Chapter 3

The next morning Shilo woke groggy, and feeling like she hadn't even fallen asleep. She looked around through eyes crusted over with sleep and realized that she was cold, very cold. She shivered as she sat up, hugging the blanket to herself. She looked over at the recliner where she had seen Graverobber last before falling asleep only to find the seat empty. She looked around fearing that he had abandoned her here. She didn't see him anywhere, and the house was quiet. She stared down at her fingers, clasped tightly to the edges of the blanket near the hollow of her throat.

Her stomach growled then, and she groaned, allowing herself to fall back against the cushions of the couch the hair of her wig falling around her in a tangled mess. Well, that sucked. There was a reason she took the thing off when she slept. It was going to take ages for her to get it back into order, if she could even do it.

She heard footsteps, heavy ones that said plainly that there were heavy boots on the feet that were walking toward the living room. She sat up, peering over the back of the couch at the door, fearful of whom it might be. She didn't know if she should be relieved or scared if it turned out to be Graverobber. But, then she realized that she would rather that it was him than anyone else that might just find her here.

As it happened, it was Graverobber that paused at the doorframe to lean against it, that grin once again gracing his features. He was holding something, and Shilo sat up a little straighter in her seat to see it better. But, instead of letting her see it, Graverobber threw it towards her and she scrambled to either catch it or get out of the way. She managed to catch it by the tips of her fingers and glanced at it. It was a sandwich, not the most appetizing thing that she had ever laid eyes on, but it was edible and Shilo wasn't in any position to be picky about this.

"Still nervous I see, Kid," he said by way of greeting, not even mentioning the food that he had given her.

"Thanks," Shilo said through a mouthful of sandwich, as she chewed and swallowed wishing that she had something to drink, she wasn't going to mention it though, because she didn't want to seem pushy to this guy that was being so generous. She was sure that his generosity was only so far reaching.

"What are you doing today?" she asked instead, he had said something about getting her a real bed last night, hadn't he? She hadn't slept very well the night before, but she didn't think that the couch was the reason she kept having those nightmares.

She had woken up once in the middle of the night and saw what was left of the embers of the fire making a glow just bright enough for her to see Graverobber's profile, and she had thought that she was still asleep for a moment. And then she remembered the night before and silently cried, finding that she could again. Because of that little happening the night before, Shilo didn't think that yesterday was a dream, too much had happened to fit in a dream anyway.

"A few things and I'm not exactly sure what I'll b doing first. I've some things to do today that I'm not really sure that you'd like to accompany me with," Graverobber said with a shrug, answering the question but skirting around the answer in such a way that it left Shilo without answers. She looked at him skeptically, wondering what he was talking about and why he had to talk circles around such a simple question. Then, it hit her; he probably had things to do today that would be detrimental for people he didn't trust to know about. He was, after all, an illegal man with an illegal business. How many people out there would report him if they had the chance. Graverobber might have enemies; there might be other Graverobbers out there that were jealous of the business of this one.

"I don't know what you'd be doing, but I really don't have anything else that I might do," Shilo said with a shrug as she finished off her sandwich, "I don't know how much there is right now that could bother me."

Graverobber allowed the full force of his Cheshire grin cross his face as she said that, "Oh really? Aspirations of becoming a Graverobber, Kid?" he asked.

Shilo gave him wide eyes and a slight flush rising in her cheeks, "Oh…well, I didn't mean that. But, I don't know much else. Actually, I don't even know that, to be honest. But, at least with that, I could learn, and not have to learn it completely on my own."

"This is true," Graverobber said walking into the room and dropping heavily onto the couch beside her. "So, what you're telling me is that I've a new apprentice, is that it?"

"If you'll teach me, and I can do it, then I suppose that yes, you do have a new apprentice," Shilo said with a nod, though about a second later she was wondering what she had agreed to. She thought back on herself, wondering where she might have had it in her to be like him. She honestly didn't think that she had it in her, but she really couldn't say until she had tried it. And she hoped that she wasn't about to try it just yet.

"So, what are we doing first then?" she asked still clutching the blanket tightly.

"I thought that we would go bed hunting," Graverobber said with a shrug, as if to say it really didn't matter to him what they did, and maybe it didn't. Shilo didn't know him well enough to read the unusual man, "It's the daytime; you would be an idiot to go robbing graves in the middle of the day. There are people that go and visit those that they cared about during the day, though it isn't something you see as often anymore. But, at night, people are wary of graveyards, as if something is going to jump out of an open grave to drag them to their death. But, the only thing you have to worry about is the guards that might just kill you if you aren't careful."

"Careful, like screaming about the graves while those men prowl around with guns cocked and ready to shoot you?" Shilo asked, a bit of sarcasm dripping through the almost serious question.

"Yes, careful like that," Graverobber said, hearing the sarcasm and responding with some of his own.

