Two Lives - Origins (Episode XIX)

He knew about Rahul.

My mind started racing. If Rahul isn't here yet, how did he know? Did he hack the message? If he didn't listen in on the message, how did he know about him? The woman. It must've been her. I hoped she hadn't hurt him.

"Tell me, John. How can you stop him when he's a hundred steps ahead of you?"

I had no answer. He let go of me slowly and I felt a sigh of relief when my foot found solid ground. He took a couple of steps back. My breathing felt heavy. It took a couple of seconds to gather my sense of balance.

"You said you wanted to talk. This is how you talk?" I mockingly spit on the sidewalk.

"Giveth thee Respect. Taketh thy Respect." He corrected his coat.

"What?" I would've punched him but I knew better. So I stayed my anger.

"Give your Respect. Take your Respect."

"I wasn't respecting you how?" He looked at me for a long second.

"I'm all out for fun, John. But if you mock me when I'm serious, I'll break you."

I shrugged. "Well, I'm a Scorpio. What do you expect?"

"And I'm a Capricorn. So suck it up."

He starting walking. This time, I was following him. We walked in silence again. He stopped at the next wishbone and took a left. I wasn't sure if he did that on purpose since I was planning to take this left. Instead of saying anything, I followed him.

After a minute, he slowed down in front of a park that was located exactly behind the Hall. My heart started racing again. He turned towards the Hall and looked upwards to the roof. Then he walked into the park till the end. His eyes swept across the park to and fro. And then he looked up again to the rooftop.

"This is a nice spot. Rahul was right." He sat down on a bench.

I don't know how I looked at him, but he laughed. "That there is a million dollar look." He chuckled again. I shook my head. I must've looked funny. Maybe he caught my jaw drop.

I walked straight up to him. "What do you know about Rahul? You purposely walked in to this park, didn't you? If you hurt him..."

"What? What would you do?" He interrupted me. I bit down my lip.

"Don't worry. He's not hurt. I promise." He looked serious.

"You think I'll trust your promise when I don't even trust you? You still haven't told me anything. I must protect her. I need to get her back. Tell me how."

"Don't you think you're going too fast?" He scrunched his eyes and looked at me.

"Fast? No. This isn't fast enough. He took her god knows where and doing god knows what to her, while I'm sitting here talking to some as..." I stopped short. His voice from before relayed in my head. "... to some aussider. Outsider." I corrected myself.

He smiled at me. "You are a fast learner. I'll give you that." Much to my chagrin, he had noticed what I was about to say. "Take a seat." He tapped the other side of the bench. I sat on the other side of the bench.

"I cannot participate directly in your search and when I say 'I', I mean me or any other in our organization. But... I can give you the tools to get to him."

"Do you mean you're going to make me move and fight like you do?" He had piqued my interest.

"Ha ha. You wish. No. That's not possible. It'd take years to train you. You won't understand anything I say. So I'll just let you know whatever you need to know from time to time."

"You said you're hunting him and yet you cannot be directly involved with me. Why is that?" The question seemed logical since our interests seemed aligned.

"Trying to catch up is a lot different than Hunting." He turned around and looked at me. "I'm sorry."

"Sometimes you don't have to be honest, you know. Just to let the others feel better. Try that sometime." He just smiled at my jab.

After almost a minute passed by, I tried to push my luck a little further. "So, tell me again, how exactly did he go rogue?"

"Let me tell you a story." He said.