TWENTY-THREE #2
Things are easier. Water can roll across the floor like it’s minding its own business.
Headphones can sit nearby, tragically abandoned, waiting for a stubborn little Tiny Terror in tactical gear to pretend she’s not interested.
A joke can be dropped into the air and left there, no pressure, no expectation, and no grand emotional unveiling.
Dakota doesn’t like comfort.
But tools?
Oh, tools, she’ll consider, and that’s a damned good thing to know.
Fletcher and Xeon take turns at the little interior window, watching the tunnel.
Kaito closes his eyes for exactly four seconds before opening them again, because apparently rest has offended him, his ancestors, and a horse-shaped cow.
The pilot breathes like every single inhale costs him money and he’s flirting with the line of poverty.
I sit near the bolted desk, not between Dakota and the door. My headphones sit in my lap and my music player rests next to them. Dakota glances at both like they’re detonation devices, and I pretend not to see a thing.
Wow. Maturity again. See that? I really am full of surprises.
Outside, something drags along the tunnel, and everyone freezes.
Kaito’s head lifts. His jaw tightens, pain exploding across his face before he buries it.
Dakota sees it, even though she pretends not to, and Kaito pretends he doesn’t need anyone to see it.
Everyone in the fucking room is lying so hard it’s actually a miracle the ceiling doesn’t collapse out of sheer embarrassment. It’s actually tragic.
I lift one finger.
Wait.
The sound comes again. A slow, wet, dragging noise. A Rot, maybe. Possibly two, passing the outer hallway. Dakota’s knife tightens, and I shake my head before pointing to the floor.
Stay.
Her eyes narrow. Honestly, if looks could kill, I’d be dead, resurrected, and dead again just for good measure.
“Background case,” I whisper, rolling my eyes dramatically. “Let them have their moment. Their names aren’t written in the programme, and this is their only time to shine. They’ve worked hard for this.”
I’m pretty sure the next stare I get off her means she’s imagining countless ways she could use my spine. Lush.
The dragging eventually fades and, after a minute, Fletcher raises two fingers from beside the window.
Two Rots. Gone.
Dakota looks back at me like this was somehow all my fault, and I raise my brows at her. She remains in the corner, and I consider it a small victory. Not for me. Oh, god, no. For her. I know better than to claim that shit.
I lean against the desk and glance around the office. “You know, this isn’t the worst place I’ve ever had to spend the night.”
Dakota’s eyes slide to me.
I carry on, because I’m nothing if not committed to making poor choices. “There was this recruitment office in Cardiff before everything went sideways. Beige walls, motivational posters, coffee machine that tasted like boiled ass and regret. The dude at the front desk kept calling everyone champ.”
She blinks slowly at me.
“This place has a way better atmosphere, don’t you think?” I add.
Her eyes move over to the dead monitors before roaming over the moldy walls, bleeding pilot, injured Kaito, and tunnel window. Then she looks back at me and says, “Your standards are actually diabolical.”
“Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a compliment,” she informs.
I shrug. “I’ve decided it was.”
She looks away, but I notice her shoulders loosen a fraction more than they were before. There we go. Fractions absolutely count.
People often think jokes are just for getting a laugh out of someone.
They’re not. Well, not always. Sometimes jokes are tiny doors.
You crack one open, let in a little bit of air, and hope no one notices that breathing just got that little bit easier.
I learned that pretty early on. People like funny.
Funny can be useful. Funny means you’re not the problem.
Funny means no one has to ask why your hands shook after the last run, or why you hate sitting in silence, or why you keep your headphones on even when there’s no music playing.
If you’re the laugh, no one will look close enough to the lad making it.
Simple.
Sometimes stupid, but definitely simple.
Dakota shifts in the corner, and her eyes flick to Kaito again.
His breathing catches when he tries to adjust himself against the wall, because he’s an idiot.
Pain turns his mouth white for half a second, and Dakota’s hand wrapped around her knife tightens.
Not because she’s angry. Wait, actually, not only because she’s angry.
Dakota seems to keep her anger close at all times. Kind of like lip balm. Or an umbrella.
She wants to check on him, but she won’t, because that would mean caring in public. Apparently, she’d rather fight a fast Rot in a cupboard than check on the man currently bleeding out of his side like that’s just a little side quest he’s on.
