Graverobber could actually feel his breath; even with a fur stole thrown around his shoulders, the cold still crept over his skin like maggots. "Okay, kid. I think we're done for the night."
Under the smog-filled night sky, Shilo- the Savior, the Butterfly Girl - fucking glowed. She'd taken to wearing all white these days. Bloodstained, dirtstained white, but it said what she wanted it to say, which was we will mourn our dead once we win.
Kid had enough problems with overprotective men, but he still tried to look after her. Seventeen years of poison wasn't something you could sleep off like a bad dose of Z. Shilo was stronger now, but there were still days when all he could do was watch as she convulsed on a bare mattress, struggling for breath. He'd learned not to punch through windows anymore, though.
Campsites dotted the park- tents and lean-tos and converted dumpsters, campfires and bare lightbulbs and staticky old televisions. Shilo had been moving from one light to another all night, singing and talking, gathering support. She was currently kneeling in front of a raggedly-dressed little girl.
"Uh-huh! That's a cockroach. Blatella clanifer. I used to call them 'roach kittens' because my father wouldn't let me own a cat. And now you've got one of your very own! You must have been really quick to catch it."
Shilo's eyes were shining the way they always did when she talked about bugs. And now the girl's eyes were starting to catch the shine, too, like one candle lighting another. That was what Shilo did. She gave you the shine, turned ordinary people into heroes, made them want to follow her- and sometimes you woke up in the middle of the night in a squalid little safehouse, hearing sirens and searchlights just outside, and wondered what the hell is my life, what the hell are my choices- and then she'd make a contented little mmm sound in her sleep, curl up against you all innocent and trusting-y, and in an instant you'd die for her.
"Come on, kid." He shifted from foot to foot, trying to ignore the winter weather. Come morning, half the streets would probably be solid ice. "Bedtime for Shilo. If it ain't cold as a crypt out here, call me a stiff."
"I'm n-not cold," Shilo protested. She ruined her lie by shivering, wrapping her arms around herself unconsciously.
"Says the girl who's trembling like a vibrator. Up you go, kid."
Shilo wrapped her arms around the Graverobber's neck and clung like a baby monkey. Burying her face in his coat's furs, she murmured, "You smell good." Sweaty man with traces of cigarette smoke and car exhaust. Good, though. Home used to smell like old potpourri and cobwebs and antique furniture and secrets, but now the smell that lulled her to sleep each night was something alive. She'd joined the living.
"It's natural."
She was too tired to laugh much. "Did I do good?"
"Did you- kid, the Park denizens are going to be talking about Shilo Wallace for months. You are a star."
Shilo wasn't too exhausted to smile.