Kayden sulked in the penthouse until her father got around to retrieving her. He came in bearing a basket full of her favorite treats and some flowers as by way of apology, but when he smiled cheerfully and tried to hand it over she scowled at him until he sighed and set it aside.
“I know you're mad at me, but I am not sorry for keeping you out of all of this. We will be leaving in a few hours once some of my business here is finalized.”
She thought about continuing to give him the silent treatment out of spite, but she needed to get some answers. “Where are we going?”
“Back to the Tower District. Our landlord was reminded that we have a contract. We’re going home.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“And you're coming with me? What about the police?”
“The police will no longer bother us. They realized it was all a misunderstanding.”
“But it wasn’t a misunderstanding was it? You are the man they said you were.”
He went on like he didn’t hear her. “When we get resituated, we will work on getting you enrolled back in the Academy. It might take some time ironing out a few things after your less than favorable exit. Did you really attack a fellow student and blow up the courtyard?”
He waited for her to explain but she refused. She didn’t see any need to justify herself to him, especially when he wouldn’t tell her anything about what was going on with Nikiphero.
“Well, a lot of people won’t be happy about you returning. The family of the girl you attacked, the Boudins, have considerable sway within the Academy and they have filed charges with the police. My charges may have been dropped, but yours haven’t yet. But that will be simple enough to make disappear. In the meantime, I don’t want you falling behind in your education, so I have already hired a private tutor for you until you can return to the Academy. He will start the day after tomorrow.”
After all of the abuse she had suffered over the past month and a half at the hands of Uptown, she found it hard to believe that they would accept her back as easily as that. Even if everything got taken care of like he said, that wouldn’t change the fact that she would always be a Cliffsider to them. She would always be the daughter of a criminal. She thought about what Cassius had said about her having been denied her identity for so long.
“What if we just lived here, Cliffside.” Before her father could interrupt her, she rushed on. “I know you don’t want me to be involved with Nikiphero, I can accept that, but does that mean we have to go back Uptown. They will never accept me there. At least here I no longer have to pretend to be something I’m not. I’ll never be the student or citizen they want me to be, it just isn’t possible considering whose daughter I am. But if we live here, no one will care, in fact it will make them respect us. I saw what reputation you have here in the arena. You’re a hero. I’m sure they have Cliffside tutors. And without all of the restrictions the Academy has, I will be able to learn things that matter. I don’t care about rune theory or about how to build a drone. I want to learn how to fight like you.”
“Kay,” he began in exasperation, but she rushed on.
“Why did you teach me to use my aura as a weapon in the first place if it wasn’t to become strong like you?”
“You think that is strength?” he said sadly, walking over to the sofa and sitting down heavily. “Let me tell you something that nobody ever told me; once you start fighting you can never stop. It doesn’t matter how strong you are, eventually there will be a battle you can’t win. That is what I am protecting you from.”
“Then why teach me anything about fighting?”
“A moment of weakness. I knew it was wrong, but I guess I wanted you to carry on something that is such a big part of who I am.”
“Or maybe it's because in order to survive, you need to fight.”
“Cassius’s words.”
“But is he wrong? I’ve let people push me around all my life, even before they all found out you were a criminal. It wasn’t until I fought back that I felt like I gained some control.”
“And look at the consequences that came from that, you’re wanted by the police.”
“That’s exactly why we have to keep fighting back. This just proves that they’ll try everything in their power to keep us beaten down.”
She found a heat rising up inside her. It was the fire she had seen burning in Cassius’s eyes. She had been wrong about her father and Nikiphero this whole time. She wanted her father to see that she recognized that now. The only reason they were criminals was because they wouldn’t let themselves be beaten down by those in charge, and if that was what made them criminals then that is what she would be as well.
“I don’t care what you think you’ve learned from all of this, or if you spout Cassius's words like you understand what they mean. You will not be part of this. You will live a happy and normal life. You will return to the Academy and graduate in three years, and then you will get a job in the Civil District like you’ve always wanted.”
“But that’s not what I want! It’s not what I’ve ever wanted! It’s what you want!”
“What about your dream to work under Judge Ragwort and to travel the world? That’s an admiral dream, one you should continue to work toward.”
“I thought that’s what I wanted, but that was only me letting everyone else tell me what I wanted, not me actually choosing for myself.”
“Then what do you want, Kay?”
“I want--” What could she say? She didn’t know what she wanted.
You can’t live your entire life by other people’s rules and then expect to know how to exist without them.
“This is what Cassius didn’t tell you. He may talk about breaking free of Uptown's oppression, but in the end his goal is to become one of them. That’s what Nikiphero has been working toward, legitimacy in the eyes of Uptown. He doesn’t want to break the system, he wants to take advantage of it. His words might sound nice, but in the end even if he believes them, they are just that, words. They have no place in the real world, and he understands that more than anyone.”
