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BII: Epilogue 1 (Rick/Lana)
🕑 Added 2023-05-26 00:05:53 +0000 UTC“Where is everyone?” Addy asked him while she rubbed her forehead. If her migraine was as bad as his, Rick knew she was really hurting. They had never pushed their powers so hard in such a short period of time. No wonder Eli was so capable with his powers since he seemed to be using them like this constantly.
Air currents eddied through vents into each room while the air conditioning drove away the May heat. Rick smiled at the impressions he felt through Storm Cloud. All his family was under their roof again with a few additions.
Eli played board games in the living room with Lana, Lyra, and Cyrus. Through his connection to the air, Rick felt the tension they collectively held in their shoulders. Every movement was stiff. Only Cyrus seemed like he was truly playing. But at least they were all together.
His children were back.
Down in the basement, Herbert paced while Roman and Les lectured each other on the finer points of whatever they were tinkering with. Rick poked and prodded with the air until the jumble of metal made sense to him.
It was some kind of device fashioned out of scavenged junk. It was about the size of some dystopian toaster oven. Vibrations murmured through the house back to his ears as he focused harder on it. Before he could make out what anyone was saying, he relaxed his grip on the air currents. Rick wouldn’t spy on any of them.
Never mind how easy it would be to encrypt then unscramble any sounds they made with Storm Cloud and Body of Force. Exponential Omniforce made it child’s play.
Rick sighed as he tried and failed to find Maeve. She had disappeared after they brought everyone back to their house a couple of blocks away from the park. He had a suspicion that she was watching the prison where Fern and Theo were held.
Most of the town steered closer to executing the greant and its maker rather than imprisoning them in the dungeon like she suggested. He agreed with Maeve, but he didn’t want to worry about his family coming under attack again.
Addy stirred next to him with a pained groan as she took a clumsy sip from her glass of water. He rubbed her shoulder while he checked the pulse of their house’s air currents one last time.
No one was going to interrupt any time soon.
“We’re clear.” Rick leaned back into the cushion of his pillow against the wall. Phantom aches and pains stabbed through his muscles and into the marrow of his bones. He hadn’t been this tired since he had to pull two all nighters to troubleshoot his old company’s consulting project.
A part of him wondered if he was crazier for preferring a day full of constant fighting on the tail end of rescuing Herbert to his old job in tech. What did it say about him that he’d take the apocalypse over programming?
“—do about the kids? We kind of swept what Lyra told us about Lana bullying Eli under the rug. Plus what she and Theo said about them creating the monsters. Don’t you think it’s time to handle it?”
“Obviously,” Rick sighed as he turned to meet his wife’s eyes. “What do we do about it, though? Taking one of her powers would be fair, if only because we grounded Eli from his, but I don’t feel comfortable doing that with all the monsters on the loose, not to mention how mob crazy everyone is.”
“I forgot we took his power.” Addy deflated. “Fuck. Is that really the best move? It feels so barbaric now. When I made him give it up, I didn’t understand at all. But after having Enchantress’s Palate for a year and finally getting a plant power back… I get it.”
“I know what you mean.” Rick glanced at his status where Cybermancer’s Tech waited in his unequipped power list. He still couldn’t parse the sheer joy and disbelief he had felt when he’d gotten the trade request notification. It wasn’t the same as Technomancy, at all, but it was close.
“What should we do then?”
“I don’t know, love. We need to do something. Lana fucking sicced Tom Harvers on Eli for her own entertainment. Who does that? If this was before powers, I would take all her electronics away, maybe withhold buying her a car, and maybe send her away to stay with one of our parents over the summer.”
“Send her away? That’s pretty harsh, Rick.” Addy winced. “She’s definitely in big trouble, but sending her to live with Mom would’ve been a nightmare. Mom would’ve brought this up every day she was there and worked her to the bone.”
“Maybe that’s necessary.” Rick rolled off the bed so he could pace back and forth across their bedroom. “We can’t do that, but maybe we can do something similar?”
“What are you thinking?” Addy groaned as she watched him walk across the room and again. He stopped so she wouldn’t get motion sick.
“We could make her do more work. She’s been pushing to join the Volunteer Defense, so obviously not that. Don’t want to reward her bloodthirsty tendencies by making her fight.”
“She could babysit or teach at the school? Veronica said at the party that they were looking for someone to help teach the younger kids.”
