Chapter 5 #2
The regret is clear in his usually cocky face, so I don’t push him on it, deciding to find more out about this mysterious girl Ru has kept from us.
My interest fully piqued knowing he has found something that I’ve spent the past few months scouring every building to find. But he doesn’t have much information.
‘After she woke up they went upstairs. She didn’t seem too happy when I told her you were coming so maybe it’s best to stay down here,’ Vish admits. Not looking sorry in the slightest for his admission. ‘I might have jumped ahead and invited you without asking them.’
‘You just wanted to pass the awkwardness onto someone else didn’t ya.’
Vish doesn’t answer and I don’t need him to, knowing it’s without a doubt what he did the big baby.
‘Just give them their space, alright, and Ru might not kill me,’ he shuffles down the wall and makes a pillow out of his pack.
Neither of us make a move for the sleeping area we have in the back, silently choosing to stay out in the open where we can both keep an eye out for any danger.
Lying down on my back, not bothering with a make shift pillow I lean back, head resting on the hard flooring. With any luck, the discomfort of my sleeping position will distract my wandering thoughts from my emerald-eyed beauty.
Time creeps by in a painfully slow pace.
The only company being the snores of the sleeping Vish beside me and the electrical wiring above our heads.
At some point I decided to stop fighting with myself to get some rest and found entertainment in following the unfinished wires scattered across the open ceiling.
On number, whatever I’m now on, of the wiring run through race, this time following red a crash rings out from the floor above which has me jolting up and onto my feet quicker than I can blink.
Despite my larger frame I push myself to run as fast as I can out of the door and up the metal staircase, taking each step two at a time.
Rounding through the door to the floor Vish said Ru and his girl are on.
I search the room in a panicked frenzy, desperately looking around to find what the danger is.
Vish’s panted breaths beside me tell me that he acted almost as quickly as I did despite his snoring slumber.
I set my eyes on Ru, his defined muscles bulging as he rages — appearing to have a complete meltdown. One that would look a thousand times scarier if he wasn’t my best mate, and butt ass naked.
Cautious Vish steps towards the raging bull he was on about earlier, trying to understand what's going on.
Ru is in a state, his eyes wild. He looks like a frantic beast. A frantic beast that is now charging towards Vish, spitting words of fury in his wake.
I have no choice but to intercept him. I grab him and use his weight as leverage to slam him down to the floor. He’s not in his right mind, he’s completely out of it.
‘Calm the fuck down, Ru.’ I shout into his furious face, demanding that he takes a minute.
The big bastard fights for dominance below me and I shift to try to pin him, using the extra weight I carry to my advantage. Only in my tackle for dominance it becomes glaringly apparent to me that this bull of a man is naked. As in cock and balls out naked.
In his raging meltdown, I didn’t quite process his current state of undress, and by the glimpse I managed to get of Vish’s humour-filled expression, we look ridiculous rolling around on the floor together.
I send him a scowl because this fucker has left me to deal with his problem.
Ru completely oblivious keeps fighting me, his fist landing a clean punch to my cheekbone.
‘Stop moving, man. I do not enjoy feeling your fucking dick up against me.’
As expected Ru stops, his fight leaving him as my shouted words sink in. He roars, pushing me off of him, but Vish, the big mouth, just has to goad him. Chatting shit about his nudity all from the safety of the doorway.
Ru doesn’t retaliate like we both expect, he just deflates. ‘She’s gone,’ he admits and my heart aches for him.
Both Vish and I listen to what Ru has to say, watching as the strongest guy I know trusts us with such a deep level of vulnerability.
One I completely understand.
‘Well,’ I clap, trying to bring the mood up in any way I can. ‘Let’s go get your girl.’ And with that, we walk out the door and begin helping to hunt his girl.
‘Gonna stop pure stomping about,’ Ruaridh snaps back at me.
He’s in a pissy mood. I don’t blame the lad since we have spent the entire day checking through buildings with no results.
I tried to tell him I’d searched most of them a few days ago so I doubted his girl would be in any of them but he was having none of it and demanded we look anyway, clearly not trusting my abilities on this one.
