Time only racing at each passing day, the tick of the clock upon my watch and its never-ending click piquing the flaming nerve. The crew reunites again just a couple of days until the ceremony. Ray perched on his computer, alongside Charlotte, both deep in thought while I impatiently tap my foot onto the woodened ground. Arms crossed along my chest, waiting for any news, whilst Tiana reads the royal lists of the thousand guests that will be arriving for the event.

It's taking too fucking long. The sooner we locate the faces we search for, the faster we can locate the new underground locations of rituals. Each day feels as though I am soaked in spilled blood. Blood stolen from the innocent young lives; their organs carved from the small bodies only to be given to those tainted by greed. And in the end, neither could live to talk about it.

Except me, and Charlotte and Ray and Hakeem and carter. Now Queen Tiana is on our side, making the pathway clearer with her authority. Goodnights rest no longer visits me, knowing the danger I allowed her to join into, yet she chose it, chose the brighter side in this fucked up life. As long as I am her shield, not a scratch will scar on her.

Tiny fingers poked the skin of my folded elbow, and I glared down to the soft green of Carter's eyes. At the dark ink around my pupils, he whimpered slightly.

A resemblance like his mother, but nowhere near cruel and twisted. Instead of becoming what he grew up with, he chose a brighter road, both him and Hakeem, and I'll see to it they both make it out, giving them the chance I never had.

"You saw my mom?" he asked me, his young voice subdued. I am astonished he asked of her, but of course he would, when he still holds onto the slight hope that she could possibly regret what she has done.

"Does she even know I'm alive?"

I swallowed. Peering only down to the ground, at the soles of my polished black Italian.

"Does she care even?" he only sounds more defeated.

The breath I exhaled, was enough to make my chest hollow.

But my jarring silence was enough to pop the question. And he absently nodded. "She never did care if I even ate. But she was finally happy throwing me away."

It gutted me. It was like listening to myself. An apparition that forces me to face what I wanted to run away from. I had thought it best to withhold that information from him in general, even when we returned the night of. He knew his mother would never miss the chance of standing next to Royalty in hopes to boost her token points, so he asked me before I left to mention his name, and that he was still alive.

And on that same night he had looked at me with those same solemn eyes, hoping I'd come by like a proud father and tell him they'd be reuniting with each other by the end of it all. But the cold glare that he met said otherwise -- instead I masked the sorrow that ingrained in me, knowing I had railed her in a supply closet to do so.

Carter huffed one last time, an unmistakable breath that he had longed to release, arrowing his head back to peer up to the woodened ceiling, and from there I watched the tear lines in his eyes dissolve, along with those sad eyes.

"Fine than." he says. At the menacing growl, he had captured my attention, as if he himself would exact revenge. "Add her to the list." he says. "I never want to see her face again."

And there it went, the thread that he had strung along with him for all these years, hoping his mother would look for the end and tug him back home -- she never did. He had hold off on resentment for so long, telling himself throughout it all, that he'd hate her when he is ready. And it was the day. Along with his new mask, the last tear slipped from his eyes, his heart had held them in for so long, the rebellious ones freed themselves. He lunged at me then, wrapping his small arms around the slim of my waist and buried his wet face into the fabric of my dress shirt.

"Thank you," he muffled. "Big brother."

I don't know what it was in that moment, but it struck me deep, not enough to bring me to my knees the way Tiana can, nor come near the way my heart plunges deep into my gut when I think of her in any way. This was another, words I have never heard before and said to me. It had mellowed me in a way, and undid my hand, the usual callous large of my palm was big enough to crush his small head as I gripped the top and patted him gently.

The last detailed memory of me and my brother, just before he passed, I had held his slumping body the same way, even when the clothes on him had been stained with blood, and the bone of his ribs shattered -- he wanted me to tug him harder, saying this was the best pain he would ever get. And than just like that, in a blink, he was taken from me and returned as a corpse.

And now, I am being a brother to another. Emotions I never faced before, and didn't know how to not be awkward, so when I lightly patted his head, I had felt a lingering burn on my backside and peered back to where Tiana herself gaped at me, proudly.

