Justice/Loneliness (Aspects Book 2)

by L. C. Mawson

  “Love is doing just fine,” Justice said, folding her arms as she followed his gaze. “She managed to take the creature nest out of the tunnel without any difficulty, just as she has all of the nests surrounding our city.”

  Perception nodded. “She has done well so far, but removing the nests from this city will be a much harder task and one that you haven’t started yet.”

  “We have to finish building the wall first, or they will just come right back.”

  “Of course. I simply wonder, will her powers hold out that long?”

  Love shivered as he looked at her, sure that he was using his powers to find every single piece of information he could.

  Including her difficulties with Hate.

  As if to confirm her suspicions, he started talking to her, “Your romantic relationship is the only one you have ever managed to truly draw power from – the only way you have ever managed to gain enough power to move entire nests – and yet you are nervous about it. You do not have confidence in its continued existence. And your fears are not unfounded.”

  He turned to Hate sharply. “You can see the problem clearly, and yet you have chosen to ignore its existence, hoping that it would disappear on its own. Or at the very least, you will be able to keep up this farce until the city has been reclaimed.”

  “It’s no farce,” Hate told him sharply. “We might have difficulties, but our relationship is still real.”

  Love felt her fists hitting her thighs and decided that she didn’t want to hear any more of this.

  She stormed off, back towards the base. The others could finish the work for the day without her.

  As she arrived back, however, Hate caught up with her and Love realised that she must have been trying to catch up ever since she'd left the others.

  “You shouldn’t pay attention to Perception,” Hate told her, moving to stand in front of her as Love came to a stop. “He’s wrong. Our relationship isn’t a farce.”

  Love frowned. “I would have an easier time believing that if you would tell me what the problem is. You said that we were having difficulties, but you won’t even tell me what those difficulties are. You just keep brushing it aside every time I ask...”

  Hate shook her head. “Because it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t. I love you, and that’s the important thing.”

  Love blinked, realising that Perception hadn’t been wrong at all.

  Hate had been pretending something wasn’t wrong, burying whatever problem existed between them deep down because she knew that whatever it was had the potential to be deadly to their relationship.

  It had the potential to render Love incapable of relocating the nests, so Hate had been trying to pretend that everything was fine until they had reclaimed the city.

  Love was left at a loss.

  What should she do?

  Should she push Hate on the matter, even knowing that it could mean the end for them, and potentially the end of the attempt to reclaim the city?

  Love wasn’t even sure how she would go about that, not to mention the potential dangers of doing so, so she instead remained silent, letting Hate believe that she'd successfully brushed the problem aside once more.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Love had gone to sleep in pretty much the middle of the afternoon the day before, being both physically and emotionally tired, as well as just wanting a way to escape all the problems that she didn’t know how to deal with.

  She'd been asleep before anyone had returned back, which meant that she awoke to the news that Perception had left the night before.

  That didn’t exactly put Love at ease. He had been of the opinion that things between her and Hate weren’t working before he’d left, which meant that he thought Love wouldn’t be able to reclaim the city.

  If he took that opinion to Bennett, the entire operation could be shut down before they had a chance to even really prove themselves.

  Apparently, Justice was thinking the same thing, as she declared, “Love, you should head out with the scouting team this morning. It’s likely that Perception will return in time, and I would like to actually be able to show him some proof that we can handle this. If you can find a small nest today and relocate it, that might settle things.”

  Hate stepped in before Love could respond. “Why does she need to prove this again? She already got rid of the nest in the tunnel, not to mention all of the nests she’s removed from around our city. This is ridiculous.”

  Justice shrugged. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on between the two of you, but whatever it is, Perception picked up on it. Proof of Love moving nests in the past isn’t going to work anymore, we need proof that she can do it now.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Hate said. “I would have to go with her, which means that we would be down even more hands for building the wall. Which means delaying things.”

  Love looked away as she realised what was going on.

  Hate had realised that her words hadn’t convinced Love last night.

  She knew that Love wasn’t buying that their relationship was just fine.

  And yet, she still wouldn’t talk to her about it. Instead, she was going to try and stop Love from being able to deal with the creatures in the city.

  Because she thought that Love couldn’t handle it anymore.

  And in truth, knowing how difficult things had been between them, Love wasn’t entirely sure that she could handle it either.

  But when she looked to Justice, she couldn’t bring herself to admit the truth. She couldn’t bring herself to disappoint her or Loneliness.

  Not when they were counting on her.

  “It’s just one day,” Love figured. “You shouldn’t need me around for just one day, and if this would put Perception at ease, I am more than happy to prove him wrong.”

  Justice nodded. “Then you should get ready to head out with the others.” She nodded to Hate. “I’m assuming you’re going with her?”

  “Of course,” she said, though Love was sure that she was only saying it for Justice, not because she thought that she would be any help to Love’s powers anymore.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  It didn’t take Empathy long to find a more than suitable nest on the map that she and the others had been making of the city.