“Lyra would be better at that. Is it really right to punish children with Lana’s attitude?” Rick frowned. “She could probably do some hard labor and something else, maybe. Her stat powers would make it easier, but I’d appreciate the change in focus. Work as an assistant to one of the elderly? They have strong powers, but still struggle with some of the day to day stuff.”
“Maybe. I’d still prefer the school though. If we even want to stay here? Now that Eli’s back, I’d feel comfortable leaving to see how our parents are doing in Rockford or even moving to the dimension that Herbert and Les come from.” Addy’s forehead crinkled in thought before she flinched from her migraine.
“Yeah, I agree.” He rubbed his hands across his face with a sigh.
“I can’t believe that moving to another dimension is even an option now. But whatever it is, we need to do something.”
“We have no choice but to ground her from everything but her stat powers, then.” Rick sat back down on the bed. “I don’t think it’d be fair otherwise. And if a fight came up, we could always trade her combat powers back to her.”
Addy paused to take another sip of water. “Okay, I feel right about this. We take either all or some of her powers and then either she helps out with the school or we make her find work in the other dimension. Or do the shit work if we travel across the country toward Rockford.”
“Perfect.” Rick nodded. “Now, what do we do about Eli? He’s been gone for so long.”
“What do you mean? We make him feel as welcome and comfortable as we can.” Addy blinked at him the way she did whenever she didn’t understand him.
“I mean, he was leaning pretty close to distancing himself from us before everything happened on his birthday last year. Now it’s been a whole year for us and a week and a day for him? That’s a lot of baggage.”
“That’s true.” Addy sighed. “I don’t even know how to parent him anymore. We let him withdraw so much that whenever we tried, he shoved us away and lashed out or disappeared even more.”
“True. Maybe we don’t parent him then?”
“What, like being his friend?”
“He never responded very well to us managing him, and he seemed to have issues with us trying to help him from the sidelines. So, maybe we need to do something in-between?”
“I thought we agreed that we didn’t need to be friends with our kids. Our job is to raise them.” Addy raised her eyebrows.
“Yeah, but he’s legally an adult now. He’s as raised as he’s going to get. I don’t want to keep pushing him away.”
“Technically, a legal adult. Don’t have much of a federal government anymore.” Addy pointed out wryly before sighing. “I see what you’re saying, though. Eighteen is just so young. I don’t want him to make the same mistakes either of us made.”
“Circumstances are already forcing him into repeating one of the ones I made,” Rick chuckled.
“He can’t exactly drop out of high school if there isn’t really one left. And you did get your GED and went to college, so I’m not sure that really counts.” Addy rolled her eyes. “But sure, there are ‘classes’, but I wouldn’t count any of them being… quality besides what they have for kids.” Most able-bodied people had been drafted to helping with community labor or worked in the Voluntary Farbrook Defense.
“Fair enough.” He paused while he let his senses drift through the air conditioning again with Storm Cloud.
The girls, Eli, and Cyrus had switched to playing Uno and were in the middle of a heated argument about the rules. Apparently, Cyrus had used a draw four card in response to Lana so Eli would have to draw eight cards. He kept insisting it was acceptable and didn’t break any of the rules.
Roman and Les had turned their strange toaster oven device into a bizarre glowing monolith that pulsated with a strange hum that carried on the wind. Herbert watched with wide eyes.
Rick looked back up to meet Addy’s eyes to nod with the all clear that no one was listening in on their conversation.
“Maybe you’re right about us acting like his friend instead.” Addy sighed as she jumped right back in. “I just don’t want him to make any of the mistakes we did, but… I guess that’s adulthood. We can’t really protect him from that, can we?”
“No, I don’t think we can.” Rick patted her shoulder as they trailed off into silence. She winced at the sudden contact, so he shifted around so he could massage her neck and back.
***
Lana suppressed a chuckle at the almost glowing red flush in Eli’s cheeks as he ranted against Cyrus. She couldn’t imagine arguing against a twelve year old instead of just drawing eight cards and continuing the game. Granted, she had cast doubt on the ruling to spice the game up a bit more.
No wonder her parents refused to play Uno with them.
“No, that’s against the rules! You have to draw four. Why would I have to draw eight?” Eli protested as he frowned across the table at Cyrus and Lana.
“Because! You can use other special cards in response to others. You can use a Reverse on Reverse or Skip on Skip, why not a draw card on a draw card?” Cyrus folded his arms together.
“Guys! Stop! We’re getting nowhere.” Lyra stood up as she glared at each of them in turn. Lana suppressed a flash of irritation at the fierce look her twin sent her way. So what if she had taken Eli’s side to make things more interesting?
