Incredibly short chapter: I wanted to make it about twice as long but ran out of inspiration. I feel so bad for not updating for two weeks that I'm just giving you guys what I've written so far. Please enjoy: the next update will be longer and hopefully quicker.
New York is wild.
Angry pedestrians stomp past the four kids, followed by clusters and clumps of the slower-moving foot traffic. Taxis and cabs bleep and rev their engines, driving past at an inch a minute. Street vendors sell everything from shoelaces to tambourines. Homeless people curl up in the corners. Druggies shake and shiver in the alleyways. Stray dogs hunt for trash. A violinist plays a concerto on the sidewalk, music ebbing out from her fingers. A trumpet player bellows out a jazz melody two blocks away. The buildings tower high above them, some gleaming brick, some worn down to rubble.
"Hold hands," Gregory orders, and so Christophe links hands with Gregory and Maria, and Chase latches onto Gregory, hugging him around the elbow. They push through the mass of people, their eyes huge and their mouths open.
Christophe is still deathly thin from his time in the Fridge. His stomach grumbles in protest, and he knows he can still count his ribs if he pulls up the black tank top. It's late March outside, warm-ish this time of dusk, but he knows it'll be freezing when the sun fades from the horizon. They need food, they need shelter, and they need to stay inconspicuous.
"'ow do we get food 'ere?" Christophe demands after the four of them manage to shove their way into a less- crowded area of the sidewalk. "I 'ave never been in a city zis large before."
"Me neither," Gregory says.
Maria shrugs.
They all look at Chase.
". . . I lived in L.A."
"The city of angels? That's a big city, right?" Maria jumps on this. "So you know how to get food."
Chase shrugs. ". . . we could steal it . . . but, that's . . . wrong . . ."
"I think the morally incorrect thing would be to let the three of you starve to death," Gregory says. "Therefore, as your leader, I say we steal it."
"Since when are you our leader?" Maria demands.
Gregory rolls his eyes. They've had this debate before.
"Stop it," Christophe says, as he thinks Gregory makes a decent leader. "Let's just get some food."
Gregory nods, and he leads the four of them over to a street vendor who's selling meat and vegetables on stick. "Kabobs," Chase mutters. They keep their hands clenched.
"All right," Gregory says. "Christophe, you distract him – lead him away somehow. Chase, you stand lookout. Maria and I will grab as much food as we can."
"Right," Christophe says. He eyes the vendor. Half-a-dozen people crowd around the stand, shouting orders. The man, who has a ridiculous triangle-shaped hat on his head, prepares their food as fast as he can.
"We'll meet up in the alley behind the library in case we get separated." Gregory jerks his head. "Everyone know where it is?"
"I don't," Chase says.
"Six blocks down the street and a block to the right, stupid," Maria says, rolling her eyes and saving Christophe from fessing up about lack of knowledge as well.
"Good. Everyone ready?" He smiles, nervously. "Let's do this."
Christophe nods and slips forward towards the vendor. The sidewalk is clustered with people. When he's about a dozen feet away, he stops and sucks in air. Using his fingernail, he grabs at the scabs on his cheek from where he was shot, and rips, wincing from the pain. Luckily, head wounds bleed excessively. He flicks the scab off, woozy, and then lets the pain seep into him. He tips back his head and screams bloody murder.
Every head turns to him. He knows what they see: a way-too-skinny kid with a messed-up scar, blood running down his face. He screams, "HELP ME!"
Fortunately, all the adults turn away from the vendor. The vendor himself jumps out from behind his stand and hurries over to Christophe. Several adults mutter something along the lines of, "Great, another kid," but they watch with bile fascination anyway.
Christophe drops to his knees and keeps wailing.
"Hey? Hey, are you okay, kid?" the vendor asks, kneeling down next to him.
He thinks of the best lie to keep their attention on him. "My daddy 'it me again," he moans, clutching at the vendor's arm to keep him from turning back to his sales.
"What? Oh, Jesus Christ, kid, are you okay?"
"No! Eet's bleeedddddinnng!"
"Ah, somebody call an ambulance or the police or something!" The vendor pats Christophe on the head and half-hugs him. "It's gonna be okay, kid, we've got you now." Concerned adults huddle around them.
