A/N: Ha! I'm back, with yet another update less than a month after the last one. Take that! Anywho, I hope you enjoy this chapter. Oh, and I have to ask; do any of you pay attention to the chapter titles? Personally, I find them entertaining. But maybe that's just me.

And one last thing, since I don't want to put a note at the end of the chapter to ruin the mood: Mua. Ha. Ha.

To say that I've been walking on eggshells recently would be an understatement. Since he dragged me out of Rigby's when I was "under no circumstances allowed to leave the apartment", Count Volger has been an an odd mix between cold and ready to burst into flame.

I would regret having snuck out if there had been any point to keeping me prisoner in the apartment. My identity is–as of this moment–safe. The numerous blood-and-other-bodily-fluids tests proved that. I was not deliberately poisoned. Robert and I just happened to choose the single food stand in the park that didn't have a current license, and was far below any health standard.

So other than our confidence being shaken and a certain food stand falling abruptly out of operation, nothing has changed. Unless you count moving from the hotel to a low-rent apartment near the school as much of a change, which I don't.

A few days before the first fencing meet, the five of us picked up our belongings and moved unceremoniously a few blocks west. It only took a day or two for the newness to wear off, and for the frustration at trying to keep five men in a two-bedroom apartment to settle in. It seems like we are always stepping on each other's toes now, although the apartment is no smaller than the hotel room, aside from a small kitchen.

It must be the feeling of permanency that's making us all so touchy. Before, in a hotel, we could fool ourselves into thinking that maybe we wouldn't be here for very long–that dawn was coming soon to free us from a nightmare. But that illusion is shattered now, and we've cut our fingers on the glass in trying to pick up the pieces.

Count Volger isn't helping the situation, either. He now insists that I never go anywhere without being escorted by one of the four adults I'm forced to live with. To and from school, at fencing meets, and on my single night a week that I am allowed to leave the apartment–yet another of Volger's new rules–I will have at least one of them with me.

So this is how, the Tuesday after I returned to school, I come to be sitting in Rigby's coffee shop with a Trigonometry text book sprawled in my lap and a napping mechanic in one of the armchairs to my left. Though I'm certain Klopp's supposed to be keeping a very close eye on me–no doubt to make sure I don't consume any questionable foods–I don't bother to wake him.

To my disappointment, the walk to Rigby's is now almost twice as long as it was from the hotel. Although, it doesn't bother me so much when I have a steaming pumpkin spice latte and a warm scone on the side table next to my chair.

"Are you done with tonight's assignment yet, Deryn?" I ask. "I'm having difficulties with number forty-two."

Deryn, from behind the counter, looks longingly at the clock. "I haven't had a chance to start it yet. But if business is this slow all night, I'll do it before I go home. Here, let me take a look."

I hear the squeak of the gate that separates the employee side of the counter from the customer side, and then Deryn appears next to me, leaning over my shoulder to look at the problem. I try not to be so painfully aware of her closeness, of the way a bit of hair has fallen out of her ponytail and rests on her cheek, or how she simultaneously bites one side of her lip and lowers her eyebrows. As quickly as I can manage, I refocus on the page of nearly-unreadable math problems.

Deryn gives an odd glance in Klopp's direction but, yet again, doesn't ask why he's here, which I am thankful for. I thought I was going to have to explain myself–with some sort of lie–when we walked in, but she gave no comment. "We're just finding the zeroes of the function in these ones, right?"

"Mmhmm. But none of this factors."

She makes a thinking noise–kind of like an "umm", but with her lips pressed together so that they turn white–before answering. "Yes it does. You have to take out a seven from the top, and three-x from the bottom, and then you can do the difference of squares and cancel these two," she says, running the tip of her finger over my writing as she does so. "It's kind of like that one example we did in class, where there were... do you have your notes?"

As an answer, I lift my bulky notebook off the arm of the chair with one hand, and scribble down what she said with the other. "I see what you mean now. And then the zeroes are negative four, one, and... three halves?"

"Exactly." Deryn smiles at me, then looks away, adding, "Does that help?"

I nod, and try not to read too far into the movement. "Tremendously. But I might need some more help later, if you have time, with this assignment and with the content I missed. Numbers are not easy for me," I add ruefully.

"Aye, that'll do. Let me just go see what Newkirk's doing in the back, and then we can do the assignment together, and then I'll walk you through last week's lessons."

"Thank you," I reply, and she throws a "no problem" over her shoulder as she scurries through the door marked as being for employees only.

As it swings shut behind her, a breath hisses out between my teeth. This, I think, is not going as well as it could be.

Since Matt arrived at school yesterday morning with a bandaged nose and painful-looking bruises peeking out around the edges, rumors have been flying. He will say nothing about it, and I think most people are too afraid to ask him. So instead, they speculate.

Some say that he got in a fistfight with Newkirk–because that apparently happened more than once last year–and others say he got mugged. There is the occasional person that says he ran into a post or a similar object, and a few nastier things I'd rather not consider.