  It wasn’t too far from them, which meant that it wouldn’t be a particularly long walk to get the creatures out of the city and far enough away to no longer cause difficulty.

  As soon as they’d had breakfast, they headed out to find the nest again, walking in silence.

  It wasn’t long before the silence seemed to get to Empathy, Pain, Jealousy, and Vengeance, and they all began talking amongst themselves, though they kept their voices low, seemingly out of respect for the lack of noise coming from Love and Hate as they charged ahead of the others.

  Love was moving so quickly because she wanted to get to the nest as soon as possible. The longer she walked, the more her thoughts seem to catch speed in her head, becoming an almost dizzying flurry of doubt.

  Why Hate was making such an effort to keep up with her, she couldn’t say. And since Hate didn’t seem to want to talk to her anymore, Love couldn’t figure it out, and that only served to unnerve her further.

  The longer it took to get to the nest, Love knew, the less likely it became that her powers would work at all.

  She tried to push away that thought, not wanting to admit defeat before she'd even seen one of the creatures.

  For all she knew, her powers would work just fine. Maybe she'd managed to get enough practice over the past year that she didn’t even really need Hate anymore.

  She knew that it was a long shot, especially with her last encounter with a creature, but she had to hope.

  It was all she had.

  But as much as the walk had seemed to take forever, as they arrived at the nest, Love felt that it was too soon.

  She wasn’t ready.

  She took a moment to steel herself, doing her best to pus
h away any fear or doubt.

  This was going to work.

  It had to.

  She stormed forward, ready to face the creatures.

  As soon as she approached, she knew that something was wrong. All of them immediately raised their hackles, starting to hiss and growl threateningly in her direction.

  They saw her as an intruder.

  A threat.

  Which meant that her powers weren’t working.

  The creature closest to Love lunged for her, and she just barely managed to roll out of the way.

  The others immediately came forward to defend her, and she cursed her lack of weapon. She rarely carried one anymore, since it tended to hinder her powers. If she had a weapon ready, it would be harder to convince the creatures that she wasn’t a threat. That she wasn’t there to hurt them.

  That approach had never failed her before, but now she was left scrambling over a collapsed wall as her friends risked their lives to keep her safe.

  A scream pierced the air and Love peered over her newfound cover to see that Jealousy’s arm was now a mess of red liquid.

  Vengeance immediately fried the creature that had hurt her, and it seemed that the other creatures were less than eager to continue the fight, all of them turning tail and scuttling off into the ruins.

  Love approached cautiously as Vengeance looked over Jealousy’s injury. Empathy was standing a while away, probably not wanting to absorb all of the pain, and Pain was by her side.

  “It’s fine,” Vengeance assured Jealousy as he cleaned up the wound as best he could. “You’ll be fine once we get back and I can patch this up properly. It’ll probably scar, but nothing worse.”

  Love folded her arms protectively over her chest as she looked away.

  This was her fault. If she'd just admitted that her powers weren’t working properly, if she’d admitted that things between her and Hate weren’t okay...

  If she'd admitted that she couldn’t do her part to reclaim the city and that Loneliness and Justice would probably pay for her inability...

  “Come on,” Vengeance said. “Let’s head back.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  If the silence of the trip out to the nest had been uncomfortable, the silence on the way back was outright painful.

  As much as Love did her best to keep her gaze on the road in front of her, she could feel the eyes of the others on her back, watching and judging her for her mistake.

  She wanted to turn and face them – to explain what had happened and plead for forgiveness – but the longer she felt their eyes upon her, judging her, the heavier her jaw became until it was immovable. No matter how hard she tried, no words would leave her lips.

  No excuses or apologies...

  Just hard silence, broken only by their boots on the rubble beneath.

  As they returned to the others, Love was vaguely aware of someone asking her how things had gone, but since she was unable to respond, she just made her way to the corner of the room to avoid any more questioning.

  She heard Vengeance’s voice, though she couldn’t make out what he was saying. She assumed he was recounting her failure to the others and curled further up into herself where she was sitting.

  After what felt like an eternity, someone walked over to her.

  She looked up for just the briefest moment, recognising Loneliness’ golden hair before she glanced away again.

  “Are you okay?” Loneliness asked. “Were you hurt in the fighting?”

  Love shook her head.

  “Can you talk?”

  Another shake.

  “Can I sit down next to you?”

  Love shrugged, and Loneliness took that as an invitation, though she made sure to keep enough distance between them for Love to not feel overwhelmed.

  “You shouldn’t beat yourself up over this,” Loneliness told her. “We were asking a lot of you, and it was too much. That’s on us, not you.”

  Love shook her head. This was her mistake and her responsibility.