“Yeah but—“ Eli started before Lyra chopped her hand through the air silencing him with one of her illusion powers.
“No powers at the table.” Cyrus frowned seriously at her.
“Well then, I have to confess something.” Lyra sighed with false guilt as she reached over to nudge Cyrus’s draw four off from the top of the discard pile revealing a yellow eight. “I made Lana think she had a better card.”
“What! That’s cheating. What’s the point if you’re going to use powers?” Cyrus glowered at each of them, as if they were all untrustworthy.
“She’s lying, Cyrus.” Lana rolled her eyes as she pointed at the vivid gold of the yellow eight. “Look at the color. Lyra’s covering it up, so we stop fighting. Her illusions are always more vibrant than real life. She’s too artistic to do drab and mundane.”
“It doesn’t work if you point it out.” Lyra slapped her hand against the table hard… for a person with pre-Initialization strength. Lana resisted the urge again to insist that Lyra take a body enhancement power. It was embarrassing how physically weak she was.
“Fine, whatever. I’ll draw eight.” Eli did so as the yellow eight became a yellow draw four again. It sat next to Cyrus’s green draw four.
“Finally. Next person who uses a power has to draw an extra card!” Cyrus said somberly.
“Trust me, I stopped looking at space once they started talking.” Eli glanced upstairs toward their parents bedroom then at Lana with a smirk.
“Interesting,” Lyra commented dryly as she threw a green seven down.
Lana frowned at whatever that was about while she studied her cards. A blue three, yellow eight, and a red skip. Fuck, no green or seven cards.
She drew a card.
“What are you guys tal… oh.” Cyrus looked away with a blush.
“No, not that. It sounded like Lana was in trouble,” Eli said with a sardonic smile. God, he was such an asshole sometimes.
Lana kept any comments to herself while she lined up her new blue reverse before she drew, then placed a green two down. Old instincts urged her to needle Cyrus’s embarrassment or to make a jab back at Eli, but she didn’t want to. Even if he was a dick sometimes, it was nice to have him back.
She glanced at her status window again while she waited for her turn. There was nothing from any of the greants since she had already taken or passed on the basic powers they had at evo-0 and evo-1.
And no one got any from that powerful monster, Fern, since Maeve incapacitated it.
<Congratulations, Lana Newton! You have slain:
Greant (x 142)
Troll (x 64)
Ghoul (x 24)
Skeletaur (x 4)
Enlightened Troll (x 3)
With the powers:
Earthen Heal Ev. 0 (x 64)
Staggering Brawn Ev. 1 (x 64)
Necrosis Ev. 0 (x 24)
Necrokinesis Ev. 0 (x 24)
Bone Control Ev. 0 (x 4)
Terrashape Ev. 1 (x 1)
Metallurgic Mastery Ev. 1 (x 1)
Earthborn Prowess Ev. 1 (x 1)
You may select from one of the following options:
Siphon Power Experience
Gain a Power Perk
Obtain Power from the Conquered>
<Condensing list…>
<Processing…>
<Your condensed power list is:
Land’s Embrace Ev. 0
Staggering Might Ev. 1
Devouring Necrosis Ev. 0
Osteo Control Ev. 0
Terrashape Ev. 1 (x 1)
Metallurgic Mastery Ev. 1 (x 1)
Earthborn Prowess Ev. 1 (x 1)
You may select from one of the following options:
Siphon Power Experience
Gain a Power Perk
Obtain Power from the Conquered>
[Stats:
Body: Gravity (Gravatonic Constitution)
Mind: None
Will: Silverlight (Silverlight)
]
[Equipped Power List:
Slot One -- Vengeful Blade Ev. 1/Lv. 7
Perks Equipped: [Sharp]
Slot Two -- Forceful Celerity Ev. 1/Lv. 1
Slot Three -- N/A
]
[Feral Steel Ev. 2 (On/Off):
Slot One — Ferrosteel Forge
(Description: All iron or steel in your range becomes your domain. Forge it—and yourself—as you see fit.)
Slot Two — Unrelenting Hunt
(Description: Chase down a task to its completion. No matter the cost.)
]
“Lana, it’s your turn.” Lyra had reached across the table to jostle her.
“Sorry, I zoned out.” She grinned sheepishly as she looked at everyone and the red five on top of the discard pile. Lyra had four cards, Eli had seven, and Cyrus had two. Lana held four cards in her hand.
She tossed her red skip down to pass over Cyrus before she refocused back on her power options.
