CHAPTER 57-The Loneliest Star in the Universe

Harry, Jackie, and Brandon flitted through the gas station stores like nonexistent shadows, slipping little packets and such into their garments or pockets. Alexa kept me company while I loitered outside, restless. I didn't like waiting in the entrance, my hands buried deep in the pockets of the beige trousers that Jackie had lent me. I didn't like standing there and not being able to do anything, even to help them. There were security cameras everywhere. They could get caught any second now, and Alexa's company didn't exactly ease my worries.

I understood a lot of things, like why a moon with a halo was bad luck and why four-leafed clovers lose their magic when they're picked. I even understood why my new companions had to make a living out of being thieves and pickpockets. But what I hadn't figured out yet was why Yellowfang had replaced my fangs and claws with blunt fingernails and wind-torn hair, sending me far out past the ocean into some distant city, and why I was currently standing in front of a Seven-Eleven with a seven-year-old holding my hand, surrounded by nothing but shopping carts and a roadkill mouse in replace of the home I used to have.

In the first few days of being in the looming city, I had tried to go back. I had tried to find some kind of portal, connection, or a puddle that reminded me distantly of the Moonpool, but there was nothing. Did StarClan abandon me? Or did they think that I had abandoned them?

But at least they didn't leave me out here to die. At least they let me find a new owner to take me in. I tightened my grip on Alexa's hand. Was this my new home now?

The heaviness of despair weighted itself down on my chest, and I swallowed thickly. But I didn't cry. I couldn't, even if I tried. All of the tears had already been choked out by city dust and car smog.

As if in knowing, Alexa squeezed my fingers tightly. "It's okay," she said. "Brandon and Jackie and Harry's done this lots of times before. They'll come out soon enough."

Telling myself that I had to do something other than just nod, I asked, "So, um, how did you and Jackie meet Brandon?"

She was inspecting a newspaper that she found in one of the shopping carts, but she replied, "Our mother abandoned us when I was three. It's alright though, cuz I don't really remember her and I don't really want to. Jackie managed to keep me alive for four more years, even though sleeping outside in the streets isn't exactly a hundred percent safe, what with all the drug addicts and cops out there. Have you ever seen a hobo with hair that was grown for five years straight? His beard almost reached down to his knees. He looked kind of like a gray-haired Santa, only thinner and longer." I smiled.

She had climbed onto the shopping cart, sitting in that small seat where the little kids usually sat while their parents went rummaging through the aisles. She toyed with the seat belt, her legs dangling. "He was nice, almost like he was Santa Claus himself. He shared his lunch with me once. But usually, we were alone. Jackie and I wandered in and out the city, never knowing where we were and what we were doing with our lives. It got kind of tedious at times, and I remembered Jackie saying once that we were lost." She stretched, arms reaching toward the sky as if grappling for an invisible rope. "When I was still little, I didn't understand what she meant by that. But now I realized. We weren't lost because we didn't have a map. It was because we didn't have a destination. We didn't have an address, we didn't have friends or family or a safe place to go to when everything was coming off in tatters. No one was waiting for us at the end of the road with open arms. And then, one day, Brandon found us."

She smiled then, a real smile, a genuine one that made me want to grin right along with her, even though I wasn't sure what she was smiling about.

"Brandon stumbled upon us one day and he held his hand out, helped us to our feet. He didn't say anything, just pointed to the distance and beckoned. I remembered looking up at him, at the sun beaming behind his head and thinking that he looked so much like an angel that had descended from heaven. He led us to the back of the building where no one would find us, where we were safe for the night. In the morning, I woke up scared and shivering, not because of the cold or a nightmare, but because I was afraid that he had left us. But he didn't. He was there, always there. He taught me how to lockpick and he showed me all of the ins and outs of the city. Jackie and I owe him everything."

So that was Brandon, huh? I tried to picture it in my mind, but I couldn't imagine him with a halo circling his head and white robes hanging off his thin shoulders. Instead, it made me laugh a little.

Angels and saints and all things holy didn't seem to suit him at all. He looked a long way from heaven, with his tousled locks and his face tanned and beaten by the merciless weather gods. Whatever he was, he certainly didn't carry white seraph wings on his back. Instead, he lugged a backpack and a dog-eared book held close to his chest in replacement of a harp.

"Hey! You kids come back here right now!"

All of a sudden, Harry, Brandon, and Jackie shot of the doors like blurs as the angry manager waved a clenched fist after them. In one smooth motion, Alexa had leaped down and was dragging me away.

"Come on!" she said, giggling, as if this was just a game of tag.

I risked a glance back as I leaped after them. The man's face was as red as a swollen tomato, with steam practically rising from his ears. His glasses were crooked and crinkled with fury, his finger pointing accusingly as he could do nothing but watch as his prey escaped. Add horns and a pitchfork to that beauteous rosy face, and he'd look just like the imp that lived under the garden pathway.

