It's November the twenty-fourth and approximately ten minutes to four in the morning when I get a call from Quin. The penthouse my mates and I rented for the bachelor party is alive with the background symphony of the peak of our unbridled male cacophony.

It reaks of a mixture of different scents that range from fresh vomit, booze, sweat and the last sexual trists of forbidden lovers racing to enjoy their last few hours as unmarried men.

It's also too loud to hear so I wade through the dancefloor, rejecting several dance requests from a horde of drunk, teenage, wanna-be imitations of my friend group's unique dynamic and head towards the balcony to get a fresh breath of air and call Quin back.

I don't know why he's calling me. We'd promised not to talk until after the ceremony, at the sanctuary. After all, he was on the list; that much I'd made certain. I sit at the far end of the balcony, away from a sparse number of curious eyes and light a smoke, taking a few hits before I dial his number.

He answers immediately, a first of many unnatural things that happens that night. He doesn't speak but I can hear his weak, broken breaths as the sound of shattering objects fills the background. 

"Quin?" I wake up, my attention now turning away from the beautiful sight of the waking capital city of Salvos.

"Quin are you there?" I whisper loudly as the sounds get louder. I run my fingers through my hair, my anxiety growing with each passing second. 

"Dorian?" A frail voice answers in the faintest, shaky whisper. I let out a sigh of relief, as I pace back and forth on the furthest edge of the balcony.

"Quin? Are you okay? Where are you?" I whisper back and wait for a response. 

"In the shed," he answers again as a sharp cry is heard in the background.

"Why are you in the shed?"

 "My dad...he came home from work drunk again and attacked me out of nowhere. He knows about us..he knows," he answers, stifling a sob. I feel my heart twist in pain as my eyes water. 

"He hit you?" I say through gritted teeth, feeling the slightest pinch of heat burn through my folded fists, from the burning end of the lit cigarette.

"Yeah...but I'm fine," he lies, sniffling as he tries to downplay the pain in his thick, hoarse post-breakdown voice.

"Don't lie to me, Quin. You don't need to hide the pain from me," I tell him, my heart aching for him as the words rush out of me.

 I wish he knew how much I could tell from hearing his voice. I could tell when he was happy when he couldn't help himself from telling me every detail of what made him happy, not caring the expense that it took to call my secured line.

I could tell when he was sad from the poetic way in which he spoke, making music out of the mundane things in life. I could tell when he was sad, from the thickness of his voice, when he called moments after he'd broken down to ask about my day and try to mask his pain.

But there were rare, isolated moments like these when he'd call in the midst of his father's drunken, tyrannical outbursts, and not speak at all, preferring to hear my voice to drown out the chaos.

I'd find scars on his body on many occasions; as pieces of evidence to the kind malice, his father felt towards the person his son had turned out to be along. 

 A person he couldn't control.

I'd kiss the bruises on his skin, that he hid underneath layers of makeup, way too many times to understand the gravity of the fact that his life was always going to be dangling on the edge of survival if he didn't find an escape from his abusive father.

Which is why I'd applied for his permanent residency at the sanctuary after the first few weeks of dating. And also the reason why I'd worked so hard to secure his retrieval from the system with the rather spiteful council elder, Uri, whom I had a terrible past with.

 Uri only caved in after I forwarded my request to HighTower, in an act of breaking protocol.

Luckily, HighTower ruled in my favour, seeing that the evidence was too heavy to ignore and granted Quin an emergency transit admission that was only used on persons whose lives were in danger.

The downside to this was that I had to completely withdraw from making any contact with Quin in the last couple of weeks leading up to the pairing ceremony, to avoid getting our communication channels compromised.

It was a rule that we'd followed the entire time, as Uri had made it clear to the both of us that Quin could only contact me if he felt his life was in danger as I was his FOC; first of contact...

 I knew to contact my senior, elder Uri for an SOS call to have backup go in if the situation arose so I do immediately after Quin calls, giving details of the ongoing situation over at Quin's place of residency.

Then I call Quin back, hearing his father on the other end of the line yell out his name with a slew of dark curse words and threats. 

"Better come out like a fucking man and face me you piece of shit!" he yells, kicking a door open. "I'll kill you when I get my hands on you!"

Quin gasps, a scared whimpering sound catching at the back of his throat as I hear him move. The sounds of breaking objects and loud footsteps fill the air as his father walks around the shed. My phone buzzes at the same exact moment and I look up at the screen.

"Portal on route 45 is open for transit. Can you make it in an hour?" 

"Yes," I text, reaching into my shirt, to take my car keys out.

"You have been cleared for transit. Don't delay," it says before the thread of messages vanish from my screen permanently.

"Dorian?" Quin whispers softly. "He's going to find me. What do I do?"

 "You know that abandoned dirt road that connects to Highway 45?" I tell him as I sprint through the penthouse, and rush into the first elevator that swings open in the hallway.

"Yeah?" 

"Run as fast as you can to it and hide in that old shack where we fist kissed last summer. There will be a car coming to pick you up in ten minutes," I say.

"What about the ceremony?" he asks. 

"Don't worry about that. You've got an active SOS transit to the sanctuary," I explain. " We have to be there in an hour."

"Are you coming?" He asks to which I smile softly.

"A knight in shining armour never abandons his mission," I say and hung up, as the elevator doors open on the basement floor of the building.

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