{Rune}
Inhaling air like I was about to die I threw the unconscious guy on my bed with the last bit of force I had left before collapsing on the floor.
Running so fast surely was helpful but the energy I needed to afford was killing me so much I started questioning what I did. And of course someone had to be using the elevator so I was forced to take the stairs in secret.
Staying on the floor like this I gathered a bit of oxygen and kicked of my boots after throwing my coat over the only chair that this small apartment had. It was in the kitchen which was at the same time the living room. There was a small room with only a bed and a closet, a small bathroom and a very small recording studio in which I'd sometimes write songs and publish them but that was nothing more than a hobby.
First thing I did was taking the guy's backpack in search for any ID or phone but he didn't even bring a portmonait and his phone was broken.
"Nice..." I ironically stated and took out another strange object that was wrapped into a piece of cloth.
Proceeding to unfold it, suddenly the thing started glowing. To be more specific, it was a blue gem in the hilt of a dagger glowing strangely bright. The small metallic blade seemed very sharp and it reflected the blue light to my face and to the walls creating patterns like the reflection of water.
With curiosity I took it out of the cloth to look at it more closely when I heard whispering noises all of a sudden.
I couldn't understand a word, nor did I identify all the languages that were spoken but it surely came from that object. Dagger... the people looking for that guy also were looking for a dagger. So this was it? But what exactly was it?
A moment later my head began to hurt and I put that thing away somewhere into the recording room. Hearing voices from it was probably not a good sign so I decided I'd stay away from it for now. This thing couldn't be explained with human science so it surely had something to do with the gifted society.
"I'll just send granny a picture of it." I thought out loud after considering that she might know about such a strange object that probably wasn't known to normal humans.
Speaking of which... I turned around to the black haired guy and stripped him from his vest and shirt where the injuries were the worst.
The material was very thick so I ended up needing to cut it to get him out of there.
The guy's left shoulder had probably been streaked by a bullet but despite the injury on his head and a few scratches he was fine. The fact that he was so well built definitely played a part in that. To me it was admirable having such a body since I just couldn't find the motivation to work out more than two or three times a week. My main execerice had always been running.
But at least I could stare at these packs and chest of his as much as I wanted until he'd wake up.
"Probably got knocked unconscious..." I mumbled and proceeded to treat his wounds with all the medical devices that I could find. He wouldn't die and that was already something.
While concentrating on not doing a mistake I was given the opportunity to take a closer at his face. Two golden earrings were on his right ear. He did really have an interesting style for a killer.
A few minutes later I heard my phone ring and spotted my grandma's number on the screen. Since when did she ever call me at that time? I wondered if that dagger was so important.
"Rune?! Where are you?" She shrieked and I needed to hold the phone away from my ear to not go deaf.
"I'm at home of course, you can literally see it in the picture I sent you." I defended myself and waited for her to clear up what got her so stressed out of nowhere.
"Where did you find that thing?" She proceeded to ask and I began going over the whole situation from the beginning not leaving out any detail so I wouldn't need to answer more questions.
"You brought someone home?! The one who had the dagger?" Granny yelled in disbelief but I couldn't understand her point.
"Yeah, so? Should I have left him to die?" I asked back not expecting an answer before grandma finally began explaining... I hated being clueless.
"Rune, this dagger is a cursed object that allows the wielder to trap their enemies inside of it and use these souls to enhance their power. That comes with a great cost though. A few years ago it disappeared in the chaos of a fight so the gifted families probably kept looking for it to take it back." She told me.
"So this guy here is from a gifted family?"
"Yeah he probably is... and I'm pretty sure these other people were from the Mellontikos gifted organisation."
"Mellontikos..." I remembered what grandma had taught me about gifted families and Mellontikos. In our world there were certain people just like me who had the power to enhance a certain part of their physical abilities... in my case it was speed.
These powers were inherited from family ancestors that gathered to large and influential groups over time. Often they were involved in both business, entertainment and also illegal work.
Mellontikos on the other hand was an organization of gifted ones that did not want to belong to a group and formed up to go against these families for reasons that were unknown to me.
However, this was the first time I ever saw another gifted one up close despite my grandma and older sister... it was fascinating in a way.
"Listen, you need to kick him out before he wakes up or he might discover your ability. I taught you many times that the gifted families were the ones who killed your parents and all the others of our family many years ago..." Grandma kept ranting. Right... the other gifted groups had feared that the Falcon family that we belonged to would some day overthrow them because our power of speed was one of the greatest among all. We didn't even get to chose anything but being killed and surely our family wasn't powerful enough to withstand all the others.
Us three were the only survivors we knew about and from childhood on I had been trained to use my powers efficiently but hide them at all costs so nobody would find us. We even moved from England to Germany when I was little because there was no gifted group ruling over Berlin currently... Right now I was the only one left here. Granny was somewhere on the countryside near London and Vera had started her celebrity career in the US.
"He'll die if I kick him out! And what if these people come for him again and steal the dagger..." I asked thinking about how they probably wanted to use it for anything but helping someone.
Granny was quiet for a moment before her old grandma voice came from the speaker again.
"It's none of your concern... he killed three people before you found him. He'll kill you too if he notices that something doesn't fit! We are not part of their world. I'll now go to sleep so don't do anything stupid." She threatened and ended the call.
"Wrong..." I whispered. "We do belong to their world even if we are running away from it."
I didn't plan on kicking the person out because I needed him to get information. If this was really a member of the Inoue family he must know the ones that killed them... the people that killed my parents and I was curious about that a lot. Not only about the murderer but about the reason for hunting down the Falcon family in the first place.
I wanted knowledge. I wanted to cause chaos in their group and I wanted to finally be able to live without being careful.