“If that’s what you believe then why are you even helping him?”
“Cassius and I grew up together. His drive has always drawn people to him and I was one of them. I was with him every step of the way when he built this empire into what it is today. But somewhere along the way I asked myself what I was really fighting for. Was it our cause? Or was it for him? I wasn’t sure. And then when you were born, I was given something else to fight for, you, and from that day forward, my entire perspective changed. It wasn’t as simple as leaving at that point, but I began reducing my involvement significantly over the years. It wasn’t until recently that I got pulled back in. But after today, Nikiphero will be seen as a legitimate business and I will be able to work at a job in an office with everything above board while you finish your education.”
For some reason, her father’s admission only made her angrier, even though it was the exact thing she wanted to hear when she came looking for him. She wanted him to prove her wrong like Cassius had, not give her exactly what she had wanted. But even more than that, she felt like Cassius had wronged her with all of his talk about fighting back against Uptown and now he was going to join them. It was like she had been given a gem and now the people that had given it to her were trying to convince her it was a worthless rock.
“I don’t want to go back to the way things were,” she said, but what could she do to change her father’s mind. She could see that he wouldn’t be swayed, and Cassius wouldn’t go against her father’s wishes. That meant she had no choice in the matter.
In the end, Kayden was forced to admit defeat. Her father got his wish and once they gathered up her meager belongings from the penthouse they made their way to a lift station that led to the surface. These lifts were primarily used to transport the resources from the mines, but they were used by plenty of people as well.
Kayden remained staunchly silent the entire time. She had put on the jacket she got from Vic. It was comforting wearing a piece of Cliffside. She never thought she would be sad to leave this place, but here she was watching the last glimpse of the city vanish as they shot upward through the rock tunnel that had been drilled for the lift tube.
It was only Kayden and her father. Nobody had seen them off. They had simply left like this was some sort of strange vacation.
Nikiphero was still extremely busy with their current crisis, and her father would be returning as soon as he dropped her off at their new apartment. The landlord hadn’t been able to give them back their old home since he had already rented it out, but supposedly this new one was even nicer with no extra charge.
When they reached the Uptown station, they found a group waiting for them. The police, and she saw Griff and Deaik among them. She immediately tensed, ready to make a break for it, but Xolan placed a hand on her shoulder to comfort her and leaned down to her ear.
“It’s alright,” he said. “Stand strong. They are just trying to intimidate us.”
The lift came to a halt and the doors slid open. There was no way to go but forward into the army of men with hands on stun cudgels that were ready to be deployed at a moment's notice. A man stepped forward to greet them. His uniform carried several metals on the left breast. She had met him once before, Commissioner Ackleman.
He wore a pleasant smile, but it was obvious there was a level of strain hidden behind it. Ackleman was balding, and had a look of grime about him even when he was dressed in his best uniform as he was now, and he always appeared like he was overworked and barely hanging on. But Kayden knew from experience that he was a meticulous and hardworking man. For the most part, he had been nothing but nice to Kayden, but judging by the way his men behaved, specifically Griff and Deaik, he was just as prejudiced as the rest toward Cliffside and affiliates of Nikiphero.
“Good evening, Xolan,” Ackleman said. “I’m glad to see you safely back.”
For all Kayden could tell, Ackleman could have actually meant it, but his men bristled behind him. However, none of them made a move to arrest the two of them.
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“Good evening,” Xolan answered, just as friendly. “It’s good to see you, but we have to get settled in our new apartment, so if you don’t mind, we will be leaving.”
“If you think we’re going to let you waltz back into our city like you own the place you have another thing coming,” one of the police growled in anger.
Ackleman simply raised a hand and the man fell silent. Kayden felt like everyone was one wrong word or move away from descending into violence.
Ackleman’s fake smile was gone and he held out a paper for Xolan. “We may be unable to touch you at the moment, but I have here an arrest warrant for her.” He tilted his head toward Kayden without breaking eye contact with Xolan.
Without a word Xolan held out his own piece of paper and handed it over to the commissioner. Ackleman read it then sighed and handed it back. “I should have expected as much. You are free to go, but don’t think this is over.”
“But sir!” that same police officer from before yelled.
Ackleman said nothing. All of the officers could only watch as Kayden walked alongside her father out of there.
As she passed Griff and Deaik, Griff whispered for her to hear alone. “You sure lead an interesting life, don’t you Cliffsider.”
Kayden glanced at him and he was grinning from ear to ear like this was all some fun sort of game and she had just pulled off an unexpected move when he thought he was about to win. Instead of being disappointed at the turn of fortune, he seemed only happy for the game to not be over.
