Brown-colored walls and a stench of mold and dust greeted Maileena as she walked into the motel with Demilan. A grumpy-looking OldGen sat behind a counter, with a boxset of keychains standing behind him. I guess that would be the manager, she assumed. The motel was located in a rather secluded section of Exumber, as far as possible from residential neighborhoods without leaving the city's territory. Thank god this place is so secluded. That gives us the least chance of running into anyone. The only things around were a local bar and a pawn shop.
Demilan was having trouble walking, occasionally losing his balance. Therefore, he was leaning on Maileena to avoid falling on all four. The weight of the ex-addict was just slightly too much to bear for Maileena, yet she carried him without saying a word. By now, she couldn’t be even slightly mad at him any longer. She knew that he was doing all he can, and so she decided to help him in every way she could.
"Hey there, what can I do you for?" the motel manager greeted them upon entry.
"We're friends of Winselt Langton," said Maileena. "He told us to come here—"
"Yeah, yeah," the manager interrupted her. "He already called me earlier. A limping man with long black hair and a teenage girl with brown hair and brown eyes. He told me all about you two." He went for a drawer and pulled out a set of rusty-looking keys. "Up the stairs, second door on your right."
"Thank you." She took the keys and went upstairs with Demilan.
"Hey, don’t think you can make a living here! You better be out of here within the week!" the manager shouted at the two as they climbed the stairs. Maileena chose to ignore him and kept on climbing instead, every step feeling like a challenge with Demilan's weight on her shoulders.
"I hate being such a weight on you," Demilan said.
"It's alright," Maileena smiled. "Just make sure to lose a few pounds when we're done with all this."
Demilan laughed in response. "Sure thing."
The room was small and just as horrid as the reception. The walls had stains on seemingly random spots and the only window had a heavy dust trail all over its frame. There were two single beds in the room and both of them weren't very comfortable, as Maileena noticed when she helped Demilan lie on one of them. Demilan groaned as he finally allowed his feet to rest.
"How are you feeling?" she asked him with a worried face.
"Well, I'm not a hundred percent yet, but… I'm getting there," he replied. I guess that's true. A few days ago he could barely stand on his two feet. I suppose he's making progress. She thought for a moment about what other Vex addicts must go through. She remembered once, back when she was still in school, how she was lectured during class about drug use and how wrong it is. The school brought an expert on the subject to instill fear in the students in the hope that it will drive them away from the horrors of Vexillum, Sorelium, Heroin and all others like them. While she remembered how the lecture itself didn’t affect her much, some of the facts that the expert pointed out were forever engraved in her mind, one of them regarding Vex. Vex is the most addictive drug in the world as of today. A single use is enough to make the human body go through long and horrible side effects if another dose is not taken quickly enough. It gives an ecstatic sensation of euphoria and bliss, one that most addicts described as 'pure nirvana.' Other addicts say they wouldn’t go as far as to describe the feeling like that, which led many to believe that some versions of Vex running in the streets have a hint of Sorelium mixed in them to intensify the feeling of high. As she sat there, looking at Demilan and running those facts through her head, she couldn’t help herself but feel sorry for him. But as she did, she also bounced the thought of the way she heard addicts describe the feeling Vex gives. Pure nirvana. How I wish I could feel anything that could be described like that. And so, for a moment, as weird as it felt, Maileena felt jealous of those who got a taste of the purple drug.
"Demilan," she turned to him. "When you… were using that drug…" she almost hesitated, yet her curiosity eventually got the better of her. "What did it feel like? How would you describe it?"
"W-Why do you ask?"
"I just… want to know."
Demilan's eyes drifted away for a moment. He seemed to be lost in memories, ones that he probably didn’t enjoy reminiscing. "It felt… awful." Maileena felt taken aback by his answer.
"Awful? I-I don’t—"
"When I first did it, I knew that I was doing something wrong, I knew that I was basically not just hurting myself, but I was hurting Telia as well. And that… that feeling it gives you… that high… even when I tried to enjoy it, it only made me feel worse about myself. And by the time I wished I could stop doing it… I couldn’t." his eyes continued to drift away, refusing to so much as look at Maileena as he confessed his regrets.
"I see," she said. "It's just that I usually hear that it's—"
"Don’t believe what others may tell you. I promise you that every Vex user has never really enjoyed it. Everyone knows what that drug does to you, to your loved ones. It's just another method of self-destruction we've invented for ourselves."
"Well… I guess we really have gotten better at self-destruction over the past decade." She said with a heavy heart.
Soon enough, night fell. Demilan fell asleep very quickly, being constantly tired as he was. Maileena, on the other hand, was still having a hard time giving her eyes some rest. She stared at the ceiling for what felt like hours, hoping that soon the tiredness would take over her, yet her body was too restless. She couldn’t stop battling thoughts of Vera. She wished she could hug her dear sister again. She wished she could put a bullet in Kleon Hanford's head, along with all his scum men who treated her like dirt in the Godly Succubi. Her patience was running low. She almost had to fight the idea of attacking the strip club on her own and leave Demilan behind before common reason showed her how foolish that would be.
Suddenly, she heard murmurs beside her. She turned to look at Demilan and tried paying closer attention to the noise he was making in his sleep. "Telia…" she heard him murmur. "Telia…" he called her name again. By the time she finally fell asleep, she could have sworn she had heard him saying that name in his sleep countless times.
The next day, Maileena woke up to the sounds of knockings at the door. Demilan was still heavily asleep. Who could it possibly be? Her heart started to race. She grabbed her revolver and raised it at the door. Slowly, she paced towards it, yelling, "Who is it?"