Shilo stood, "Well then, we should go and start bed hunting," she said a slight headache bothering her, but it was nothing too serious. She hoped that doing something would get rid of both the lingering cold and the headache settling itself just behind her right eye. Graverobber made a sound that might have been able to pass as an agreement as he stood.

Shilo wondered vaguely where they would go to find this bed. She doubted very much that it would be anything new, but she did wonder where it would come from. Maybe a dumpster. That thought made her prefer to stay on the couch for a while. She hoped, very much so, that the bed would at least come from second hand someone. But when she thought about that, she found it likely that that second hand someone was likely to have gotten a bed out of a dumpster anyway. She sighed, because beggars can't be choosers, and she was now, most assuredly, a beggar. A very dependent beggar, considering she didn't even know where she was.

She followed Graverobber quietly as he weaved his way out of the house and into the alleys that he knew so well, and that she would be growing very familiar with over the next she didn't even know how long. She found herself relieved that she had never really been accident prone, because that was something that was really likely to just mess with the occupation she had so recently committed herself to.

As they walked, Shilo's headache started growing worse, and she continued to ignore it as best she could. But, it was starting to throb unpleasantly. Graverobber stopped for a moment, looking at something that Shilo didn't see. She had her eyes closed, hoping to relieve the pressure of the headache with closed eyes and deep breathing. It helped a little, and that was all she really needed.

Graverobber stopped a little while later in front of a house where a mattress sat on the curbing to be taken with the trash, or really by anyone walking by that grabbed it. He kicked it, and nothing fell apart, and nothing crawled out of it. It didn't smell badly of mold or mildew, only vaguely of sweat and something that's been sitting outside for a day or so. He flipped it over and chuckled to himself. The people that had thrown this mattress outside had not realized that it was a double sided mattress, and the other side was still unused. Dirty, from sitting outside for a while, but not covered in sweat and thicker things like the other side was.

"Got lucky, Kid," he said looking it over with a thrifty eye, "The other side is pretty bad, but this side will do just fine. A little cleaning and it's usable."

Shilo made a face showing distaste, but she didn't complain she could be sleeping in the elements, in conditions worse than this one. At least, that's what she would tell herself until she grew accustomed to her new life.

Graverobber hefted up one side of the mattress and called over to Shilo, "C'mon Kid, lift the other end and let's get this thing back."

Shilo did as she was told, lifting the other side of the mattress, not managing to get it as high off the ground as Graverobber was able, which made it awkward going back to the little boarded up house that he called home. And now that she would be calling home, or at least her shelter.

It took some time to get the mattress back to the little building, and a bit longer to get it into the house. They set it against the wall until they decided where exactly that they would put it. Shilo sat down, the cold had dissipated slightly, but she was tired from all the moving that she wasn't used to. She would definitely have to get more fit if she was going to be able to live this life, and that was something that she knew would take time. But, she didn't think that Graverobber would let her ease her way into things unless she really needed it.

But, she would just dwell on the here and now; concentrate on breathing and continuing to do so until it was all normal again. It wasn't that the mattress had been heavy, or that the distance was too long or difficult, but some combination of efforts that had made things to hard on her. She sat on the couch, her head tilted back resting on the back of the couch, wanting to take a nap and just knowing that Graverobber wasn't about to allow that. There was no time to rest when there were things to be done with that time.

She had never had to work for anything, and now she had been thrust into the unforgiving world that cared not that she had been, until yesterday, taken care of. The world cared not that she had no life skills to help her here. Graverobber might have meant something like this when he had mentioned that she was forced to learn the lessons of the real world. She sighed and opened her eyes to see the very man that she had been thinking about peering down at her.

She sat upright a little too quickly, and would have headbutted Graverobber had he not had quicker reflexes. "Careful Kid, I don't really want to deal with a bloody nose right now," he said, managing to make it sound like a joke and a warning at the same time.

"Sorry, I wasn't expecting anyone to be hovering over me when I opened my eyes," she muttered.

"Well, I think you've taken enough of a rest. Time to head out again, it's almost dark," he said stepping back and a look out a boarded window showed that there was less light on peeking through the gaps in the boards as there had been not too long ago.

"Where are we going?" she asked, almost afraid of what the answer might be.

"We have addicts to service," he said simply and started out of the house.

Shilo kept her emotions to herself, mostly because she wasn't entirely certain what it was that she was feeling; the last time she had seen Graverobber 'service' the Zydrate addicts had been… interesting. And, it would be Zydrate addicts that he would be servicing again, unless he peddled another illegal substance, but there was nothing so popular as Zydrate out there. That much, at least, Shilo knew.

She followed the older man out the door and into the gathering twilight as he headed toward the Zydrate Support Network. It was a good cover for them, hiding in the place that was supposed to be helping them recover. Well, getting another hit could technically be seen as recovering from their withdrawals, but most definitely not their addiction.

She had no idea what she would be doing, but she was sure that there would be something. She wasn't sure that she would even be going if Graverobber didn't have something for her to do.