~Hell is indeed people.~
It had barely been 9 hours of sharing my home with a stranger and I have come to the conclusion that I do not like said stranger.
I don't like Xavier.
He's merely done anything but existed, existed in my space and vicinity.
He never stops trying to converse with me. It's like my cold replies and dry remarks only served to fuel his talkative attempts.
He even made me a meal this morning. Mac & cheese for breakfast. He's insane, he has lost his sense of timing.
I do not like his name. I do not like his presence. I do not like the fact he's in my home, breathing my air.
I do not like that he is now my responsibility.
I tried to talk to Troy, get him to change his mind and keep him in the facility like all the others. He said the kid was having a hard time and he needed a home and a father figure.
In what way do I look like a father figure? I'm just trying to make it to next week.
Black odour filled fumes dispersed in the air, the flames cackled gently. I used a stick to curb the small growing flames, adjusting the burning fabric accordingly.
My tongue made a clicking noise as I watched my favorite pairs of clothing burn to useless ashes. At least one of them was sacrificed for a good cost and wasn't currently being devoured by flames.
My lips quirked up in the most uncharacteristic manner, I replaced it with a frown nearly instantly. There has to be something wrong with me for I just thought of a person that wasn't myself.
And what was this appalling tingling nonsense I could feel prancing around at the deep depths of my stomach?
My eyes clicked back to the flames before I could let things get any more stranger.
"What has the great Heterox smiling?"
I slowly looked at the boy whose presence had gone completely out of my awareness.
I didn't grace him with a response.
"What you got burnin' over there?"
I wished I could burn him along. "Stop. talking." My head was raging an aching storm and he was turning it into a flood.
He was like the irritating little brother I once had.
"I don't think you like me very much," he mused to himself like it was a deep revelation.
"What possibly gave it away?" I shoved an unscathed piece of fabric rather harshly into the flames, red and orange swimming and blurring in my gaze.
"If we gonna be partners, bro, we've gotta at least get along."
Partners?
I almost cackled, recalling the actual reason why Troy had put Xavier under my care. The kid was a liability. Cowardly and reckless, Troy had said. Yet I couldn't imagine those two words going together.
I contemplated just telling Xavier flat out why he was here. That he was a drag to the organization. Maybe that would put a dent to his overgrown arrogance.
But tears would be too early into the mission, I wasn't keen on consoling another sniveling stranger. Telling him this now would crack his will of helping the Order. And the organization leaves no one behind.
Troy's orders.
I couldn't care less.
The kid should have some sort of potential or use somehow.
I just didn't understand why I had to be the one to train him or why I needed a microscope to find it either.
"We are not Partners, Xavier."I started with an annoyed sigh but I had barely begun my sentence when he interrupted, voice all smug like before.
"For real? Because far as I recall, Troy sent me here 'cause you was in desperate need of my assistance. 'Parently you wouldn't fit into the Quinn's circle without me."
Maybe I should've spilled. Troy is surely the one feeding into his arrogant delusions.
"But don't worry, bro," he continued, that self assured smirk in his voice, "you just need some time to let me grow on you, then you'll see just how damn great I am."
My stick snapped into halves as he sauntered away. I don't think I had ever met anyone whose ego was larger than mine. Xavier seemed to have broken the scale.
Training sessions were going to be such a pain.
I shoved the remnant of what was left of my ashened clothes into the dying fire, abandoning the blackened mess to cool down.
I'll have Xavier take care of it later. What the kid didn't know was that I had just acquired my very own personal maid.
I headed inside, only to meet Xavier dousing another bottle of my expensive liquor down his scrawny throat. My jaw clenched.
Could he really not stay sober for a single minute?
I needed to set boundaries.
I bellowed to where he was sprawled across my carpet like a deadbeat Father and confiscated the bottle.
He blinked.
I stared him dead in the eyes. "This will be the last bottle you'll touch."
He laughed as if I said something funny. When my expression didn't falter, his smile dropped.
