Liberté Foncée

I've been walking in the footsteps
Of society's lies
I don't like what I see no more
Sometimes I wish I was blind

Sometimes I wait forever
To stand out in the rain
So no one sees me crying
Trying to wash away this pain

-- Jon Bon Jovi, Keep the Faith

CHAPTER SEVEN: SO SATAN'S REAL COLOR IS PINK...

It was close to ten. Ayden had been working late, and the other three had decided long ago that a late night coffee is never a bad thing. Who cares if it keeps you up until two in the morning? Besides, it was always fun bugging Ayden when he was trying to work.

At fifteen past, the quartet left the bookstore and headed down the street together. The temperature had dropped significantly from earlier in the day and every few seconds a snowflake or two whizzed by before it hit the ground and melted into nothingness. The streetlights sent a yellow glow over the roads shining with that afternoon's light rain.

Conversation was random, as it usually was on nights like this. Banter, random bouts of insanity, death threats, et cetera. It was all common.

None of this changed over the course of the next five minutes until the group was passing by one of those darkened alleyways that were so often the stereotypical setting for countless murders or attacks.

They neared it with no sense of foreboding whatsoever until suddenly Alena held up a hand and stopped them all. "Listen, I heard something."

They listened. And they heard it too, a low moan. The sound of someone in pain, possibly dying. Abruptly, it stopped. The sound of footsteps took its place. The group exchanged glances. Apprehension, confusion, fear, and uncertainty.

Then the footsteps rounded the corner, and they could see feet they belonged to. As well as the rest of the person; a tall, fairly attractive brunette. Ayden recognized her and had the sudden urge to run.

Adrienne stopped walking when she saw the quartet watching her. For a split second there was indecision written all over her face, but then she caught sight of Ayden. She grinned. "Good evening," she said politely to the four. "Isn't it a bit late for you kids to be out all alone? And I thought you had better judgment, Ayden."

Ayden shot her a look. Wonderful, now he had to explain her to the others somehow. Adrienne's eyes let him know she wasn't unaware. The female of a species is more deadly than the male, Ayden thought. And damned if it wasn't true...

"You know her, then?" Shane asked after a brief silence. His wand was out and by his side.

"Yeah, yeah..." Ayden said slowly, mind racing trying to come up with an excuse. "We, uh, know each other from - from work." He raced through the introductions, quickly running out of things to say, babbling to fill the silence.

Adrienne let him stammer for another minute or two before she spoke, somehow managing to conceal her amusement. "I find it odd we've never met," she said pleasantly, glancing from face to face.

"As do I," said Shane, frowning at Ayden, who shrugged helplessly.

"Does anyone else hear that?" Rayne asked nervously.

The disembodied moaning was coming from the alley Adrienne had just come out of again. "I didn't see anyone back there," she said calmly, looking toward it with the rest of them. "Probably just the wind."

"There is no wind," Shane snapped. Adrienne raised an eyebrow in his direction.

"And anyway," Alena added, "wind doesn't moan."

"Fine then, some couple's having a bit too much fun upstairs and we can hear it from the street, nothing to get all jumpy about," the Death Eater retorted nonchalantly. She gestured to the dim light in a window a story about the ground. "No big deal."

They stared at her. Well, three of the four did. Ayden stared at the ground, looking ready for it to swallow him, crunch him up into little bitty pieces, and spit out his bones in time for the funeral.

Adrienne smirked. "Anyway, I should be off. See you around."

She left.

For almost a minute afterwards, there was dead silence. None of them moved.

"So, er..." Ayden said uncomfortably, "anyone up for a bit of late-night poker?"

*

Ayden fumbled with his wand. His palms were sweating, and the wand slipped in his grasp, sending a jet of light flashing harmlessly off into the air above his opponent's left ear as opposed to making contact with said opponent.

A short, stubby looking blond witch aged about thirty but looking at least forty stood to the side as Ayden advanced upon the man he'd just managed to knock to the ground with a jelly-legs jinx. (Who said that spell was juvenile? Ha!)

"Well don't just stand there, Ryan!" chirped the woman. "AK it, AK it!"

Betty Taggart had the extremely annoying habit of being cheerful about things, which were not cheerful in the slightest. And that phrase "AK it, AK it!" Whose idea had that been? Honestly, 'it' was not an 'it,' it was a human being. Not to mention using 'AK' as a verb. First of all, it was stupid to abbreviate the actual words "Avada Kedavra," and second--

Good Lord, he'd just used the word 'verb' in his thoughts. He'd thought of something grammatically! God help him... Adrienne would be pleased, though. Except she would have to be pleased some other time, because right now Ayden was concentrating on not getting himself killed.