She didn’t understand what he gained from taunting her like this. The other officers, even Deaik, only hated her because of who she was affiliated with, they didn’t really see her as a person. Griff on the other hand seemed to derive a singluar pleasure from torturing her alone.
They moved past him and soon were out of the station and walking the streets of the city where she had grown up. Her father hailed a carriage--this part of the city wasn’t yet suitable for automobiles--and rode on it to their new home.
It was the same building that she had grown up. The doorman she had known for years didn’t greet them as they passed. He simply scowled. She had a feeling, she was going to have to get used to those sorts of looks as news of their return spread throughout town. Xolan thought it would pass with time, but Kayden thought he was being naive. Prejudice, especially when it had evidence of being well founded, was a long enduring trait of humans.
They took the elevator up near the top floor where the nicest of the apartments were and walked into their new home. It reminded her of the penthouse. It was already completely furnished, barring personal touches of course, but still, her father must have done a lot more than ‘ask’ nicely for this level of service. There was even a welcome basket sitting on the dining room table, waiting for them.
They explored their new abode together without a word. Kayden picked out a room as far from her father’s as she could even though it was much smaller than the other ones and was probably supposed to act as a guest room.
Once they were done, and Xolan had discarded his own bag in the master bedroom, he came over to Kayden’s new room where she was pulling out all of the items in her bag and putting them away. She had closed and locked the door. He knocked, but she didn’t get up to let him in. She had locked it for a reason.
“I’m heading back Cliffside. I’ll be back in the morning. We can go out and buy you some more clothes and whatever else you need. Everything will be taken care of by Nikiphero.”
Kayden had her Cliffside jacket in her hands and was running her fingers over the fabric. It was easy to tell in the fresh air of Uptown that there was a certain smell that had soaked into the jacket that would be impossible to remove completely, anywhere she walked up here while wearing the thing would immediately mark her as an outsider.
“I love you Kayden,” he said in the wake of her continued silence, then he left.
She layed back in her bed with the jacked resting across her chest and stared up at the ceiling, contemplating where life would take her from here. Any way she looked at it, she couldn’t see a bright future in store for her.
Maybe she would just run away, catch a skyship and sail to some foreign land that didn’t know anything about Uptown or Cliffside. Maybe somewhere in the East where she could learn about gate magic from those who actually understood it. It was a real possibility. There was nothing keeping her here anymore other than her father, and he was trying to force her to be something she wasn’t.
She decided to run. It was the only choice really. She couldn’t stay here no matter what.
She was young, only sixteen years old, but that was old enough for her to travel alone. She was sure that she could find a skyship that would accommodate her without too many questions, then she would be free of all of this.
With this plan in mind, she felt invigorated once again. Over the next few days, she would gather everything she needed, then leave a note for her father and disappear. She would send him word of where she was once she got situated. He would probably come after her, but by that point he would no longer have any power to control her life. She would be completely her own person, free of him and everyone else. Smiling at the thought she fell asleep full of possible dreams.
*****
She awoke with a start. It was very late at night or very early in the morning judging from the darkness outside her window. At first she didn’t know what had disturbed her sleep, then she heard someone walking past her door.
They paused for a moment, and some instinct told her that this wasn’t her father. Her adrenaline immediately kicked in.
Had Mistech somehow figured out where they were and followed them here? That was the only people she could think of that would come after her. Or maybe there was some other rival gang, or even an enemy Uptown that wanted to take her father down. There were unlimited possibilities. All she could really know for certain was that there was an intruder in the house.
The footsteps continued onward, then eventually faded and stopped. There was only silence in the house. It was so deep that for a moment Kayden believed that she had imagined the whole thing. Maybe she had just woken up from some scary dream and it had leaked over into reality.
When she was trying to decide what to do, she heard the door open. Had another one of them come? That didn’t make sense. The other one had been so quiet but this new arrival wasn’t attempting to be stealthy in the slightest. In fact, it was as if they felt like they belonged here and had no reason to be quiet.
Her eyes widened. Dad!
She leapt out of her bed and ran for the door, throwing it open.
“Dad! There’s someone in the house!”
She ran down the hall to the main living area and saw her father look around at her as she came barreling in. From behind him a figure, clad in black from head to foot, detached from the wall with a knife out, a man judging by his figure.
“Watch out!”
With lightning speed the figure descended toward her father, the blade of the knife flashing in the starlight filtering in from the windows.
But her father was an experienced fighter, with the instincts that only come from someone who had survived numerous deadly encounters.
He spun around and intercepted the blade. It plunged deep into his forearm, blood arcing through the air as the attacker retracted it, but he was still alive.
“Kayden go to your room and lock the door,” Xolan said in a deadly calm voice as he and the attacker faced off.
