Mist

Dainn. “Shouldn’t you be in school?” she asked.

Ryan, sitting next to Dainn across the table, swallowed his last bite of sandwich. “We don’t go to school,” he said, gazing at the tabletop.

The girl scraped back her chair. “If you’re going to report us—”

“I’m not.” Mist gestured for Gabi to sit down again. “No one asked you to watch me?”

“Ryan told you,” Gabi said, flashing Mist an exasperated glance.

“Gabi said she wanted to check things out before we just showed up,” Ryan said, his head still bowed and his cheeks flushed. “She told me to wait until she thought it was safe. But I saw . . . I felt something I had to follow. I left, and he—” Ryan flashed a sideways glance at Dainn. “Well, you know the rest.”

The young man’s apparent interest in the elf intrigued Mist. There didn’t seem to be anything suspicious about it, but he’d barely met Dainn, whom Mist had introduced as her “cousin.”

Had he seen Dainn in one of his “dreams,” too?

If he had, that would come to light eventually. “Okay,” she said. “You said you were looking for me. You saw me in one of your dreams.”

Ryan dragged his lank blond hair back from his forehead in a gesture of frustration. “I know we’re supposed to be here. With you.”

She looked at Gabi. “What were you planning to do when you came to my door?”

Shoving her plate aside, Gabi took a long drink from her glass of Sprite. “I don’t know,” she said. “It was all Ry’s idea.”

Ryan gnawed his lower lip, already chapped and ragged from previous abuse. “Gabi always thought I was crazy. I knew I had to show her.”

“I still haven’t seen anything,” Gabi said, “except this cabron with the funny ears.”

“Ears?” Mist asked Dainn with a frown.

“During our . . . struggle,” Dainn said in a tone that made Mist believe he wasn’t too worried about it. And considering what Ryan had already seen, maybe he didn’t have much cause to.

“He didn’t hurt you, did he?” Mist asked Gabi.

Dainn gave her an almost offended glance. Gabi mumbled an answer as she took another sip, finishing off the drink.

“I merely brought her inside,” Dainn said.

“Yeah,” Gabi said sarcastically. “That’s all.”

Mist quickly realized it was going to be much easier to talk to Ryan. “Where do you live?” she asked, addressing the top of his wheat-colored head.

“We don’t live anywhere,” Gabi snapped.

“Where are your families?”

“Don’t got any.”

Mist doubted that, but she’d already guessed they were on their own. They were both too thin, their clothes soiled and torn, and Gabi’s suspicion suggested she’d had a few less-than-pleasant experiences with people in general. They were two of the many teens to be found in any city, runaways fleeing abuse or neglect, addicts living hand to mouth, children rejected by their parents.

“Do you want more to eat?” Mist asked.

Unexpected hope lit the girl’s eyes. “Maybe another soda?” she said.

Mist got up, took another diet Sierra Mist from the very back of the fridge where several inoffensive cans had managed to escape the Great Soda Purge and set it down on the table. Gabi popped the tab without waiting to pour it in the glass. As Mist resumed her seat, she glanced toward the open laundry room door. The sun was going down fast, and the air held the tang of snow. It was going to be another bitter night.

“Are you willing to trust your friend?” she asked Gabi.

“You mean about coming here?”

It was the first time she had spoken in a relatively calm voice. Mist nodded.

“I have a lot more questions for both of you,” Mist said. “If it turns out that Ryan was . . . mistaken in his reasons for finding me—”

“I’m not,” Ryan said. “You don’t have to let us stay here. We can find somewhere else.”

Under a piece of cardboard in some doorway, Mist thought, or maybe even in the park where she’d found Dainn.

“You can stay here to night,” Mist said, “and we’ll talk more about this later.” Which meant she’d have to give up on the idea of looking for Loki a little while longer. She got up from the table again, already thinking about where she could put the kids.

Lee strolled out of the laundry room on his big, silent paws, a bit of fluff clinging to one of his long whis kers.

“Un gatito!” Gabi exclaimed. She slid from her chair and extended her hand.

“Gabi—” Mist began, intending to warn her that Lee didn’t care for most strangers. But the cat surprised her by running straight to the girl and touching his nose to her fingertips. A moment later Kirby, not to be deprived of his rightful share of affection, trotted out and butted his broad head against Gabi’s leg.

It meant something that the cats liked her. It meant they, at least, found Gabi trustworthy. Mist had never found any reason to doubt their judgment, though their attitude toward Dainn had been cautious. That was good sense, too.

Gabi gathered Lee under his front legs, lifted him and kissed his nose. He didn’t so much as bare a claw. Kirby meowed piteously.

Mist knew he cats could keep this up for hours if Gabi let them. “Ryan,” she said, “If you and Gabi will come with me, I’ll show you where you can sleep.”

“But it’s still so early!” Gabi protested.

“No arguments,” Mist said.

With a final stroke of gray, white, and red fur, Gabi got to her feet and waited for Ryan to join her. They stood back to let Mist precede them into the hall. Ryan glanced over his shoulder at Dainn and followed with obvious reluctance.

The stairway was on the other side of the hall from the living room, a very short distance from the kitchen door. Mist started up the stairs and took an immediate right at the top, where a couple of half-finished rooms looked out onto a large open area scattered with the kind of dubiously useful junk you’d find in many long- forgotten attics.

“ “They’re beds in both rooms,” Mist said. She pointed to the first door. “You can have that one, Gabi. Ryan, the other room isn’t completely furnished and the mattress is pretty near shot, but I’ve got a sleeping bag somewhere. I’ll get you extra blankets and a pillow.”

Ryan stared at her as if she’d offered him Donald Trump’s Florida mansion. “I don’t need anything,” he said.

“I’m staying with Ry,” Gabi said. “We always stay together, and I have to be with him if he gets sick again.”

That was true. Someone had to be available, and Mist didn’t feel comfortable watching him. The kid probably wouldn’t feel too comfortable either, even if he had come here of his own free will.

“He can have the bed in the first room, and I’ll take the sleeping bag,” Gabi said.

“Gab—” Ryan began.

“You sort it out between yourselves,” Mist said, remembering why she’d never considered having kids, even if she hadn’t had to worry about their inevitable mortality. “I think I have a spare toothbrush or two, and when you’re ready I’ll show you the bathroom.”

Mist left Ryan and Gabi staring at each other, Ryan still vaguely apologetic and Gabi belligerent. Mist was slightly amazed that they could be friends, and so obviously loyal to each other.

She returned to the kitchen, where Dainn was standing just inside the doorway to the laundry room. Kirby was winding around his feet, tail straight up and purring like a well-tuned engine.

“Dainn,” she said.