wickerpark | For Whom the Bell Tolls

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For Whom the Bell Tolls

He was going to die, Hadyn thought as his foot sank deeper into the snow and he stumbled. Catching himself against a tree, he winced as snow scattered to the ground around him. Looking down he could see the blood that was slowly oozing out of the wound at his side. A knife wound, not particularly deep...but it was enough to slow him down. It was probably what that damn Rook had had in mind when he caught the Spade with the blade. At first Hadyn had pushed it aside, determined to worry about it after he got home, but he didn't even make it half way to the Deck.

His back tire hit the black ice and spun out from under him fast than he'd really had time to react. In truth, he was probably lucky that he had be flung head first into the pavement of the road, and left as road kill. Instead he'd landed roughly in the snow, skidding and tumble across the ground before coming to a stop. His cracked visor hid the wreckage of his bike from his view, but he could make out the flames as they licked up toward the sky. And then everything had faded to black. He was lucky again, he thought, that when he came back around, the Chess Pieces hadn't found him where he was buried in the snow. Or at least, he didn't think they had as he pushed himself up and looked about.

Hell they hadn't found the wreck yet- but he wasn't going to waste time waiting for them. Looking about the area, he wasn't sure it mattered if they chased him down or not- there wasn't a damn thing out there that he could see. So he'd picked a direction, away from the road, and limped his way into the woodland landscape. What had started as small wound, he thought as he looked away from it, was now just as likely to kill him as the fucking cold. As the Chess Pieces if they caught him. Hell, just as likely as Jordan to kill him for being an idiot if he survived all of this to begin with.

"Well," he muttered to himself as he pushed off the tree and swallowed back the pain. "At least Mother will be happy- I'm finally dead, out of her way. Something, fuck....something good out of this." He didn't have to look down to know he was leaving a trail. Looking up though, he saw the faint outline of a cabin ahead, smoke rising out of the chimney. He almost cried, both for the good fortune and the fact that fate was obviously mocking him at that moment. "Well...freezing to death didn't sound that great, Hadyn." He said to himself as he started forward with renewed vigor. In the distance he could here sounds coming from the road, likely the Chess pieces finally giving chase now that dawn was here.

Moving to the Cabin as quickly as he could, Hadyn started running through all the things he could tell this unsuspecting soul- 'sorry, I don't want to die in the cold, but we're both going to probably die' just didn't seem likely to go over well. Not that he was coming up with anything better as he stepped onto the porch and banged on the front door of the cabin. "O-open up," he shouted as he hit the door, "F-fuck, please.....Open up."

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The Chess Set was one of the chief annoyances of Elisha's life, really, but he told himself it kept certain skills sharp. He could pretend to only be a mild-mannered glass artist with a skill for administration as much as he wanted, but that pretence became real if there was no reason to...exercise other talents. David made sure his gift for espionage never faded, of course - Elisha hadn't yet pinpointed the latest in the long line of informants the Spade King had pointed at him, but give him time - but his skills as a soldier? Those were mostly kept sharp by the Chess Set, a group that mostly attacked because it was what they'd always done.

It was what had brought him to his cabin today. Often he used it - and the nearby shed - as a second glass house, but it served just as well as a place to lie in wait. The Black King was particularly fond of picking off farmers and homesteaders near the various Outposts as ways to incite a war, and what better way to anticipate that than to pretend to be just that, really? Still, the Chess Set almost always failed to knock, and Elisha's eyes were already narrowed before he heard the voice of a Spade he knew through the door. For fuck's sake, he thought, if the Spades were going to throw someone in the ring, couldn't they have thrown Katya?

He yanked open the door and stared at Hadyn for a moment before yanking him inside with what the Spade might consider a surprising amount of strength. He should stick to his role, Elisha thought, but then he heard the unmistakable sound of...at least two Pawns approaching, probably with a Knight. "Well, you've gone and gotten yourself into a mess, haven't you?"

There were a number of things Hadyn expected to find in a cabin hidden in the woods, the Ace of Clubs was not one of them. He made no attempt to hide his startled features when the door was yanked open and he was yanked inside with more force than expected. Staring up at Elisha, he even tried to work out a witty response before just shaking his head.

Witty wasn't his forte at the moment.

"Oh, you know. Minor disagreement over the value of freedom and all." He said, wincing a little as he tried to move his stiff limbs. Turning, he looked through the curtains of the window and sighed as he spotted to large, thick shouldered Black Knight that barked orders at the pawns. They'd obviously figured out where he'd gone- the foot prints and blood gave that away. "You know, I think they are a little pissed at me. They usually give up by now." He said, almost conversationally as he turned away from the window.

"Did you bring a sword?"

Elisha moved quickly, pushing Hadyn down into one of the straight chairs and pulling his shirt away from the bleeding wound. "You're not going to die of it," he said, and moved again, his steps silent as he retrieved gauze. "Press it against your side," he said. "Pretty sure you've got that drill down."

He didn't respond to the rest, instead moving to the windows overlooking the porch and pulling a rifle out of the windowseat. "I didn't bring a sword, no," he said, and pushed the window open. Two shots, two kills, and he barely glanced back at Hadyn before he went back through the front door. "But I think I'll be fine. Keep pressure on that, darling."

He didn't speak again until the door has shut behind him, and then he smiled at the Black Knight, who had paused with something like wariness on the steps of the cabin. That wouldn't last, Elisha thought, and he reached one hand behind him for his handgun as the knight started to swing his axe. "I was so looking forward to chatting with you," he said, a moment before he shot the man straight between the eyes. Ah, well.

Perhaps, he thought as he reholstered it and opened the door, his friendship with Victor Fox would suddenly make sense to Hadyn Novak.