To my surprise, I found myself laughing along with Alexa and the others. Half of Harry's face was nothing but a smile as he patted his overflowing backpack. "Snagged a lifetime's supply of potato chips in here," he beamed proudly. "I also couldn't help myself and managed to get a cute little present for you, Princess Jackie." He winked and waved a glittery pink notebook in her face, with Twilight Sparkle striking a pose on the cover. Jackie glared at him, but I could tell the beginnings of a grin tugging at the corners.

Pelting him with granola bars, she dove after him, shouting, "Screw you too, Harry! I swear, the things you do—" while he held his arms up, shielding his face from the barrage, laughter almost drowning out his reply.

I couldn't help but laugh along with them, the contagious disease spreading until we were sprawled out on the hill in Baldwin Park, our sides almost splitting in two and our voices growing hoarse until we each took a hearty swig from the water bottle.

Harry nudged me playfully in the ribs. "So, what do ya think? We're a ragtag group of insane hooligans, with no map of our own, no address, no destination, and a whole journey to go through. We don't even have a compass, only our wits. No parents to tell us what to do, no rules, no laws for us, only the road ahead and the wide, wide sky."

I stared up at the darkening atmosphere, my voice thick and creamy from the bite of a Quakers bar in my mouth. "Sounds awesome," I agreed. Staying up all night, sleeping underneath the stars, the wind whistling through the grass and no one telling us what to do. We were essentially free, free like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis or like a caught fly managing to struggle out of the web.

I breathed a sigh, watching the sun sink below the horizon.

"How many stars do you think there are?" I asked.

"A thousand?" Alexa guessed.

Jackie replied, "No, more than that. A lot more. Way, way more, more than we can ever imagine."

"Like hundreds of thousands of millions of billions," Harry said.

Jackie ruffled his hair sleepily as she began to doze off.

For a while, we were silent, watching the silhouettes of the trees become shadows and then nothingness, listening to her steady, gentle breathing.

"Ashley, do you know all the names of stars?" Alexa whispered.

I shook my head. "Not all of them. But I could tell you a little about them."

I pointed my finger as I spoke, aware of them listening intently. "That's Orion, I think, the man with the dead lion in his hand. And over there is the Big Dipper. Those big, orange ones are the red giants, which means that they're in the final stage of their lives."

Alexa groped for the water bottle in the darkness. "Stars are alive?" she breathed.

My gaze twinkled. "Who knows. It's nice to imagine."

Harry stretched luxuriously, sprawled his limbs out onto the grass. "So even stars don't last forever," he murmured. "Nothing lasts forever. One day, the earth will stop spinning; the tide will stop rolling in. The sun will vanish, collapse in on itself and disappear. The planet will be barren and cold and distant, like Mars or Venus."

Brandon shifted. I thought he was asleep.

Brandon said, "What do you suppose happened to the people living on Mars, those billions of years ago? Were they like us? Did they build great civilizations and achieve powerful odds?"

Alexa's eyes fluttered shut as she mumbled sleepily, "Mars wasn't even alive. It never was. Martians don't exist, right?"

He smiled, softly. "Oh, the universe is stranger than you can imagine. So much grander, so much bigger. And it's beautiful."

I liked those late night hours right before I fell asleep, where my brain would ask the craziest questions, like the meaning of life or why the sky was blue, right before it shut itself down for the evening's rest.

He rolled over onto his side and continued, "There's so much more to see out there in the galaxy, so much more to discover." It took me a while to realize that he was talking to me, since everyone else had already fallen asleep.

"Fomalhaut," he said.

"Hmm?"

"Fomalhaut," he repeated. "The loneliest star in the universe."

After a moment of silence, I heard his breathing grow slower and slower until I knew that he had drifted off to sleep.

I was the last one awake. I had trouble entering dream land. It took me hours, probably even until midnight, until I finally got some shut eye.

When I was younger, I often forced myself to stay awake and stare up at the ceiling of my bedroom, listening to the evening songs of crickets and owls. I had forced myself to enjoy the last hours of the day while it lasted.

Baldwin Park was so different, yet so familiar. There were no tulips bobbing up and down, no dandelions to rub against your chin, no shooting stars or foxes. But the wind was the same, and the moon was the same, and the neverending song of crickets and distant coyotes sounded like the footprint of a memory in my ears.

And thus began a new chapter of this city life.

OoOOoOoOooOoOooooooOoOoOoOoOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooOOo

I never thought that one day, I'd be pinned up against a wall with the collar of my shirt crumpled in the heavy fist of a furious eighteen-year-old, with our eyes level and his other hand raised above his head to slam into my already bleeding nose. Rivulets of blood spurted out like a red blossom. In a light-headed daze, I marveled at how fascinating it looked.

