XVII: Day Two, Night.
Topher Westmoreland, 12
Applicant #24
They really need a plan, a goal in mind, and no one wants to think that far.
He can't say he really blames them. At least tonight they're walking on, making progress instead of sleeping the easiest hours away. In this place becoming nocturnal will be easier than not. Sure, they may not be able to see the greatest, but at least the heat isn't quite so unbearable.
It might be a little too late for them in that regard, though. He almost certainly has heat exhaustion already. He got it once when he was younger, when he spent too long out on the beach even after his mother told him to come inside.
There are clouds on the horizon. It's hard to tell in the darkness, but he hopes they're rain clouds. That wouldn't make much sense, but what does about this place? A little unplanned rain would do wonders to their mindset right now. They could have something to drink, something to cool them off, something to dance around in like that was their biggest concern.
He couldn't let them do that, obviously. It's pretty terrible that Topher already knows that he'd be the one to reign them all back in, to talk some sense into them and get them to stop any sort of foolish, trivial thing they could come up with.
They're kids. Fun is in their blood, ingrained into their childish DNA.
But the Sentinels are clearly expecting them to act like more, to act like their District counterparts nine years ago and beyond. Like the trained murderers that the Careers were, the desperate, terrified murderers that the outer-District kids were.
He guesses they would be Careers then, him and Noelani.
Well, that doesn't make very much sense.
Oddly enough he thinks he'd be better at it than Noelani would be. She seems determined enough, but she's just too nice. Too good-hearted. Not to mention the fact that she nearly bludgeoned Tarquin with a piece of metal yesterday because he had the audacity to unintentionally sneak up on her, startling her to the high heavens.
"You're awfully quiet," Jay says, catching up to him. He looks like a tomato. A very crispy, sun-burnt one. He probably doesn't look any better, so there's no point in mentioning it.
"I could say the same thing about you." You're less annoying is what he really wanted to say, but again, no point. Some of his confidence has been shattered, his normal put-yourself-out-there attitude. He's still talking to Noelani, sure, but it's less awkwardly flirtatious and more gratitude. She did probably save his life, after all.
Besides, was Jay really ever annoying? Persistent, sure, but so is Noelani. Just because Jay had, has a thing for his sister, doesn't make him annoying. It's not like he has any control of her either.
"What the hell is there to talk about?" Jay asks. "We're all probably going to die. Yay."
"I'm not so sure about the probably," he responds. Definitely is the more likely option. "They're finding things to talk about."
Noelani and Tarquin just talk, easy peasy, like they've known each other for ages. Common interests can do that sort of thing. They're the same eager, all over the place type of person. It's not hard to see why.
"Some artsy bullshit or other," Jay tells him. "I don't know, I don't get any of it. My parents took me to a museum once when I was little, some fancy art one. Everyone just kept telling me to be quiet."
"Must've been difficult for you."
Jay nudges him. "Shut the hell up. You're no better."
Well, so much for casting aside the idle, delusional conversation. Now he's a part of it, with someone who nearly annoyed him to death in their shared room a few days ago. Those times sleeping in the bunks seem like they're a million years back now.
"We need to come up with some sort of like... battle plan," he says eventually.
"Battle plan?" Jay scoffs. "Dude, you're like, four foot ten and have the strength equivalent of a praying mantis. You can't call it that."
"I'm surprised you even know what a praying mantis is," he says, only mildly surprised. "And you're one to talk. You're not even that much taller than me."
"I'm much taller than you," Jay insists, and Topher swears he starts walking on his tip-toes alongside him, judging by the awkward lapse in his gait. He really isn't, but it's sort of funny, this casual bickering. He can't in his heart make it stop, not when it feels natural, like another day at school. Like he's back home with his friends. Behind them Noelani is smiling, too, clearly pleased at the development.
Like they're not in some sort of weird, twisted Hunger Games. He never understood how kids in the past could get along so well as allies, when they knew they very well might have to kill each other in the coming days.
He gets it now. It's a lot easier than he thought it would be.
"I'm serious, though," he says. "We need to come up with a plan. Several plans, probably. What happens if someone else approaches us, if we get split up what direction should we all head, if someone attacks us—"
"What are we going to do, if someone attacks us?" Jay interrupts. "I mean, I know we're supposed to kill them, but..."
"But what?"
"I don't remember having this much savagery in me when I was twelve, and it wasn't even that long ago," Jay mumbles. "Are you saying you'd kill them, then? 'Cause I don't know if I could, to be honest. I know that probably doesn't make me sound like a good ally, but it's true."