I was softening immensely, and it frightened me.

I turned away from the main weakness and ushered Carter off, "Go back to Hakeem."

And he does, not before threatening me to not tell anyone he cried, and ushers himself away.

Fear, and Love. I admit it to myself, I am afraid ... of falling for her, but somehow there I was.

"Sir." Ray beckons to me, a thunderous summons that lifted the gloom off my shoulders, thankfully rippling this harmonious feel that trails into my veins and the thud of my heart.

"What have you found?" I declare, and all three of us round behind him, witnessing the screen displaying strange encryptions.

"With the sample you gave from ..." he goes silent, trailing his eyes upwards to Carter, and I acknowledged the gesture with a nod. "It is as you suspected sir," Tension balling onto my shoulders. "It is by blood or fluid of a sort in exchange for entry."

I watched Charlottes face contort with disgust; a knowing smirk slides across my face. I already had an inkling -- I rummage back to the supply closet with her and I -- the feel of my fingers exploring her smooth skin but poked the scabs along her body.

like I thought inwardly, sex and pain are her weakness -- though she is still clever, the only way to have gotten anything from her would have been physical touch.

And as I thought of physical, Tiana's gloom had called to me, stretching its blanketed hand, her usual dazzling eyes had dimmed.

Till this day -- though it has not been long, I thought of my own instincts to interrogate Carter's mom and didn't think to consider the way Tiana would feel knowing what Carters' mom and I had been up to that day.

I'm hesitant to confess it but she is no fool. She must had felt my gaze than and turned to look at the remorse in my eyes, basking in the dull. And turned away. The tip of her nose burning red.

Meanwhile, Ray had continued his clacking below, and clicked something unknown, the words on the screen had begun to spiral, a great nauseating speed that no eye could follow, Latin codes and numbers spinning all at once, the brightness steadily softening.

"Ray." Charlottes tremorous voice said, her eyes spiraling trying to keep up.

He threw his hands up in evidence, and said, "It's not me."

I remained stoic, while simultaneously getting closer to Tiana, until the screen suddenly stills.

The screen soon settles to a glimmering background, at the center is what appears to be an ancient scroll, aside it was designs of grey gargoyles sketched on the corners, and horrid demons. One catching my eye. A red demon, walking with the bent hindlegs of a human, it's body skeletal, a snake like tongue dangling from its mouth down to the abdomen, but it's face was King Abrafo.

All eyes steadily trace to Tiana, who bore an expression of pure unwavering fear.

The screen abruptly blinked again, and the scene displays a message.

"What language is that?" Charlotte questions.

Ray leaned into the wording, Tiana and Charlotte exchanging looks.

Encrypted in Cursive Rose Gold, "For those who enter, be warned you will never leave, and sever your choice of religion."

Without haste, all eyes twist to me. Gazes that hold a silence of expectance. I neither look aside me to the women, or down to Ray, and spoke. "That writing is was my mother's language."

"What writing is that?" Charlotte questions. Her sheen orbs capturing my reflection.

"My mother was born in Lebanon. She taught me her language."

It was the way they each soaked it in, it felt as though they had a peek of my life through the crack of a surface. The first time I ever shared a detail of my life, or the first time I ever uttered anything about myself, not even to Charlotte or Ray, whom have been my family. They had dug deep to make me speak on myself, but in the end, every attempt was a failure. I shielded it all.

"C-can you find the location, and the list of names?" Charlottes nervously asks, knowing I hated the eye.

From below, Ray as well had to force his eyes away from me, all reeling down from the state of shock. I concluded then, neither had really known me at all, I was a stranger to my own family.

Ray clacks away on the computer. But along with that simmering silence, I had found Tiana's eyes again, this time no cowering or hesitance, we held that deep gaze at each other, as If she relishes the peak of light in the onyx cloud above me.

"Nasir sir. Look." Ray ushers.

Even then, we were still captivated in each other's eyes, until her chest rose with air and drifted her eyes to Ray's call, only then was I able to do the same. A new scroll presents itself, letters and colors all alike, but now this was in English.

