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Aaron was not having a good day.
Sure, his days were generally not so great ever since he got disinherited from the Oliver line only because he wanted to protect his mother, but today really took the cake.
Firstly, there was the Oliver reunion, which really isn’t much fun when you’re considered a traitor to the family who’s saying is ‘loyal unto death’ but you get used to the looks, either disappointment or pity, and you learn to tune the whispers out you live in your own bubble.
But the moment things started to really get out of the ordinary is when Lucien brought the human boy and the half-monster girl. He was just finally getting comfy by the window recess when he brought them in and announced that the girl was a Hunt which clearly disgusted everyone in the room.
His father was playing with her. He has always been good at making people feel scared like he makes him feel scared. He wanted her to duel Lucien, which clearly wasn’t a fair match, even if he said it was.
He tried to help her.
”This is tedious. Should we not just let them go? Half-human or not, the girl is wearing the Hunt mark. They’ve claimed her as one of them. It hardly seems worth escalating matters for sport.”
But his father always had the final say, and he made it clear long ago that his suggestions, his words, weren’t important.
“Go Aaron, we’ll discuss this tomorrow morning.”
His words haven’t had much importance for years now.
***
Yelling.
God, people were screaming in pain from every direction.
He finally had managed to make it to the labyrinth the one where he used to play with his cousin when the man who was chasing him managed to corner him. He was begging him to let him go when he saw the girl that he left to die behind the man.
He looked at her. She looked at him.
She could leave, she should leave him.Two steps and she’ll be safe.
Instead, she knocks the man unconscious with a candlestick.
”He’s out. You hit him rather hard.”
He tells her that when she tries to reach for her weapon to hit him again, just before she starts throwing up in a bush.
When he awkwardly reaches his hand out to help her up, that’s when he sees it.
Her eyes.
The same eyes as the man that was in that cell when he was 9 years old.
The same eyes that he was told to kill if he ever saw them again.
The same eyes his mom got executed for protecting.
But he doesn’t kill her.
Instead, he starts guiding her back to the house to find his father, so he can take care of this mess. She looks at him with empty eyes the one he’s supposed to kill why isn’t he killing her before telling him that he’s dead.
His father is dead.
But that’s supposed to be impossible, and he tells her as much.
But she tells him what she saw, what happened to him. What happened to her grandmother, to her family and what is happening to everyone else. And he knows she’s telling the truth when he looks at her eyes again and he can only see grief.
And when she asks him how to get out of the labyrinth, he shows her the way and they leave together.
So most of his family is probably dead, his father is dead even after all that he’s done, he still loves him, and he has to run away with the girl he’s supposed to kill.
Yeah, he really wasn’t having a good day.