On your head be it.

His head cradled in his hands, the weight of things pressing down on him.
Don’t make deals… they’d all agreed to that, it seemed wise and less dangerous. But now…


Now he’d passed up a chance to perhaps save his Guardian’s life, and hurt a friend as well. He was sick with worry, what if she died? Get her out if you –can- it said.

He had, somehow.

But he couldn’t remember how. He thought maybe that he’d been too focused on trying to get Autumn to the Hospital, worried about damage that he didn’t know the extent of whatever damage the creature had done.

He couldn’t do anything right.

First he’d begrudged himself for not being brave like she’d been with Pax. Then he’d been stupid enough to try and be the same way. SO…DAMN….STUPID.
It wasn’t –in- him to be that whatever gift it was she seemed to naturally poses, she judged –those things- far better than he could hope to.
What he could have done differently, he wasn’t sure.
Not answer it? Not speak to it? He wasn’t sure… it had caged them, and it acted like it could smell his desire the same way that he could smell the heat ant the –smoke- from the thing.

Maybe his… Other Ashdown… ‘power’ was just screwing everything up. He couldn’t really imagine that it would be anything else Well…maybe crazy research luck but look where that got him?

He’d left the hospital after he saw Jer arrive. It seemed… well not logical at the time.
Hed’d walked past him, not really seeing him and for once, Zac had been grateful for that. He didn’t want to talk to him right now. He felt…almost like his shame was so apparent that that might be why no one would look at him.

Now… now he wandered, his feet were blistered, his knees hurt, one of them skinned he thought and his pants torn. But he didn’t really register. He almost headed towards the beach, but he’d done sunny wrong too…
He didn’t want to go home, or to where he was now with Nasir, what if he just brought them trouble too?

He found himself at the end of some alleyway, no where left to walk but back, and he didn’t want to go there. He put his back to the old brickwork and slid down the wall to sit in ages of dirt, a few scraps of stray paper and cardboard
He wrapped his arms around his knees, rested his head on them too and finally let himself cry. It was in no way a dignified sound, but it was real. He was scared, he was damned upset…and he had no idea how to put anything right.

He had no idea how to even –start- putting things right. Maybe there was no more right in the world. Everything had become defined by strange, and the more he looked the more he found. The more he found the less he felt like there was anything of a chance to make sense of things, to fix things, or even just to stay… afloat.


He should… he should text in case she was ok, he should…

He should do a lot of things, but the idea of it felt as heavy as his guilt. Perhaps it was just part of it.

He wanted Mogget… but that meant going back to people…

He wanted to know she was ok, but that meant talking to them.

He wished VERY much, that he’d traded away his heart…