The opponent on the ground wasn't really on the ground anymore, though the after-effects of the jelly-legs made him wobble unsteadily as he did his best to aim properly and curse Ayden to pieces.

"AK him already!" Betty shouted again.

And, voice shaking, he did.

If Ayden's life had been a clichéd B-movie, it would have all been in slow motion. If Ayden's life had been a clichéd move, it would be nighttime in a dark alleyway with thunder clouds above and a slow, whooshing noise as the body dropped below. If Ayden's life had been a movie, it would all just be very dramatic.

But Ayden's life was just Ayden's life, meaning there were no thunderclouds and no dark alleyways. Meaning time moved normally and there was no whooshing sound. And he felt sick to his stomach.

"Very goo" Betty laughed. "Very, very good indeed. Especially for the first time."

I'm the partner of a psychopath, Ayden thought. A psychopath wearing a fuzzy pink sweater.

"Now, see, that wasn't so hard, was it, dear?" Betty was like one of those sweet, bubbly church-going women who believed everyone was good at heart and baked more cookies than could be healthy. Only gone very, very wrong.

Not for you, maybe. You're a psychedelic church lady who wears fuzzy pink sweaters and sends Christmas cards to mass murderers on death row.

Betty chattered on and on, and Ayden found himself thinking of Adrienne a foot shorter, fifty pound heavier, and blond. And with poor grammar. Brilliant, he was going to have nightmares.

*

Chew, chew, swallow. Chew, chew, swallow. Ayden had to command himself through the process of eating, or else he knew he wouldn't complete it. His thoughts were fixed on that morning and if he didn't focus on eating, he'd start choking without even realizing it because his brain wasn't reacting to anything today and he wouldn't chew by instinct and that man he'd killed would never eat or drink again and--

"Ayden, you look sick; everything all right?"

If Ayden ever wrote a book entitled How Not to Give Yourself Away for the Lying Idiot You Are, there would be a whole chapter dedicated to not hacking your lungs out after you choke on your dinner when your best friend asks you if anything is wrong. Especially if you would be much better off just shaking your head and replying with a nonchalant, "No, just tired, it's been a long week."

Way to be subtle; they already seemed to think he was sleeping with an older woman after last night's run in with Adrienne. Face, meet table tabletop. Three pairs of eyes watched him closely, clearly expecting him to present them with a sensible excuse as to his behavior.

Yes, defense, let's see here... give me a minute, it'll come... any second now... really, any minute, I swear, I'll come up with something...shit.

There was a tense silence for what seemed to Ayden like eons. Then, whatever God out there truly existed at the moment seemed to take pity on him in the form of a loud but in no way unwelcome sound: the ringing phone.

Shane rose to answer it and over the course of three minutes said nothing more than "uh huh" and the occasional "damn it."

Alena, Rayne, and Ayden did their best to ignore him and the conversation and attempted some casual conversation which was interrupted by the slamming of the phone back onto the cradle.

"Rayne," the blond said quietly, "we have to go."

"What?" She looked bewildered, as did everyone else. "Why? What happened?"

"They got Edwards."

"Got..." Alena said slowly from her end of the table. "As in killed?"

Shane nodded, and scowled. "As in killed and left to rot." He turned to look at Rayne again. "Weasley wants to see us in five minutes."

And they were gone. Ayden sat perfectly still for a moment. What if that man he'd killed today... it couldn't be the same person his friends were now going to mourn, could it? And why the hell not? his head-voice inquired. Fuck off, Ayden's other head-voice countered. I'm trying to eat my dinner.

A third voice entered his head. You know you're bordering on schizophrenia when...

"Are you going to choke again if I ask you if you're all right?" Alena asked tentatively.

"Erm, no. Sorry about that. Just thinking." Using his fork, he moved his food around on his plate in the way he used to as a child to make it look as though he'd eaten more than he had. He'd started doing it shortly after Mark had become the cook of the family. He'd always been horrible at it. Not that Ayden was any better--in fact, he was worse--but that was beside the point.

"About?"

He sighed, putting his fork down. "You ever killed anyone, Alena?"