She didn’t move. She was frozen in fear.
Xolan glanced at her about to say something but that was when the intruder attacked again.
Xolan cursed and stepped out of the way of the blade at the last second. He attempted to follow up with his own attack but the intruder dodged him gracefully.
What followed was a rapid display of attacks the likes of which Kayden had ever seen. Her eyes had difficulty keeping up with their movements.
Xolan received several more cuts, but he landed a strong blow that caused the intruder to lose his grip on the knife. He grabbed the knife from the ground but when he straightened, the intruder pulled out some strange device which he pointed at Xolan.
Kayden recognized the device as being mechanical in nature, but it wasn’t like anything she had ever seen at the Academy.
The intruder held it extended out in a single hand. They stared at each other for a long moment, her father with the knife and the intruder with the unknown device.
The intruder must have been with Mistech, and the device was probably some weapon they had developed. They were the only gang that she knew of that utilized such things.
Xolan lunged at him with the knife.
There was an extremely loud bang and a flash of light from the barrel of the device. Her father stopped midlunge and looked down at the slowly spreading spot of blood on his chest. He dropped the knife with numb fingers.
“Dad?” Kayden asked, her mind not coming fully to terms with what was happening. She took a step toward him.
He looked at her then at the intruder. “Please, don’t hurt her.”
There was another flash and bang. Her father’s head snapped back and a spray of blood splattered across Kayden’s face. He fell to the ground.
Kayden stood there in shock, looking at her dead father. Suddenly something in her broke.
“Dad!”
She ran to him and fell to the ground, grabbing his lifeless body and pulling it into her lap. His eyes stared blankly back at her. There was a small puncture in the middle of his skull, leaking blood.
“Dad! Dad!”
No matter how hard she shook him, he wouldn’t respond. He was dead. She could see he was dead. She knew he was dead. But she couldn’t accept it. Tears ran down her cheeks.
Then a shadow moved. She had almost completely forgotten that she wasn’t alone. The intruder raised the device at her and she knew this was the end.
But a sound came from outside. Voices. The neighbors, having woken up from the sound of the device going off, were wondering what was going on and calling for the guards to come investigate.
The intruder cocked his head as if considering, then lowered the device, turned, and fled out the door.
Kayden looked down at her father then at the open doorway where the intruder had just fled through. She grabbed the knife from her father’s cold dead hands and took of in a sprint after her father’s murder, anger mounting with each step.
When she charged out into the hall she saw the killer waiting at the elevator like he was a casual visitor. The people filling the hallway that had woken up at the commotion were looking at him with uncertainty and fear. It looked like he had punched a man that had tried to get in his way.
“Are you alright?” an old woman asked, and Kayden must have had a wild enough look about her that the woman flinched away.
She didn’t care, she ignored all of the confused voices around her and chased after the killer.
The door to the elevator dinged open and the killer stepped in. When he turned around to hit the button to the bottom floor, he saw Kayden approaching. She would reach him before the door closed. The killer raised his weapon.
Kayden dived to the ground just as there was a loud bang. People screamed in fear but it didn’t seem like anyone was hurt. When Kayden recovered enough to look up at the elevator she was just able to watch as the doors shut on the masked intruder with his weapon trained on her.
She slammed open the door to the stairwell and charged down after him. The building had fourteen floors and she was on the eleventh. She leapt down the stairs, clearing whole sections in a single bound, crashing into walls when the stairwell turned. She had a singular drive and everything else was inconsequential, even possible injuries she might sustain with her reckless pursuit.
By the time she reached the lobby, she was drenched in sweat. She slammed open the door just in time to see the doorman ushering in two of the night watch guards. Someone must have come down and warned him about the commotion ahead of Kayden and the killer. They saw her come out, covered in blood and carrying a bloody knife, and pulled out their cudgels, slowly advancing toward her.
“Put the weapon down,” one of them said.
She glanced around, searching for the killer, but he was nowhere to be seen. He must have already escaped into the night while the doorman was retrieving the guards. If she wanted to catch him she didn’t have time to try explaining everything to these policemen.
When they got close, she infused her arms with her aura and before they could react she pushed past them and ran through the door. They shouted out in surprise and one of the took a swing at her, but she got through before they could stop her.
In a daze she looked everywhere but saw no sign of the killer. She had lost him. She had let her father’s killer get away.
Just as she was about to go running off blind through the streets in search of him, something slammed into her head and a jolt of electricity arched throughout her entire body, causing all of her muscles to seize up.
She didn’t lose consciousness but she was powerless to do anything other than scream as she felt one of the officers grab her arms and cuff her. Tears of anger, frustration, and heart-rending powerlessness crashed through her, but nobody cared. She was completely alone.