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Entry tags:	!original fiction, anguish series: shades of truth, series: anguish

Shades of Truth: chapter 2 - Part 1 in Anguish Series
Author: Syrai
Fandom: Original
Rating: R-ish
Genre: Fantasy // Supernatural // Action?

Status: COMPLETED.
First published: March 15th, 2005

First part in Anguish Series

Summary: Imagine a world where the only kind of magic is said to be dark and witches are trying to take over. Romy and Raven are living in that world. They are best friends, two ordinary human beings… almost ordinary anyway for they’re fighting for their right to exist. They’re witch hunters who work for the organization called ‘the Centre’ whose purpose is to protect humans and exterminate all the witches around the world. When Romy finds out someone she cares about and who is thought to be dead is not only alive but is also a witch, how will Romy cope? Let the hunt begin.

A/N: Feedback adored.

DISCLAIMER: Mine. All mine.






Part 2





If I had had a choice, would I have chosen this path?





I don’t usually go with the ‘what ifs’ you know, at least I used to didn’t. If there’s something I’ve learnt it’s that they get you nowhere – you’ll just end up banging your head against the wall. You can’t change what’s happened in your past, you can only alter the course of your future and that’s what you need to focus on. When you can’t do something there’s no point in dwelling on it or letting self-pity eat you from inside out. I’ve never questioned myself before and I wasn’t gonna do it now, but the question in the back of my mind just keeps hitting me between the eyes. If I had had a choice, would I still be a witch hunter?





“Romy, you can’t sit there forever.” Raven’s voice pushes itself through my consciousness. The briefing is over already I see. I don’t know what happened to me, I’ve never lost the control over myself like that before. I just… couldn’t be there anymore. I got up, apologized and walked out of the room not seeing or hearing anything. I’m sitting on bathroom’s floor, back against the door trying to gather myself up. I didn’t think this could happen to me. I’ve seen agents break into tears and I’ve seen them lose their minds after a one little hunt because they can’t handle the pressure. I can. I’ve heard them question if they’re doing the right thing and I believe we are. It’s just that things are a little bit more complicated now.





But I still never thought I could feel so confused. I didn’t cry or lose my mind but I just couldn’t handle the confusion that the knowledge of my mother being a witch caused. I know witches are evil, I know they all deserve to die and for what it’s worth, they could be wrong about my mother. But knowing them, they aren’t. Why wasn’t I told?





“Yes, I can”, I snort cynically, ”I’m having a fucking momentary collapse and therefore, I am allowed to.”





Raven laughs as if I had just told a joke of a lifetime but it’s not coming from the heart. He’s pretending. “You’re not being really professional here.”





“Fuck that.” Why does my mouth speak words I don’t mean? Being professional means everything to me. Maybe I don’t always go by the book but I’ve always done great job hunting and killing the bastards. Then again, I had a reason to. They killed my mother… and now? The first thing they say to you when you enter this secret world is that you should never fall in love with a witch. Did my father fall for a witch? Could that actually be true? Even thinking of that makes me angry. How could he have fallen for something so dirty and evil? How could he do this to me?





“Romy, they’re not gonna let you take part of this damn mission if you act like this.” He’s right behind the door, leaning against it. I can hear it.





“Well maybe I don’t want to.” Did I mean it? Do I really want to pass this mission? Maybe. My head falls down to touch my bent knees. Why would they even let me be part of it? In this case… am I being bait? Under normal circumstances you cannot take part if you know someone involved, it’s a fact we all are aware of. Then why would they even consider letting me go when there’s a chance I could jeopardize the whole thing?





“Stop fooling around.” Even though his words are meant to sound irritated, they don’t. All I can hear is worry. “You didn’t tell me my mother’s a witch.”





“I didn’t know”, Raven answers sounding sad. He’s never lied to me as far as I know, but still I doubt him. “And if it was your father that chose not to tell you, then you should ask yourself one question.”





Instantly I know what he means. “Was there a reason for him to do so?” I take a deep breathe.