"Z. . . thzank you," Christophe sniffles. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Maria and Gregory shoving kabobs into a brown paper bag.
"Hey!" An older women a few dozen feet away yells. She points to Maria and Gregory. Chase waves to Christophe urgently as the adults turn to look at the vendor's stall.
"What . . . " the vendor gasps, but Christophe has already wriggled out of his arms, pushed his way through the mob of people, and scrambled down the sidewalk.
He sprints until he arrives the library. Gasping for breath, he flops down next to the dumpster in the alleyway. He ignores the stench and rips off the bottom of his tank top with shaking fingers. His uses the cloth to wipe at the blood running down his face.
"You're okay!"
Chase, Maria, and Gregory burst into the alley, Gregory holding the amazing-smelling brown paper bag.
"Food!" Maria crows.
"Christophe first." Gregory squats down on the ground next to him and offers the brown bag. Christophe reaches inside and pulls out a stick laden with roasted chicken, grilled onions, and fried red bell peppers. His eyes widen.
"Don't favor your boyfriend," Maria complains, trying to snag her own stick of food.
"Hey!" Gregory yelps. "He's the one who starved for six days, he gets the most food!"
"Sure, sure," Christophe mutters around his food (he's already eaten half of the kabob in the space of their conversation.) He likes how Gregory doesn't deny the 'boyfriend' part of Maria's statement.
"We have fourteen sticks, so we each get three and Christophe gets five," Gregory mutters. He allows the other two to snatch up kabobs.
With his mouth full, Christophe mumbles, "Zanks, sweeeeeetttiiiiee-" Which makes Maria and Chase laugh until Gregory's flushing that adorable shade of bright red.
XXX
They press against each other, comforted by the skin-on-skin contact. Gregory's elbow squashes into his stomach, and Christophe's knee bangs against Gregory's head, but neither of them mind. Christophe curls around Gregory's body, resting his head on his stomach. They're both in the too-exhausted-to-move-too-awake-to-close-their-eyes stage.
After half an hour of just thinking, Christophe says, "What are we going to do now?"
"What do you mean?"
"Don't play stupid."
Gregory sighs.
"I don't know if Chase and Maria will want to look for their parents," he says slowly. "They are just kids –"
"Zey won't," Christophe says.
"How do you know that?"
"Because zey are strong, Gregory."
He sighs, then smiles. For a few seconds, the two of them watch the more innocent members of their little group. Chase is gripping Christophe's other knee with both of his ankles, burying his face into Maria's neck with one arm wrapped around Gregory's neck. Maria cuddles, squashed in between the four of them. The four children keep as close as possible. They've gotten over themselves by now; they admit they need the physical contact.
Christophe can't even remember his old family. Every once in a while, he has a vague recollection – his mother's eyes are green, he thinks. His mother's eyes are green and his brother Owen smiled too much.
Other than flashes, mother and father are alien concepts.
Any family he had in the past can't compare to the one he knows now.
"I'm scared," Gregory murmurs. He won't admit it out loud when Maria or Chase are awake, but he'll tell Christophe. They'll tell each other everything.
"So am I."
"What if the Yardale school tracks us down? I barely have any plans for this segment of our lives. I only calculated us escaping and finding some sort of primary education. I only have steps one and three. I need step two-"
"Gregory. Shut eet."
He does, and shifts his weight so Christophe ends up enveloped by the black cloth of Gregory's uniform tank top. They need to find new clothes.
He mentions this aloud.
"And a steady source of food."
"Zat ees step two-b. We are still on step two-a."
They fall asleep like that.
XXX
Chase reveals numerous ways of liberating required items from idiotic Americans. Clothes from Laundromats. Food from supermarkets after two in the morning (by when the attendant is too tired to care what they steal). Shelter by breaking into motel rooms, then leaving before anyone notices.
By the third day, Gregory puts his foot down.
"We're just surviving," he says. "We are not living."
Christophe is halfway through a bagel when he says this. Maria pauses, her muffin lodged in her mouth.
Chase cocks his head. "Um . . . "
"You know what I mean," Gregory snaps. "We are making no progress like this."
"Progress with what?" Maria mumbles, finishing up her muffins.