"You seem like someone to take advantage of a situation," he observes.
"Yeah, a normal situation. Not a murder one. Entirely different things, dude."
They may not be that different though, if things go on like this much longer. Sooner or later one of them will drop from heat-stroke, or something worse. Sooner or later they're going to be confronted with something that will lead to an impossibly hard choice.
He doesn't think Jay will do it. Noelani definitely won't, and neither will Tarquin.
That means it's going to come down to him. The twelve year old, the one who everyone always wrote off in the past. The kid who never won.
"I guess I would kill someone, then," he says, trying to be casual about it. That's what this is. Casual. "I'd make the hard decision if I had to."
Jay nods and looks back to the dirt between his feet as they walk. God, the back of his neck really is red. Tomato-like, indeed. At least he's slightly more olive-skinned, thanks to his mother. At least he has something going for him.
And the inevitable murder that he's going to commit, apparently.
He's not a hateful person. Not a murderous one, either. He won't do it without feeling bad, without hating himself for it.
But he'll do it. To survive, for them all to survive, he will.
Verity Alameda, 13
Applicant #3
Damas is sort-of sleeping on her leg.
She offered. He accepted. She also offered several, several hours ago and is almost certain she's never going to get the feeling back in her leg, but at least he seems more comfortable. Once he had settled down he hadn't looked eager to separate from her any more than was necessary.
She doesn't have the heart to move him, even though he keeps asking if she's alright, constantly. She's fine. Who needs two working legs, anyway? Jupiter seemed to get around fine with just one flesh one.
Percy's still managing to make noise even with his mouth shut, tapping his toes against the ground, flicking at the end of the duct tape with his index finger. He gnaws on his nails so loud that he might as well be doing it right inside her ear. She's almost tempted to crawl over there and put tape over his fingers so he can't do it anymore, like her mother would always threaten when she was younger.
She would, if Damas wasn't keeping her pinned here.
He looks... haunted. Someone previously so alive looks nothing short of dead behind the eyes, like his insides have already passed on.
She knows that she can be bold, sometimes. That's the nice way to put it. She saw the look in his eyes earlier when she kept critiquing his work; it's the only reason she eventually shut up. She hadn't apologized, that was going a tad too far, but now she's beginning to reconsider.
"You can go to sleep, if you want," she offers. "I'll stay up for a bit and make sure we're clear."
He shakes his such, such a minute detail that she barely picks up on it. "I'm good."
He didn't sleep much at all last night. She slept like a log, she knows, but judging by the circles under his eyes he didn't get more than a few minutes. That combined with the stress, carrying Damas, not eating or drinking...
She's surprised he hasn't dropped dead, if she's being honest.
"You need to sleep," she insists. "You won't be any use if you're exhausted."
He looks up at her, eyes narrowed.
"Uh," she says flatly. "I worded that badly? You're not useless, swear. You're great, actually, really helpful. Sorry I was messing with you earlier, you were doing a good job. He seems to be doing better."
And there's the apology. She's almost surprised it came out. Percy nods, slowly, looking down at Damas practically in her lap. He looks more comfortable, sure, but he's also hot to the touch. Is that a fever, or just the general temperature of the area?
It doesn't really matter. If it is a fever from his injury, they have nothing to fix it with.
"Really, thank-you," she says quietly. "I'm not sure we would have made it out of there without you."
"You would have. You're stronger than you think. Stronger than me."
"That's different," she murmurs. "I didn't... I didn't see anything, like you did."
Just the blood all over Damas, all over her hands. It was different. There's no denying that.
"What happened to Nicator?" she asks, continuing against her own better judgement. Percy is back to running his fingers along the ground, fidgeting endlessly. She wants to reach between them and at least take the tape away, take the only thing of value they have on them, before he ruins it.
She still wouldn't be able to blame him if he did.
"You don't have to tell me," she says. "I know it must be—"
"They shot him," he says. "I don't know who, just... shot him. Right in the head. We were just crossing the road to look for a car, he left me on the other side. I turned around and two seconds later..."
His finger on the ground are shaking, too; tapping back and forth only increases how bad it looks. He stick his index finger back in his mouth again, gnawing on the skin. She waits for it to bleed, but it doesn't.
"I'm sorry," she murmurs, and he nods, an odd jerkiness to it. He really does look like a puppet, feel like one, something that's only operating because someone keeps jerking him back up on strings that are too long to properly maintain. Certainly he still shouldn't be going on, no one just does after they lose someone they care about. And right in front of them, too. Right in the head.