If Eli let her keep the Feral Steel Ghost, she’d be tempted to take Metallurgic Mastery. It’d work nicely with her Silverlight, the Ghost, and Vengeful Blade. She could probably powerlevel it fairly quickly too, since she was already familiar with metal control powers due to Silverlight.
Otherwise, Terrashape felt pretty interesting.
She wouldn’t be able to directly manipulate it so much as she’d be able to sculpt vast amounts of the earth around her. It’d be slow and tedious, but she could do a lot with it eventually. It wouldn’t be so combative like what Lyra could do. Throughout the battle Lyra had used her Geomantic Control and the volcanic power Eli gave her to control the battlefield around them and crush anything that got close. Only the Elite Trolls could stand up to their powers.
Something inside of her warmed at the sheer options and versatility it would give her. It felt like it’d be incredibly slow though.
Lana chose Terrashape. It’d give her something she could use outside of battle and she felt like it fit her the best. Metallurgic Mastery would be incredible, but she could wait to figure out how to remake it. Besides, half of its use relied on Eli letting her keep Feral Steel Ghost.
<Congratulations, Lana Newton! You have selected Terrashape Ev. 1! Would you like to equip it? Y/N>
Yes. Lana smirked to herself as the new power plugged into her status. Her perception sank into the earth beneath her. She felt thousands of tons of dirt ready to be molded at her command. A nudge downward shoved her perception deeper into the natural earth around the cement and asphalt of the street outside and the sewers below.
Lana paid attention to the game in time to watch Lyra throw her second to last card, a yellow reverse, reverting it back to Eli’s turn.
“Uno!” Lyra crowed before anyone could call her on it.
Stairs creaked as two pairs of footsteps descended. Lana turned toward her parents in the hope that Eli had been exaggerating or trying to get a rise out of her. He hadn’t been.
She noticed the flat stare in Mom’s eyes and the slight frown that tugged at the corners of her mouth. Dad’s eyebrows were drawn over his thunderous eyes.
Uh-oh.
Lana’s good mood plummeted to the pit of her stomach as she looked straight into their eyes.
“Hey Lana, can we talk to you?” Dad asked overly casual as he continued to walk through the living room toward the kitchen. Mom followed behind him, neither of them giving her any time to respond.
Fuck, was it something about the fight? What happened with Theo or something else?
“I’ll be right back.” Lana pushed herself out of her chair carefully while she diminished her strength from Body of Gravity. A buzz droned in her ears, drowning out the responses her siblings and Cyrus gave her.
She walked through the hallway that closed around her like a strangled throat. Metallic sweat shimmered across her palms as Will of Silverlight prepared to protect her.
Fear scrambled through her as she glanced over the tidy countertops, stove, fridge, and extra dining table in the kitchen. Neither of her parents were there. Fuck, this was serious if they wouldn’t talk about it within earshot of the others.
Lana stepped forward as she walked past the door down to the basement and into the garage. Her hand trembled as she tugged the door shut. Both of her parents waited with their arms crossed in front of their chests.
“Is something wrong?” Lana asked sheepishly as she shoved her hands into her pockets. Denim ripped. She reigned in her powers entirely until she was practically pre-Initialization normal. Despite her emotions, she didn’t need her powers on full blast.
“Yes. I’d say so.” Mom started off while Dad nodded.
“Do you want to guess what we’re about to talk to you about, or should we tell you?” Dad asked, his voice sharp.
“Don’t be dramatic, Rick.” Mom stepped closer to Lana. “Some things came to light last night. We want to hear your explanations.”
“About the whole greant thing?”
“Sure, let’s start with that first.” Dad tapped his foot.
Lana frowned. What did he me—
Oh fuck, that’s right.
Lyra had told them about how she had pushed Tom and his friends to play a prank on Eli. How it was her fault all of that had started.
Silver sweat crusted over parts of her skin in an obscure, comforting armor.
“Um, ok. Ok, so, the greant thing started a few months after martial law was announced. Theo and I had been planning how to continue our training between the mandatory curfew and summer school. We had no real time and our powers were behind. I… I was still upset that I wasn’t able to do anything against that Sandra bi.. uh, business lady, and we both decided to see if we could make our own enemies to fight.”
“So, you created monsters?” Dad scoffed.
“Yeah.” Lana sagged as silverlight flowed out of thin air into a chair to catch her before she fell.
“Okay. And? What happened next Alanna?” Mom pushed.
