Glassed Destiny

The Pains of a Leader

She knew something had happened back in that room. It was a warm room with so many bodies in it, but the air felt so cold at the same time. And it wasn't just the air conditioner that screamed through the walls. So many bodies were standing around, looking straight at her the moment that she opened the door. She could feel all of their eyes on her, but her vision could only focus on the upset ones that met hers within a millisecond. Indigo didn't want to push, even if it felt as though he was asking her to. That second their eyes met before she pretended nothing happened felt just like when she first met Jim. The moment that she looked at him and it just felt like they had connected again. At first, she supposed it was meant so that Jim could help her.

Now it seemed more like it was up to her to help him. Indigo didn't know what had happened to Jim in this house, but she knew there were many things to unpack.

She knew he needed to eat too. That was another reason why she pushed for this. The man was sweating like a pig when she dragged him out of that room. He had been in there for most of the day. Indigo had lost track of time when she was talking with Prue and Brenda, otherwise she would have come to get him much sooner. She enjoyed her new friends, but she regretted it right then.

Now that she finally got him to sit down and tell her what was bothering him, she could see the exhaustion he felt. There was a kind of tired in his voice that no amount of sleep could cure. The only way that Indigo could describe it was being in a room full of boxes that only you were left to unbox. Instead of them being boxes of fun things, enticing excitement and joy in being somewhere new, these boxes were full of bad memories. The kind of memories that took years of being an adult to unpack and work through. Instead of working through it, Indigo had a feeling that Jim was the type of person to simply lock it away and not show anyone.

It was always the mysterious ones that had the most horrible things in their past.

"When I was fifteen, my mother passed," Jim started, his shoulders slumped as he stayed sitting on the bed. "Kidnapped, tortured, and raped to death by monsters that we could barely call humans. They had all the characteristics of one, but not a single one of them had the heart.'

"My father was the leader of this pack back then. He was in his prime; the strongest one in the world. No one could compete with his strength or his intelligence. He was a great leader, and a better husband and father to Will and I. But not even with all of his knowledge and strength and power, could he save the one he loved the most in life. And that was enough to completely destroy him.'

"Have you ever seen someone that you looked up to start to lose their strength?" Jim asked, looking up at her finally. It sounded like his throat was closing when he asked that question. "The person that was so strong in your life suddenly being weak?"

"Yes," Indigo sighed, resting a hand on his arm. "It's never a good feeling." She remembered how her grandparents were before they got sick. You could barely tell that they were in their sixties and seventies at the time. But all it took was one trip to the doctor, and all their strength just seemed to disappear. Gradually, their bright selves dimmed, and they couldn't do what they used to before.

"It's not," Jim let out another breath. "And my fathers' was almost immediate. Right when he found her mangled body, you could see any strength that he had left in him just disappear. And it was that moment when my family shifted, along with my entire world. I had to be the strong one after that. I had to be the one to take charge of the warriors to try and find these barbarians." He looked down at his hands for a moment. "I thought that it would be enough back then. I thought that if I was strong enough, and got revenge for my mother, that I could somehow bring my broken family back to the way it was. Even just a little bit."