“Yeah, and I believe there was. He didn’t want you to suffer or feel sad. You know witches Romy, they’re evil. Forces of darkness.”





Can I let my feelings come in the way of my work? No. I can feel my blood rushing through my veins. I lift my chin and take another deep breathe to calm myself down. Definitely working, yes. Quick wave of my hand and my hair’s been tucked over my shoulders where it belongs. I’m done - I get up on my feet and look at the mirror above the sink. Oh there you are, the girl you’ve always been; strong, independent, confident. I know what I’m doing and I know why. Witches are evil and this… thing doesn’t change that. But hey, life’s a bitch and then you die, isn’t that what they always say in the movies? Guess it applies to real life too. Besides, when the life kicks you into the head all you can do is kick back. Or fall down and die which is not on my to-do-list.





“I know”, I answer finally with a bit stronger voice, “We gotta get her before she hurts anyone.” Sometimes gathering yourself can’t get any easier; I just need to put the emotions aside and focus on what really matters like a true professional would.





If my sudden change surprises Raven, he doesn’t let it show which is only a good thing. “Yeah, you think you can do that?”





“Of course I can.” I smirk opening the door. “I’m a witch hunter, aren’t I?”

//




After hours spent screening through medical files and other files alike, all you really want is coffee. Speaking of which, where the hell’s Raven? He’s been gone over half an hour already.





Yesterday was a weird day, indeed. I’m not exactly sure why or how I ended up into this big conference room reading everything there is to know about my mother since every fact just puts me down… or grows my curiosity. There’s a picture of her on the table – I removed it from one of her files. It’s amazing to realise how you can look like someone and still be so different. And look at that smile? She looks so sweet and innocent that it cuts my heart.





All my life they’ve said how I look like my mother and that if possible, I’m even more beautiful then she was. Now, it’s funny how it used to make me proud and I felt so much closer to her. It was a compliment I loved to hear… Now the long light brown hair, the shape of my face and even the hazel coloured eyes make me ashamed. Being ashamed of yourself is not something I’m used to be and it makes cranky. Angry at her, too.





“Here”, Raven interrupts my self-pity by placing a big mug of coffee into my hand. Finally! “Thanks”, I reply trying to smile but failing miserably. “Anytime. So, found anything?” He takes a seat next to me and places his own mug down on the table going through the papers with both hands. “I’m not sure… just random info here and there but nothing really, really important.”





Raven looks disappointed and it pretty much summons up my feelings too. “I see. So nothing that will help us find her, then?”





“I don’t know… but it seems my mother was from Finland.” I feel the need to share what I’ve learnt with him. Why? Who knows? Maybe I just need to sort out my feelings and thoughts and Raven’s good with that. He always puts my thoughts into their places… hell, he’ll put even me into my place if needed.





“Really?” He sounds interested, so I continue, “Yeah, she grew up in a place near the capital with her father and stepmother but later on, she moved to her mother’s.”





“Why?” He raises an eyebrow into a question for which I’m grateful. “I don’t know for sure. Had some issues at home it would seem.”





“Do we have a name, Romy? A real name?” I didn’t expect that question… I hadn’t expected to run into that info, either. But I did. I sip my coffee to get some time to think it through.





“Yeah… her birth-name was Tuuli Ojanen”, I say trying to pronounce the word just like Miss Lehto thought me 20 minutes ago. Raven can’t hold back the puzzled look. “You see, it’s a long u”, I explain, “Anyway, I asked Lehto and she said it means ‘wind’ in Finnish. At first she thought I meant ‘tuli’ which means fire… And Ojanen, wow that was weird one. It seems my mother’s last name was a ‘ditch.’”





“Ditch?” Raven repeats my words looking even more confused.





“Yeah, ‘oja’ is a ditch so… I don’t know, she explained it so fast but yeah something like that. Anyway, we have one address though but I don’t know if it’s any help… And it wasn’t just my mother the camera recorded.” I point one of the files in front of him with my index finger. So far, it was the most interesting file the table held. Not only did I find out more about my mother’s past, I found out she had a sister. Two of them, actually.





