Private Finished For goodness sakes, Where is my self control?

Aiden did not perk up at the mention of showing him the medical facilities.

That was because Aiden was always at a perfectly neutral, perfectly pleasant state. To perk up might imply some sort of vague hint of unpleasantness.

Aiden kept that inside.

He twirled the wedding band on his left hand and nodded calmly.

"So what drew you to the island, Professor?" Aiden asked. As they walked, he pointed out other things about the facility. He motioned to the classrooms, that looked like the others on the islands, but the magical warding was much stronger here and the desks were designed to not harm their targets if thrown. The furniture in the lounge was bolted to the floor with magic as well.

When they arrived to the medical facilities....well, Aiden talked about those like most husbands talked about their wives. It was a mixture of love and dedication, something that gave his life purpose, and something that, sometimes, Aiden harbored the thought deep in the back of his head and at the furthest recesses of his heart that he might like to leave.

"It's not exactly an unknown fact, but one that often gets buried beneath the threats of 'juvie island'," Aiden said, saying the nickname with distaste. "That this is often one of the destinations for newcomers with no ability to control their own powers, particularly if those powers can cause harm to others."

This last part Aiden said with a little bit of melancholy, as though recalling an incident of someone close to him. he shook his head and continued.

"We have six exam rooms, what passes as a less intensive care unit, a few holding rooms for those that might have needed to be, ah, sedated by medicinal or magical means," Aiden said.


Lochlann had never thought about what it meant that he was good at getting what he wanted.

He’d always assumed this was part of his powers, of his being a water horse. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t. The nullification band was tight around his wrist and Lochlann did his best not to pick at the skin around it.

Once, during an earlier stay, Lochlann had clawed at his own arm so desperate to get it off. The blood had made it slick, but it did not release, so they switched to putting it on his ankle instead. Lochlann would never intentionally hurt his own legs. He was too paranoid. Too proud. Too…horse.

But, regardless, when the time came, despite the monitors both physical, magical, and mechanical, Lochlann got out into the hallway.

He did not run. The sound of his footsteps alone would have been a signal that something was off. Instead, Lochlann strode like he belonged here, like he owned the place, like he wasn’t out of his room past hours with a stolen key and whispering to the flies that flew by him with his stale alcohol breath or his pounding headache or the weird, scratchy desperation in his chest.

This was it.

This was how he was going to….

He couldn’t find the word. Save wasn’t right. Dani was dead. He couldn’t save her. He couldn’t save his friendship with Adelene. He couldn’t go back and stop himself from ruining the lives of…Lochlann couldn’t count.

He stopped cold in the hallway. He’d lost track. He’d forgotten some of the names, but not the faces, not the taste of the blood in his mouth.

He no longer knew how many people he'd killed.

So who the hell was he trying to save?

Certainly not himself.

Lochlann reached the fourth floor, than the fifth. He moved with purpose now, knowing that this hallway was more heavily warded, and his movements would be known.

Lochlann found the door he was looking for. Someone was coming.

Lochlann locked eyes with the orderly. It was one of the men that had escorted him inside. Fuck.

“Please,” Lochlann said.

And then, because it was for Guin, Lochlann lied.

“You have to help, downstairs, there’s someone that needs your help,” Lochlann said. “it’s the professor, they left him with Aiden and...the nullification bands..”

Gibberish. It was gibberish. Did it count as a lie? Lochlann wasn’t sure.



He slipped inside the record room. He didn’t have long now.



Lochlann moved fast. Computers could be hacked. Things could be changed. A lot of what was on juvie was backed up on paper, signed with magic and ink and pen and warded, because it was easier to protect than technology.

Lochlann could read English. His latin was poor.

But there was no file on Guinevere Haze.

In a rush, he found his own file, thick as a bad romance novel, and he thumbed through it, ignoring the records and reports and liver failure and suspected in missing persons and –
Lochlann dropped his file.

He opened up another drawer. He reached in, thumbed through, tossing something titled Californication out onto the floor and—

He opened the file.

There it was.


He stuffed it inside his jacket, got into the hallway, and saw the orderly coming back in his direction.

“Where?” he whispered to what seemed like himself.

And then, Lochlann fucking bolted.






Aiden was still talking to Charlie, making small talk, when there was a shouting and someone squacked on his walkie-talkie. The words were fast and frantic, half in Latin, half what sounded like pig-latin, and half in French.

"Repete, s'il vous plait," Aiden said, but it was too late.

Because Lochlann, like a blur of light, came bolting down the hallway through the medical wing. Three orderlies chased after him.


Lochlann never thought about his own speed. He certainly didn't think about it as he jumped and slid over a desk, vaulted over a gurney, and crashed right into the professor.

Lochlann slipped the file under his shirt as they hit the floor.

"YOU HAVE TO," Lochlann heaved, his breath coming in short bursts. "GET ME OUT OF HERE. I WILL —"

A needle jabbed into his neck with perfect placement.

