Liberté Foncée

CHAPTER THREE: WASH AWAY THOSE YEARS

Adrienne Cassada was a killer at heart.

Most people called her a demon.

Her friends - the few that she had and cared for - called her twisted, and dismissed it with a laugh.

Those who didn't know her should have been grateful that they didn't.

Adrienne was the type of person who could be your friend before you'd met them. Many a time, she had people's trust before she'd earned it. For most, this was a signature on their own death warrant.

Eventually, everyone she knew to not be in her favor suffered.

Adrienne didn't care if she was called insane, cruel, evil, or anything of the sort. She was not the type of person who listened long enough to care.

Besides, those opinions died along with the people that they had belonged to.

And those people never lived long.

They were cowards, in Adrienne's eyes. And cowards all went to Hell.

Adrienne was the person that helped them make the trip sooner.

And she figured that they deserved t.

Eventually, everyone gets what they deserve.

Eventually...

Adrienne had given many people what they deserved.

*

YEAR 2112

Ayden let a stream of swear words flow as he slowly approached the bodies, stumbling past chairs and tables. He knelt down beside Violet, and put a hand on her arm. "Vi, wake up. C'mon, wake up, please! You can't be dead, don't be dead..." he murmured quietly, yet urgently.

As though she had heard him, Violet stirred and lifted her head. "Ayden," she choked out, sitting up violently.

"What happened?" Ayden asked urgently. He glanced at Mark.

"Oh god!" Violet cried. She was shaking all over. "It was Death Eaters," she said shakily. "Broke down the door and attacked..." She wasn't looking at Ayden; she was looking intently at Mark.

Slowly, she extended a trembling hand and took Ayden's brother's arm and checked his pulse. There were several moments of absolute silence, and then the tears filled her eyes. "He's not..." Ayden began hoarsely.

"Dead," Violet whispered.

*

"My parents are gone, Mark is gone... I've got no family, I've got no roots, I've got nothing, for Christ's sake!" Ayden heard his own voice, angry and biting.

Now the ghosts come dancin' by

He knew he sounded irritated, but inside, he was falling apart. Memories filled his head. He could remember all the times when he'd been little... waking up from a nightmare and going to his brother who let him crawl under the covers and stay there for a night.

"Ayden, that's enough," Violet said sternly. She could get over her grief enough to get angry at him, apparently. "First of all, you're going to wear a whole in the floor if you keep that pacing up. And second of all, it's not true that you haven't got anything. You've got your friends and you've got me.

Ayden scowled at her.

"I'm serious, Ayden. Mark left me in charge of you if anything ever happened to him, remember?" Violet's voice was forceful, and Ayden backed down. He'd never heard her sound like that.

"I remember," he said quietly and sunk onto the couch. "But... he's gone, Vi. I'll never get to talk to him again... never get to argue with him... I didn't even say goodbye when I left today! I never got a chance to say thank you for all the things he did for me..."

Outta the shadows of my life

Violet put a hand on his arm. "It's all right," she said quietly.

"No," Ayden said bitterly. "It's not,"

"We'll make it thought this," Violet said confidently, but she sounded worried.

"You're going to have to sound more convincing if you want me to believe you."

"And you're going to have to stop snapping every time someone says something to you!" Violet said, losing her temper, sounding hurt.

"I'm sorry, Vi," Ayden said quietly after a few moments of ringing silence. "I'm sorry, it's just... I'm sick of losing everything and everyone. First it was my dad, now it's Mark..." he shook his head as his voice broke.

All of my losses, none of my wins

"I know," Violet replied. "I know."

*

"Ayden!" Ayden heard someone calling him from far off. He turned slowly to look.

Walking in a huddle far behind him were three figures that he recognized. He stopped walking, waiting for them to catch up with him.

"Hey," Alena greeted him, her breath rising in a mist before him. "Cold, eh?"

Ayden nodded numbly. Alena's greeting smile faded and she looked to Shane and Rayne on either side of her, both of whom were looking oddly at Ayden.

"Are you alright, mate?" Shane asked.

"I..." Ayden trailed off, searching his friends' faces for a moment. "No," he said finally.

Rayne raised an eyebrow. "What's going on?"

Ayden shrugged, and glanced at the ground, kicking a pebble on the sidewalk and watching it bounce away. "My bother's dead," he muttered distantly. He felt strange saying it. To say he was dead. What did it mean to die anyway? Ayden shook his head to clear the thoughts.

