Owen Childs & Tahlia Spade
Owen shot Tahlia a wild-eyed glance as she yelled at him to knock it off, his knuckles turning white as his fingers dug into his palm. Instantly, his mind went to the worst outcome: he had alienated himself by verbally assaulting an old man. He regretted instantly not talking to her earlier about his concerns regarding their unwanted guest; if he had explained his concerns to her with a cooler head maybe she would have been more understanding. Instead, he felt betrayed. Yet, her words did corral him and put a tie on his tongue. He tucked his fists under his armpits and turned ever so slightly from the others, his head hung in shame.
You should’ve handled this better, Owen.However, it turned out his initial instincts were wrong: Tahlia had taken his side.
And then everything went to hell.
What happened next was all a blur, witnessed from the edge of his peripheries. Rend made a move with his arm as Tahlia closed the distance between the two. A noise, loud enough to cause Owen to instinctively throw his hands over his ears, rang out in the room, accompanied by a flash. He felt his heart begin to race faster than it already was, thumping against his chest at a hundred miles per hour. The bang sounded familiar yet so very foreign at the same time. A gunshot? He could hardly comprehend it. Owen had probably heard it a million times in movie and on TV, but in real life it had a different, dangerous quality to it. Tahlia yelled something. Another bang. Benji blurred by him. The next thing Owen knew, once his brain was finally able to catch up with all of the action that his eyes were processing, was that Rend was on the floor and Tahlia was standing over his body with a handgun trained on his head.
Owen tried to move, even if it was just his lips to say something to stop her, but it was as if he was in a dream. His body was slow, unresponsive, useless. His hand had only just begun to twitch, his lips had only just begun to part, when he heard the click, somehow louder than any of the previous gunshots. His mouth hung open stupidly. If he had the time to process everything, if he was the kind of person to think logically, perhaps he would have been a bit more understanding. After all, it could be argued that Tahlia was only acting in self-defense—any way you color it, Rend had fired two shots at her. But Owen only saw Tahlia try to execute a man she had already gotten the better of; a person he hated, true, but a person still the same. Of all of the feelings he had whenever he saw Tahlia, he never thought fear would be one of them. Now, he worried that perhaps fear would be the only one he would ever have again as she descended on Rend, ready to finish what the gun could not.
And he still couldn’t do a damn thing.
“You must intervene.”Echo had appeared in front of his face, grabbing and forcing him towards Tahlia and Rend. It was bizarre; she did not look as disturbed by all of this as he was, as any of them should have been. Her words were not those of someone powerless, of someone who could not bear to see violence. They weren’t some hopeless demand by someone who didn’t want to be held responsible for the upcoming disaster, something they could point back to later as if to say, ‘Well, at least I said something.’ Her words were simply just a fact. Owen had to intervene. Of the last six people in the universe, he was the only one who was possibly capable of making sure that one of them wasn’t dead and the other one didn’t become a murderer.
It was funny. If somebody had told him that Ailbeart Rend had been murdered by a woman he had tried to kill some hundred years and one cryosleep ago he wouldn’t have been upset, probably would’ve even cracked a joke or two. Now that it was happening, he couldn’t think of any of the quips he would’ve had lined up. All he could think about was that he was about to let Tahlia become a murderer if he did nothing. He knew he couldn’t let that happen. Echo was right. He must intervene. He stepped behind her, watching Rend’s one good eye bulge as she pressed her elbow into his neck. Even while dying and gasping for air, the old man still managed to look smug.
I’m going to one day regret this.“Tahlia. Tahlia! Stop!” he shouted, reaching under her arms and trying to pull them back in some bastardized full nelson. He just needed to get her off of Rend long enough for her to realize what a horrible mistake she was making. He knew he was no brute, however, and prayed that his size coupled with her better senses would still be enough to pull her off. If she was truly intent on ending Rend’s life, she still quite possibly could.
“Telling me to knock it off—please, come on, nobody wants this. You don’t want this. Just—Jesus—come on!”Tahlia, of course, wasn’t having any of it. She wrestled herself away from Owen’s grip without a problem and shot him a deathly glare.
