Phoenix's Lies

Racing The Clock

River

The next few days are a challenge. Nix and I keep looking to see if we can find anything else out about the key my mother had, with Mads and Lo's help, but we find very little. Annoyingly we also can't find out a lot else about the tag team race that Nix and I are supposed to do, despite my attempting to get him to change his mind, so I can keep him safe. He insisted on staying in and Ash leaves training Nix to me and I accept it so he can figure out with the others how to keep me out of juvie as the investigation amps up slowly over the days since the two of us come back.

"I can't see this coming to an end before I end up back there again. Even if just in a holding cell." Nix speaks little to me of the possibility of my arrest but we both know dancing around the subject won't let it disappear. We just talk now and again when we know Lib can't hear us. "I hate thinking about it but we need to remember it could happen. I can't have something happening to you or Lib if we don't, not when you're like family to me."

He pulls a mock sad face at that, "Is that all I am to you?" I chuckle and kiss him once, nestling back in his arms where we've been sitting attempting to watch a movie for the past hour. Shaking my head at his pouting I tap the ring on my left hand and see his smile widen. "Guess that's your way of saying no?"

"Actually that's my way of saying you're being an idiot currently, but it's ok we all have off days sometimes right?" I know I might be pushing it but I can't help myself when I see how he's struggling to laugh as well. "I didn't mean...." I can't finish for my laughter and see him roll his eyes. "You ok?"

Abruptly Nix's expression changes. Some of the humour vanishes before I see a sad one take its place. "Just worried about what's going to happen, when this is all over." I frown, not getting what he's saying. Nix sighs. "I know we'll both be ok when this is all over but what about until then? What if something happened to one of us?"

I sit up a little and lean against the back of the couch with an air of silence between us, not sure how to respond when I've had the same worries he has. In the darkness of the room, I can feel Nix's eyes on me and desperately want to tell him that it'll be ok, that we'll both be there at the end, but I also remember our old promise. One from when we were kids. We never keep secrets, and we never lie.

So how can I do that, honour that, and reassure the person who has become my whole world? I can't do both, but to do one and not the other is somehow worse. Somehow harder to bear. I sigh, "I don't know what will happen between now and then Nix, but I know what we've said. What we've promised to one another. That's got to count for something. I know it does. It has to. It has to." I feel my throat close up for a second then but fight through the tears. "It has to. We made promises and they'll come true. We just have to stay the course a little longer and...and what will be will be."

Next to me, Nix chuckles as we both shift so his head somehow ends up near my lap, eyes lit up with joy. "Que sera, sera?" I laugh and hit his shoulder gently when he says that, not able to contain how happy I suddenly feel. "Hey, that hurt?!" I can tell by his tone that Nix doesn't mean it and just laughs again a few more times before we both fall silent when Libby comes to the door. "Heya Lib-Lou didn't see you there." Nix sits up a little then and beckons her over. "Come on, over here."

Libby's face splits into a grin and she launches herself across the room to us both in a way that a kid should, knocking into my chin with her hand. I wince for a second before she snuggles between us and I get a foreign tug in my heart as if she's my kid, not my best friend's sister. Odd. I think nothing of it, just sit with Nix and Lib as the movie continues and then ends. She chooses another but by then neither Nix nor I are watching, Just enjoying spending time together.