“Oh really, that sounds delicious.” Ravyn loved those sausages she’d scored when the butcher was having a huge sale and she’d managed to get all he had early that morning. The money she’d received from Happy for those utility belts with guns still attached that she’d lifted from a security closet in the industrial section of town had brought them a good chunk of change.
“Yeah, everybody loved those. You should put them on your list for when you go out in the next few days to stack up for the winter months.”
Lorna had started walking and Ravyn fell into step beside her. The only woman who’d been in Safeside as long as Ravyn—well, actually, the Megs had been their first residents three months after Cree and Ravyn had put the place together—was a few inches shorter than Ravyn. She had her graying hair pulled back into a ponytail that hung down the center of her back and a pencil was stuck behind her ear. Lorna always had that pencil there and if it wasn’t, you could bet the woman was running around Safeside cursing about someone taking it.
“Yeah, fall’s gonna be settling in this next couple of weeks. We’ve got to get some funds so we can get stacked up.”
“I thought you already had some funds you were planning to use,” Lorna said.
Ravyn frowned. “We’ve been living off the last payments, but that was a few weeks ago. I’ve gotta come up with a plan to secure more.”
“Oh, I thought Jorge told me you already had more and that you and Maurio were planning on going above to start the winter shopping in the next few days. Maurio said the market was closing down so you two were going to get there early tomorrow morning to get some of the discounted stuff.”
Ravyn was concentrating more on Lorna’s words than the two kids who’d just ran past her, bumping into her so that she then bumped into Lorna.
“Y’all slow down. And get to the common area, stay out of the hallways where people are trying to go about their business,” Lorna yelled at them.
“You said the market is closing?” she asked as she and Lorna walked down a narrower hallway and then down a couple of steps into the kitchen.
“Yeah, Jorge said you, him, Maurio and Cree talked about it yesterday morning when you were double-checking the perimeter. You know Cree still thinks someone tampered with the door or was near the entrance.” Lorna was moving toward the stove now, shaking her head as she reached over to take the handle of a pot that had been on a back burner.
“He’s itching to get outta here, Ravyn. You may have to talk to him,” Lorna was saying.
She only half heard Lorna’s words as she wondered more on the statement that Cree thought someone had tampered with the door. Hadn’t she just thought someone was in her room? But that was impossible. Nobody knew where they were.
“And I think maybe he should go up with you every now and then, just so he can get some air and see that the world is still moving, even though we’re down here. He’s so young and missed so much out of life. Not like us, you know. We had longer up there dealing with the bullshit.”
Lorna touched Ravyn’s shoulder, giving it a gentle shake. “You alright?”
“Huh? Oh yeah, I’m fine. Just think I have some of the remnants of being sick going on. But, I’m fine really,” she said, trying to shake the eerie feeling that she was missing something. “You were talking about Cree and you’re right. I’m concerned about him too. He’s been talking about all of us moving above. Says we’re hiding down here.”
She recalled that conversation clearly and how she’d only been half listening to him because she’d been hurrying to her room. To do what, she couldn’t remember.
Lorna shrugged, moving her robust frame through the kitchen as if the place were made specifically for her. It was, actually. Neither Ravyn nor Cree were cooks and with the money she’d been able to collect from the insurance on her building, they’d bought supplies and made camp in one of the abandoned buildings above because they knew the enforcers rarely came into this neighborhood. When they just happened to stumble upon the open manhole one day, it had been Cree’s idea to climb down and investigate. He was always looking for an adventure like the ones he read about in the books in her store.
The idea to build a living space down there had come almost immediately when they saw all the open space from the old subway station. In those early days focus had only been on their sleeping rooms and a main area, but then they’d met the Megs and more bedrooms were developed. Lorna had designated the kitchen space and made it what it was today—a large room with shelves full of pots, pans, plates and bowls, a food pantry, sinks that were left there from what they presumed may have been a lunch room area for the old subway workers.
“He’s only nineteen,” Lorna said with another shrug. She was running water in the pot now and walking it back to the stove. “Missed a lot of his childhood.”
“Yeah,” Ravyn said. “After his father died and he went into foster care when he was nine, things started to go downhill for him.”
“Always been rumors about foster parents being abusive to the kids. Taking in as many as they could just to collect checks from the government and treating those kids like crap in return.”
Ravyn nodded. She’d heard a lot about the foster system, but living with her father, she’d always thought anything could be better than being General Walsh’s only child. When she met Cree, she realized