"Clean," Lochlann gasped. "Your whole..."

Lochlann collapsed, sedated, onto the floor next to the professor, the word "office" dying on his lips.


Aiden was not amused. Not a single hair on his head was ruffled. He looked like he did this daily.

he did.

"Are you injured?" he asked the professor.

"I would presume not," Aiden sighed, taking a step back from Lochlann's body as though it might start oozing something. He reached to help the professor up should he require assistance and then gave him a dire warning. "I wouldn't let him clean your office. He's been known to...pilfer things."

Had Lochlann been awake, he would have ruined the entire thing by snorting.

Aiden took Charlie to a set of rooms that were separated from the students section, adjacent to the classrooms and medical facility. Aiden's labcoat hung off the bed on the other side; it was clearly for any on-call physicians. Aiden was married to his job. He gave Charlie the pass code to get in and out and then headed off himself to do another set of rounds.




When Lochlann woke up the next morning, a cold sense of dread crawled up in his gut. His head was woozy and his eyes hurt and he needed a drink in the worst fucking way. Every one of his veins was filled wit fire instead of blood and his skull felt so full of sand that he debated about asking Charlie what sort of necromancy that was--

Charlie.

Lochlann's eyes snapped open in the unfamiliar room.

He was dressed, the nullification band around his ankle, and nursing one of the worst hangovers of his life. Lochlann lifted his hand slowly, reaching for his neck, which was sore...but Lochlann could lift his arms. He wasn't restrained.

This was a first.

He sat up slowly and immediately regretted it. He he retched over the side of the bed, barely making it to the bucket next to him.



Outside the door, talking to Charlie while drinking his morning coffee, Aiden said, "I'd take it Mr. Cabyll-Ushtey is awake. He's all yours, if you're certain you don't want him to stay longer. I have concerns regarding his liver."

"You as well, Professor," Aiden said. He lingered in the doorway for a moment. Aiden's face was blank, as it was usually blank, the sort of face a person perfects when they need to tell good news and bad news and cannot tell which news they currently posses.

Aiden wondered if he should tell the Professor that he had a feeling they'd be seeing each other again sooner rather than later.




Home.

Lochlann had never thought of the island as home, but truthfully, he hadn't thought of any place as home for a long time. Regardless, the word brought a feeling of relief. Lochlann was broken out into a cold sweat, his fingers clenched into fists that balled up the bed sheets as he held onto the side of the mattress.

"Yeah," he croaked.

The file. The professor had the file! This would all be worth it.

"Thank you," he said again. He rubbed his face with his hand and then rose up from off the floor on unsteady legs.

While they walked out the door he asked the professor, quietly, "I'm gong to take it you don't have any of that whiskey on you, eh sir?"

"I mean," Lochlann said, his voice coming back slowly while they walked, though it still sounded scratchy. "The tea could be warming and have whisky in it for the effects of both."

On the plus side, Lochlann's dealer was on speed dial once they got back to the apartment. He was unsteady on his feet but he managed to make it down the hallway without having to stop to see if he was going to either pass out or throw up, but he made it the desk without doing either.

When the orderly first slid over Lochlann's things, he opened his flask to see if it magically refilled, but that flask was gone thanks to Guinevere.

The problem, though, was that Lochlann made a face at Charlie when the orderly came out to remove the nullification band.

The face was one any young stallion makes when it's being let out of the stable after a long time caged in.

Lochlann's eyes glazed over. The ocean was shortly beyond the gates. He'd be able to grab the orderly by the mouth and...

Lochlann swallowed. His mouth was filled with saliva and this time it wasn't because he was going to retch.

"How long do we have to wait for the boat?" he asked Charlie. His voice sounded really far away. He tried to think about the file folder. His eyes were pooling black.

Charlie's words were logical, but they sounded very far away, and Lochlann had a hard time comprehending them. They were less words so much as they were noise.

But the professor's hand on his shoulder was in a language Lochlann understood.

The doors were open and Lochlann walked with Charlie. He cast suspicious glances at the others as they passed, rubbing the spot on his wrist where the bracelet had been absentmindedly. He didn't seem to relax until they were on the boat, and that was only because he fished a cigarette and a lighter out of his coat pocket and lit up.

He offered one to Charlie and then asked, "Do you still have the uh...you know?"

Lochlann held the cigarette between his lips and pulled his wallet out, fishing out a photo. It was taken from a security camera, but it showed a woman in profile with hair like moonlight glancing over her shoulder as though expecting someone to follow her.

Guinevere.

Lochlann had no other photos of her, but he'd held onto this one, because it was the only damning piece of evidence that he had that she'd been there the night Dani died.


Lochlann turned and exhaled the smoke over his shoulder, away from the two of them, his posture mirroring the woman in the photo. He said, "I've spent a year trying to find this. Thank you for helping me."