Available Darkness Season 2

can’t feel him out there. He’s blocking me. Either that or something’s changed, I don’t know. Nothing this big happens in the underground without Shadow knowing something. Or being part of it. Shadow is the only one I can think of who would know if Jacob has reached out to his old Harbinger contacts.”
    “You mean whoever’s left in Harbinger you’ve not yet killed,” Larry winked. His words fell out fine, but the wink was clearly a veiled accusation.
    “No reason not to say what you mean to say,” John said, pointing at Larry’s glass. “Take another few sips and you can blame it on the whiskey.”
    “I don’t have to sip whiskey to say shit that needs saying,” Larry snapped, ironically taking a sip of his whiskey. He swallowed, then set his glass on the table. “You’ve got the Others pretty damned scared, John.”
    “I do my job,” he said. “We protect the world from the Harbinger threat.”
    “Yeah, but it’s not just Harbinger you’re after.”
    “Sometimes there are obstacles on the way to the bad guys. Sometimes we have to question innocents caught up in the whole mess.”
    Amanda was approaching their table, but froze five feet away after crashing into the sudden ice between John and Larry. She turned and made herself busy two tables over.
    Larry measured his words then opened his mouth. “So, they’ve got you parroting the company line, eh? Question innocents? What happens when you’re done questioning them? They getting returned to their lives?”
    “I don’t know, I help find them and bring them in. After that, I’m done. I don’t do the questioning.”
    “Word on the street is, nobody is coming back, John. Omega sweeps in and takes everyone, entire families, away in the night, and they’re never seen again. Everyone thinks you’ve turned on your kind and are into extermination; Harbingers, Others and the Halfworlders — anyone who knows anything, gone.” Larry leaned down and blew out the candle. “POOF! Like that, they’re gone. So I gotta ask you, John, is this some sort of Guantanamo thing where you’re keeping them all tucked in secret prisons, or are you blowing out candles, one by one?”
    John finished his whiskey and met Larry’s eyes. “We’re not murdering innocent people,” he said, thinking of Mathews shooting Emilia as the words “not murdering” burned from his tongue. “From what I’m told, they’re putting people in a detention camp until this whole thing blows over. I don’t know where it is, nor do I think they trust me enough to tell me.”
    “You really believe that? Or is that the lie you tell yourself to make it easier to step in their footprints?”
    Where the hell is this animosity coming from? How long had Larry been holding this in?
    John reached out, tightly grabbed Larry’s wrist, and squeezed.
    “You think I want to hunt my own people? You think I like that they’re using Hope as a chip to play me? I wouldn’t even be here if you hadn’t betrayed me, Larry. None of this would be happening if not for you. I would be dead like I wanted, Abigail would never have been turned, the portal would never have been opened and Caleb would still be here. This is all because of you, and all I’m doing is cleaning your mess. No, I don’t like it, but I don’t have a choice. You put me in this position — so sit there and judge me from Olympus, fine, but remember, it was you who set this into motion. Your greed.”
    I guess I’ve been holding shit in, too.
    John stood to leave. “Screw it, I’ll find Shadow on my own.”
    “Wait,” Larry said. “You’re right.”
    John turned, waiting for Larry to finish.
    Larry said, “I’m kinda freaking out now. Feeling like shit for something that happened with Abigail. And all I keep thinking is this shit wouldn’t be happening if you weren’t out there in the field. You are so much better with her than me. This shit wouldn’t have happened if you’d been with her, instead of me. I fucked up.”
    John sat back at the table, his heart frozen in fear that Larry was about to say something horrible. “What happened?”
    Larry told him about a woman they’d killed — a woman he was certain had killed her own child, but hadn’t, which Abigail discovered while feeding. Abigail was feeling horrible, and Larry was feeling guilty, thinking maybe he let emotions cloud judgment, and that he should’ve done a better job making certain the woman was guilty, or switched their target to