That amount of blood is even worse than what she was covered in.
"I think I'm gonna try and sleep," he decides, inhaling. "If that's okay."
"Of course. I'll wake you up in a few hours?"
He nods and rolls over, facing the other way. He curls up, into a ball nearly as small as Damas, and he shifts for several long, drawn-out minutes until he's comfortable. Even then she can't imagine he's satisfied, will stay still for very long, but at least he's trying.
Damas shifts and reaches a hand up in the middle of the quiet, squeezing around hers for only a moment before he curls it back up against his side, over his chest.
More awake than she knew, apparently. Or maybe not as comfortable as she thought.
It's a very small blip of comfort, but it's a knowing one. She feels the sadness settling over her like a blanket; he must be able to feel it, too.
Percy is finally quiet, finally still. It feels like a miracle.
It might be the only one they get, so she's grateful for it.
Isperia Martorell, 16
Applicant #17
"Did you hear that?" Meris asks.
Nope. She absolutely did not hear anything. If Meris heard something, that's great for her, but Ria absolutely did not hear it.
She can hear Mel's breathing clear as day, one of the worst sounds she's ever heard. It almost doesn't even sound human, which is the worst bit. So far from the person she thought she might get to know, the one that seemed to have the slightest inclination of feelings towards her, even if they were just trying to protect her.
Meris stands up, grabbing the two arrows in each hand. They got them out, wiped mostly clean on the legs of Meris' pants, but there's still so much blood. It's all over the ground, dried-through, completely stained through his shirt, down his leg. He won't wear his sweater anymore because he's too hot, burning. His skin feels the same but he still shivers every other minute, whole body trembling.
Mel cracks his eyes open. "You shouldn't."
His voice is even worse than his breathing, hoarse and cracked. She winces at the sound alone.
They got the arrows out, stopped the worst of the bleeding, and he's still going downhill. He hasn't been able to stand since they got him laying down, when Meris dragged him back here in the first place. He seems more confused by the second, disoriented, wondering who they both are and what's happening.
This is the most clarity he's had all day.
"Don't go anywhere," Meris instructs, and disappears from their little hidey-hole into the night. Where the hell is she going to go? Into the ground?
Possibly.
Mel coughs, and she sees his lips wet with blood. He's already lost enough blood.
Wounds are bad. Shoulder wounds alright. Stomach wounds worse. She didn't put her hands anywhere near it, but if the arrow punctured something, could that be the reason? She brings herself back to biology, back to the human body, sitting in class with her diagrams. If the arrow punctured the abdominal wall, then inflammation of the peritoneum could be the cause. If it spreads, if they don't treat it...
An infection in the blood, or shock? Is his whole body going into sepsis and shutting down right before her?
"I wish one of you would kill me," he whispers. "It hurts. It fucking hurts."
He's confused, feverish, vomits up whatever they try to force-feed him. He's already dying.
He doesn't deserve to die.
"Everything's going to be fine," she says shakily. "It's fine."
If peritonitis really has set in, then re-cleaning the wound won't do anything. She doesn't know if she can bear to touch it, anyway, and Meris is gone. Hopefully not for good. They're been hearing noises for a while, but that could be anything.
Or it could be the people who attacked Mel. The ones that don't even feel like they exist.
She wants to believe he imagined it, but she can't. She's not that person.
"Ria," he rasps. "You know what's wrong, don't you?"
"Do you wanna try some more water?" she offers, looking away. "Water might help—"
"Water's not going to help," he says. "The peroxide, maybe. Do you think that would kill me?"
"No," she snaps. She doesn't think she's ever been that loud in her entire life. It would kill him, is the thing. Painfully, over several minutes, as his body burned from the inside out. "Don't touch it."
He waited until Meris was gone to start all of this. He's confused, disoriented, but not enough to lose the smarts of a dying man who just wants his life ended quicker. He's too nice for his own good. And he wouldn't let her suffer the way he's suffering now, no matter how much it hurt him to do so.
But she can't. She doesn't even want to go near him, the wound, all the blood.
If he wants to die at her hand, she'll have to go near all of that.
She makes her way closer to the entrance of the overhang, peeking out. There's no sign of Meris, just a clear trail of footprints leading away, higher up. She wouldn't go far, would she? The last time someone went too far ahead Meliodas came back half-dead, and now he was...
