“Well, I’ll take that as a compliment,” she replied. Her attention was really on the spreadsheets she kept of their supplies, and timelines for more improvements to Safeside. That’s what she’d been doing all afternoon. Planning, looking toward the future, and trying to ignore the weird feeling she had that something just wasn’t quite right.
Cree turned, leaning his butt against the edge of her desk a few inches from where she was sitting. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant there’s something different about you today.”
She shrugged. “Same soap, same shampoo, although I do need to buy some conditioner, so you might be seeing some frizz in my hair soon. But otherwise, nothing new to see here.”
“Yeah, there is, if you’re looking.”
She sat back in her chair, giving him the attention he obviously wanted from her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He huffed. “When we first came down here we were both frightened and out of options. The enforcers had burned down your place after successfully kicking our asses. I was in the hospital for months and you never left my side.”
“You saved my life, Cree. There was no way I was walking out on you. Besides, I didn’t have anywhere else to be at the time.” She could joke about that now, but four years ago when all that darkness came crashing down in her life, she hadn’t thought there’d ever be light. But here they were today, in this place that they’d built doing what they’d wished someone had done for them way back then.
“Why didn’t you just rent a house and take me there after the hospital?”
“You know why,” she said and then cleared her throat.
“No, I don’t. You never talked about that. The moment I woke up in the hospital you just said we would take care of each other from now on and then we left and we found this place, but you never said how you felt about what happened or what it did to you and your dreams.” He was much more mature than a nineteen-year-old should be. Thinking about things that he shouldn’t have had to think about for years to come, dealing with people and situations that no child should have to deal with, ever.
“What do I look like, dumping all my problems on a kid?” The moment she said those words she knew they were wrong. Hadn’t she just been thinking of how mature he was? She sighed.
“Look, you obviously have something to say, so just say it. There’s never been any pretenses between us before, there’s no need for them now.” That was true. There was only honesty between her and Cree, it had been that way from the very start and she appreciated that more today than ever. But she didn’t know why.
“I said it the other day when you were so distracted. I think we should be aboveground with the rest of the world. You wanted this place to be some sort of safe haven for the unwanted, but who gives a damn about whoever doesn’t want us? We want us and we’re enough!”
She’d never seen Cree this intense before. When she’d met him he’d been a hungry, skinny kid, very polite and a bit on the timid side. After the altercation with the enforcers he had gained an edge to him and he’d insisted on learning martial arts from a video collection they’d found at the pawn shop. But he was still pretty skinny even though he’d surpassed her in height about two years ago.
“We are enough, Cree. But the world is cruel and it’s...we’re different from the rest of them.” She paused then, looking back at the computer screen. They were different, people were different, weren’t they?
“Differences create a more colorful world. That’s what my grandmother used to say.”
“Your grandmother who thought she could see the future?” Of course her tone sounded condescending, how could it not? She did regret that, but it was too late to take back the words.
Cree’s lips tilted and he shook his head. “She had the gift of sight and I do too, but only on a much smaller scale, I guess. But that’s what makes me who I am. Who are you, Ravyn? Are you just this thief that lives in an old subway station? Or were you meant to be something more? A bookstore owner who shared her love of books and words with the world? A woman who used to like roller skating and watching fireworks?”
Fireworks!
Ravyn shot up out of her chair. She could see sparks shooting in the air, illuminating the dark sky. And the humming that she’d been hearing since she climbed out of bed this morning, grew a little louder, almost in tandem with the bursts of fireworks.
“I have to go,” she said and started to move past him.
“Where? What’s wrong?” he asked, grabbing her arm to keep her there.
“Nothing,” she said with a shake of her head. “I just have to go...somewhere.”
“This! This right here is what I mean when I say you don’t look the same. Something about you has changed and I don’t know what it is but it’s scaring me,” he admitted.
It was scaring her too. She didn’t say that to him, but she’d been thinking it—or rather trying desperately not to think it—for the last few hours. There was something different about her. From the humming in her ears, to the sense that she was forgetting something, and now to the sound of fireworks. She couldn’t explain it, but it was important, somehow, she knew all these things were important.
“I’m fine, I promise. But I’ve gotta go.”
She was on her way to the door when he yelled to her.
“We’re gonna go back, Ravyn. A few of us down here have decided we’re gonna go back.”
Ravyn turned back to see that Cree was now standing with his wiry legs slightly spread, his chin lifted as he looked directly at her.
“Can we talk when I get back?” she