“It wasn’t?” Raven leans back flipping through the file and glancing at me while doing so.





“No, there was her little sister too…“ I have to take a break before I continue. This is why I never read these files, my targets’ have families, friends, a life. They’re evil, yes and should be killed but it doesn’t mean they don’t have same kind of lives that normal people do. They must blend in, after all. “Her real sister I mean, not the half-sister. Which means our target’s not just my mother, my so called aunt is a bonus. She’s been suspected to be witch too, but they haven’t been able to get proof. We just might, though… But I think we’re close to something.”





Even though the researchers don’t know how the witches came here, they seem to agree on one thing. The witch gene passes from mother to daughter and so it is natural for the Centre to suspect my mother’s other little sister too, I guess. But knowing that fact doesn’t make me feel better… If the witch gene is in me, it’s just waiting to be awakened. And when it awakes I know they’ll hunt me down. I want them to hunt me down, I suppose. If it wakes up I’ll be dangerous and I don’t want that.





My heart stops beating for a moment when I understand what I have to do. “Raven… you gotta promise me something”, I say suddenly with a voice so fragile that at first I don’t even understand it was my own.





“Anything.” He puts the file down on the table and drinks from his coffee. “If… well you know the witch gene goes from mother to daughter.”





“Romy you don’t have it”, he says as if he had just read my mind. How can he be so sure about it when even I question myself?





“But if I do… When we get back home I want them to do the tests.” Not exactly what I wanted to say but it’s a start.





“Don’t you think they’ve already done them?” Raven asks making me frown. “They knew about your mother, Romy, and your blood type isn’t unknown.” He’s right, they must’ve done them to me already. But even if I was clean at that moment, it doesn’t take away the possibility of me becoming one. If your both parents are witches, yes your blood type is unknown from the beginning. But if you’re a child of human and a witch… it’s not quite the same. The gene is usually there and when it awakes your whole body goes through that mutation. Your blood type changes and you change… I’ve read about it.





“But if I do have it then you gotta promise that if it ever awakes... if I’ll turn all evil and bitchy and I’ll become lunatic-“





“How’s that different from your normal state of mind?” He cuts me off with angry voice. He’s irritated for some reason and I can’t figure out why. What I’m saying is possible and he knows it as well as I do. He can’t avoid his responsibility as a witch hunter just because it’s me who we’re talking about!





“Raven! You gotta do what is right… Plus the fact you gotta do what they pay you to do. I can’t let everything we’ve done become a waste of our time. If it happens, you’ll do what you need to do. Capture me, kill me, I don’t care. Just make sure I don’t hurt anyone, ok? Promise me that, damnit!”





The death glare he gives me is truly murderous but somehow I survive. “Fine”, he spits out, “I promise!”





I’m not exactly buying his weak promise but it’s the best I’ll get. “Good. Now that we got that one settled… we could go to the town where the shop is and put her into the radar. I mean, we have her DNA sample and if needed, I’ll give mine. Blood type won’t match of course... yet.”





“Stop that – it will never match. Now stop talking bout it”, he snorts but continues with calmer tone, “Let’s go then. The trip there will take us a few hours but we’ll rent a room in there if needed. I’m not coming back before we’re done. You may wanna put warmer clothes though, it’s freezing out there.”





I smile, the same old Raven. “Don’t worry, I’ll put a damn overalls on if needed.”



//


This is part of who I am.





Everything around us is covered with white snow, trees, cars, children… everything. It looks so calm and peaceful in here, so different from the busy streets of New York and I feel different too. And the air - the air feels different too, it’s colder, yes, and also refresher. After awhile you don’t even notice the cold. The woolly hat, scarf and gloves do have something to do with that one though.





Every time my eyes reach a face my first thought is that that person might know my mother. The answer could be right here in front us but we’re too blind to see it. She has walked these streets, gone to those shops… lived here. I know she’s alive but yet I feel that she isn’t. She’s fugitive. Being fugitive means she’s been already captured once but somehow she escaped. There’s no reasonable explanation for the fact I feel abandoned somehow. She was alive and didn’t come back to me. She just left her only daughter to go on with her life without a mother. It only proves how cold those creatures are.





