Chapter 6: Have and Lost

  The girl with the powder-purple hair stepped out of a wall cutting Bix off from her escape from the latest not job, job. Bix glared at her. Couldn’t anyone just walk into a situation, maybe with a small noise as warning? Any noise at all?

  Uttara wore a light weight set of clothing that was clearly made for some sort of physical training. And it was clear Uttara had been training recently. Her equally light eyes flicked over Bix like she just might be her next opponent.

  “Why do you keep fighting Orack, Omari, and Amal?” she accused.

  Bix blinked, the words not quite landing right. She looked around for anyone else that might be there that she was missing, but no, it was just the two of them. Bix braced for whatever nonsense Uttara had scripted in her own mind.

  Bix really had no desire to bother with any of it, but Uttara stood too much in the way of a quick escape. She was glaring Bix down.

  Bix looked her over and evaluated her. Weighed the threat.

  Uttara was a bit shorter than Bix but probably had a few years on her. She wasn’t built of delicate materials; it was clear that Uttara had worked for the strength along her shoulders and in her stance, but she didn’t have the cagey or still movements of someone who was forced to work to survive.

  Bix didn’t think Uttara could be compared to a city dweller but also couldn’t see her living the ways of Detritus either.

  “I have not fought anyone,” Bix countered. It was Uttara’s lack of understanding of survival that was what caused Bix to allow her some grace for not recognizing the difference with not complying and fighting.

  Bix was already feeling a bone-deep exhaustion as Uttara crossed her arms and stepped closer. Was she actually looking for a brawl? Bix really didn’t prefer fighting, on most occasions, but she’d always been able to handle herself.

  Uttara's strength was something to be acknowledged, and she was no doubt capable.

  Bix, though, had taken down beasts. Had fought off people willing to kill her for a better haul. She’d lost the hesitance in her movements. If she needed to kill, she had no doubt she’d do it. Luckily, though, Uttara looked at Bix like she’d grown a second head. Her stance was more offended than confrontational.

  “They offered you a place as their daughter, and you keep living here basically like one but won’t accept it,” Uttara clicked her tongue at Bix.

  Bix raised her brows.

  “Do you think I have any control over what they do?” Bix asked her. “I am fulfilling the tasks that I am assigned. That’s all I have agreed to,” Bix informed her. Uttara’s face bloomed red, and she opened her mouth to say something else, but an arm hooked around her neck, appearing almost out of the air.

  Great, it really was a family trait, Bix ruminated.

  Nalo pulled his sister back.

  “Uttara." He pulled her name into singsong syllables that had Uttara letting out a put-upon groan. "Leave her be,” He insisted, his lips twitching up, winking at Bix.

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  Nalo was not a warrior. He was dressed head to toe in impractical robes, with patches and emblems along the sleeves claiming him as one of the purple army, and he wore very basic vision enhancers—At least compared to the one’s those from the City wore. She knew from conversations at the mandatory meal table that Nalo was studying some various magic forms, theoretical and practical.

  His entire being landed as non-combative, and his mere presence calmed Uttara, though she looked at him like he was the most annoying creature of this world.

  “But why shouldn’t she want to be part of our family?” Uttara grumbled sounding more like a young one by the minute. “You like it,” She pointed out.

  Nalo's lips twitch. Then bloomed into a smirk. Then he snorted looking at her like she had lost all of her screws, and from there devolved into laughter, releasing Uttara who frowned at him.

  “I was also an infant when Orack picked me up off the side of the road and gave me a name, Uttara,” He reminded shaking his head.

  That had Bix's brows rising. So, she wasn't the first person Cirillo had pulled into the Purple army. Once the marvel wore off, she found her patience ever shortening.

  Well, Bix wasn’t an infant. She wasn’t even a child. Bix didn’t need anyone to swoop in and make everything better.

  She didn’t need any of this.

  Uttara opened her mouth again, curating another annoying poke, but to be frankly honest, Bix really didn’t care. So, Bix didn’t bother. She turned on her heals and walked away.

  Bix waited until she was around the corner to allow the twitching reaction to Uttara’s final echoing words.

  “We’re all you have.”

  No.

  Bix didn’t need them.

  Bix tightened her hands into fists and though she’d planned on going back to the work shop she decided she needed to find a place to hide. She was really and truly done with the antics of the purple army for today.

  Bix had meant that with every fiber of her being.

  When she, though, stumbled upon Garbhan and Lorcan, their eyes flashing to her, widening like they'd been caught, she found herself as staggered.

  Bix had always liked the children, always like to pause when she passed by their areas to hear them excitedly say how they saw the world.

  She loved how they insisted she drew them anything and everything they could think of. How excited they were to hear stories of learning something new.

  The young ones she thought of, though, were not these children.

  Bix really didn't know these children.

  When they realized she was as frozen as them and was not going to scold them for the thing laying in pieces on the floor, their focus went back to it. They scrambled around it, picking up pieces and trying to put it back together, only to have something else fall off. Their attempt made the most horrid screeching sound.

  “Omari is going to kill us,” Garbhan hissed out, while Lorcan met the hiss with his own sound of distress.

  "All above," Bix hissed out. "Hand it over." Bix commanded, shooing the two boys away sitting on the floor looking the pieces over. "What shape was it before?" she asked. The two boys jumped into answering her questions as she tinkered and meticulously put the weird orb back together.

  Two light-purple heads had popped into view on either side of her, watching in silent awe.

  She wasn’t positive it was back in perfect order, but it was put together in a way that made sense to her, and she thought fit the two's descriptions.

  When she finished, they looked utterly fascinated, sparkling with glee.

  Once it was in their hands, in a baffling tornado she didn't see coming and still wasn't sure how it happened, Bix ended up either of her hands grasped by a boy, yanked forward in a full sprint through the halls leading out into the night.

  Once the three of them were outside, Lorcan set up the contraption they had stolen and held both hands out scrunching his face. When nothing happened Garbhan joined him and the object started moving.

  Bix looked around as lights built up all around them. Awed, she stepped back and really took it in.

  They were in radiant, bold colors.

  The kind like home.

  She wanted to reach out and wanted to touch them. Wanted for them to be solid. Her hand, though fell through them.

  Of course it did.

  It was obvious it would.

  Just as she knew that it was only her own mind that provided every face of those she missed in the colors, but her heart crumbled into a thousand pieces, and she felt that tightness build up from her chest to her throat and she felt the tears fall in steady succession.

  She lowered to the ground crying like there was nothing left she could do.

  Nothing left in the world that felt right.

  The two boys, who had been so full of glee, now hovered around her just as they had the broken object.

  This time though, Bix wasn’t sure how to fix it.