Path Of The Broken

11. Ryan's Injury-2

Alex paused and looked at the boy on the ground, blood seeping from his side and soaking dirty cloths he’d been sitting on. He was the one he’d heard screaming in pain through the veil. He could touch the veil, although clearly had little understanding of his capabilities and was too young to go through transition.

“You enjoy being tortured?” Alex frowned and absently put a barrier up between him and the girl who had been trying to sneak up behind him.

“Elsie, no, don’t. He’ll kill you.” The boy looked at the girl and shook his head.

Alex pulled back his hood, perplexed, trying to understand what he’d seen, given the boy’s obvious concern for the three who’d been disfiguring him. He walked over to the boy and knelt near him, grasping him with one hand as he cringed away, wincing with obvious pain every time he moved.

“He’s right, Elsie, don’t test my patience. I have a remarkably short temper these days.” Alex looked back at the girl as her knife she’d tried to throw at his back hit the barrier instead. She blanched as it stopped midway through the air and clattered to the floor. She looked at him, horrified, and backing up she spun and ran for the doors, followed by the other two.

“They were trying to help me.” Ryan slumped back, defeated, knowing he had no chance of fighting against this man.

“You need a healer, boy.” Alex frowned at the lad, still not understanding what he’d seen or why it had been occurring. That anyone would do that to someone who needed to seek the attention of a healer horrified him.

Ryan laughed, then stopped, grimacing in pain. “Healers don’t have time or energy to tend to someone like me. Don’t have the money to spare to pay them.” Ryan pointed at the twine and dangling needle hanging from his side, with the clamp still grasping his flesh in its grip. “They were trying to sew me up, to stop the bleeding. It might give me time to heal.”

Alex closed his eyes at the boy’s simple words of explanation, appalled as the meaning sunk in.

“What’s your name? I can’t keep calling you ‘boy’.” Alex tried to look at the lad reassuringly, although given he was in pain and terrified, he wasn’t sure he was successful.

“Ryan. It was you in the alley that night, wasn’t it?” Ryan was certain there could not be two people who shone like this man had in the village.

“In the alley?” Alex was thrown by the unexpected question.

“You killed Tyron that night. He deserved it, but he was all I had. It's how I ended up with them. They took me on. I’m a terrible thief, though. I fell and stuck myself with my own dagger.” Ryan wasn’t sure what had possessed him to blurt out all that to the man looming over him except that he seemed to be listening. While he was listening, he wasn’t sticking that dagger that licked with flames into him.

Alex flinched as the memory of the man in the alleyway he’d killed flashed in his mind.

“He was your father?” Alex looked around the abandoned warehouse with the sinking sense of responsibility for leaving Ryan without a parent to care for him. Even if the man had been a bad one.

“No. My father died, but Tyron took up with my mother. Then she died.” Ryan felt himself drifting and tried to wrench his wandering mind back the man in front of him, trying not to be wooed by sleep.

Ryan’s words struck Alex like a blow. It meant he held responsibility for the position the boy found himself in. Alex shook his head, seeing Ryan was struggling to stay conscious, and gathered the weakly resisting boy into his arms, standing up smoothly.

“Stop squirming, Ryan. You need a healer.” Alex pulled the surrounding veil around them both and, sensing the boy’s shock, he sent soothing thoughts to the lad, trying to calm him.