My personal favorite, though, is that something happened between him and Deryn, and she punched him and they broke up. When, on Monday, they no longer walked to class together and they'd stopped holding hands, people noticed. And it seems like too much of a coincidence for the two things to have happened over the same weekend. Even though the rumor characterizes Deryn as violent, I like the idea that they broke up because she left him, not the other way around.

That would mean that she no longer has an emotional connection with Matt, which would open up my chances with her quite nicely.

I mention none of this to her, of course, as she returns from the storeroom with Newkirk trailing guiltily behind her.

"–and I don't care if you text your girlfriend from the counter; that's Rigby's policy," she's saying, "and he's not even here today, anyway. If he thinks it looks so bad to customers, I'll warn you if anyone's about to come in, aye?"

Newkirk, looking slightly flustered in a t-shirt that matches Deryn's–the aprons alone, apparently, don't announce loudly enough that they work here, so they wear t-shirts with the shop logo on them now–scowls. "She's not my girlfriend."

Deryn laughs. "Of all that, all you have to say is something about your relationship status? I'll never understand you. Never."

"Few have," Newkirk agrees. "But that's fine. It's too cold for me in the back, anyway, and I can only pretend to be stocking for so long. So, really, you've freed me from the prison of a–"

"I thought you and Rachel were dating," I interrupt, sensing that Newkirk is about to launch into some long-winded description of his time in the back room.

He frowns, visibly upset that I cut him off. "It's complicated," he offers by way of explanation.

"That's not an answer," I counter.

He meets my eyes. "It is, actually. Just not the one you wanted to hear." Now he turns to Deryn. "But in theory, it's also Rigby's policy that someone has to be behind the counter at all times, so we could have–"

"Let's stick to breaking one rule at a time, aye?" Deryn cuts in. "We don't want a complete mutiny."

Newkirk turns a look of desperation on both of us, now having been interrupted twice. With a little "harumph", he wipes a few crumbs off the surface of the counter but says nothing else. After a moment, he checks his phone again, smiles, and begins tapping at the keyboard.

Deryn shakes her head and pulls one of the armchairs up next to mine, and when she sits she tucks her legs underneath her. "So, how much of this do you understand at this point?" she asks, and tugs the hair tie out of her ponytail so that she can redo it, and maybe capture some of the strands that always come loose. As she does, I notice again the streak of a scar on her neck.

"Where did you get that?" I ask bluntly. "The scar, I mean."

She sucks in a breath and looks away, hurriedly finishing with her hair. "You're avoiding my question."

"And now you're avoiding mine," I retort.

Her eyes are slits. "It's a long story, and I don't want to talk about it. Now lets do some homework." There is a warning in her tone, and, to avoid making a second stupid move in the space of a minute, I listen.

"Right. I suggest we start with why exactly the curriculum requires that we are able to find the zeroes of a function, then. And what the zeroes of a function even are."

After four hours, filled less with math and more with unrelated chatter, I find myself yawing and checking the time in disbelief. "Has it really been that long?" I wonder aloud, and glance over at Klopp, who has slept soundly all through the evening. His carefully trimmed mustache twitches a few times, which means he will be waking up soon. It's sad that I know that, but it is what happens when you live in close quarters with someone.

Deryn grimaces. "Aye. And I still haven't finished this assignment." She stares blankly at a notebook page filled with doodles of birds and dragons and three-quarters of the Trigonometry homework. She sighs. "Ah, well. Ten minutes until closing, and then I get to go home and finish this up in a pair of sweatpants."

Newkirk pipes up from behind the counter, where he's pulled up a chair to sit on. "Sounds like a brilliant idea. I would do the same, except I finished mine in class." His grin is smug.

"You mean you've had it done this whole time, and you haven't bothered to help?" I ask, a little frustrated. I've honestly had a hard time trying to figure this out.

"Not in the same math as us," Deryn says. "It's what he got his scholarship for. You're in Calc II by now, right?"

Newkirk nods as he stands, brushing flecks of coffee off his apron. "Aye, and it's not as fun as you'd think."

I raise an eyebrow. "I didn't imagine it would be very fun in the first place."

Newkirk smirks as he looks down at his phone. I assume, naturally, that it is yet another message from Rachel–they have honestly been texting since school let out–but when he flips it shut angrily and shoves it in his pocket, I take notice. "What?"

"My sister," he grumbles. "Just got off a football game and a bit of a party afterward, and now she tells me she forgot her key. Again. Why does she always forget on the nights mum's working? Then she wouldn't have to bother me to come let her in."

"Just go," Deryn says, shaking her head. "I'll lock up."

"Thanks." Newkirk unties his apron and shoves it in the backpack he's stowed under the counter before rushing out the door and down the street.

Deryn peers out the windows for a moment, and then shuffles a few steps toward the cleaning closet. "I don't think anyone's coming in the next five minutes," she muses. "Care to help me by turning off all the machines, Alek?"

"Sure," I agree, "as long as none of them are more complicated than a power switch."

As she reappears, mop and bucket in hand, she replies, "Only a few require complex trigonometry problems."

I feign offense and clutch my stomach, as though wounded. "Ooh, that one went right to the confidence. It's going to leave a mark, I tell you."

