Chapter 66: Smells Like Consideration
Dion could feel Irvin watching him from the far wall with his arms crossed, and he didn’t need to look to know what was sitting on his face.
"A kill-stealing spoofer makes the glorious jump to steal the spotlight, killing a gnoll," Irvin said, this time without holding back his laugh. "And now he thinks he gets to tell us what to do."
Dion sighed a little at that. This was never going to be something easy to get across.
It wasn’t as if he could tell them that he could smell it. Even if humans naturally did have a great ability for smelling rain, his senses were leagues better than theirs.
Telling them about his nose meant being prepared to entertain even move question marks around him.
And when there were so many unfamiliar people around who were all vying to survive, they would very quickly start demanding answers.
"I’m not telling you what to do. The only thing that I am telling you about, is what I think is almost certainly going to happen, and am asking you not to be outside when it does."
"And if you’re wrong, we’ve lost the only window we had tonight," Yara said. "Because come morning time there will be a lot more people finally getting to grips with everything going on and making their move to find food in the area, meaning we’d have to go a lot farther from here to find enough."
Madeline had been sitting on the edge of the desk, her hands folded in her lap. She looked at Dion, then at the floor, then back up.
"You... really can’t say how you know?"
"Not in a way that would help."
Anton rubbed the back of his neck and stood there for several seconds, his jaw working slightly as if he were chewing through the options. Then he exhaled and shook his head.
"We’ll think on it," he said, and the flatness in his voice made it clear what that meant.
Basil hadn’t said anything through all of it. He was standing near the door with one hand in his pocket, and his eyes had been on Dion the entire time.
They filed out, with Irvin going out first. Marcus and Yara followed, and Dion caught the low murmur of Yara’s voice to Marcus from the corridor after heading out ahead of him.
’Really... rather than joining anyone the best option is to form my own group. They think I’ve got loose screws.’ Dion thought at what she had said, internally shaking his head.
At the very least, this way he had gotten it off of his chest. In some sense he considered it a repayment for the things that he had learned from them.
Madeline lingered at the doorframe for a moment, her mouth opening as if she were about to say something, before she seemed to think better of it and went after them.
Anton stopped at the door and looked back at Dion.
"If it rains within the hour, I’ll hear you out on whatever else you’ve got. If it doesn’t, we’re going..." He turned back to the door, and left behind the words, "And you’re welcome to come or stay."
Basil followed him without a word, pulling the door shut behind them.
Dion stood in the empty office and looked through the window at the stars, a long breath leaving his nose. It had come out of him as relief, mixed with relent, and for the largest part, it was for him to relieve himself of that so calling scent in the air that had snuck in when they opened the door.
He closed his eyes, having to try to calm himself again.
"I should get fresh air while I still can..."
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Basil stopped at the stairwell landing. "I should go and see how things are with everyone else. A few of them weren’t doing well earlier."
He went, waving back at them without waiting for a response, and his footsteps faded away back past the corner to where all the people were within seconds.
The five of them stood on the landing between floors, the faint sound of the people above them faintly rustling through the ceiling.
Anton had his back to the railing with his arms folded. Irvin stood a few steps higher, his hands in his jacket pockets, and Marcus was beside him with his weight resting against the wall. Yara leaned on the opposite railing, and Madeline had settled on the step nearest to the top with her hands in her lap, her fingers picking at the hem of her sleeve.
Irvin spoke first. "So we’re waiting for rain now."
"We’re waiting an hour," Anton said.
"The streets were clear on the way back. We’re wasting precious time right now to stop for however long you’ve decided to grace the stranger with soothing his ego."
Anton’s hand went to the back of his neck, and he didn’t respond as he sighed a little.
Marcus straightened off the wall. "We should at least be getting the two cars ready, check the fuel and the tires and batteries, so that if we’re going tonight we’re not scrambling at the last minute. You left the SUV in the parking lot as agreed right?"
"Go ahead," Anton said, nodding to what he had asked.
Marcus looked at Irvin. "Coming?"
"In a minute."
Marcus nodded once and headed down.
Yara tilted her head toward Madeline. "I didn’t think you were going to say anything in there."
Madeline’s fingers paused on her sleeve. "...I didn’t really say much."
"You asked him straight. That’s more than I did, and I had a super good impression of him."
Madeline looked at the floor, and then back up. "I just... it felt like nobody was really trying to hear what he was actually saying."
"It’s honestly stupid if you ask me, and suspicious, especially because he wouldn’t explain," Irvin said.
Madeline glanced down at him, her mouth pressed together for a moment, and then she spoke anyway.
"But... when you think about it, what reason does he have to lie? It’s not as if he’s not strong enough to survive on his own. He’s already done so for two days."
Irvin’s eyes squinted a little sharply then and he spat, "You don’t know him."
Her shoulders drew in, and her fingers went back to the hem of her sleeve. "...I know."
"None of us do," Anton said, after a pause.
"He did kill a gnoll," Yara shrugged at that, laughing a little. As much as what he had said had brought her to question her immediate good impression, the fact that he killed one of the things remained to be so; he was strong, so she understood the consideration to an extent.
"And I have a class," Irvin said. "That doesn’t mean you’d trust me to tell you when it’s going to rain, so why are we trusting him?"
The stairwell was quiet for a few seconds after that.
Yara pushed off the railing. "Someone was asking me for extra blankets before we got back and I never found where they’d been put. Madeline, do you know?"
"I think... they were near the north partition. I can show you."
Madeline stood, and the two of them went up the stairs together. Yara said something to her as they rounded the landing above, low enough that it didn’t carry, and whatever Madeline said back was lost to the stairwell before it reached them.
Irvin waited until the door above opened and closed. Then he looked at Anton.
"You’re actually considering whether we should stay or not."
"I’m considering everything."
"Sixty people need to eat tonight, Anton."
"Just... Go help Marcus with the cars."
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The roof was accessible through a fire door on the fourteenth floor, and Dion had found it unlocked when he pushed through.
The wind was just a little stronger up here, waving his hair a little, and the city stretched out below in dark blocks broken by the faint glow of fires still burning in the distance and the still working city lights.
He stood at the railing and breathed in, finally relieving himself at least a little bit of the rush that the scent gave him.
Dion leaned his arms over the railing and let the air out with a long sigh.
With everything in him, he wanted to follow the scent and find the person. He already had a rather precise enough idea of where they were in the building.
But he had to get himself under control first.
’Is there seriously no way for me to get a grip on my new body sooner?’ He thought with his fists clenching a little.
At this point, the only thing that he had some kind of idea about was the Sangour that Anastasia had mentioned.
What he had felt earlier should have been it, and so, in search of some kind of answer, he gradually closed his eyes and tried to look into himself again.
He was once more searching for where the concentration of his burning desire was coming from in his chest.