Cracked and Brittle Edges

 “Does he know?”

Dray caught just a flicker of movement from the corner of his eye, a thud hitting the ground. Before he could think, he’d spun, stepping back—

Just Stov standing there. Just Stov.

His friend's eyes narrowed at him, and Dray puffed out a breath, dropping his hands. That was the second time he’d twitched out over nothing today. “Hi to you too.”

“How are you feeling?” Stov’s unblinking stare drilled into him.

He shrugged, rubbing at his still-prickling neck, and gestured to himself. “Twitchy. What was the question?”

“Just if your uncle’s planning to arrest you.” Stov finally lowered the intensity, leaning back against the wall he’d just dropped from, arms folded.

“Phf. I’m ninety points sure he knows.” He flicked his hands up and sat back on the lip of a planter box. Apparently they were having this conversation now. But if he was honest, they’d both be too tense to hang around the nook for long, so it was as good a place as any. “I didn't stick around to listen in, though.”

“Hn.” Stov frowned off at the horizon. “They probably got records from your stay in the hospital.”

Yeah, that’d do it. The rest of the force could take days to trawl through personal files, but Uncle Ment would recognise him instantly. Should’ve thought of that. Dray fidgeted with his MIP’s strap, rubbing up underneath his thumb. Uncle Menton wouldn’t turn him in, though. He wouldn’t want to do that to them.

Would he?

“Is the strap bothering you?” Stov was eyeing him again.

Eyah, he was worse than Erold. Dray dropped his hands between his knees, tilting his head nonchalantly. “Just a little itchy, that’s all. I could probably put it back on my other wrist now, but it’s still scabbed.”

“Mn. You said something about feeling off?”

Abrupt change in subject. He shifted slightly, trying to make his glance around the little hideaway casual. There was nobody there, but he couldn’t help the crawling unease. Like eyes watching.... “Just... something I can’t really describe. I had a fever last night, too. Not a bad one, and I was thinking it’s just the injuries, but I don’t know.”

Dray shook his head, trying to drive away that phantom prickle on the back of his neck and clenching in the pit of his gut. “Something just feels off.”

He didn’t miss Stov’s hands tightening, or his expression closing. “Could just be the injuries and the healing. Shouldn’t be anything more yet.”

Rubbing his wrist again, Dray studied the shoots in the planter box, tiny sprays of leaves reaching for the sky. “Night-fevers are a third-stage thing, right?”

“...Around there, yeah.”

“Definitely too early for me, then.” He tried a weak chuckle. Too early, but it’d still eventually happen. And by the time it did.... He swallowed against the irrational tightness clenched in the back of his throat.

“Yep.” Stov pushed off the wall, clapping him on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s go. We can talk more later.”

He sighed, dragging himself to his feet, not really sure he wanted to talk more about this. It was hard to be analytical about it all with the whole thing shadowing him, just one step behind. With a damn bite throbbing on his neck and nightmares haunting him....

Dray followed Stov on autopilot, heaving himself up into the bright morning sunlight. Not something he wanted to think about. His hand unconsciously drifted to his neck as he moved to drop after Stov onto a roof-garden maintenance path, a hollow twinging in his chest, and he forced it away, clenching his jaw.

Then he heard it.

At the edge of hearing, it drifted, rising higher, lifting every hair on the back of his neck and slicing underneath his skin. It froze his blood, jerking him to a twitching stop.

“Dray?”

He sucked in a jagged breath, half-expecting to see a shadowy form clawing over eaves under the rain-sluices, coming for him.

“Hey. Handler to Dray. Talk to me.”

It... was that a howl? For a long moment all he could hear was the rush of blood in his ears and that eerie sound, throat clenched painfully tight.

Until the wind brushed his face, and it cleared into the wail of a siren.

Just a siren. He let out a long breath, trying to ignore the buzz still screaming in the back of his skull. It was just a siren.

Puffing a slightly hysterical, silent chuckle to himself, he dropped down to join a frowning Stov. “It’s nothing. Thought I heard something.”

Just a kritzing siren. He really was losing it, wasn’t he? Next you’ll be seeing thyres around every corner.

Stov moved on. "Something?"

"Just a siren." Dray let himself trail behind, exhaling long and slow as he scraped a hand across his scalp, rubbing at an itch on his jaw. "Never noticed how much they sound like that until I almost got eaten, I guess."

"Mf."

Dray closed his eyes briefly as Stov turned the corner and dropped to a private byway—not the way he’d pick, but it was easier to get across—and did his best to shake it off. Just way too twitchy today, huh?

When he opened his eyes again, a shadow flickered in the corner.

He snapped around, catching something humanoid slipping behind a latticed wall crawling with thorny-blooms.

Was that...? No, human, definitely.

Definitely. His hand squeezed at his neck, eyes watching everywhere at once. "Stov, you didn't see anyone, right?"

No one answered him.

"Stov?" He turned, and the byway was empty.

Every hair on the back of his neck prickled up, and he swallowed, gripping tighter. Where in Hahll had he gone? Just went ahead and left him? Or....

The shadows in the corner of his eye seemed to move, invisible hands reaching for his back no matter where he turned.

Shihk, there's nothing there, he just... he just went on ahead, that's all. Wrangling his breathing in, Dray chose to head left, hopping over a low wall into the rooftop wilderness below, more sheltered and out of sight. He landed harder than he'd meant to, misjudging the drop, twigs snapping harshly under his feet.

Niff. Stifling his breathing, he listened over the pounding of his heart, flicking his gaze through the leafy shadows. Nothing. No cries of alarm, no anything.

No one should follow him down here unless he was being stalked. Moving as silently as he could, he tapped a message to Stov just in case. Should be able to meet up on the other side.

No answer. Where'd the niffer gone? Dray gritted his teeth, the twinge in his neck echoed in his chest, and he clutched it tighter as he moved through the swaying shadows of planter-trees. Damn drelf—

A soft rustle caught his ear just as he crossed a moss-grass clearing, movement flashing in the corner of his eye.

He spun, instinctively stepping further into the shadow of a tree. Shihk. What was that?

For a long moment he waited, tense as a wire, senses on high alert, watching for any other flash of something or someone prowling around. All he could see were crouching shadows that vanished as soon as he looked at them, and something on the edge of feeling, something—

“You look tense.”

Dray froze as a voice floated out of the bushes, a man stepping smoothly out like he'd been there all along.

No, not a man, even if he looked like one.

A therrolf.