Who is Magpie?
Chapter 23- Withdrawals & Advances

She righted herself when she noticed the approaching people, both men noticing the blood welling and dripping off her knuckles where the fine glass pieces had cut through already raw skin.

“Doesn’t that hurt?” Tidas asked, pointing to her hand.

She didn’t move to look, knowing full well what he meant. “Oh incredibly!” She agreed. “But you get used to pain after a while, it doesn’t hurt the same.” Her hand flexed and un-flexed, then she wagged her fingers, and wrinkled her nose. “Didn’t expect the burning though. It looked cool though right? Well worth it…. I’d like a photo of that put up on my….” She drifted off, knowing she had no room to return to, got sad for a moment, and then moved on. “Yea, well, I doubt you’ll use my best camera footage for my impending paperwork, but at least think of it once and laugh, yea? That would be enough.”

Unable to take the burning sensation any longer she moved to the small sink on the back of the toilet and began running her hand through the cold water. Trying hard not to rub the skin, because she knew it would make it worse, she moved her hand slowly around in it and hoped for the best.

“I’m going to be honest with you son, I called Bronx after I spoke with you. When I realized that we were going to be longer than I wanted, I wanted more information and knew that you would be far too busy. She…. This is not what I was expecting.” Tidas said blatantly.

Ezekiel blinked a few times, not taking his eyes off Magpie. “Me neither?” He returned, eyeing the wall where all the mattresses had been stacked up and out of the way, and then to the ground where the sheen of glass lie.

“What? You pissy about the plate? You can add it to my sentence if you like; attempted murder and plate-ricide. I’ll even still clean it up if you’ll trust me with a broom.” She looked around like she was searching for a towel, considered using her shirt, reconsidered it, and then gently tried to shake the water off her hand into the sink without spraying blood everywhere.

She eyed the floor again and then her bare feet considerately. Holding her arm in close to her, she did a no-handed cartwheel over the glass to the cot and sat down. Looking over the bloody knuckles again, she was still smiling at her prowess.

“I’ll get the first aid kit.” Ezekiel offered, giving Magpie’s heart a strange thump, as he turned to where he had left it before seeing it was gone.

Magpie flipped the blanket over on the bed. “No worries, I got it.” She opened the kit and pulled out a roll of gauze to begin wrapping around her hand gently.

“Who gave that to you?” He demanded, annoyed that bars separated them.

Again Magpie felt a strong thump in her chest and fought to ignore it.

She gave a light laugh. “No one, I got it earlier when I twisted my ankle. It had been a bit since your Beta left, and it didn’t seem like anyone was coming back down anytime soon. If I hadn’t thrown my shirt at him I could have torn and used that, but you know, lesson learned.. Learning something new to the end, that’s encouraging right?”

Ezekiel became momentarily distracted by her referencing her end again, but then was able to back track only as far as the second most important thing she said. “You threw your shirt at him?”

She adjusted her face, squinting an eye and raising a brow like she was also sure this was not the most important fact to dwell on. “Yea, well I mean kind of. Bars and all, it didn’t go far. I distinctly recall he was being irritating.” Her sweats had returned and she wiped her brow with her other hand.

“Well that’s not far off the mark.” Ezekiel muttered before his father jumped in.

“You got the first aid kit?” Tidas asked, sitting in the chair across from her the way his son had.

“Father?” She asked, eyes moving between them before accepting she was right. “I must really be a spectacle to have the presumably former Alpha coming to visit from retirement. Yes, I did take the first aid kit, but I left the scissors over there for you, see?” They both turned and looked, and they were indeed still on the table.

“How did you get them? Wait, presumably?” Tidas asked, like his son, easily sidetracked.

Magpie shrugged. “I don’t know your history. I presume genes play a strong role in who is strong enough to lead your heard, but it could have just as easily be a position that’s decided through a spartan style death match for as much as I know.” She admitted before continuing. “Yes, I picked the lock. It’s still unlocked if you want to change that. Locks are much harder to pick closed than pick open, and I’ll admit it is not a skill I ever practised.”

“Heard?” Ezekiel laughed, sure she knew that wolves ran in packs and trusting that it had been intended as a joke.

