IGNATIUS The Colors of Rage

Chapter 2 d Judgment

Iggy turned his chin away and shook his head. “No,” he showed his teeth. “I don’t trust you.”

"But-"

Baine leant forward in his chair, awake, and planted his elbows on the tops of his thighs. He moved with a sleepy stiffness. “Today is going to be a big day,” he announced in a groggy voice. “We’re having a house meeting, and the two of you are coming, too.” 

Iggy jostled in his skin at the sound of his voice. “Us?” he pointed out. 

“Don’t make me repeat myself, kid.” The door creaked open and Baine exclaimed from his chair, “finally!” He threw his hands up. “What took you so long?!”

Nansen stood at the door, bathed and dressed in a black suit with his hair tightly combed back behind his ears. One hundred percent stable, he smirked with cockiness. “I needed a break. I told you that.” 

Baine took one look at Nansen’s smug smile and cringed with disgust. “You asshole. You probably even took a nap while I was here waiting for you.” Baine, irritatedly hungry, held his upper stomach with a balled fist and trotted across the room to the door, hunching forward as if he were an old man. “I’m starving!” he grumbled. “You should have come earlier!” 

Nansen chuckled, and patted the back of his shoulder to anger him even more. Having had enough, Baine stormed right past him into the hallway and proceeded down to the feeding rooms. Nansen smiled wide in greeting to Emi and Iggy, and shut the door behind himself. He leant against it with his back and his fingers wound together behind his sacrum. 

“Nansen?” Iggy implored. “Why are we going to the meeting, too?”

Nansen nodded his head to the side. “We’re going to talk about a lot of topics, and neither Baine nor I can miss any of it while babysitting you. So, you’re coming along.” He threw his hand into a loose point. “Go into your closet and change your clothes into something more presentable. You look like a train wreck.” 

Iggy’s eyebrows drew together insulted, but he obeyed still. He fumbled through the room, identifying furniture by the feel of their edges and shapes, yet growing angrier with each new rearranged discovery. As he stood in the center of his closet with the lights on, he found himself still blinder than a ground mole. He couldn’t see any of the patterns or the colors of his clothes, because by now, the rest of his vision was gone. The color from his cheeks washed away and he felt a sudden surge of nausea. He hung his head forward and his hair drew a dark veil over his face. 

Just as he was about to give in and cry, Emi came into the closet with him. She smelt bad still. “Let me help,” she insisted, pulling a jacket off of a hanger and holding it out to him. “This will go well with your pants.” 

He swung his arm through the air until his fingers found the jacket, then he snagged it right out of her hands, ungratefully. He switched shirts, and knelt onto the floor, pawing across the carpet to find his shoes. Able to handle that part all on his own, he finished dressing and walked out of the closet with his hands out in front. 

Emi came out of the closet with her hair wrestled back behind her large ears and the ends of Iggy’s borrowed pants dragging on the floor around her ankles. His shirt was even too large for her, which was surprising because he was such a small malnourished man. Even so, she was smaller. 

Nansen smiled at the sight, and he laughed. “Nice pants.”

Her cheeks saturated pink. “Well, Iggy is a bit taller than me.” 

Iggy turned his chin over his shoulder and found her outline. Practically aiming his voice anywhere close to her direction, he questioned in a harsh tone, “are you wearing my pants?” 

She folded her hands over her ribs and pulled her frown to the side. “Yes… but you have so many pairs. You shouldn’t mind…” 

He shut his eyes and scrunched his nose to appear vicious. “Are there no boundaries to you?”

Her fists balled up. “What’s the big deal? Are you upset about these ones specifically?” 

He opened his eyes and winced. His chest felt hot with frustration and he gripped his own hand into a fist, too. “I don’t know which ones you took, because I can’t see anything!” 

Her silhouette came closer, and he lifted his hands defensively, just in case. “Is it really that bad?” she asked. 

He narrowed his eyes, fighting to see any detail. Even though she was much closer, he still couldn’t see her face. “It’s worse than you can imagine.” His voice lifted into a scream. “And it’s all your fault for sending that woman here! She chewed on my face! She caused this!” 

Nansen stepped up from behind and dropped his large palms over the balls of Iggy’s shoulders, folding him over with the light pressure. “That’s enough,” he said. “We’ve got the entire house gathering in the conference room waiting for us, so let’s go.” He tugged back on Iggy’s shoulders so that he came upright again. As he stumbled back, Iggy held the edge of Nansen’s shirt and walked next to him. 

All together, the three ventured down the stairs to the conference room where the atmosphere was thunderous. Iggy hadn’t ever been inside before, because it was used so often by the others and he was meant to stay away from them. It was the largest in the whole house, set up with a long table and space for more than a hundred people to stand. 

The strength in Iggy’s voice vanished. “But, Nansen…” he worried, “if everyone is down there, then I shouldn’t be, right?” 

Nansen pulled him along. “Nope, you’re involved. I won’t let anything bad happen to you.” 

They entered the room. Emi only knew one person, and it was the woman from the garden. She was bound to a chair positioned dead center and opposite of the main seat, which was Baine’s assigned place. Her clothing and hair were in even worse condition than before. Her skin was dirty, however beneath the dried blood and dirt, all of her wounds were already healed as if they had never happened at all.