We’re driving around the small country town waiting for the radar to make a sound. It ‘sniffs’, as we call it, the matching DNA and blood type we’ve coded into it systems’ but nothing so far. I’m holding it in my hands and part of me wishes that it doesn’t find anything. I just want to enjoy the silence for a little longer.





“You ok?” Raven asks turning the wheel slowly. “Yeah.” One look out of the window and I know we’re there – in front of her old home. Okay Romy, this is it.





The car’s stopped. “I’ll go alone”, Raven says opening his seat belt but before he reaches the door handle, I grab his arm. Surprised, he turns to look at me. “No, I’ll go. The radar is silent so she’s not there. I’ll go check it out. Chances are she doesn’t even live there anymore. It would be stupid of her to come back here when she’s on the black list you know.” Why do I want to go there? I don’t really believe there would be even the slightest chance of her living in that same house but still, I want to go. What if? What if I go in there and find out she still lives there? What if I find out more about her? For a girl who doesn’t like to go ‘what if’ I sure seem to have more questions than needed.





Raven doesn’t look convinced. “Well she was stupid enough to come back into this town, wasn’t she?” Fine, I give him that. “Yeah… but I don’t get it.” I truly don’t – it just doesn’t make sense to me. “Why would she come back here? And why haven’t they found her before? I mean this is a rather small country and it can’t get any smaller than this town… So how is it possible they didn’t find her sooner?”





“Maybe she’s just been careful”, he suggests shrugging. Right, somehow I’m just not buying it. Raven probably sees right through me, because he continues hastily, “There haven’t been any unsolved deaths in this town either, so I think they just haven’t paid attention to it.” Keep explaining buddy; you’ll get it right eventually.





Instead of speaking out loud my mind, I say: “You might be right but I’m still going. Besides, I have the ear communicator, don’t I?” Without waiting for his reply, I open the door and step out. Man it’s freezing!





Raven often says I have the ability to run into some serious trouble. I don’t know about that, on the contrary, I’d like to think the trouble has the ability to run into me. Hit me across the face and punch me down when I’m already losing. According to him I have radar when it comes to getting beaten and killed. Of course it’s not entirely true since though I’ve been beaten too may times, I haven’t been killed yet. Surely I admit it’s been a close call too often but nevertheless. It comes with the line of work, I’d say.





I walk to the door but it takes a minute before I’m actually able to knock. What to me sounds like the loudest sound on earth, doesn’t probably even reach the other side of the house. I wait… patiently I wait some more, refusing to knock again.





When nothing happens I glance over my shoulder to see Raven. “Sure Sherlock Holmes, take a look”, I hear his voice in my ear. Permission granted, I see. Carefully I try and peek through the window but all I see is another door. Finnish houses and their small vestibules! Maybe I should just go check out the backyard? I take few steps back and find my way towards the backyard. Damnit it’s slippery! The house has probably two floors besides the middle floor. At least the windows just above the ground tell me there’s a cellar floor of some sort. I reach my hand to touch the wall for support as I push myself through the knee-high snow.





When I finally reach the backyard I see nothing but more snow… and little veranda peeking from the snow.





Getting inside the house is so easy that you’d just want to laugh. Picking up locks is among the first things they teach you back at the Centre, after all. My knuckles are freezing and it feels good to step into the warm house. I can feel my body melting… it itches.





“Here we are”, I whisper to no one in particular massaging my hands. I ignore the water that’s tripping from my boots onto the parquet floor. Hey, it’s not mine to care.





“Who owns this house anyway?” I ask Raven via the ear communicator. It doesn’t take more then few seconds for Raven to answer. “Well that’s just it. It’s under your aunt’s name.”





“Okay thanks, just checking. It seems I’ve entered a living-room of some kind but I’ll check the other floors, too. Keep me updated, ok?” I’m not exactly wanting to get caught in the middle of my journey here.