  Loneliness sighed. “I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that I’m not upset or disappointed by this situation because I want you to believe me when I say that I don’t hold you responsible for that. As I’ve said, if we can’t do this without you, then we shouldn’t be doing it at all. The rest of us have been fighting creatures as long as, if not longer, then you have. If we can’t drive them out, that’s on us, not you.”

  Love wasn’t quite buying it. If she'd just been able to do this, no one else would have to. As much as they might not fail now, they were only put in the position to fail because she'd done so first.

  But she couldn’t articulate any of that, and she was sure that Loneliness wouldn’t agree with her even if she could, so she just nodded, pretending that she agreed with the other Aspect’s words.

  Loneliness smiled, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “You should get some rest.”

  She got up and moved back over to the other side of the room, where Justice was waiting for her, and Love decided that she couldn’t stay there any longer.

  Obviously, she would have to come back before they all went to sleep – even though she could technically take the dropship back to the Tower, that seemed like it would only cause more drama than if she stayed – but she needed some air for now.

  Love made her way out of the building, giving one last glance back, catching Hate watching her, though she quickly looked away.

  She made no attempt to come over to talk with her and Love suppressed a sigh before leaving.

  Love wasn’t sure how long she walked for, but while she didn’t exactly feel any better, she did at least feel her speech returning to her as she walked.

  After a while, she heard a noise behind her and spun around, half expecting to see a creature approaching, ready to attack her once more.

  But all she saw were Vengeance, Jealousy, and Serenity approaching.

  “We mean you no harm,” Vengeance joked, holding his hands up defensively. “We just thought you might need someone to talk to. And we wanted to see if you were okay.”

  Serenity nodded. “Empathy said to tell you that she was going to come along, but, well, you won’t exactly be in the best mindset right now, so she thought it wise to keep her distance for a while.”

  “It’s okay,” Love said. “I understand.”

  It was more than a little sad that her sister couldn’t be with her when she was upset, but she did actually understand. She wouldn’t wish this feeling on anyone.

  Serenity gave her a sympathetic smile. “You know that we know that you did your best, right? All of us have bad days, and we all recognise how much we’ve been putting on your shoulders with this.”

  Love looked away. “So people keep telling me,” she muttered. “That doesn’t change the fact that I let everyone down. That I let Justice and Loneliness down. As much as you say that I shouldn’t be expected to handle this on my own, the fact remains that me doing so would be the best option here.”

  She hadn’t realised that her gaze had fallen on Jealousy’s bandaged arm until the younger Aspect shook their head vigorously. “You shouldn’t blame yourself for me getting hurt,” Jealousy said firmly. “You weren’t the one who hurt me, and it was bound to happen anyway. I mean, I have been lucky that I’ve managed to go this long without any injury. The rest of you haven’t. I was feeling a little lonely as the only one without scars.”

  “Empathy doesn’t have scars,” Love eventually pointed out, not being able to process the rest of what Jealousy had said.

  Jealousy smiled. “Yeah, but she can shapeshift, so that doesn’t count.”

  “I suppose,” Love agreed.

  “So,” Jealousy continued, “why didn’t your powers work? I mean, is there something wrong between you and Hate? Your powers are tied to her, aren’t they?”

  Love folded her arms, sighing. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she eventually said.

  “We’re your friends,” Jealousy reminded her,
a little note of hurt in their voice.

  Love quickly shook her head. “I didn’t mean it like that. All of you are also Hate’s friends, and I don’t want to talk about her behind her back like this.”

  Serenity looked as if she was about to put a reassuring hand on Love’s shoulder, before apparently remembering Love’s aversion to touch and instead giving her a reassuring smile. “I can promise you, none of us is going to think any less of Hate, no matter what you say. We aren’t asking because we’re looking to gossip, we just want to know what’s going on in case we can be of any help.”

  Love sighed. “I don’t think this is something anyone can help with.”

  “Maybe just talking about it will help,” Vengeance chimed in. “Maybe it will help you think through everything.”

  Love bit her lip before eventually nodding. It couldn’t hurt. “In all honesty, I’m not exactly sure what’s wrong. That’s part of the problem. She started acting weird just before we left the Tower, and now it’s pretty clear that she’s avoiding me. Every time I try and confront her about it, she just evades. She says something cryptic that I can’t make sense of, or she just changes the subject. But it’s pretty clear at this point that there is something wrong. Something that she thinks might end our relationship, and that she’s refusing to talk about because she thinks that staying silent will allow me to retain my powers until we reclaim the city. Of course, we now know exactly how well that works...”

  “She really won’t talk to you?” Serenity asked.

  Love nodded. “Every time I told someone something was wrong, they would just suggest that I talk to her. And I tried. Again and again, but it’s clear that talking is the last thing she wants to do. Like I said, she seems to think that whatever this is will end our relationship.”

  Jealousy frowned before chiming in. “But if it’s already affecting your abilities, maybe she would be more open to talking about it now.”

  “She didn’t exactly come and speak with me after we got back,” Love pointed out.