basically, just what the fuck? This is getting creepy on too many levels."
"Well, we've reached a point where we need to have a very frank discussion about what you envision your future with us to be."
"Why the urgency on that?"
"We'll get to that. For now, we've got as much time as we need and we're going to settle this."
"Pitch. I have had an exceptionally long couple of weeks. I don't really have the patience to coddle you right now."
"Oh, understand that I am not looking to be coddled here. I AM looking to clarify some things, though. At this moment you have three trained killers waiting outside the door. As soon as I release us from stasis, they will be upon you. You will die, your ward will die, anyone else that crosses their path will die. What are you going to do about it."
"Are you serious? I'll stop them, of course."
"You're a bit slow on the uptake, Namethief. The only reason they haven't killed you already is because I stopped them. I'll admit that you're not powerless without me, but you've run yourself so ragged that your carelessness is compounding. I cannot allow that any more."
"Allow?"
"Not the best choice of words," he acknowledged. "This power struggle with you is all well and good under normal circumstances. It's even entertaining to a degree to test wills with you. It is, however, becoming counter-productive and dangerous. Had you died this night, I would have ceased to be. 'Cammie' would have ceased to be. And, needless to say, you would have ceased to be. All that you are trying to accomplish. All that you hope for. Everything. Gone in an instant because you've been careless. Did you imagine that these people would simply fall in line because you tossed out some nice words about equality and peace? Naïve."
"Are you really trying to give me a lecture right now?"
"Yes."
"Then just fucking stop. I'm not going to let you have free reign to do as you please. Every time I let you have an inch, you take a mile. Every time I think there's some chance that we can meet in the middle, you use it as an opportunity to fuck with my goddamn head because I'm not good enough for what you imagine. You seem to want me to trust you and yet every time I start to think that there's room for that, you prove how utterly alien you are. Now, just because you have an advantage with these attackers, you're again trying to force me to just accept whatever nonsense you're spitting. Not gonna happen, buddy."
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"You seem to think that this is some attempt to cow you. It's not. I am doing everything in my power to keep my instincts in check here. Ever fiber of my being is screaming for me to just tear through them, to devour them whole and leave them at your feet. You don't even realize how powerful I am when you're asleep. I could rip out that girl's throat in a blink, I could probably raze this whole city if I felt like it. But I don't. Because our accord forbids it. It shackles me in place and leaves you exposed."
"So you DO have to follow some rules, huh? That's good to know. Didn't stop you from fucking with my head without my approval."
"I DID THAT FOR YOUR OWN GOOD YOU ABSOLUTE FOOL!" The rage that flashed in Pitch's eyes was stunning. It didn't move her in the least.
"You did it for YOUR own good, without consulting me and without even letting me know you were doing it. You had me on the verge of bastardizing my relationships just because you felt like 'upgrading' me. That's not help, that's abuse under the veil of knowing better."
"And you are better for it, why do you refuse to see that?"
"I'm more powerful for it, sure. And I will have to accept that it's a part of me now. That doesn't mean you had a right to do it. It doesn't mean you were IN the right for doing it. And the fact that you don't understand something so simple as that is exactly why I can't trust you."
"You have to trust me. Without me you'll die."
"There may come a time where I have to accept that. What matters now, though, is that you're the on that needs to change if you want any of this to work out. Since coming to this world I've been getting pulled in more and more directions. Every time I start to get a handle on one thing, another three pop up to make things worse. I'm getting very tired of it. So tell me, shade, what can you offer me if I've reached the point of calling it quits on all of this?"
"Don't make me laugh. I've seen your nature, Namethief. You're far too stubborn to surrender just because the challenges seem insurmountable."
"Oh, I'm tough enough, that's for sure. But I'm not invincible. I'm not limitless. I'm just one person trying to keep up with a ridiculous world that sure as hell seems to want me dead. Maybe I just let these assholes have me. Lord knows it'd be easier than dealing with all of this. You wanted to make this a tipping point? Congrats. We're now at the point where one of us has to surrender or we both die. Thing is, I'm willing to bet that I'm a lot more willing to accept that death than you are. So what's it going to be, Pitch?"
"You've tried this before. It didn't get you very far if you recall."
"True enough, but you seem more desperate this time. More than that, I'm much more beyond caring than I was the last time."
"You expect me to believe that you'd let your little girl die just because you refuse to reach an accord with me?"
"I'm really starting to care about that girl, it's true. But that doesn't mean I can let her be such easy leverage. It'd just put her at greater risk as time goes by. Maybe I succeed at holding these killers off long enough for her to escape, maybe I don't, but if it's the choice between that and letting you dictate the terms of this twisted relationship of ours, I'm afraid I can't choose her."
"You hate me that much?"
"Hate? No, that's not quite right. Whatever else you are, you HAVE helped me many times. I'm grateful for that. But your approach is all wrong, it's not working. You're the one that's been putting us in danger with your arrogance and your refusal to let me see what's actually going on here. You keep playing games because that seems to be the only way you know how to interact and we're past the point where that works. I don't need to have all the answers but I need you to get on the same page as me. I need you to understand that you work FOR me, not for yourself. I'm the one that calls the shots, period."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then we get to go back to this cat and mouse bullshit where I don't trust you at all and I probably get killed in the next couple of minutes. Not my preferred outcome but you're absolutely right that we can't keep doing this. I need to be able to rely on you rather than just sparring with you every now and then. I'm not even sure if I can ever trust you, but if there's to be even a shot of that happening, you're going to start behaving properly."
"You insist on making things difficult at every step of the way."
"Yeah, I'm funny like that. Stubborn well beyond a fault and I'm not going to be changing that any time soon. So then. Give me your answer."
The shade's face was an absolute mask, not betraying a single emotion. She could sense a roiling fury from him, but it was all instinct and their connection, nothing that she could read off of his motions. They stood there for a moment, eyes locked without so much as a blink. Finally, the shade averted his gaze.
"If that's truly the only way for you to accept our alliance, I suppose I have little choice here. I remain skeptical of your chances of survival but if you're this determined to reject my superior knowledge on these matters, I cannot oppose you. Well then, O Master, what is thy command?"
Len considered it for a moment then smiled and gave her new minion his orders.