Bad Lights, Good Lights [Chapter 8.3]

“I wanted to tell you when the time was right,” Scarlet said, his unwavering voice irritating me. It seemed like him being exposed to keep a secret didn’t affect him even a bit. “I know I should tell you as soon as possible, but laying out all the information when we’ve just met for a little more than a couple of days would overwhelm you.”

I wanted to interrupt him by arguing about his reasoning, but I shut my mouth. I knew it wouldn’t be any good if I let my emotions controlled me further.

“It seems like,” Scarlet continued, “I’m wrong about that. You’ve repeatedly showed your enthusiasm over knowledge, your excitement to know more. I had the feeling you could handle all of this, but I admit, I wasn’t sure about it before. You were... fragile the first time we met each other.”

His words hit me. I was fragile at that time. I remembered crying because of Father, and seeing Scarlet made me think he might be the solution I had. And I had foolishly asked him to kill my father. I met him just for a few minutes and I already requested a personal wish. This wasn’t the time to ponder about that matter, though.

“I can handle it,” I said, folding my arms to show him I could embrace whatever he wanted to hurl at me.

“Oh, spare me the drama,” Mauveine said, floating a bit upward and downward. “It is not something that would affect our plan majorly.”

I realized that purple’s light presence, as well as Damon and the man, and I felt there were too many people here. I should’ve as well talked with Scarlet about this privately, but that wasn’t a luxury I had right now.

“Do you remember when I turned on the pipe in your toilet?” Seeing me nodded, Scarlet continued. “Well, that’s as far as my ability goes. In this human world, my ability is very limited. I can make weak gestures of telekinesis.”

I absorbed his information, and it dawned on me I had assumed he could kill people when we first met. I thought his manipulation on that pipe was just a minor act he could do; I thought he could do more. That was why I initially cooperated with him in this mission to save humankind—because I was afraid of what he could do to me. Right now, however, it seemed like he couldn’t do those stuffs I imagined he could do. “You really need me.”

“Yeah,” he said, floating side to side. “By manipulating my own energy to something similar to yours, I could synchronize with you, and that makes my ability stronger. That was why you could move that man to the wall when I alone couldn’t do it.”

I nodded slowly, my boiling anger calming down. What he said made sense. Mauveine was right; this information made me understand more about the the good lights, aseal, and didn’t give a huge impact to the plan we had right now. Scarlet shouldn’t keep this from me because there was no reason to do that. “You should’ve told me earlier,” I said, careful to make my voice softer as to not offend Scarlet.

“I should’ve,” he replied.

I turned to that man. “I guess we’re done here. You have nothing else about the bad light.” I shifted my attention to Damon. “We should go.”

Damon nodded—I was glad he understood arguing right now wouldn’t be the right thing to do—and I was about to move to the door when the man spoke up. “That’s not all the bad light said to me, you know,” he said. “For something you deem as evil, she really is honest.”

That got my attention. I stopped my movement, and looked at him. “What do you mean by that?” I said, my voice dripping with curiosity. This man sure knew how to hook me.

The man stood up confidently, brushing his stomach to remove whatever dust on his shirt. He smiled slyly. “Despite my refusal, I challenged her to convince me to help her.” He tilted his head. “Apparently, she thought explaining something that was disadvantageous to me would’ve won me. She was wrong, though—no one would’ve like to be manipulated unwillingly.”

Manipulated unwillingly? What’s he talking about? “Do you know what he’s talking about, Scar?”

Scarlet nodded.

I looked at the man, and finally I decided not to take his bait this time. If there was something else I should know, I would know it sooner or later. I could talk with Scarlet at the time and place that I wanted. I didn’t need someone who would lay all this out in the worst way ever. If the information was disadvantageous to me, I’d like to discuss it with those I trusted—with those I was comfortable with. This man reeked suspicion.

“My light knows it,” I said, emphasizing my light, and turning to Damon again. “I’d talk to him when and where I want. Thanks for the cooperation.” I paused. “Why are you here, anyway? Shouldn’t you be with others?”

The man looked away. “I forgot some stuffs. They told me to get the stuffs back here.”

I could sense he was embarrassed with his forgetfulness. I was satisfied by that a bit. “Well, you better do your job quick, or else they’d be angry with you.”

I went to the door, Scarlet at my side, Damon and Mauveine behind me. I opened it and let them to go through it first. Our trip here was short, and we didn’t find the axors like we wished we would, but the information I got in exchange for that made this trip worth it.

I was about to close the door when the man asked me the same question again. “Why do you despise us foreign workers, anyway?” His voice lacked the fiery it had before, and right now he seemed to be genuinely intrigued.

I could hear the unspoken Are you racist? Are you just a bad person? on the air, however. He must had a bad impression of me. I didn’t care, and decided to change my way of closing the door. “Not you business.” With a swipe, I made the door close itself, smiling when it produced a shocking knocking sound.

I turned to the others, and Damon, standing still, was looking straight at me. “You sure are aggressive. There’s no need to do that with your ability.” He started walking, and I followed him at his side. The lights had went into ourselves now that we were outside.

“I’m tired of his question.”

I walked beside him, and remembered how he acted back in there. He was surprisingly going along nicely with me. Maybe I would revise my impression on him. I thought of calling Imran or Sarah to see how they were doing, but decided not to do it, worried I would disturb them. Since we finished here early, they should still be looking around for the axors.