bailey helvar | eight | fin

i'm burning, now i'm burning up
you had my love but it was beaten
from all the times you
threw me down

He was a mass of logic and secrets, concealed just beneath the surface, just around the corner you already rounded. He knew about the whispers between men and the lovers their wives did not know of, the stashes of money buried in a mother of three's back yard, and any other detail that was left unprotected from his curious line of sight, and he kept these secrets in a locked box within the confines of his mind.

"It's for insurance," his mother has claimed, "so that we'll have leverage if they begin impeding on our territory."

He had often wondered if his mother was a murderer, or if she was just really good at convincing those around her that she was. At the bare minimum, she seemed perfectly capable of it, with her hollow eyes and two cheeks that had grown too fond of being hungry when she was younger to ever fill back in. She seemed almost ghostly, wrapping her spindly fingers around a Glock G19, resting her on the hammer. One slip, and a person could have died.

So, for the sake of his own sanity, though she probably had, he repeated to himself that she hadn't until he believed it. As for Bailey himself, it had never really been his job to fight, despite his mother's demands for him to take self defense classes. His job was to be out of sight, out of mind, but never out of ear shot; never far enough away to run in and save the day, should it call for it.

He accompanied his mother in every one of her meetings, standing on balconies just above them, hiding behind statues with one hand on his gun. He was good at being forgotten; good at disappearing.

"Everyone has a secret hiding in the dark," his mother had said, painting her nails red while he sat across the table from her, nibbling on a piece of plum skin, "And I'm sure you're no different."

Perhaps, he thought, though he wasn't entirely sure. It was hard to find a place and get comfortable enough to make a mess when a person spent their entire lives running in the opposite direction.

"The problem, however, is that no one can find where you keep yours."

"Had me tailed again, did you?" He replied casually. He didn't even bother looking up from his plum.

"As if you didn't already know. Speaking of," his mother started, pulling something from beneath the table and sliding it over to him. He smiled when he recognized the battery cables he'd ripped off of a particular motorcycle earlier that day.

"When did you become a mechanic?"

Smile to grin then, he looked at her for the first time.

"I suppose around the same time I became worthy of being tailed."

It was a funny thing, his relationship with his mother. Business partners, friends, but a certain lack of trust between the two. It was as if they had agreed that working together was in both of their best interests, but only with the recognition that it might not always be that way. Bailey had been raised to keep people at an arm's length away from anything that could be stabbed or cut off, and that included his power obsessed mother, unfortunately.

He knew his mother was just trying to take care of herself and her business, and he couldn't fault her for it. He would have done the same to a holder of secrets; especially if some of them were his.

His mother pursed her lips, annoyed that she had been beaten, but too smart to admit it to him.

"I've raised quite the snake, haven't I?" she said, sounding genuinely impressed.

"I have my father's eyes; mother's fangs and scales."

"Funny."

Part of him knew there was more just beneath the surface— there always was, but his mother was a territory he knew he was not yet strong enough to defeat on his own and, what's more, he didn't even know why he would want to. Probably because she expected him to, eventually. Wasn't that odd? Expecting something so much it was willed to happen? It only ever seemed to happen in the ways that made things worse, like rain on the day of a funeral, eyes on you while two people whisper and laugh to one another, your own son coming for your throne.

Son didn't quite fit right in his mouth. Even when introducing him to new members of the gang, she seemed to leave out that important detail. Instead, she would gesture to him and say, "This is our wraith, Bailey, keeper of secrets," and then she would move on to the next step, which was giving them their black swan pendants— proof of their involvement with the Gaggle, the unfortunate and unattractive name of his mother's organization.

He had looked it up before, when he was much younger. A group of geese. He guessed his mother thought it was creative at the time.

Not that it mattered. The majority of her personnel were either kids she could mold into the exact replicas of themselves she needed them to be, or people who were still kids when she sank her teeth into them that have gotten older since. Most of them weren't meant to have luxuries such as opinions.

Still, if he hadn't been born into it, he didn't think he would want any involvement with the infamous geese who took over the Underwood subs. Suburbia. That was his mother's domain. The places that were often seen as off limits for people like them. Places with swing sets and pools in front yards and pretty brick houses sitting on well-maintained lawns. Wives with their hair pulled back in tight buns and smelling of wine, and fathers wearing suits and smelling like whiskey.

Skin-deep happiness. The kinds of people whose secrets Bailey didn't have to look too hard to find.

He would walk down the streets, fur coat pulled warmly against him, chin raised high into the air. Only when he was off duty would he ever be caught in anything so noticeable, but he liked the looks he got. He liked the question mark that followed him around and left everyone with their chin in their hands and their brows furrowed. He liked that the keeper of secrets, the ghost who haunted Enoch Lane, was a secret in himself.

Pop of bubblegum, he would stop, leaning against a jungle gym to observe the behavior of a normal family or two, then head back home to the hen house to get redressed and prove that there was no such thing as a normal family.

And yes, at times, he wished he could trust the world long enough to let his guard down. Some of the other members of the gang actually seemed to be nice people, with authentic, genuinely benign intentions, but the taste of having a friend just couldn't have possibly measured up to the life of being whoever he wanted to be, so for now, he was content with keeping his mouth shut, his eyes open, his ears clear, and his pen ready to write.

no holding back or
giving in to anybody
you left me cold on the ground
and now i'm burning