“I’m doing all of us a favor! This man is a liability and a threat! I’m doing what no one else will!” she said, pressing harder into Rend’s throat. Really, there were easier ways to kill him; he wasn’t exactly very strong, and his age likely made him pretty feeble. In reality, Tahlia could have killed him already, and somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that. She probably would have too, if she were more in her right mind at the moment. Or she would have simply disarmed and subdued him, as opposed to performing such a vicious display of brutality.
“Nobody wants to watch you kill someone, even if it is a jerk like Rend,” shouted Owen, his hand raised in an angered attempt at a plea. He felt that his words would have little effect, if any, on Tahlia, yet he still refused to let this happen without doing something. There were better ways to handle Rend. He couldn’t think of any, but he was certain that anything was better than this. Yet he couldn’t overpower Tahlia. He looked down at the gun. He didn’t know that it couldn’t shoot, and he certainly didn’t intend to shoot it even if it was loaded, but it could be used in a more primitive way. All it would take was one strong bash to the head and Tahlia would be out cold; Benji would be able to take care of her, hopefully.
Yet he hesitated. Perhaps he thought that Tahlia would still see reason and relent, or maybe he was concerned with how much damage he could actually do with a quick application of blunt force trauma. Or, perhaps, at some base, petty, animalistic level, he wanted Tahlia to go through with it. Whatever it was, it was enough time for Tahlia to realize that something was up, or to finish what she had started. Reaching down, he wrapped his fingers around the gun, seemingly fully prepared to strike Tahlia if he must, but almost certain that he didn’t really have it in him.
“Tahlia, I’m begging you, don’t make me do this.”At that, Tahlia couldn’t help but stop. She looked up at Owen, quizzically, wondering what he meant. She noticed the gun in Owen’s hand, though he was holding it more like a bludgeon, and he was ready to use it. He was threatening to hit her... to get her to stop killing Rend. She snapped out of it and fully realized what she was doing. She looked back and forth between Rend and Owen, and even looked around at the others, easing off of Rend’s neck. Rend took in several ragged breaths and choked out a series of heavy coughs. He tried to speak, but all it did was prompt further coughing.
Slowly, Tahlia got off of Rend, walked over to Owen, took the gun and disassembled it, throwing some of the individual pieces to the others.
“We won’t need this. If everyone has a piece, and at least someone is unwilling, we won’t be able to use it again.” She gave the frame to Owen, the slide to Echo, the barrel to Yaz, and kept the trigger group for herself, intending to give a piece of it to Benji later on.
Owen felt the breath he did not realize that he was holding escape from his mouth as Tahlia backed off. The feeling of relief overcame him like a wave, and for a moment he felt as if he was going to sink to his knees. He wiped at his eyes, slightly embarrassed to find that they had been watering, and stepped over to Rend to make sure the old man was going to be okay. His lips drew into a tight line as he knelt next to the man he despised. Technically he was a doctor, but his field was curing the mind, not the body. Regardless, he knew things looked grim; even a child would be able to guess that Rend needed medical attention. The old man choked again, sputtering helpless like a fish out of water, his fingers grasping for Owen's leg in some pitiable cry for help. And Owen knew that only Benji, not himself, could help and try to save Rend.
And, of course, Doc was nowhere to be seen.
“Someone, go find Benji,” he said, his voice strained with anger and weariness. He punched the ground, sending a web of pain up through his arm; a stupid, hopeless attempt at asserting some form of dominance, some kind of control over a situation that was quickly spiraling out of his grasp, as if he ever had hold of it in the first place. He turned and glared at the three others, his brow knitted, his face tight as if he had just tasted something sour. A better leader would've assigned the task directly to someone, would have remained calm in the face of crisis, and, ironically enough, would've been like Rend—seemingly heartless, but always knowing the right person to use for the job. Owen just didn't have it in him to keep his cool, didn't know who really to send, and just didn't have the right answer. He knew that, and now the others knew that. Still, it didn't change the fact that they should be listening to him, even if just this once.
“Why are you still here? All of you. Go. Get him. Now!”