"Wait a minute - Mark is dead? How? When?" Shane spouted a series of questions.

"Yes. Death Eaters. Yesterday evening when I got home," Ayden answered wearily. "Listen, I'm on my way to Vi's; I've got a lot to sort out. Can I talk to you all later?"

Why do I have to face 'em again?

"Do you want us to come with you?" Shane seemed to be the only one of the three who seemed able to say anything, and when Ayden shook his head, he tried again. "You'll be alright?"

"Yeah, fine. It just came as a big shock. I'll see you all later."

He walked away quickly.

Shane stared after him, biting his lip.

"Shane?" Shane was suddenly aware of Alena and Rayne still beside him.

"Yeah." He snapped out of his thoughts. "What?"

Alena didn't answer. Rayne, however, nodded towards Ayden's retreating back. "D'you think he'll be alright?" she asked quietly.

Shane was silent for a minute. "He'll be fine," he said, more confidently then he felt. "I'm just worried. I'm not used to him lying. He doesn't do it often. Especially not to me."

"Lying?" Alena asked, following Ayden with her eyes.

"What do you mean?" Rayne added.

Shane shook his head. "He's a terrible liar. You've just got to know what he's like when he's nervous to be able to realize it. He hasn't got anything to sort out, and he's not going to Violet's."

"How can you be sure? Maybe he's just upset. You would be." Rayne seemed skeptical.

Shane cracked a wry smile. "Well, for starters, if he's heading towards Violet's, he can get there the way he's going, but he'd have to walk around the whole planet to do it. The shorter way is ten minutes in the opposite direction."

*

Ayden was sitting starting at an old photograph - himself, at age ten, and Mark, at eighteen. They two brothers looked a lot alike, actually. Especially in this photograph. The same dark hair and blue eyes, same smiles...

A knock sounded on the door.

"Ayden? We know you're in there. Please, open the door."

Ayden closed his eyes.

Go away, Rayne, he thought. I can't do this right now.

"Ayden, come on, please."

Shit, Alena's out there too? Well, the girl did say 'we'...

Ayden glanced at the door, willing them to leave him alone.

He remained silent.

"Ayden Ryan, open the damn door or you're going to have to pay for the repair after I break it down!"

Ayden jumped slightly. What the hell...? Then he wondered briefly why he wouldn't have figured Shane would be there as well, and angry too.

Damnit, what did they want from him? Couldn't they understand he wanted to be alone?

He cursed.

"Open the door, Ayden, please," said Alena's voice. Did she have to beg him? For god's sake, the girl knew as well as he did that no one could help it when she begged, and Ayden had barely known her a month...

He took a tentative step towards the door, hesitated, and then turned the lock and the doorknob.

His friends were waiting for him, faces etched with anxiety.

"Did you have to beg?" he asked Alena bitterly.

She didn't reply.

Ayden turned his gaze to Shane. "I told you I was going to be at Violet's," he said.

"You're a bad liar," Shane shot at him.

Ayden scowled. "Can't you understand I just want to be here on my own for a while?"

"No, because I know you." Alena and Rayne were looking from one to the other, like spectators at a tennis match. Shane continued. "If we left you alone you'd do something stupid and end up hurting yourself or someone else," he said firmly.

"I'm glad you have so much confidence in me," Ayden replied coldly.

"Ayden," Alena said quietly. "We were worried about you."

"And we're not the only ones," Shane added. He watched Ayden intently. "We dropped by Violet's before we came here. Have you talked to her lately, Ayden? Because she's going mad. Called my mum last night at four-o-clock in the morning because she was worried about you. If I didn't know then that something was wrong then I sure as hell do now."

Ayden looked away, his friend's piercing gaze making him squirm.

"Look, I'll be fine. I just need to sort things out. Really." He watched them for a moment. "Really."

"I can't believe that," Shane said quietly and determinedly.

"There's no need for you not to. I'm tell you all, I'll be fine. I'm serious. Just let me alone for a while."

"How long?" Rayne challenged.

"I dunno. I'll -"

"How long?" Rayne repeated. Her voice was determined, yet it shook slightly.

Ayden sighed. "Alright, here's the deal; I'll meet you all in the woods tomorrow night at nine. Until then, just let me alone." He glanced at all of them. "Come on. If I'm not there at nine you can kidnap and torture me or whatever you like. Deal?"