Heath struck me against the face again, and if I wasn't backed up against a brick wall in an alley, I would have toppled over and knocked my head out on the concrete ground.

The place we were in was pretty deserted and isolated, with no pedestrians or cars, hence why no one was stopping us.

I was dimly aware of Alexa screaming. Heath's gang was holding the others back, watching in satisfaction and amusement as their leader held me up again.

Jackie was struggling in their grip, kicking them and flinging her arms back. Her eyes were in a rage. "Leave her alone!" she yelled angrily. "Just wait 'till Brandon gets here!"

I didn't really feel the pain, just a warm, stinging sensation from the cuts and bruises. I had been through much worse than this.

I wiggled and slammed my sneaker against his foot and Heath flinched back, grunting. It was just enough for me to glide out of his reach and make a run for it. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the brute reach out to make a grab at me, and all of a sudden, I ran smack into something hard. It didn't help that stars began to swim in my vision even though it was the middle of the day.

"Hey," Brandon said casually, grinning a little, as if dealing with Heath was a regular occurrence.

"Hey," I replied back, trying to ignore the blood cascading down my nose and feeling as if my face had been rammed over and over again by a rhino on steroids.

"Brandon, you're here!" Alexa cried joyfully, straining against the grasp of the people who held her down.

Brandon stepped in front of me and confronted Heath. He was short, smaller, the top of his head not even reaching Heath's collarbone.

The bully smirked, his icy blue eyes grinning along with his teeth.

Brandon didn't flinch. "I told you to leave my friends alone," he muttered, cracking his knuckles. "Don't you remember what happened last time?"

The older kid only shrugged, a smooth lithe movement of his broad shoulders. "Oh? Tough luck kid, but I don't think you're the one running this city." Brandon stood his ground.

Whoa, a thin kid like Brandon can stand up to a three hundred pound grizzly? This guy was crazy.

I decided to add that to the growing list of positive things I had found out about him.

Without looking back, Brandon said, "Harry, take them and go."

Harry nodded and twisted out of the arms of Heath's gang and immediately grabbed Alexa's elbow, Jackie by the hand.

Harry yelled, "Come on, Ashley! We have to go!"

"But—" I didn't want to leave. I could fight.

Heath sent a punch to Brandon's face that left him reeling backward, stumbling. The crowd of Heath's cronies eagerly began to cheer.

It made my blood suddenly boil. Heath was a lot like Fang: ruling his minions by fear and power, not afraid to spill some blood and guts, easily walking over corpses as if they were footstools. Seeing Brandon lose his footing was like watching Dewstep being struck by a Darkling. My nonexistent claws itched to dig into the bully's skin.

And yet... I didn't want to see anymore bloodshed. I still remembered the echoes of the screams as the cats died one by one, struck down by the enemies. And I still remembered the whimpers of pain as the rats and dogs died before me, flashes of fear reflected in their eyes right before the life left them. I had taken countless lives, died by my own claws. In reality, how was I any better than Fang?

No. No matter what happened, I would not cause any more bloodshed. I would not take another life. I didn't what to become that Monster on the battlefield again. Fight with words, not fangs.

Before he could pound Brandon into the dirt again, I wrapped my hand around Heath's and glared.

"Don't fight anymore," I said.

Heath glared back and turned his mouth into a sneer, when all of a sudden, with an ear-wrenching screech, a black van pulled up to the curb.

I felt Heath's muscles falter, felt his fist draw back and go limp. A brief shadow of fear crossed his face, and sucking in a deep breath, he kicked up his feet and bolted away. Without looking back, his cronies fled after him.

I held up a hand to Brandon, helping him up.

"Ashley," he said.

"Are you okay?"

His brown eyes were troubled as he staggered to his feet. I could see a flicker of dread in them.

He ordered in a tight voice, "You guys have to get out of here."

"What—"

The echoing sound of the van door banging closed was amplified louder by the tense silence.

He pushed me, sending me tumbling forward. Harry grabbed my hand and pulled me along, trying to get as far away from the vehicle as possible.

Jackie and Alexa sprinted in front of us, hand-in-hand, not looking back.

I struggled from his grip. "But Brandon's still back there! Are you going to just leave him behind?"

"He stayed behind to distract the people in the van so they won't follow us. Don't worry, he's done this once before. If we stayed, we'd only get in his way," came the brief reply.

We rounded a corner, the van and Brandon out of sight. Jackie hissed, "Hurry!"

"But who are in the van?"

"Dangerous people," Harry replied grimly. "The ones who took Lilith away."

And he refused to say anything more about it.