“You too.”





Suddenly my eyes catch a shelf filled with photographs and even just realising that makes my hear skip a beat. No, no Romy, act like professional. I move closer to see if I recognize any of them and it only takes a second before I see my parents’ wedding picture. It’s all I needed to know.



I turn my back on the shelf; I don’t want to see any more than I absolutely have to. I know that if it isn’t my aunt that lives here, then whoever does, she or he has a connection to my parents. What other reason could there be? And well, that connection might help me find her.



“Kuka sä olet? Mitä sä teet täällä?”





I spin around when I hear someone speak in Finnish. There’s a woman by the doorway. I know she didn’t come through the front door since Raven didn’t warn me so the only explanation I can come up with, is that she came from upstairs. She repeats the words over and over again sounding furious. Well I didn’t expect her to be calm when finding a stranger in her living-room, now did I?





“I don’t understand you”, I say slowly raising my hands to show I’m not a threat. I’m not. Shooting around and banging her head against the floor won’t do much good for me, and that’s a fact. “Romy, what’s happening?” Raven’s voice in my ear seems nervous but I ignore him.





She tilts her head frowning before she throws a question at my direction. “Who are you?” Her English isn’t that good, it has a strong accent but I understand perfectly.





“I’m… “ For a moment there I’m about to say Julia Parker but something stops me. ”Romy. I’m Romy Hensley.”





The look on her face changes as I speak the words out loud. Her hand gets lifted up to touch her lips in shock and she looks like she couldn’t believe her ears. Who is she? I know she’s not my aunt for she’s too young, way too young. I’d say she’s not more than 10 years older than me.





“Romy?” She tastes my name and I nod. “Yeah, you know me?”





“Yes… You’re my sister’s daughter.”





No, I shake my head not believing her words. “You’re not her sister. I saw her picture.”





“I’m the younger one; her half-sister”, she says, sad.





I’m not sure what I thought she’d say but that was definitely not it. Of course now that she said it, I can see the resemblance. It’s her eyes maybe, or the line of her nose. Perhaps it’s the blond hair colour that distracted me there. I look at her and she looks at me. Fine, okay, that’s my aunt. Let’s move on.





“Where’s my mother?”





In the end, suppressing your feelings isn’t that difficult to do. People always say how they couldn’t control themselves or that the feelings took over but if you’re strong enough you’ll make it. They’re excuses they make up trying to cover up the fact you’re weak and incapable of doing your job. Let’s look at it this way – at least I’m not the one making nuclear bombs.





“I can’t tell you”, she says taking a step back. The sudden movement surprises me but I let my gun remain unseen. No need to scare her… yet. For a moment I don’t know if I should go with the flow and play the game. If I let her believe I’m here because I want to see my mother, because I love her and want to keep her safe there’s a bigger chance she’ll tell me. I just need to get her to believe me, that’s all. “Why not? Doesn’t she want to see me?”





The answer is spoken with impassive voice. “Because you’re here to hunt her.”





“No I’m not”, I exclaim but she only laughs. “You don’t need to lie, we know you are.”





Fine, if that’s the way she wants to play the game, then so be it. Wait… we know? “She’s a witch.” The sadness in her eyes just grows deeper but at the same time… those eyes looking at me seem almost loving. “You think you know it all, don’t you?”





I keep my voice toneless as I speak again. “Tell me where she is.” She shakes her head furiously, obviously not cooperating with me. “No.”





No is the only word I hate more than anything. No one says no to me, especially when it’s my enemy. Now I pull my gun to point at her and she blinks inhaling sharply. “I will kill you if I have to.” I hope she believes, because I do mean it. From where this rage I’m feeling comes, I don’t know and I don’t care. The main thing is it’s working for my advantage, giving me new kind of energy to deal with this.





“Then do it”, she says. How can she stand there staring at me like that, with such anger even though I can sense her fear? “And after you’re done with it, ask yourself if you did the right thing.”





