Had he been accused of abandoning them? Had the boy's tone implied betrayal? A sneer wrinkled the ex-leader's face, disgust and disappointment darkening his scars. Not often did Jefferson consider insults, nor did he allow them get to him, but perhaps it was the proximity to and amount of great change that had happened that the cyclops was still sensitive. Either way, the ex-Patriarch flared a reaction he had never exposed Noah to before — one more resembling the boy's father at his worst than the scarred leader at his best — and yet he maintained a silence, at least at first. He would not raise his voice, would not holler or yell. He was in no place to, not anymore. Jefferson was no more than irrelevant, a has-been who no longer had a call to commanding anyone.
"Is that how you see it, like I betrayed you?" he said finally, lifting his head and looking down upon the boy with a gruesome stare and a grainy tone. "Like I broke some sunshine-and-roses promise? Cry me a fucking river. I'm not as young as I used to be. Your father ravaged my people and I wasn't able to protect them. I am no leader. I won't allow myself to pretend I'm their guardian when I could do nothing while he ruined their lives one-by-one."
His words, now lowered to a hiss through bared teeth, finally met a cease. Jefferson twisted his head away, talons digging into the wood of the porch. He was no leader anymore, but he would not take disrespect. He would not be talked down by a shaking, cringing fool like Noah.
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