Nearing dead, probably.
She thinks it and hears the choking at nearly the same time.
She whirls, nearly stumbling in the dirt, to see the bottle pressed against his lips. The cloudy one, the one with the white label, definitely not the damn water.
He's not that disoriented. He knows exactly what he's doing.
She lunges for him and rips the bottle away, nearly knocking him over. He's managed to sit up, reach for the supplies. His stomach is bleeding again, oh God, it's bleeding again, way too much, not enough to survive. He's choking, wheezing, making terrible, awful noises that just keep getting worse.
Ria doesn't even bother capping the bottle, nor does she see where it lands when she drops it. Some of the peroxide splashes over her shoes, into the dirt. Mel is still choking, bleeding - there's blood coming out of his mouth, now, a practical fountain of it. It's burning him from the inside out, all the way down his throat, into his stomach...
He wanted a merciful death, a painless one.
This is not that.
Maybe she should have been more adamantly specific.
"Mel," she chokes. He flops back down, wheezing, bleeding from the mouth and the stomach. He's scrabbling at his throat, whimpering like a little animal as it burns through his esophagus, all the way down. His body was already shutting down, going into shock. There's no fixing this. What even happens when you drink peroxide, the amount that he did? His body is spasming, or maybe that's just him, the shock forcing him into movement when he should be doing nothing but sitting still. She grabs him by the shoulders and forces him down - shoulder's bleeding again too, slippery against her palm and she nearly backs up, but can't. There's bubbles coming out of his mouth, too, an entire flood of them seeping down from the corners of his lips The peroxide is filling his stomach with them, making them come out. He's choking and vomiting all at the same time, taking them back in when he can't manage to get it all out. Exhaling, inhaling, trying to breathe and failing.
He's going to die. He's going to die like this and it's fucking awful and she's not doing anything.
"Mel," she repeats, never more a futile word than that, what point is there in saying his name? He certainly can't hear her. His body is succumbing to the shock, the agony, the burning and the bubbles that are ripping through his throat like it's nothing.
Pass out, she begs. Pass out, just pass out, please just pass out—
He won't pass out.
She grabs for the empty supply bag behind her, fingers weak and sticky with all of the foam still dribbling from his mouth. It's awful. She can't look at it anymore. The bubbles are red with his blood, foaming white as they drip down his face onto his neck.
He just won't pass out.
She folds the bag over his face and presses. Immediately the foam begins to seep through the edges, the blood, but it only makes her press harder. Stop, just stop, it needs to stop, if he's out then it won't hurt so bad, then he'll die and this won't be happening anymore.
His spasming is growing weaker, his frantic panic edging off. There are desperate, lightning fast tears created jagged trails down her face, dripping over top of the bag, over his face which she can no longer see. All she can see is the blurry fringes of it, the blood that's on the ground, the foam slowly disappearing over the ground as it bubbles away.
Finally there's no movement under her hands, no struggling. She squeezes her eyes shut, keeps her hands pressed down where they are.
She can't look. She can't look anymore.
When she finally opens her eyes again everything is terrifyingly silent. There's no noise from outside, no sign of Meris.
She looks down. The bag is nearly entirely soaked through - there's almost an imprint of his face on the other side of it, the edges of his jaw and nose nearly pressing through. She can feel every ridge of his face underneath her hands, coated with something that isn't blood, definitely not blood, even though her hands are positively soaked in it...
The number on the bracelet flicks from twenty to nineteen.
She lurches away, hands red as can be, and throws up everything she has in her.
Gideon Mallory, 16
Applicant #20
He's not sleeping, no sirree, when the number changes again.
He raises his arm up, above the starry sky. Sure enough, it's a nineteen. He stares at it for a moment, willing it to change again, backwards or forwards, before he lets his arm flop back down across his chest.
At least his stomach has finally stopped growling. He takes a sip of water, the smallest one possible, and lays back down. He's supposed to be keeping watch, whatever the fuck that means, exactly, but there's no harm in laying down. Sure, he can't see very well when he does, as the truck-bed conceals most of the outside world the second he settles down in the back of it, but oh well.
If Myra was so adamant about keeping watch then maybe she should be doing it herself instead of sleeping in the backseat, with an even shittier view than the one he has. Jahaira's in there, too; the rest of them are out here in the back, where there's at least a little bit more room, regardless of how uncomfortable it is.
He's still hungry, too. His stomach must just be lying to him, deluding him into thinking that a few flowers will be enough to sustain him.