"Oh you serious?"
"Immensely."
The doorbell interrupted whatever rubbish he was about to spit. I straightened up, dusting my knees and glancing at the screen of my phone for a second to be certain I had recalled to put on my coloured lenses.
"Delivery?"
I ignored him and drew open the door. I had been waiting for this all morning.
Two officers stood before me, one shoving his badge into the skin of my face the very moment I opened the door.
"Officer Carl and Virginia here," the middle aged man said, eyeing me curiously, the other officer too occupied with picking at a splotch on her uniform than paying me any heed.
"Good day, Officers."
"We apologize for the disturbance, sir. We just wanted to know if you've heard or seen anything regarding a physical assault that happened around the neighborhood last night."
I let out a shocked breath. "Assault? What happened? Are they okay?"
"Some rich dude got stabbed yesterday," the stocky woman answered, finally lifting her gaze to acknowledge me.
Oh, dear.
Her eyes shone with recognition and a grin cut her cheek. "Zayn, ma boi!" She slapped my shoulder so unnecessarily hard. I cracked a forced smile as she rubbed a knuckle into my skull. I'm not your ma boi.
Goodness.
I gently pried her hands from my scalp. "Officer Jones," I returned her greeting with a strained voice and nodded in a happy to see you way even though it was definitely the least thing I felt.
"Jones?" Carl piped in question.
"Have you gotten that license?" The one you seized?
"Jones Virginia?"
"Have you gotten that trim?"
"Huh…why didn't I know that?"
She bursted into a laughter so hard, I almost feared her protruding belly would split open with her laughing like I had said something funnier than a Trevor Noah show.
"Zayn's a good kid, Carl."
Carl looked like he couldn't care less if his head suddenly heated up and combust into flames.
"Just inform us anytime you spot a multicolored eyed freak lurking around somewhere," he dismissed, heading back to his vehicle and muttering something along the lines of "I hate this job."
Officer Jones was suddenly determined to give me a doughnut, smearing it on my upper lip and everywhere she could reach just to get me to eat it.
"Jones," Carl snapped, accentuating the name he didn't know about.
"Coming!" She grumbled, uttering some strange rubbish like "all muscles no Fat makes Johnny the rock" before trudging away.
I shut the door, resting against the cold wood with a sigh. Goodness, I hated people.
When I opened my eyes, Xavier was just staring at me.
"What is it now?"
He looked calculating. Xavier was never calculating. During the 10 hours I'd spent with Xavier I had already come to the conclusion that the act of thinking was a foreign concept to him.
"T'was you," he finally said as if he had uttered a solution to the invention of a vaccine against cancer.
"What?"
"You really went and stabbed Julian Quinn," he declared confidently, shaking his head like a detective who just solved a mind racking case. I figured Xavier had probably stopped at the bar on his way to my house and caught the scene. Couldn't resist alcohol, of course.
"That scrawny blonde bimbo was a Quinn?" Shit, I had undoubtedly messed up this time.
What was a majestic Quinn doing in a tacky bar, chugging down alcohol with people they'd consider beneath them?
Incredibly suspicious.
"Damn, should've known soon as I saw you burnin' whatever that was. And the eyes, of course—only Heterox got those eyes."
Xavier was amazingly slow I'd garnered, anyone from the Order could tell from the stance alone that it was me. The knee length coat and the silver dagger already gave it away.
"Troy know this?"
"Troy doesn't need to know anything."
"Naaa, athink he do."
"Kid?" I began slowly, "This information will remain between both of us or I will have you taxidermied and sent back to dear old Troy in pieces."
Xavier blanched for a second then let out a nervous chuckle, both hands lifted up. "Geez, man. Aight."
"Why'd you stab him though?" He asked curiously, adjusting his legs on the cream carpet.
"Accident," I grunt, sinking into the couch.
"Het makes accidents?" He tilted his head with a smug grin.
"You keep talking, you'll be my next one."
His tongue clicked. "So aggressive."
"So stupid."