"If David's going to send you out here to deal with the Chess Set," he said as he shut the door again, "he really should do it with backup. Katya Krylenko would have been a good choice." There were, after all, many Spades who were deadly, but who had become deadly in the controlled environment of the Spade training rooms. And then there were a...few Spades, he thought, who were deadly, and had become deadly in wars.

Guns. Well, that made things much faster, Hadyn thought as he did precisely what Elisha told him to do. He sat, peeking through the window as the Ace of Clubs shot down the pawns and Knight. Not so mild mannered after all, he thought as he snorted. He supposed it did make more sense how Victor and Elisha could be the best of friends now, and just opened all sorts of questions up about Ben.

Sitting up in the chair, Hadyn peeled his leather jacket off his shoulders, before pulling his shirt off as well. Lifting the gauze up, he made a face at the wound as he heard Elisha fire his last shot at the Knight. Looking back at himself, he could see the bruises from his wreck, one across his ribs and another blossoming over his shoulder. He imagined it would hurt like hell whenever he regained the majority of feeling back.

Glancing up, he raised a brow at Elisha though as the man came back in, fuming in a manner. "Oh, well...to be fair, he didn't know they were raiding. And he probably wouldn't have expected me to get into a fight with one." Haydn said, waving one of his hands about almost dismissively. "And one does not simply send their Queen after Chess pieces. Though, apparently one does send glass making Aces....though, I guess....well." He shrugged, looking away from Elisha as he stared at the wall. "Either way, shit choices- my forte, love. You can lecture me after you hand something to stitch this up with."

Assuming, of course, he could get his shivering hands to even work well enough to let him do that.

Edited 2018-01-06 22:18 (UTC)

If Hadyn's a spy - and Elisha hadn't determined that yet, wasn't really thinking in that direction - then this information wasn't information that was going to be new to David, or Katya. To Julien and Jordan - perhaps, but he and Katya had recognized the soldiers in each other, and David was too paranoid not to thoroughly check anyone who entered the Deck and rose in the ranks.

He just snorted, though, as Hadyn asked for something to stitch himself with. "Your choices are your choices," he said as he went back to the first aid drawer for a suturing kit. "Not for me to tell you whether they're crap or not, is it? You're an adult by any measure. But you'd also just put more holes in yourself than otherwise, so really, I'd consider accepting a hand. Try getting flat," he added, gesturing to - well, the floor, really. "It shouldn't take long."

"Oh, that's refreshing. Someone who doesn't lecture." He said in a sardonic tone as he pushed himself up off the chair. He wasn't, really, going to say no to a pair of steady hands suturing him up, though he did mildly wish Elisha had alcohol to offer him as he grunted and sat. Still, he laid back on the floor, grimacing only a little as his back it the cold.

He grimaced a little more when Elisha cleaned the wound, and then started the process of closing it. At the the man was right- it hadn't taken that long. Twenty minutes total, perhaps, before he was nudging Hadyn's shoulder and telling him to get up. In that time, the warmth of the cabin had slowly started to seep into his bones, making his feet tingle painfully as he laid there in silence. When it was done, he sat up and inspected the work before nodding a thanks to Elisha.

"Mild mannered artist, and healer- who knew." Hadyn mused quietly before he pushed himself up to his feet with a smile wince. It was more uncomfortable, really, than painful; besides, pain he could deal with. The awkward silence that filled the room between the two men was a little more difficult. "I would ask why you assumed David sent me out here, but I'm beginning to suspect you and David are far more alike than not." He paused, picking up his bloodied shirt and inspecting it for a moment as he mulled over things. "Also- remind me to never get into a fight with you. I suspect you would win."

If Hadyn's brother lectured, Elisha thought, he would bet it was because Hadyn had a habit of doing the kind of rash shit that was more than likely to get him killed. Not, he supposed, that he had a leg to stand on - when he was twenty-two, he'd been in the last few years of a spiral that had ultimately landed him in the Deck. He gave Hadyn a thoughtful look, though, as he put away his first aid kit. "I wouldn't say I'm on the same level as the King of Spades." He was clever, and he had espionage experience thanks to his work in the army and Mossad, so he certainly has a leg up on - well, on Andrew. It was why Andrew had happily surrendered this responsibility to Elisha early on. David, on the other hand, was fifteen years older than Elisha, and he might not have been a spy Outside - but he definitely had the firmer handle on how the Deck worked.

"I think you'd find that most people are more than one thing," he told Hadyn a bit dryly, though. "Look at you, after all. Deadly in a challenge, seem to spend most of your time flirting your way across the Deck, and yet out here getting chased by the Chess Set. It wouldn't really add up, would it, if I assumed you were only one of those things."

"What? You aren't nearly as paranoid and suspicious of every human being in the Deck?" He asked, smirking as he set his shirt aside for the moment and looked up in mock surprise. "Say it isn't so, everyone is as paranoid as David." Or at least Hadyn liked to pretend that was the case. Either way, he was amused for the moment, and he would try to hold on to that until he arrived him- which meant figuring out how he was going to get there seeing as his bike was jacked up and left on the road.

"Oh- he was just pissed off that I killed his brother. Not at all that surprising, I seem to piss off a lot of brothers, my own not with standing." Hadyn said, shrugging. "Besides, would you have just sat there and watched as the Chess Set tried to kidnap Club farmers and children?" He went on, waving his hand about. "And I just sort of made a rash choice- as I do, often. However- you seem to be out here hunting.....Chess pieces, perhaps? Curious minds want to know. And really....where did you learn to shoot like that?"

Turning, he moved toward the kitchen area and sink. Turning on the water, he started to wash his hands clean of the blood, wondering if he should have tried to clean his shirt too while he was at it. "Nice cabin, though."

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For Whom the Bell Tolls

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