Now the afternoon is turning dark and our chances of finding Fauna are slimmer by the hour. So he’s taking his irritation out on Vish and me.
Vish got the most of it for the first few locations, Ruaridh scowling at him for jeopardising his chances at happiness. Now his mood has soured to include me.
‘Shh,’ Vish hisses. ‘Someone could hear yer.’
Ruaridh shoots a glare promising pain at us but nods his head in agreement.
We wouldn’t usually care about anyone hearing us but since we are trying to find someone we don’t want to go making too much of a racket before we find her, or else we’ll scare her off.
Then we would have to deal with an even pissier Ru and I don’t think I can handle much more of his attitude.
‘He’s raging,’ I whisper to Vish. ‘What we gunna dae if we don’t find her?’
‘We’re gonna find the lass. I cannae be dealing with two of ye like this.’
‘Eh?’
Vish chuckles, ‘ye’ve hardly been a ray av sunshine yer self.’
He’s not wrong. These past months I’ve had my mind completely focused on one thing and one thing only, finding my girl. The universe is clearly getting a massive kick outta putting my leader and me in the same situation.
Ru hasn’t acted like this, ever. And it is as if I’m looking into a mirror or watching myself from a far. His permanently rigid body, tense muscles, features formed into a scowl are all too familiar to how I’ve been recently. My body nor my mind ever allowed to rest.
We all know the nightmare we live. How dangerous and brutal the world is around us and knowing your heart belongs to another, someone who may be in danger sends us feral. We will never rest until we find them and know for certain that they are safe.
Part of the fear is dramatic and unfounded, especially since the women who have taken our hearts have survived seven years of anarchy without us, but that logic has no pull over us.
We’re long past reasonable thoughts, and I can’t help the overwhelming tightness gripping my chest from not knowing if today will be the day that life strikes and rips them away.
I’ve seen plenty fierce survivors of all genders fall at the hands of bad luck. No matter how strong, smart or careful they were, all it took was one wrong move to kill them.
I can’t bear for that to be the case for my beauty, and I’d place bets that those exact cycle of thoughts are raging through Ru’s mind ahead of me.
I’m not a religious man and I’ve never been one to beg but I add Ru’s girls name to the mantra of pleads I have been repeating over the winter to keep my girl safe, and now his too.
The abandoned school looks as if it is on its last legs along with half of the other buildings in the city.
A large proportion of the metal cladding has rusted with the wet conditions that bless Scotland most of the time, the once colourful walls have faded with sun exposure and weeds have overtaken any cracks in the cement playground.
If I were to just look at this building on its own merits I’d assume it was in the middle of nowhere.
On the outskirts of a town that left it to be abandoned but with a quick glance around I see the derelict tenements.
This building once full of hope and aspirations is just as abandoned as the rest of the overgrown city I call home.
And probably similar to the rest of the country.
After searching all day Ru found his girl.
There were a few hickups, but she is back firmly cemented to his side, and I have spent my time desperately trying to distract myself from the rising jealousy within me.
Once he had her back we agreed to return to her girls.
Vish is already in the school with them, so hopefully we aren’t going to walk into a bloodbath.
Ru, Fauna and I walk through the bent metal gates heading straight for the back entrance. Ru hasn’t let go of Fauna since he got her back and I can’t blame him. I don’t think I’d be able to let my girl go either.
As soon as they step through the back double doors a chorus of female voices start talking so frantically I can’t keep up with what they are saying. Their concern is clear and I pause in the entryway allowing them to have a moment together.
From the little information I got out of Ru and Vish, these women sound like they’ve been through enough without some big stranger barging in and scaring them some more.
I know how the world is now and why we need to be gentle when meeting new people and groups. They don’t know us and we don’t know them. Although Ru and Vish seem to know more than me.
Slow to move inside, I keep my movements as gentle and non-threatening as I possibly can.
Ru has been inside with them before and Vish is somewhere around here but none of them have ever met me.
But the sound of a familiar feminine voice has my ears perking and immediately I scan the women crowding the corridor.
Then my heart stops.
She’s here.
My girl.
“Princess?”