Fredrick’s silence was all the answer that Jordan needed. A few thoughts passed through Jordan’s head as he slumped against the wall. The first and foremost was that he was being hunted. It made him panic as he thought of Committee agents tearing into the elf and ending it’s life. He felt sick. In a way it was his fault the professor died.

He didn’t wait for Fredrick to prepare or get out of the way. He tore past the man, out the door, and into the city. He wasn’t about to let anyone else die because of him. He ran as fast and as far as he could through darkening streets. He kept to the alleys and out of sight of any Committee security he saw. He just wanted to lose himself in the pulse of Ruin.

When he finally ran out of breath, he slumped against wall made of a fibrous ceramic and took a moment to rest. There was really no place for him to go. He knew from personal experience that the box and it’s ward were keeping him alive. Center Piece agents would have found him long ago otherwise. He reached behind to his back pack to retrieve the box and was alarmed when his fingers touched its black finish instead of the cloth of his sack.

He withdrew the thing and placed it on the ground in front of him. He knew for a fact that he’d secured it in his bag. There was no way it could have worked it’s way out. He watched it on the ground, intensely, wondering just what kind of cursed thing he’d come across. As he watched he saw something that both turned his stomach and made him watch in awe. The box didn’t shudder or give any sign that anything was wrong, it just moved.

With either care or sluggishness, the thing extended slightly and pulled itself along the ground a few centimeters. The box was alive. Jordan thought back to all the times people had seen him with the thing and remembered that in each the box had gotten from his pack and into his hands. With a sinking feeling Jordan realized that it wanted to be opened and found. If he wouldn’t do it, it’d find someone that would.

The thing was still when he gingerly picked it up again. His mind fought the thought that it even could be alive while he turned it over. Boxes weren’t alive, even in Ruin. The box defied what he knew.

There was no question in Jordan’s mind that what he held was too important to just return or ignore. It was something dangerous enough to kill for. Jordan wasn’t about to walk into his own death. He stilled his suddenly shaking fingers as he lifted the lid and opened the box.

--

Trent waited while Adnan prepared the field. Silence was the only thing that filled the gap between the two men. Bodies still lay where they died around them and Trent was personally glad that he couldn’t smell anymore. He could only imagine what it was like for Adnan, but chided himself when he remembered that his current partner must enjoy the smell of death.

“I have them,” Adnan said simply while he looked around for signs, “They’re in Center Piece…”

__________________
Strangers, waitin’, up and down the boulevard, their shadows searchin’ in the night…
Streetlights, people, livin’ just to find emotion, hiding somewhere in the night!!!

-Don’t Stop Believing by Journey


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