This society of gifted ones was nothing but corrupt so it was my goal to get more into their life style and find out what all these people were really made of. What was their goal? Will I really end up wanting to end them?
This guy could help me out...
...
It was the next day when I went out of my apartment and downstairs to the small convenience store I was working at. It paid really bad but I never had been short on money and I liked the job in a way. Before doing my morning shift I put in brown contacts and messed my face up with make up as I usually did, but literally. The injured guy was still unconscious but he'd probably wake up soon so I hurried getting my shift done.
When I came back and was about to open the door I heard a rumbling noise coming from inside. It sounded like the guy had knocked something over... geez... here we go.
Quickly, I opened up and stepped inside to enter my bed room. The bed was empty... who would have thought?
Suddenly, I noticed him attacking me from the side. It happend in the blink of an eye but I could have easily dodged. However, if I used my speed right now I was more or less in a difficult situation so I let him jump at me as he pushed me to the floor hardly. His whole weight landed on my back and he grabbed my arm from behind so I couldn't move.
Well, this didn't start off how I wanted it to be and I hated being in pain.
"What did you do to me, fucker?!" The guy growled and pushed down even harder with an inhuman force. It felt like my bones were about to crack.
"Ah- could you... please let go of me... first." I brought out while sharply inhaling air. Of course he'd be suspicious of me and confused but that didn't mean he had to be so harsh.
"Why would I? Speak as you are." he demanded still just as angry.
"I'm not your enemy idiot... and you are hurting me." I groaned before he finally loosened his grip a little and got off me.
My arm hurt like hell when he pulled me up from the floor and pretty much threw me on some chair in the corner of the room.
"You will sit right there and explain this to me. One wrong move and you are dead." he threatened me with an expression as cold as ice. This was the first time I was able to see his eye color. It was a warm hazel, almost a bit like gold and it complimented his toned skin and black and red hair perfectly even if it was a mess at the moment.
{Raven}
The guy was staring at me so arrogant and fearlessly that it was almost ridiculous. How came he was so calm when I was just now threatening to kill him...
And this whole homeless, messy look of his from his eye bags to the black beanie he was wearing disgusted me.
"Now answer. What's your name?" I demanded of him while he still kept an indifferent stare with a slight smile on his face.
"The name is Maximilian Frederik Schulz" he began and I clicked my tongue at that. What a ridiculous name... but for a german dude his english sounded too natural. Was he British?
"I found you yesterday night in the streets unconscious with a few injuries. At first I thought about calling the police but maybe you were involved in a gang fight and I didn't want to be the one responsible for you going to jail. Apart from that I did nothing more than treating your wounds... the one on your shoulder opened up though so be a bit more careful." he explained and I followed along closely.
Last thing I remembered from yesterday was that I won the fight against these people from Mellontikos. Did I walk into the city after that? I couldn't remember a thing but instead a stinging pain went through my head. If that guy found me in the streets I must have been on my way to the meeting point... but apparently I never arrived.
"Don't tell me what to do, lowlife." I spat but again the guy called Maximilian didn't show any reaction and kept his smile... what a psycho.
"Don't you think calling somebody else a lowlife after they probably saved you from bleeding out is a little respectless?" He asked curiously and shifted his gaze to the bandage on my shoulder that was soaking red since the wound opened up again.
"Who are you to tell me what to do? You are an ugly beggar compared to me. I can kill you any second if I want." I said back at him slowly considering to actually kill him. No one had ever spoken to the strongest member of the Inoue group in my generation like that. I even was considered the strongest my age in whole North America... and that brat dared to speak against me.
"I see you are the type to degrade other people so you feel superior to them. Say who exactly are you to hold such high authority to confidently offend someone. My guess would be that you grew up quiet spoiled... or maybe it's just anger issues?" he furrowed his eye brows for a second and shrugged.
That crossed the line for me. This fucker really had a death wish.
I moved forward to grab him by his hoodie and pushed him down on the cold floor once again, this time on his back. My hand was wrapped around his throat and I just left him barely enough air to breath. Now his heart beat raised... surely he didn't get enough air.
Helplessly, the guy tried pulling at my hand and kicking me but he couldn't do anything against my strength.
"You think of yourself as quiet the smart one, huh?" I whispered now grinning at the sight of him finally realizing what kind of person he was dealing with.
"You know nothing about my life. So don't assume it was all happy and wonderful. You wanted to know who I am?" I hissed at him and pressed tighter.
"I- I can't b- breath." The guy whimpered from his lips that bright red just as his whole face took a dark red color.
"I'm Raven Inoue, you bastard and I belong to the most powerful construction and immovables group in the US. I'm not like you normal humans you know? But it's better you don't know anything about that." I laughed a little seeing how his movents got more desperate by the second.
Should I kill him? I wondered if he already knew too much... but on the other hand he indeed had saved my life. God damn.
"You're lucky, I have people who'll beat me up if they knew I killed a human that has nothing to do with this." I let go of his throat in the last second but didn't get up.
He started coughing madly desperately trying to fill his lungs with air again for a few seconds.
Then he proceeded angrily glaring at me but just as I thought he didn't dare saying anything or moving from underneath me.
"Cat got your tongue, brat?" I teased him and snapped his forehead but he didn't answer but just closed his eyes for a second.
"Hah, I guess it's the first time you were about to die." I continued.
"Two things... first, change that unclean look of yours and clean up this place you consider an apartment, it disgusts me... and second." I leaned in closer to him until my head was right next to his ear.
"Take this as a warning. If you ever tell someone about this, you're really dead." I whispered and in the next second punshed him in the guts hardly. Immediately, he fell unconscious and I jumped off, grabbed the backpack that was leaning against the wall and went out of there without a shirt or boots. That idiot had ripped my vest apart and the boots where broken.
I somehow needed to call Jane and Vince to get me.