"Ha! You set yourself up for that one," chides Deryn. "There's a master switch behind the coffee maker that'll turn everything off." She swipes the mop across the floor with practiced efficiency.

With little difficulty, I make my way to the coffee maker around the wet spots on the floor. There is indeed a large red switch hidden behind it, and I press the side labeled "OFF". The display lights on all the machines wink out simultaneously. "This coffee maker looks very old," I remark, mostly because the silence bothers me.

"Aye, that's one word for it. Most days, we're lucky if it doesn't try to either turn itself off or burn the coffee to a sludge three times an hour. I think we're due for a replacement within the next month, though. Rigby's been looking at some different models, and he seems pretty set on one that has a name kind of like 'octagon'. I don't know what it's actually called."

"All I can hope for is that it makes good coffee," I add. "The one in my apartment doesn't do it justice. Do you want me to get the trash next?"

"That would be brilliant," she says. I tiptoe around the café, collecting the plastic bags out of all the bins as I go. Once I gotten them all, I toss the lot into the biggest one, behind the counter, and tie it all shut. I'm just about to exit through the employee door to the alley when–

"Young master?" Klopp's voice calls, and I cringe. So he's awake, and aware that I am not still sitting next to him. "Where have you gone?"

I glance over at Deryn, to see how she reacts to my being called "young master", but she's not facing me. "Right here, Klopp. I'm just helping Deryn close the shop." The last bit is a subtle reminder that we are not alone.

The man checks his watch, and his eyes widen. "Forgive my haste, but we must be going," he announces, gathering up his coat and hat.

Deryn, less startled than myself, quietly returns the mop to the closet and dumps the dirty water into a thick drain on the floor. "I'll see you at school tomorrow, Alek."

I bite my lip. Something doesn't seem right about abandoning her here. I leave the trash bag and my footprints on the wet floor as I go to stand by Klopp. "Just a little longer?" I plead.

Klopp surveys me through narrowed eyes before he nods. "Yes, yes, that will do. I don't suppose it will matter that your curfew is broken by another few minutes at this point."

"Thank you," I whisper, and pick my way back over to the black trash bag on the floor, just as Deryn is emerging from the closet. As quickly as I can, because my coat is still slung over the back of a chair, I dash out to the alley, throw the bag in the Dumpster, and return to the warmth of the shop. Deryn's gloved fingers are poised over a light switch when I return, and I know that she is waiting for me to throw on my coat and exit the shop. Klopp is already standing at the door.

I toss my backpack over my shoulder after putting on my worn-looking jacket. The three of us push through the door, and then Deryn turns around to shove a key into the lock. Klopp and I exchange a look, and he seems to understand.

He clears his throat and mutters something about scouting the block before walking away.

"A car accident," Deryn says suddenly.

I frown. "What?"

She turns around, stowing the key in her pocket. "That's how I got the scar. A year ago this spring, I was in a wreck."

"Oh." I search for words. "I–I'm sorry."

"Aye, me too," she answers, and shrugs. A moment of silence, and then she continues, hesitantly. "I'd like to tell you the whole story sometime, if you wouldn't mind."

I breathe softly, slowly, so as not to shatter the moment. "Absolutely."

"I guess it just makes it harder to deal with, you know?" She isn't meeting my gaze, but I can see the shine in her eyes of repressed tears. "Keeping it inside. Like, if you had someone to share the awfulness with, it wouldn't seem so... awful."

God's wounds, I know exactly how she feels. It's all I've been feeling for the last month. Her gaze comes back to meet mine, and in a thoughtless moment I close the space between us and lean in to kiss her.

Deryn's lips are soft, and surprisingly warm considering how cold it is tonight. The breath that comes out my nose spirals away lazily, leaving us alone. I have one hand around the back of her neck, and the scar fits between two of my fingers like they were meant to be there.

For a split, blissful second, I think Deryn is kissing me back. But then she pulls away, and turns her head as though I would try to kiss her again. That or she refuses to look at me. "I'm sorry, Alek. I can't."

"Deryn, I didn't–"

"No, it's my fault." She inhales through her nose sharply and wipes her eyes with the back of a gloved hand. "I shouldn't have led you on. I even knew that you...I can't do this, Alek. I need to–I need a break. I need to be on my own, to figure out what the hell I'm–" She takes a jagged breath. "I'm sorry," she says again. "I really am. But I can't."

My nose itches with the pressure of tears–which is stupid; I haven't cried since the night of my parents' deaths–but I ignore it. The contents of my stomach have gone sour, and it feels like I've eaten another rotten sandwich. "Don't apologize," I hiss, then run my tongue over my teeth with lips pressed tightly together. "And you don't have to make excuses, either. I understand."

She spreads her hands and fumbles for words. "Alek–"

"Don't," I say tiredly, turning away. "I'll see you around, Deryn."

"Goodbye." The word comes from behind me like a block of stone to the head, but I don't look back. I do, though, catch our reflections in the darkened windows of the shop: a boy with hunched shoulders and a second-hand jacket, and a girl with clenched fists and an angry stance.

They both have a long walk home.