She took a moment to answer, eyeing him curiously. Ayden considered stabbing his eyes out with the fork. The word 'inconspicuous' had clearly been rejected by his inner dictionary. "No, I haven't. You haven't, have you? I mean, there's not much room for combat in the world of literary retail, is there?"

"Ehm, uh, no. There isn't. I mean, I haven't." He took a sip of his drink, trying to seem nonchalant.

"I'm pretty sure the other two have had to... at least Shane has," Alena said thoughtfully, looking a little uncomfortable at the though. "I hope I never do. It's just..."

"Morbid in a sick, dark, twisted, scary way?" Ayden offered.

"Yes, just about sums it up."

He sighed. "No kidding."

*

Ayden had taken over the cash register at the café for another late shift, still not feeling completely well after dinner's conversation with Alena. His thoughts drifted. AK it, AK it!

"I had a dream about you last night," a cheerful voice said, shocking him back to reality.

He looked up to see Adrienne standing in front of him. "Really," he said, looking surprised.

"Yes. Tall coffee, black, please." Ayden turned to pour her order, and Adrienne continued. "You were wearing leather."

"Leather?" He was suddenly extremely aware of the awful green apron he was required to wear.

"Quite a bit of it, actually." She smirked.

"Flattered as I am, I am seeing someone else." He rang up the price for her drink.

"Did I say it was a good dream?" asked Adrienne innocently, handing over a bit of cash.

Ayden frowned. "Now you're just being mean."

"Maybe." The older woman's eyes flashed playfully.

"No need to put me down, you know you're attracted to me."

"Sure, if I were a pedophile. You're what, fifteen?"

"Shut up, or you don't get your drink."

"That's just cruel, you can't deprive a woman of her caffeine."

"Really."

"Unless you want to meet a very prolonged and painful end, yes, really. Now fork over the coffee."

Ayden seemed to consider this honest. "Fair enough." He handed her the cup and walked with her down the length of the counter where she paused to search for a coffee stirrer.

"So, what are you doing here, anyway?" Ayden asked, glancing back toward the register to make sure no one was waiting in line. He lowered his voice and said, "I thought being dead meant you had to stay out of public places."

"Nah, no one ever remembers that one face in the crowd from a place like this. And if they did, they only records of me that are left are death certificates and maybe a few fake IDs."

"How -"

"We have a guy in the Ministry's registry office." She smiled.

Someone rang the bell at the counter and grumbled an obscenity under their breath.

Ayden made a face. "Has anyone ever told you that impatient customers are the devil? 'Cause they are."

"Hey, people need their caffeine fix," reasoned Adrienne.

"Yeah, well. I'm not that understanding." He sighed. "See you."

"G'night." She blew a few ripples across the coffee in her hand. "Oh, and Ayden?" He turned back to her. "You looked better in the leather than you do in that apron." She eyed the apron distastefully. "Bright green? Definitely not your color."

*

WINTER, YEAR 2112

Mark Ryan came from a long line of overly protective men. Supposedly, it had started when a great-great-great grandmother had gone insane and thrown herself out of a tree and onto the over-charging land lord's car while said land lord was driving it, killing them both in the process. Mark's great-great-great grandfather had then developed a sort of security mania which had been passed down for generations and gotten on the nerves of innumerable people.

One of those people happened to be Ayden Ryan, half brother of Mark Ryan and a rebel without a cause, who probably wouldn't be such unless he had his father and brother constantly concerned with his well being. The rebel thing that is, not the half brother thing; he really couldn't help that.

Tonight, yet again, Mark felt more like a father than an older brother, beseeching Ayden to just please, take care of yourself and don't do anything stupid. Not that his brother ever listened, because that was the thing with teenagers, after all - they never listened. Mark was learning what he'd put his father through when he'd been younger, and he was learning it the hard way.

And so Ayden had left without a word. Mark pictured the times he'd done that, leaving without a goodbye, annoyed with the world, bitter that his father didn't seem to think it was necessary he had any independence at all, even though he'd been told countless times how much more mature he was than others his age. Like most angered children have at point in their lives done, he'd promised himself that if he ever became a father he wouldn't be so paranoid, he'd let his loved ones take risks, live their lives without his constant interference.

Of course, Mark Ryan never did become a father. That very night as he sat, contemplating a broken promise made in a moment of childish irritation, explaining it to a sympathetic girlfriend, and not knowing that he'd never get a chance to make up for it, death chose to come a-knocking.