"It's Winselt," The voice said from behind the door. Winselt? She thought. But how can I be sure it's really him? She inched at the door. Standing on her tiptoes, she saw the man through the peephole. She only looked for one key feature on his face, and as soon as she saw it, she knew that it was truly him. He has that long scar going from his forehead, through his right eyebrow, to his right cheek, just like Demilan said he has.
She opened the door and let him inside. "Hey," he said. He was carrying two plastic bags in his hands. "You must be Maileena Banister."
"I am."
"The motel manager told me he gave you this room." He looked over at Demilan, who was surprisingly still under. "Look at him, sleeping like a baby." He chuckled. "Anyway, I brought you guys some food." He laid the plastic bags on the floor. "There's some bottled water, bread, cream cheese, and some other stuff in there."
"Thank you." Maileena suddenly became aware of how famished she was. As she went through the groceries in the bags, she suddenly noticed the green-grey mask shoved in his back pocket. The reminder that she was standing in front of a member of Code Sanguinary troubled her. As much as I don’t like it, Demilan said that Winselt can be trusted and that he'd always been a good, loyal friend to him. Nevertheless, she made sure her revolver remained tucked in the back of her pants.
"How is he doing?" he looked at Demilan.
"He's alright. Just a little weak."
"I'm guessing he's not going to wake up over the next few minutes."
"I don’t think so. Besides, he needs every rest he can get right now."
"I see. It's just that I was hoping he could catch me up on everything that's been going on. I mean, he comes back to our outpost out of the blue after being gone for a year and asks me for a place to stay… I know something's up."
He hasn’t seen Demilan in a year. He doesn’t even know what happened to Telia, or about the coma Demilan was in. "I can fill you in," she said.
"Great. Do you mind if we do it over a cigarette outside?"
"I do, actually," she stood against it. I can't risk anyone seeing me outside and recognizing me. "You can smoke here if you want."
Winselt took a long, hard look at Maileena. It seemed that her stubbornness took him by surprise. "Alright," he said. The scarred man approached the dusty windows and opened its glass door to let any smoke out. The scarred soldier then pulled a cigarette box from his pocket and placed one between his lips. He extended his hand to Maileena to offer her one. Her initial instinct told her to refuse the offer, but a part of her overcame that thought. With all the stress and anxiety plaguing Maileena recently, between constantly worrying about her sister and being persecuted by the police and the golden thugs, she pulled a cigarette out of the box, and generously thanked him. He lit both cigarettes and took a long, deep inhale. Maileena greeted whatever smoke she was bringing into her lungs, embracing it, for it gave her the closest thing to the relief she had experienced recently. It reminded her of simpler times, back when she worked at the Godly Succubi, and her sister was safe and sound. Though she was never a chain smoker, from time to time, she borrowed a cigarette from one of the employees at the club, if only to take her mind off from thinking about the next client she'll be serving today. They were never happy times, surely, but without having to chase, kill, or run away from anyone, they were simpler by no doubt, in her mind.
"Six months ago, Demilan's wife, Telia, was kidnapped by Odis Maben, a drug dealer associated with Men of Midas," she began telling the sad story of Demilan McCloud, the man who lost his soldier friends and the love of his life for a purple illusion of happiness. By the end of the story, Winselt looked at Demilan and made a long sigh. "Demilan, you fucking idiot," he said.
"He's a fucking idiot, sure, but he's trying to make it right. He's taking responsibility for his actions." She defended him.
A disappointed look remained on Winselt's face. "So, how did you get involved in all of this?"
"My sister, Vera, was kidnapped just like Telia after I ran away from the Godly Succubi. Demilan is kind enough to be trying to help me find her while we're attempting to find his wife as well."
"Always a savior," Winselt said. "Back when we fought in the Tearful Rebellion, before names like the Deserter General and Code Sanguinary meant anything to anyone, we went through things that I wouldn’t wish my worst enemies will. The day we were sent to Harlington Square was the day that truly broke Demilan McCloud." Harlington Square… that's the place Demilan told me about at the bus station, where they massacred the rebels, where Demilan screamed and begged to defy those orders. "Demilan was always an excellent fighter. He's a great marksman and he has sharp instincts, but more than that, he's always looking for someone to save." Winselt's touched his own face. "I got this scar not long after that day at Harlington Square. One of the rebels managed to get the better of me. The look in his eyes… he was insane. He wasn’t like the rest of them. I always guessed that he must have lost someone he loved to our forces and became deranged. He brought me to my knees, tied my hands behind my back and pulled out his knife. To this day, I have trouble describing the pain I felt as he carved into my face, slowly and agonizingly. Demilan was the one who broke in and shot the rebel. He carried me all the way back to the unit and called for a medic. If it weren't for him, that rebel would've probably killed me eventually." Winselt's finished his cigarette and threw the bud outside the window. "On the day that Charles Blackburn announced that he was deserting the army and forming Code Sanguinary, we didn’t even think twice before joining him."
So that's why he's helping Demilan. Every time that Maileena heard stories of the Tearful Rebellion, she felt grateful that she never had to be there during it.
"You guys are going to attack the Godly Succubi once he's better, right?" Winselt asked.
"Right."
"Let me know when that happens. I want to be a part of it."
"Are you sure? Do you realize what you're getting into?"
"I do. I'll just keep any Elastics at home before I go in there. Wouldn’t want to cause any rifts between Code and Midas."
"Thank you, Winselt."
"This is me returning Demilan the favor," he looked at Demilan. "As soon as he's up and ready, we'll go there and kill them all."