There was a pause.

Finally, Alena stepped forward. "Alright. Nine tomorrow. Everyone be there. And Ayden, you get there after nine, and you're going to have to deal with us. Agreed, all?"

Rayne nodded. Everyone looked at Shane.

"I don't like this," he said quietly.

"I'm not saying you have to," Ayden answered.

A split second of silence stretched itself out into what seemed like eternity.

"Fine, whatever." Shane shook his head. "Nine tomorrow night. Be there."

Alena and Rayne were already walking off, talking quietly to one another. Ayden nodded. "I will."

There was another of those pauses.

"Listen, Ayden -" Shane began, but Ayden cut him off.

"Hey - tomorrow."

Shane nodded, and Ayden could tell it was causing him great effort. "Take care of yourself."

"Go on and get out of here already, will you?" Ayden smiled weakly. "I'll see all three of you tomorrow."

"Right." Shane nodded, and walked away.

*

Ayden lay sleepless that night. The house was empty, he kept realizing, a strange feeling coming with the thought. He had spent nights here alone before, of course, but it was odd to think that it would always be like this from now on.

Violet had tried to persuade him to stay were her until everything calmed down, but he had turned down the offer and refused to reconsider his decision, though even he himself was not sure why now.

It was raining outside.

He could hear the drops on his window, striking it hard and cold, like bullets against a tin shield. He watched the trees he could see from his window madly bending in the harsh wind outside. He saw lightning flash, illuminating a particularly large oak tree - tall and solid, it's trunk scarred with age, yet still strong. It's branches, bare with the winter, were unmoving. Twigs snapped away every so often, stripping the tree.

If that tree could feel anything, would it feel like Ayden did now? Stripped of his family... his brother broken away just like one of those twigs?

No.

It wasn't like that. Those twigs were small. Insignificant. They would grow back. They would be replaced. They would be forgotten and would have been barely noticed in the first place.

A roar of thunder rattled the windowpanes.

Ayden remembered another time like this. Another storm. Another sleepless night...

*

When Ayden was three weeks old, his and Mark's mother died. When he was three, his father died. He was sent to live with a brother he barely knew and Mark's father. The man had left his wife and taken his son when Mark was five, and ever since then, it had just been the two of them. Ayden's sudden appearance put a lot of stress on all three, but they managed. The two boys got along. They didn't fight too much. They didn't really have much to do with each other, eight-year age difference and all.

After three years of living with his brother and stepfather, Ayden knew them not much better then after one month. It wasn't their fault, really; it was his. He didn't talk to them. He avoided their questions. He exiled himself, feeling like an unwanted child though he brought the seclusion on himself.

He closed his eyes now, eight years later, and remembered a night of lightning and thunder and rain. Mark's father was out, though it was past three in the morning. He was often gone like this - without a trace, simply gone. A few hours, most of the time, but lately it had not become uncommon for the boys to wake and find the house empty except for themselves at seven in the morning.

Ayden had been lying awake, his six-year-old psyche petrified by the noise and light. A particularly loud crash of thunder, and he had been out of bed, his feet freezing against the cold floor of the flat as he ran to Mark's room.

He shook the older boy awake, shaking from head to toe himself. Mark was dead asleep, lying in his bed motionless as a log. It took almost a minute to wake him up. He finally squinted through nearly closed eyelids asking what was going on and why aren't you in bed?

A blast of thunder was all it took for the small six-year-old to climb hurriedly into his half-brother's bed, hiding under the covers.

Mark had lauaghed, thinking it "cute", as he had later described it to his father when they had thought Ayden couldn't hear them.

Ayden couldn't be angry, though. Mark had been sympathetic and supportive. He had been protective, trying to make the young boy laugh, trying to calm him.

It was one of the few memories Ayden had of his childhood that he looked back on with no feeling whatsoever. He didn't know what to feel.

What could he feel for a moment such as that?

*

Several blocks away, Violet sat by her window, watching the storm and letting her thoughts wash away with the rain seeping into the sewers before it could flood the streets, watching the lightning and wishing her memories could disappear as fast as that flash, and hearing the thunder and wishing that it could drown out her sobs.

It had been a very traumatic day, in more ways than one.

But she had four years, she thought... Four years.

Was it enough?