Page 86 of Drift

“Do I now?” Jackson rounded the bottom of the staircase, and shirtless and bare footed despite the cold playing outside, he padded over in dusty jeans to Leon.

Leon glanced back, then winced West’s way as he moved past Jackson and walked away. But then Drift knew Jackson needed no one else to back him up. The scar running left to right along his throat marked the last ones to try as he’d been roped. Jackson had walked away. The others hadn’t.

Drift knew the story. He’d been there on the wrong side to help write it.

West glanced Drift’s way, then dug her hands in her coat pocket. “Look, I—”

“Leave it.” Jackson shifted a look to the clock, then eased against the doorframe and lit up a smoke. “Fuck off to bed, both of you. We’ll talk in the morning about you breaching curfew, West.”

Drift let the shivering take hold properly, and as West held out her hand back to him, he took it and started to pass Jackson.

“Because that curfew….” The flat tone in Jackson’s voice had Drift pausing almost shoulder to shoulder with him. “It’s there to keep West here safe, right?” He held Drift’s look. “I mean, that is why you brought her here? To keep her safe… here? Cut down on the bruises she’s forced to cover up with makeup?”

Drift looked at her, at the bruise to her jaw that had almost faded. Sadness punching through his displacement, he offered a nod, nothing more.

Jackson looked him up and down, then focused on his eyes, and unease ran under Drift’s skin with how it held the same intrusiveness as back at the manor home. “Fuck off, then,” said Jackson. “Get your heads down for a few hours. You and me will more than talk in the morning, when I’ll make it sink in.”

Drift didn’t need telling twice, neither did West as she dragged him towards the stairs. Hushed talking came from the living room, three, maybe four pale faces lifting their way to get a look even though Drift knew more were huddled down in there as Leon settled back into being watcher. West sent a shush their way, and the living room fell a little too quiet as Drift followed her upstairs.

The townhouse had three floors, but it was the loft and that taste of the familiar that took Drift’s head. West shared it withten other girls, some of them on beds, most on the floor, only two of them cuddled up to boyfriends, but only soft snores and a stray creak of bed met him as he went in.

West’s single bed slept beneath an oval window, the moonlight brushing over bedcovers that already had him tugging out his sleeping bag from underneath it. She had learned fast. Yeah the window gave her the kind of view he’d always catch her staring up at, but beyond the stairs, it was the quickest way out of the townhouse, or into it when she’d been out walking after curfew to get a better view of those stars… depending on that wild streak of hers that always looked for trouble.

Drift struggled to unroll the quilt on the floor, so West took it off him and laid it out as he toed his canvas shoes off and managed to scowl down at his feet as something slipped from his hand, nearly smacking into a foot. His coat came off next, but he slept in his clothes for the same reason West slept close to the window: quick ways in, quicker ways out. He also kept to Jackson’s house rule over not taking to West’s bed. Beds you earned here, which meant stayinghereto earn it on a daily basis. Walk out, all claims to a bed were lost. Climb in someone else’s, and you were royally fucked.

Drift didn’t mind. He’d been brought up sleeping on floors. At least this one had the warmth from the heating soaking through it. The streets never came with that luxury, so this…?

He slipped into the sleeping bag.

This was heaven compared to how he’d spent most of his youth out on the streets until he’d met Grant, then later JacksonthroughGrant.

The bed creaked for a moment, and Drift opened his eyes as a quilt was dragged over the sleeping bag. West slipped in next tohim a moment later, and she came in close, tugging the duvet up to their necks before cuddling in close.

“Jackson suh-suh—” He tried that again. “Jackson sees us, he’ll be handing my nuts to Klaus and Gena, forget Leon.”

West chuckled and the lightness of it brushed his cheek, warming where it touched. “Yeah, one each to keep the twins happy for all of two seconds with the size of your baby nuggets, huh?”

He tried to find a laugh but failed as he stroked at her jaw.

West rubbed at his arm as she stayed in close, and Drift eventually screwed his eyes shut and rested his head against hers.

“I think…” He screwed his face, eyes shut to the world around him. “I think there’s family back there. Blood family.”

The rubbing at his arm stopped, then a dig into his pocket came. The Anadin pack was slipped out, and a tablet brushed his lips a second later. Drift snarled, pulled back from it, but West shook her head, and almost without thinking, he let her in before dry-swallowing it. The packet went back in his pocket as her gentle stroke at his jaw kept him sane.

“Fuck. He had my eyes, West.” He slipped a hold around her, stopping any effort off her to warm him beyond her heartbeat. He needed hers to try and help calm his own down. “They knew before I went in there that I carried his eyes, but his eyes….”

“Easy, baby. Easy,” West whispered in his ear. “A brother? Maybe?”

He shook his head but couldn’t voice anything beyond that. If the man was his father, he must have been bloody young when he slipped beneath the fucking covers. But family…?

“Fuck.” He tightened his grip on West, sickness turning his stomach.

He had very bad luck with family away from the streets. Mostly because he’d stood for so long on the edge of a dark, empty chasm when it came to picturing blood relations. Now damn strange, breach-of-personal-space shapes slithered just out of sight in the blackness, wanting to break free and grab him in close by the throat, climb into his head, until all he had left was to hide from them all in… blackness.

And blackness.

At least two of them back there carried black eyes under threat.

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