And why the hell is she trying to spin my thoughts around? Doesn’t she know what I know? Doesn’t she know why all those people died? My mother has lied to her, hasn’t she? She thinks witches are innocent and that we’re the bad guys. It’s not like that, it’s not! “Witches are evil and whoever fights on their side, is too. You gotta know what they’ve done to us.” Please believe me, I know what I’m talking about. She’s a stranger to me but I still feel like I need to make her see the truth. My truth for there is no other kind. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to.





“Us? Humans?” I hear the mockery in her voice more than easily, “What about what we’ve done to them? Who are you to say witches are evil when you’re the one killing innocents? You’re the one who’s holding a gun, not your mother.” No! I haven’t killed innocents! Every gun I’ve fired… every bullet that I’ve made fly through the air has hit its target and every one of those targets deserved it. Doesn’t she know witches are a virus on earth, consuming, taking over? What will be left of us after they’re through with us?





“Where the fuck is she?” I ask again through gritted teeth. She’s really trying my patience here.





“You’ll have to find out on your own.”





“I will… Raven, I’ll talk to you in a minute”, I say taking the ear communicator off and put it into my pocket before he can reply. The fear of unknown shines from her eyes as I ask, no, command her to take me into the kitchen. When she doesn’t move, I walk closer and with a gun pressed against the skin of her neck, she finally starts walking. Now we’re getting somewhere.





Should I feel guilty? Isn’t this person a member of my family by blood? I guess I should… too bad I don’t.





“Sit”, I order after we’ve stepped over the threshold into the kitchen. She sits down on the chair and with the gun still pointed at her, I walk closer. “Fucking move and I swear to God I’ll do it.”





Technology can be sweet, especially when it helps you to get what you want without having to get all bloody and bitchy. She sits there staring me right into the eye, maybe she thinks it’ll actually do something good. With my free hand I open my pocket again and pull out what looks like a mini gun. She doesn’t know what’s going on but she thinks she’s dying – it’s there to be read on her face.





I step even closer and point the smaller gun to her neck. “One way or another, I always get what I want.” I pull the trigger and she screams.



//

“Turning the communicator off wasn’t smart Romy, but I’ll let it slip for this once… You don’t happen know where she is, do you?” Raven asks sounding disappointed right after I get back into the car. Luckily, I have some good news to tell him. “Have some faith in me, will you? I do know. The serum always does the trick.” The feeling of victory makes me grin. I love being good at what I do.





“You used it on her?” I understand why Raven doesn’t sound too happy about it and I even get the disapprovingly raised eyebrow. It’s forbidden to use the truth serum on human beings because of its strength but… well… I had to do what I had to do. Finding about my mother was my top priority and it worked, did it not?





“Yeah.”





He sighs massaging his temples. Obviously I’m giving him a headache as usual but there’s nothing I can do about that one. He should’ve gotten used to me by now. “You know it’s meant to be used only on witches.”





Why does he always have to bite my head of if I use my own judgment, huh? I don’t go and yell at him if he does something wrong, no, I support him. I back him up like a partner’s supposed to. But here he is, acting like he’d be my father who has every right on earth to lecture me. “Yeah well, she’s on their side!” I defend myself rather loudly, “She was begging for it.”





“Is she alive?”





God damnit, Raven! “What do you think?” He doesn’t respond to that one but I sure hope he got the hint. I may be a hunter but as he very well knows, I don’t hunt humans. I might hurt them a bit but I don’t hunt them and therefore I don’t kill them. He really should have some faith in me.





“So, where is your mother?”





Again, as I remember what I found out, the smile creeps back. “At work.”





He glances at me, surprised. “At work?”





I nod. Though we both are fully aware of witches trying to blend in to seem more normal, I can tell Raven’s a bit taken aback. Well it came as a shock to me, too so it’s not a big deal. ”That’s right. She’ll come back home in few hours.”





“We’ll just wait, huh?”





“Yeah”, I sigh, “we’ll wait.”





Part 1 // Part 3 // Sequel: Awakening