With a sigh he clambers out of the truck-bed, hopping over the edge into the dirt below. He might as well do something, or else he's going to fall asleep and get chewed out in the morning for it.
He doesn't even really want to be here with them all, still. It's dangerous to be with this many people, nearly three days in. Especially when they haven't done anything.
Having six of them is weird. It's like they're the Careers, except with more tears and terror, along with less weapons.
If they're the Careers, then they're shit ones. They certainly haven't killed anyone. Hell, they haven't even made a move to look for other people, whether to pick them up or kill them. Not that he wants to kill anyone, really. He's just resigned himself to it.
"Where are you going?" Emmi mumbles, into her arm or maybe Arwen's. It's too dark for him to tell.
"For a walk."
"Don't fall off a cliff."
"Touching," he replies, and heads for the edge of the cliff. It's a hell of a drop, made worse in the night. Survivable, maybe. He doesn't want to imagine how bad it would hurt, though. He backs up from it and heads along the edge, down the rocky cliff-side. That's where he found the sand verbena yesterday, without wandering all that far away at all. Maybe there's something else growing down there too. Something better.
Of all the things to do and he's off picking flowers. Connie would be so proud of him.
Not for much longer though, he imagines. God, if he kills someone... what would Connie think of him then? Would she even be able to look him in the eye anymore?
He wants to believe she would. They're too good of friends. He wouldn't abandon her for doing the same. Maybe she wouldn't for him.
He can imagine her staying, imagine the two of them gardening together in the back of his house, but he can also imagine what she'd be thinking the whole time. He would never be able to erase what he did from her mind.
And what about his parents, too? His parents and their healing hands, who save so many lives. They'd hate him.
"I'm sorry," he mutters, to nothing or no one in particular, but it makes him feel a bit better. It kills him just to say it. He doesn't think he'll be sorry about killing to survive, not if it's necessary, but his family would deserve an apology. The families of the people he'll inevitably kill will deserve it even more-so, if they ever find out what he's done.
Hopefully no one will. It would just be easier that way.
He finds another cluster of the verbena, just creeping over the edge of the cliff, and begins plucking it out of the dirt, shoving handfuls of the stems and roots into his pockets. Even Jupiter hadn't looked too enthused about eating them, but they had. Better than starving.
"Seriously, what the hell are you doing?" Emmi asks, and he nearly rolls over the edge, grabbing onto the rock to steady himself.
"Warn a guy, would you?"
"Sorry," she says. "Can't wait until morning to pick more flowers?"
"You didn't have to get up and follow me."
"No, but Jupiter would be sad if you just disappeared in the middle of the night, so I thought I'd check on you."
"Again, oddly touching."
"Don't get ahead of yourself, I never said I would be sad," she points out.
"Thanks," he deadpans. "Seriously, you can go back to sleep. I'm not a duckling you need to herd."
"I don't think you could be herded," she says. "You seem very difficult."
"I retract any and all words I said about anything touchy-feely," he informs her. "You're not going to leave until I come back, are you?"
She's standing over him, hovering, watching. Looking around, sometimes, over the cliff and off into the distance, like she's trying to be nonchalant about it. She's not doing very well in that regard.
He stands back up with another handful of the verbena and stuffs it in his pocket alongside the others, nudging her back up the path. Better to follow her back to the car than refuse. Certainly then she'd get Arwen to deal with him, Arwen who would probably sooner kick him until he came back than try to talk reason with him.
"You know, your raging crush on Arwen is weird," he tells her. "You seem much nicer than she is."
It's dark - he can't see the blush that no doubt creeps over her cheeks, but she makes a grand show of looking away from him, so he can no longer see her face. "Jupiter seems too nice for you, too."
"Hey, my best friend at home is really nice, and she likes me just fine."
"You have a best friend?"
He nudges her again, just enough that she stumbles forward a pace, not too close to the cliff. "Most people do."
"I don't, not really. I just have a lot of friends."
"Well, now you have Arwen. Though I'm not sure I should be considering that friends."
Emmi mutters something, a foul word or two he reckons, and clambers back up into the bed of the truck, waiting for him to follow suit. She lays back down next to Arwen, no surprise, but he also lays back down to Jupiter, too, so who is he to talk? They just remind him of Connie, even if you exclude the whole missing limb thing. They're different, but also so alike. It's a nice little reminder of home, a comfort.
