When Rayleigh found out that Alister’s blood could heal, things changed. He would frequently bring the child with him to families that had an injured member, testing just how far his abilities could go. And Alister was happy to oblige - he was helping people get better after all.
And then those visits stopped and changed to seeing hunters fresh from the battlefield.
The torn and burnt flesh, the occasional missing limbs of the unlucky - the sights and smells made Alister sick. This was a big step up from the healing he was doing before and it scared him to see all these people like this. Every night he would crawl into Rhea’s bed and every night she would comfort him and try to get him to stop crying.
He wanted to go back to helping those families, but Rayleigh was their caretaker so he didn’t have a choice.
After session of getting his blood drawn, Alister always looked fatigued; sometimes even before the sessions. Rayleigh would schedule them far too close to each other than they really should be, not giving Alister’s body enough time to fully recover and gain back all the blood it lost. “This much blood won’t last us long,” Rayleigh would say, “we need more.”
And Alister complied and went to each and every session because he didn’t want to make his caretaker upset - because he didn’t have a choice.
“We need to leave.”
“What?”
“It isn’t right what Rayleigh and the rest of them are doing with you. We need to go somewhere safer - away from all of them!” Rhea was frustrated, he could tell. He was tired of it all too, but he couldn’t just leave the place he called home and the people he called family.
“Rhea...”
“I already have an excuse for Rayleigh. All we need to do is get you out of here undetected and we can meet up somewhere once I deal with everything else.”
It looks like even with his own flesh and blood, Alister didn’t have a choice in the matter.
Alister smiled at the boy next to him, having to squint just to see Isaac beyond the glare of the sun behind him. Out of all the places and things he’s seen since leaving with his sister, this sight is definitely his favorite.
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