"Do these names look familiar my Queen?" Ray asks her. And she scurries to the list she left behind and returned it with her.

Tiana's eyes steadily shifting between the physical and the screen, an investigator at its finest, and I couldn't have been prouder.

Her fingers drag along the list until she stiffened to a name. "This one." she pointed, Charlotte wrote them down, "And this one too."

Charlotte pulled the bottom of the long scroll, trailing her finger gently along every line. "Oh, he looks familiar."

The moment prolonged for hours of only searching up names, but I didn't mind in that moment, feeling the touch of calamity as I watched her effortlessly move about, reigning supreme in how she set herself on her rightful throne. But I am still disturbed, needing to clear some air between us two, from events before and leading up to yesterday.

She would never tell me; she'd bottle it inside like me until cornered. Only a few inches away apart and I could see the pain brimming in her eyes. Never a moment she allows herself to be weak, going by the laws of her crown. And I had enough of it. Watching her swallow the pain, I neither wanted to spank her, or give a flirty eye. I wanted to talk to her.

All bickering and clamoring sounds soon dissipated by rise of my body, "Tiana." I call out gently, and like she anticipated she exhales a breath and hovered her glossing orbs until it meets mine.

"Can I please speak to you?"

***

Blossomed lilies, and emerald, green grass, her white dress twirling into the wind, hesitant pupils that swim with tears and burning cheeks. Her arms wrap around her body, her curls streaming, stretching its hip lengthen strands backward into the breeze. I advanced forward slightly, and at the soft look she sent me, I stilled in an instant.

"Are you ok?" I asked her.

And in the end of that question, her lids awakened, light soaking into her orbs as she looks up to me, as if she had never heard those words before.

"You're not happy." I continued, out here on the side of the castle, this time it is me that pulls her aside in dire need of fresh nature and wind. "You bore a lot your shoulders daily Tiana, and I hate watching you this way." I huffed, tears drowned her orbs, but neither have yet to fall. "About yesterday -"

"I'm sorry," she blurted, beads of tears sharply flung from her eyes, "I'm sorry for you having to see that. I'm sorry that you have to listen to it all and watch me play with Gunter, I know you and him are not on good terms in the moment and that -"

She was breaking, but I caught her in time, cradling her head into my chest as she wept. "I know, you had to show it to make it believable I know, I'll never fault you, ever. That's why ... that's why I did what I did, making faces I hoped you'd like, to make things easier."

"It did." she muffles, the heat and tingle of her breath was a tender caress, a narcotic that tingled my blood with its addictive melody. She pulls away from me. "It did make things better." she confessed again, I look down to the tears and padded a few away with the graze of my thumb, but she jerked from my touch.

"Please," I nearly whined, this craving to touch her was deep, it was scary how weak I sounded, how light I felt, my chest thundering so much It constricted my lungs. The keen in my voice must have tugged a soft string for me somewhere in her heart, so she stood still when I reached out to her again.

The touch of her skin burning as I tucked a strand of hair behind the curve of her ear. Long lashes flutter to the feathery touch of my scarred palms, my pesky thumb neglecting its boundaries and brushed down her cheek until it runs along the line of her plumped lips.

"I'm proud of you." I praised over her. I witness the desire sprinkle into her eyes as she parted those lips at the press of my thumb, my eyes nearly rolled back to the dark of my cranium when the warm spit coated the finger when I hit the tongue, she had watched me with those enticing eyes and wrapped her tongue around my thumb before enwrapping those pulpous moistened lips around the whole skin.

With my thumb submerged into her mouth, I watched the way her lips involuntarily molded around it as if to suck the flavor off of me.

Hot desire dragging down below and my dick had begun its painful swelling. "Let go." I snarled lowly, attempting to hold myself back.

Her eyes held a challenge, and those lips curled grimly.

"Tiana." I say again, my pulse deepened, "Let. Go."

And she does, slowly, pulling away from me and left behind a thin string of thick spit.

With the wet skin, I smirked at it as I analyzed the clear coating before wiping it on the outline of my dick, storing that for later. "What a tease." I chuckled, "But do that again ... and I'll fill your mouth something bigger you can suck on."