“We created, then killed more. I don’t remember how many, but it was a lot. I don’t know how he took it, but I didn’t think it was serious since they weren’t real. It wasn’t like they were animals or people, they were just trees. I didn’t know they’d get their own powers and come back.” She sighed. “We stopped after I got the last level I needed to slot Silverlight.”
“Ah. So that’s how you did it. I wondered how you maxed out your evo-2 power so quickly.”
“Yeah, so, after that, we left. We had killed them all, but I guess they came back somehow. I thought that was the end of it, but then Theo last night said he kept making more monsters.”
“How do you feel about that?” Dad asked tightly without a shred of emotion.
“Not great, Dad.” Lana chuckled a little wildly as she glanced at both of them. “We, or at least I, never meant for them to live and even after the news came out of their existence, he made more? I’m upset that he not only did it, but kept it a secret from me.”
Her parents looked at each other for a few seconds.
“I’m not going to lie to you. This is all pretty fucked up.” Dad combed his fingers through his hair. “I believe that you didn’t intend for them to spread and whatever else, but you still created new life just to slaughter it? That’s just an unquantifiable kind of wrong.”
“Agreed. If that was all, I’d be disgusted and furious with you, but it isn’t.” Mom frowned. “The same monsters you created spread everywhere and killed thousands of people, if not more! They destroyed a lot of cities. And you not only didn’t say anything, I don’t even recall if you acted upset or any different. Did you even care? This is partially on your shoulders.”
“You basically made then released a biological weapon.” Dad shrugged. “I always had high hopes for you three when it came to careers, but you becoming a terrorist at fifteen exceeds all expectations.”
“Rick.”
“Sorry.” Dad sighed as he glanced at Mom, then back at Lana. “That was uncalled for. I’m sorry, I just… what the hell, Lana? If that wasn’t enough you bullied your brother?”
Lana flinched.
Before she could say anything in her defense, to explain, apologize, anything at all, Dad continued talking.
“You’ve always had a bit of a snarky relationship with each other and that’s mostly been fine. Sometimes one of you went too far, and then we’d have to step in and that was that. Eventually, I thought you all regulated to be at least civil. But this… this is serious. Lana, you’re lucky he didn’t run away, hurt or kill himself.”
“It wasn’t supposed to go as far as it did!” Lana shouted before either of them could say any more. Tears blurred her vision. She blinked them away. “It was just a joke. A prank! I was jealous of him, that’s all! I didn’t mean for it to continue past the beginning.”
“You had Tom catfish your own brother.” Mom sighed as she rubbed her forehead the way she did whenever she had a headache.
“Yeah,” Lana whispered. Her eyes dropped to the cement floor of the garage. A layer of gritty dust coated the floor.
“He quit the swim team. Stopped hanging out with Scott and Roman. He missed a lot of school and apparently Tom was physically abusing him too? And what did you do? Nothing.” One of Dad’s veins in his forehead throbbed as he shouted.
“Rick, take a second to cool do—“
“You acted like everything was fine and normal. Not to mention how you knew he was sneaking out to practice with his powers! If you had said something, we could have helped him!”
“Rick! That’s enough!” Mom snapped.
Lana blinked as tears rolled down her cheeks to drip onto the floor. Dad was right. She had let her own jealousy and frustration over her own failures drive a wedge between Eli and the rest of his life.
She hadn’t cared about him or anyone else throughout all of this.
“I’m sorry, I got carried away.” Dad sighed as he fidgeted.
“So we—“ Mom said before Lana interrupted her.
“You’re right. Okay, you’re right. But aren’t you going to ask why? Not that it matters what my excuses are. I did push Tom onto Eli, and yes, I didn’t say or do anything when it got out of control. But he didn’t either! Also, don’t you care why I did it?”
“I mean, does it matter? It was wrong,” Dad said while Mom’s frown tightened as she crossed her arms in front of her chest.
“Obviously. I’m not stupid. I know it was and is.” Lana chuckled wetly through the flood of tears in her throat. “Did either of you even notice that I was struggling with school? I got only C’s and one A freshman year, and that was a PE class. Tom was the only one who paid attention to me after I acted like hot shit before it became clear what a failure I was. Am. Neither of you noticed how I was struggling to fit in or anything. You were both too busy after you finally got the jobs you always wanted.”
Lana stepped forward as she Willed her tears to turn into silverlight before banishing them. Her face dried instantly.
“Sure, I fucked up and ruined Eli’s life, but you didn’t even notice what I was doing either! It took Lyra tattling on me and a fucking tree monster saying something for you guys to even remember me as something other than a pest. Don’t blame me for everything with our family. Blame yourselves.”