He doesn't tell Emmi that even Connie at first didn't seem like a feasible relationship to have, that he didn't think she was worth his time. She just weaseled her way in like so many other people never bothered to.
"Night," Emmi says, enclosing her face back into the safe darkness of her arms. He waves vaguely in her direction, looking at the bracelet again. He wonders if Emmi even noticed. Probably not. She would have mentioned it.
He knows. No one else.
It's a small mercy. No one else will realize until the morning, or until he gets too tired to stay awake and has to rouse someone else to keep watch.
Until then, they can live in their relative peace.
Aelia Akamine, 25
Former New Haven Project Member
She hasn't properly slept in days.
It's not like she really knew those kids at the end of the day. She had the delight, the privilege, to know them for a short time, to keep watch over them. It didn't feel like a job. It felt like a blessing.
And now they were gone. Just like that.
It still didn't make sense to her. It was what kept her awake at night, what kept the dreams from taking over. Dreams would be easier. More beautiful.
Better than the nightmare that existed when she woke up, the mourning. The burnt wreckage of a hovercraft just outside of District One, turned to ash. She had seen so many shots of it on the news, from every angle. It was ash, nothing more, but she could no longer bear to look.
Ash and the remains of twenty-four children, their pilot. People she had come to know over a few short days.
She calls Nyko just after three in the morning, sitting on the ottoman at the end of her bed. Even a mug of chamomile tea can't seem to help, nor the blanket draped over her shoulders.
"You need to sleep, you know," Nyko says, instead of a more formal hello. They passed that after the first day.
"You're awake, too."
"Because my phone was ringing."
"Oh," she manages. "Sorry. Go back to sleep."
"No, it's alright. What's wrong?"
"What's not wrong?" she asks in turn, and he sighs on the other end. He probably needs the sleep; he's more involved in the aftermath of all of this than she is.
But she needs a voice, and the rest of her friends, her family... they don't understand it at all.
Those kids are all gone, and she feels like it's her fault.
"Something gone wrong in a hovercraft isn't your fault, you know," he says. "You may think it is, but it was beyond our control. Especially yours."
"But what about the pilot? Are we sure he was qualified? Renette even said the distress signal seemed delayed, if something was seriously wrong. What if—"
"There are no what-if's. He had thirty years of experience. Sometimes things just happen."
"Then why are you still here? Why haven't you gone home?"
"The President called a meeting with the four of us tomorrow. They sent Ridge home, yesterday; I guess they don't care what he has to say about it. We were the four in charge, Renette in particular. They want to know if something could have been done."
"But you just said we couldn't have."
"I know, but maybe Tate wants to hear that from our own mouths. I don't know any better than you do, Aelia."
She curls up her legs even further and takes another sip of her tea. It feels like her stomach is in even more knots than before, like the tea is creating a tidal wave.
"I'm worried," she admits. "If they're going to look for someone to blame..."
"It won't fall on you," he assures. "If anything, it'll be the four of us."
"That isn't any better!" she snaps. "I don't want the four of you taking blame for something you didn't do."
"Well, someone will have to," he murmurs. "Their families are going to incite something if a scapegoat for this isn't found. Tate will blame us if he has to, anything to keep the country under control. That's the President's job. It's better than another rebellion."
Is it, though? She's not so sure. Even a rebellion as small as the last one still killed so many people, still saw so many causalities. It ended her dreams of becoming an escort, too.
It also thrust her into something she thought was so much better, following in her mother's footsteps, almost, of becoming a teacher.
She had found a place to fit after nine long years, and it was gone already.
"Go to sleep, Aelia," Nyko instructs. "I'll call you tomorrow after the meeting, if you want. We can talk more then, meet up somewhere if you want."
"Please do," she murmurs, clutching the blanket tighter. She feels like a child, upset by a bad dream or the prospect of a monster hiding in her closet.
"I will. Good-night, Aelia."
"Night," she whispers, but he's already hung-up. He can manage to sound nonchalant while speaking to her on the phone, but she has no doubt that Nyko is equally worried. She hopes to see him tomorrow, to see how bad this has gotten to him. Hopefully she's not the only one with circles under her eyes.
That's not the only reason, either. It's easy enough to lie on the phone, too. Nyko is a good person, a thoughtful one. She wants so desperately to believe that.
Looking someone in the eyes is almost always a dead give-away.
She hopes that she can see the truth in his tomorrow.
Realized I didn't have anything down here about two seconds before publishing so this is genuinely just space filler.
Hope everyone is doing alright!
Until next time.