"Our lives."
They turn to look at Christophe, who usually opts to keep quiet whenever Gregory insists on one his speeches on moralities. He shrugs and returns to his food.
"What does everyone want to do?" Gregory leans back against the alley wall and picks at his own stolen food. "We've managed to bring our status quo from a) slavery, being forced to fight hellspawn – "
Christophe blanches, and they all look at him funny. He swallows hard and shakes his head. He knows Gregory means the demons, not humanoids like Emma. They don't even know about Emma.
"We've gone from a) slavery, being forced to fight hellspawn, being forced to drink that nasty shit-" They all shiver. "After being beaten, molested, tortured, and starved constantly, we've changed into b) Life on the run, with enough food, stability, no one hitting us, fending for ourselves. I would like to go to c) fully mature adults with stable jobs, secure identities the Yardale school cannot use to track us down, and perfectly happy lives, with possibilities for college, friendships-"
"Marriage," Maria teases, which makes both Christophe and Gregory turn bright red.
"Actually, Status Quo C should probably be renamed Status Quo D. Status Quo C will be whatever we have to do until we reach maturity and have created these identities and social networks. We require some form of primary, secondary, and probably tertiary education. We need money, which means we need jobs, which is impossible at our age. We need connections in order to create new identities for ourselves, which, again, are also impossible at our age. Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that we need parents."
"What!" Maria exclaims. "Okay, most of what you just said went waaaaay over my head, but parents! What!"
"There is a reason children our age have them," Gregory says with a touch of sarcasm. "You might remember how much easier life was when we had them to provide food for us."
"I can't remember my parents at all," Maria says fiercely. "I can only remember my brother and his friends taking coals from the fire and shoving them in my mouth because he thought it was funny."
She opens her mouth to show them the scars, then closes it defiantly. They share a quiet moment of triumph in the fact that Jorge is still back at Yardale.
"Oh, that's a lie. I remember two things my parents did to me. First, they told me I was just looking for attention when I didn't talk to them because my mouth hurt too much to open it. They told me I was just trying to get my brother into trouble when I told them he was the one who burnt me and beat me. They told me the bruises were just from falling."
"And then they sold me to the Yardale school, which makes what that maricón did to me and all the other children in the neighborhood who were weaker than him . . . it makes him look like a saint, and he's not, he's a fucking bastard. My parents gave me up to them, Gregory, and I am not going back to them. Screw your status quo 'd' future. Screw my parents. I would rather live homeless and starving and cold with you guys than survive my parents. That's the difference between living and surviving, maricón. And I'm going to live."
Gregory watches her for a moment, then says, "I don't want us to return to our old parents. I share your sentiments on the matter."
"Good." Maria crosses her arms, glares at him, and slouches back against the alley wall, opposite Chase and Gregory. She glowers at the other three, who are watching her with only the tiniest amount of concern. "Stop it!" she snaps. None of them like to talk about the past much.
"All right," Christophe agrees. "Maria, shut up and listen to what Gregory 'as to say."
"Hey!"
"Both of you listen to me," Gregory orders. They fall silent.
"What about new parents?" he says.
Maria ogles him.
"We don't have to go back to the old ones. I don't even remember our address, and they would surely return us to the Yardale school for an even larger sum of money even if we did manage to locate them. Instead, I believe we should try to assimilate ourselves into a new family, preferably American since they seem to be easiest to fool."
"'ow?" Christophe swallows his last hunk of bagel, muttering his words around the food.
Gregory shrugs. "That's what I'm trying to figure out. Americans have foster care in place, and almost any family we randomly clung to would most certainly at least report us to the polite, which would result in the Yardale School locating us. We have to find people who won't ask us too many questions, who won't let anyone else ask us questions, and who won't post pictures of us anywhere someone might record them."
"If zere's one zing I know about Americans, it ees zat zey are all litigious assholes," Christophe points out.
"Always nosy," Chase adds in agreement. He scoots up next to Gregory and curls his body against him. Christophe grins slightly. At least Chase will always be the same. Hopefully.
"So. We need a family," Gregory begins.
"We are a family." Maria clenches her fists.
"Yes, we are," he agrees. "And we need fake parents."