Tidas, on the other hand, looked at her with greater disbelief. “So you are expecting the death penalty, you’ve opened the door, and you haven’t tried to leave?”

She laughed again. “I may not have ears as good as yours but I’m not deaf. I can hear the sheer number of people in and out of that Fourier all day today. Even in taking out that security camera, which honestly would be too easy, you should replace it, incapacitating the two guards at the top of the stairs, which wouldn’t be all that hard, but then I’d have to leave. Even if I could time it for a meeting, I’m assuming you’ve increased security outside. I would get a nice breath of garden air and then be tackled to the ground.”

“You don’t seem to be stupid.” Tidas commented, and Magpie was quick with her retort.

“And you don’t seem senile enough for that not to be offensive.” She began, sighing heavily as her heart rate seemed to increase. “But I have nothing to do but listen, so go ahead and pose your question.”

He nodded as if to say ‘thank you’. “Why attempt it with no exit plan?”

She smirked, as if to say that was an easy question and she had expected a different one. “I was told to.”

“Do you always do as your told, even at a risk to your own life?”

“Yes.”

The response was so immediate and firm that both men stopped thinking for a minute. There was nothing in her that said this was anything less than the only possible answer to that question. She adjusted her bandage in the silence.

“Why?” Ezekiel finally asked, knowing a leader should expect questions from his people. It not only showed they were listening but gave him an opportunity to educate and adjust when needed.

“Because they told me to.” Again her answer was so firm. She didn’t even question it herself. Ezekiel wondered how much of her life they controlled and how deep the seeds of the mensdillia were planted.

“How did you get in?” Ezekiel asked, noticing how much more responsive she was to questions now.

She laughed like she expected this one. “Under Berald’s truck, while they were out practicing driving I assume. It was a good guess really, if they didn’t laugh like wolves it probably would have taken several more hours for me to replace a way in.” She eyed the floor like she regretted covering it in fine glass. “Dirty though. He should consider checking out the steering bit, didn’t look right.”

“No…” Ezekiel said, agreeing with her. “They welded it together in a pinch last summer and never fixed it properly.”

She nodded, happy her suspicions had been confirmed because she wasn’t the top study in the automotive area. She locked eyes with Ezekiel, staring at him though she wasn’t really sure why. No matter how much she wanted to, neither of them could look away.

“What is your name?” He asked, wanting this question answered more than any other they had asked.

She made a sound like a light snort and smirked. “I don’t have one.” She thought about all the times she had been told she was nothing without them and that everything she was from her talents to her title were theirs.

Ezekiel seemed to sense something to this degree as he asked. “What do they call you?”

She bit her lip, considering whether to answer or not now. Everything else she had said she was sure of, but this question felt different. Her name didn’t matter towards her conviction, whether she was Susan or Brittany she would be judged the same. This was something personal that Ezekiel wanted for himself.

“Magpie.” She whispered, able to break her eye contact only after she saw the side smile with a dimple break over Ezekiel’s face.

He saw her smile too, even as she tried to hide it by looking down. Tidas saw it all. He looked between them with a sad sort of confirmation. He could see the effects of the tea she had been given, in the answers she gave and her treatment of pain, but he could also hear her heart beating faster the more she looked at Ezekiel.

“There’s something I need to check into.” Tidas said, rising from the chair.

Ezekiel didn’t seem to care, but Magpie waved. “Goodbye Alpha prime.” She said, not knowing his name and not bothering to ask. “I’m sure I’ll see you again.”

He stopped and looked at her again, knowing that had they met under other circumstances he would have enjoyed her company. “Goodnight Magpie.”

Tidas climbed the stairs and went to the security office where Grandmother Willow was eaves dropping, and convinced her to stop. No one else would have been, or would, watch the footage of Magpie unless it was required. With only one way in and out of the cell block, there was no need to have someone watching the camera footage when motion sensors in the stairwell would alert the guards at the top long before someone could pick the lock.

“I like her.” Willow replied with an old, broad smile, still full of teeth.

Tidas pat his mother’s shoulder as he wrapped his arm around her to guide her to her room. “I know, it will be difficult to get her off for attempted murder though, but the bond is there, even if she doesn’t know what it is.”

The woman nodded thoughtfully. “She really stuck that landing though.”

Tidas thought back on it with a smile. ‘She had.’