Chapter 50: Not Even If?
"Hm," Dion faintly hummed to himself at the response.
’Why would that be, though?’
At the thought, he remembered Anastasia, and his lips faintly pursed, a deep irritation and indignation festering within him.
He almost slightly scoffed, and he refocused his attention on Adam.
"You mentioned that you needed me for something. What do you need help with?"
Adam didn’t respond immediately; his hand settled briefly over his wheelchair’s armrest.
"I have to get out of here and reach the East District. For your help, I’m willing to give you guns and ammunition. They might not give the same essences, but they still kill the things, and even though the gnolls you mentioned are strong, they could very well still work on them as well. I want us to cooperate to go there."
Dion went silent briefly. Those were some of the exact things that he wanted. This was not at all to say that he knew how to use a gun to a high skill level; he was maybe a beginner at worst.
Be that as it may, combining his enhanced senses with some instruction, he believed he could do it decently well enough that his lack of training could be easily bridged.
’For someone crippled to be making the effort to go all that way... there would have to be a damning good reason for his motivations.’
"You have family that was working there? Father and mother in one of the retirement homes/ A wife or girlfriend, maybe?" Dion spoke as he flowed through his thoughts about Adam’s motivations, "Or siblings?"
Here, even though the man’s attention on him hadn’t shifted in the slightest, he heard the change in the beating of his heart.
"I have to go deliver something."
Dion’s eyelids fell a little, his expression falling solemn. "...I would appreciate not being lied to."
Adam briefly halted, and his jaw tightened briefly, his heart rate climbing that little more.
Then he sighed, "I have to go save someone important to me. And she can’t defend herself against all these things."
Dion’s expression remained still. The person he was talking about... it had to be family. And at the acknowledgement, a part of him couldn’t help but feel a little envious.
"I don’t want you to give me your guns."
Adams’s lips pursed a little. "Is there anything else I can do to convince you? I don’t need you to drag me there; I can carry my own weight, and if I end up becoming a burden, I wouldn’t blame you for leaving me behind. But I need to get there as fast as possible, and I’m not capable of speed on my own, through this city, with everything that is going on."
Dion shook his head a little then.
"I want you to join me after this. I want to form a survival group, and you would be perfect for that."
"..." Adam’s eyes gradually rose at what he had said, and he remained silent for a few moments. "I’m... just a cripple, man. Forming a survival group, that would mean attaching responsibility to many others. I can’t do that as I am. The best I can do is protect the people important to me."
Suddenly then, they heard the sound of heels approaching down the hall.
Adam’s head whipped back in surprise at how, until the person had reached right where they had been, finally visible, at the threshold from the hall into the living room, had he heard them move.
The pale-skinned, tall woman draped in a black dress, her white hair pulled up, had an expression fallen solemn and scrutinous.
Anastasia’s attention had fallen solely upon Adam, whose hand had reflexively reached for one of his holstered pistols.
"You—"
"Anastasia, leave us. Now." Dion’s voice had left him as cold as the ice she had many times used against others.
She halted where she stood, and her expression dissolved from the intensity it had gained at the audacity of the man. She hesitated for a few moments before she bowed faintly.
"Understood, Dionysus."
The thud of her heels over the ground resounded in the silence that then lingered.
Adam’s attention returned to Dion, and his curiosity, through his eyes, was palpable.
"When you’ve already got someone as dangerous as her, what would you need me for?"
Dion’s expression eased, his brows lifting faintly. Then he shook his head a little.
"Who wouldn’t want more capable squad members?"
"...Capable squad members, huh."
"Look, Adam," Dion mentioned as he leaned forward in his seat, resting his forearms over his thighs, "I’ll be straight with you. I need to get to across the country to save my family. Quite like you need to go save someone important to you right now. To do that, i need capable people around me, and you’re the first genuinely skilled person I’ve met.
You being in a wheelchair isn’t a factor that I’m considering in this decision, and I’m willing to bet that anyone who is paralyzed from the waist down who hall the will to fight in a world like this to save someone important to them can’t be someone that I would regret having join me. So, I can save the person you need me to for you, and in exchange, I want you to join me."
"..."
Adam’s expression remained contemplative, though there was a difficulty to it. After all, a part of him could not know what might happen here if he refused the offer.
And if he deferred it to later, after they had already saved who he needed to, who was to say that with him having lead him on for so long, the vampire before him would not turn on them?
Seeing the hesitation in Adam’s expression, Dion continued:
"Will you join me if I can heal your legs? And no, I don’t mean turning you into a vampire. I mean literally allowing you to walk and run once more."
Adam’s eyes snapped wide at that, the gold in them flickered wildly, and his mouth hesitated open.
"I can heal your legs, and help you. However, if I do heal you, that would be me trusting you with my greatest secret. I would need to be assured that you are going to joining me, and of your loyalty."
"...How would you do it." Adam’s expression gradually fell gravely serious.
In a world like this, Adam was not going to dismiss the claim to be impossible.
He had even considered that perhaps eventually, he would be able to find his own way to do it.
But if he could do it now... that changed everything.