Lana turned around to run away into the kitchen as a new flood of tears pricked her eyes. She stopped as she saw everyone in the house crowded in the kitchen. They stood silently behind the ajar garage door.
Eli’s eyes twinkled like starlight as he stared at her with a blank expression. He held Roman back by his shoulder. Roman’s face was cold steel, his eyes crackled with static.
She backed up. Her heart plunged out of her chest straight into the soles of her feet.
“I’m sorry.” She whispered to Eli, Roman, her parents, to everyone before she tapped into Body of Gravity.
Flesh and blood lost its shape as her body transformed into one of the most primal forces of the universe. Gravity. Her sense of the world narrowed to volumes and mass and inexorable pull of earth’s core.
Lana stretched outside with a flicker of gravitational force as dust and leaves in the driveway floated in a cloud of debris. She wasn’t going to stand by and watch as—
Gravity twisted and sheared out of her control as space locked down around her. Lana dropped out of the air onto the driveway with a crack.
Lana glanced up wild-eyed at Eli as he appeared next to her.
“We need to talk.” He pointed into the portal that appeared right in front of them. It led into a sort of library that she had never seen before.
She walked through the portal into a comfortable library full of bookshelves and cushioned chairs. A fireplace loomed empty in the corner. A second later, logs appeared in it before bursting into flame.
“What is this place?” Lana asked thickly through her tears as she spun to study the room.
“My sanctum. It’s a demiplane that’s fully mine. Can’t do much more than this and teleport right now while Astral Starspace recovers, but it’s enough.” Eli appeared behind her. “Is everything you said true?”
“It is.” Lana nodded as she resisted the urge to back up. Something felt different about Eli. Just a bit ago, they had been sitting at the table in the living room playing Uno and now he felt more intimidating than any monster she had ever fought.
“I see.” Eli frowned as if her admission were a puzzle piece that he couldn’t figure out how to make fit. “Why? I heard what you said after to Mom and Dad, but… why?”
“I was jealous of you… I still kind of am, even after everything. You got Teleportation and I got Enhanced Athleticism. I’ve been scared this whole time, constantly, but you never seemed afraid. You were excited. Once you figured out Teleportation, you’ve been unstoppable. You belong to this new world just as much as you did the old one.”
Eli frowned. “So, I’m just competition?”
“Maybe?” Lana blinked, dazed. So many things had happened one event after the other that she could barely keep track now. “Regardless, I’m sorry. I never intended for things to go as far as they had and I don’t expect you to forgive me—“
“I don’t forgive you.”
“That’s fair.” She winced awkwardly as she stopped talking.
“Sure, maybe you stopped after the beginning of the bullying and the creation of the greants. But don’t you see a common thread here? You do something awful, step back, then stand by as shit continues?”
“I guess.” Lana turned away. A table sat in the corner full of stickered public library books.
“Aren’t you tired of that? Of not actually owning up to anything? You haven’t even mentioned how you beat me unconscious repeatedly when I came to you for help when Recovery went on the fritz. I couldn’t get it under control and was basically high, and you hit me over the head again. And again.”
“You’re right, I’m—“
“Sorry, I know.” He started pacing. “I get it, I do. Well, I mean, I get feeling sorry for shit and then continuing to do it. I’ve been a bad friend, brother, and son. I run away from shit constantly, too. If I’m honest with myself, I barely tried to figure out a way home until Maeve and Roman helped me realize how selfish I was being. Sounds like you haven’t tried to do anything about what you’ve done either.”
“You’re right.” Lana dropped into the chair closest to her. Ever since this started, she had treated it like a game. All that mattered to her was the next level, the next power.
Feeling strong.
That’s all she wanted, but what did it matter if she never took responsibility for any of it?
“Can you take me back?” She stood up as shakily as she avoided looking Eli in the eye.
“Of course. Let’s do better together, okay?” Eli hugged her before space collapsed around them, teleporting them back in the driveway.
Lana was done running.
Comments
Chris Mcgaha
Thanks.
weas97
Thanks for the chapter :)
Farxzay
Thanks for the chapter!
Steven Beal
Thanks for the chapter
Corbin
This one is a bit late, but it's been super hectic non-stop all this week and last. All good things, but damn. I liked writing this chapter a lot. Hopefully you enjoy it, but I know that to some people the family drama aspects can be annoying to read. So I hope this was enjoyable on some level if you're one of those readers. Next chapter will be Cyrus. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed and I'll see you all next week!