The two of them start to argue. Christophe sighs and tips his head back while their conversation dissolves.
Then Christophe hears the shouting.
XXX
My cramped body unfolds slowly. I crawl out of the cage with horrific slowness. I've already examined the room, I already know it well, but I drink in my surroundings once again.
Blank, white walls. High ceiling. Fluorescent lights. Two escape routes; one the guarded door, one the huge glass window, although we're seven stories up and jumping out of it would be borderline suicidal.
An A/C hums.
Six people sit around the metal table. I know them all to be Angels, the strongest of their kind. There used to be seven, but we killed Mr. White, who brought us until this heaven-disguised purgatory eleven years ago. I remember his frightened, wide-eyed expression right before I slammed my first shovel down on his head, and smile. Somehow, I manage to keep the smirk on my face as the six angels examine me.
"Beautiful day, eesn't eet?" I snark.
One of the angels, a woman (at least, I think she's a woman – it's difficult to tell with Angels, as I'm pretty sure they're all sexless) leans forward against the table and props her hands up. I resist the urge to shrink away from their gazes. They're just angels, and I'm a High Heavenfilth. Hierarchy dictates I should be the one telling them to fuck off. Unfortunately, they have us all under their control.
Soldiers, low Heavenfilth, stand around me with their heads bowed slightly. I wish they would do that for me.
"Have you questioned him?" the woman asks in a velvet voice.
"He's been difficult," one of the soldiers says, and jams me in the ribs with the butt of his gun. I whirl at him, baring my teeth, but he just smirks and my shoulders slump. Kicking their asses right her and right now will not get me out of here any faster.
"Too bad," an angel murmurs, and they mutter amongst themselves. Finally, the first angel speaks up. "We hate to see one of god's disciples forget their holy duty."
"I was never one of zat asshole's slaves, you fuck-eeng cocksuckers-" I start to snarl. She tries to silence me with a look, but I keep spitting out the words.
"You zink you can make me fight for you, you zink you can make me do your dirty work and kill everyone in your stupid war. Well, fuck you, because you cannot!"
The angels are quiet for a few seconds.
Then the first angel laughs. She seems to be the leader now that Mr. White's gone.
"We'll continue with his re-introduction as planned," she says. "He's perfect, just perfect."
"Burn in 'ell, beetch!"
Soldiers grab my shoulders and start to drag me out of the room. I don't even bother to struggle.
"Make sure he gets a tour!" she calls.
XXX
At least they don't shove me back into a cage. They just deposit me in the hallway.
"Someone will be here soon to show you around and explain things to you," one of the soldiers snaps. "Try to escape and we'll fry your head off with the collar, then stick you in the Fridge for a couple more days."
The other soldiers snort and leave. I lean with my head back against the wall. I wonder where Damien is. They hauled his cage off the second the plane touched down. Probably because he can still use some of his powers even with the weird scripture whispers around his neck. They seem to trust me not to be able to figure anything about my powers out. Admittedly, I should have been working on them since Day 1 one my escape. In ten years, I've managed to . . . dig a little faster, which is totally useless without my shovel.
"Christophe?"
I look up from my musings, and freeze when I see a slight female figure turning down the hall.
Her short black hair sticks up over her head. Her chewed-off fingernails are painted neon blue. There's a scar over her right eye and another one running over her left cheek, jagged slices that mar her features. She's skinny, muscled, and wears jeans and a black t-shirt. I can't recognize her for a few seconds, even though I know who she must be.
"Oh," I say.
"Maricón," Maria sobs out, then she sprints towards me and throws herself into my arms.
I catch her and hold her and hug her tight. We clutch at each other for a few minutes, her tears staining my shirt and her arms tight around me. She keeps swearing at me, but I tune her out and hug her.
"I am taller zan you now," I tell her when we finally break apart.
"Only like half an inch." She wipes her eyes and glowers at me.
"Still. If you pulled zat run-eeng and hug-eeng zing ten years ago, you would 'ave toppled me." Back then I'd been way too skinny; at least now I have some muscle.
"Thanks for ditching us, asshole," she mutters, her fingers still clenching my shirt.
I don't say anything back.
"But I'm glad you got out," she adds. Her eyes close, and she mutters, "you're still an asshole."
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