I whisper to her, “The option to tell him he looks like shit is always there.”
Her gaze snaps to me.
“You know,” I add, “for morale or something. Sportsmanship. Go team!”
“I’m pretty sure he already knows he looks like shit,” she points out.
I nod slowly. “Yeah, but feedback is vital for progression, right?”
“He’ll bleed on you,” she tells me.
I huff playfully. “Bit dramatic of him, if you ask me.”
“He’s a dramatic guy,” she mutters under her breath, like she’s sharing state secrets.
Kaito opens one eye from across the room before he says, “I can actually hear you. The room isn’t all that big.”
Dakota doesn’t even look at him when she snaps, “Bleed quieter.”
He closes his eye again, and I have to bite the inside of my cheek. Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. Laughing will absolutely get me murdered, and while I’ve had a pretty good run, I’m not really ready to go out yet just because Dakota decided to weaponize bedside manner.
Her gaze drops to her nails, only for a second, and then she looks away again. The black polish is chipped to hell. She keeps noticing it and then not noticing it. Kind of the same as the hat. Same as the way her hand shot up to the brim of it earlier when I said she had dust on it.
The hat matters. The nails matter. And the way she keeps pretending like they don’t matter definitely matters.
I shouldn’t say anything. In fact, this is the part where a smarter man would leave it. It’s the most tragic character flaw of mine that I’m only smart in random bursts. I mean, I’m not stupid, but I didn’t once claim I was a genius or anything.
That’s why I end up saying, “Black suits you.”
The entire corner turns as still as stone.
Brilliant. Well done, Ewan boy. You just go ahead and find the landmine, step on it, and then admire the way your body pieces scatter across the fucking ground.
Dakota’s voice turns flat. “What?”
“Your nails,” I tell her, keeping my voice light, but not too light. Too much of a joke here and she’ll think I was trying to avoid the tough shit. Too little and she’ll hear pity. But I’ve dug my grave now, so I might as well jump in and make myself comfortable. “They suit you.”
“They’re practical,” she tells me emotionlessly.
“Are they?”
“Yes.”
“Tactical nails?” I push, eyeing the chipped paint. I’ve never known anyone whose stare could peel paint the way hers can, and so I nod solemnly. “I guess that makes sense. Classified equipment.”
“Incredible,” she mutters.
“Government issue?” I ask nonchalantly.
“There’s no government,” she points out, as if she thinks I’m actually that level of stupid.
I counter it. “Then stylish rebellion. Anarchy. I like it.”
For a second, there’s nothing.
But then she breathes out of her nose. Not a laugh, but the cousin of a laugh. Twice removed. Raised absolutely feral. The kind the family avoids. And I’ll take it.
Her thumb rubs over the chips in the polish. Once. Twice. Hard enough that I think she might be trying to scrape some kind of memory off them. Then, very quietly, she says, “My brother used to paint them.”
My brain shuts its mouth with a snap of teeth, which is a rare occurrence. We should mark the calendar.
I don’t ask her brother’s name. I don’t ask where he is. And I definitely don’t ask if he’s dead, because I’m not an idiot and her voice has already given me enough of an answer to physically hurt.
Her brother.
The cap. The nails. The hand flying to the brim. The way she guards that hat like it’s got her heartbeat stitched into the seams.
Right.
There it is. Not cute. Not sweet. And not some little before-the-end-of-the-world story I can turn into a soft smile and an “isn’t that lovely.” It’s a load-bearing wall. That memory seems to be holding something up inside her, and she just let me see one brick.
I look at the music player instead of her face.
“When?” I ask, because that’s safer than who and way kinder than why.
Her silence stretches for so long I think I might have lost her. Then she says, “Any time I got worked up over something.”
Worked up.
Not scared. Not panicking. Not breaking. The kind of wording people use when the real world wields a knife and will cut you with it.
“He’d sit me down,” she adds, her voice turned rougher now. “Paint them so fucking badly. Well, mostly. He tried, but he was really shit at it. I’m talking paint all over the skin around the nails.”
My mouth almost moves. No joking right now, Ewan. Not yet.
“He said it gave me something else to focus on.” Her hand curls tighter, thumb rubbing roughly against a nail. “Something gentle. For my inner Omega.”
The words come out of her mouth like she fully hates them for leaving. Like she despises me for hearing them. And like she hates herself the most.
I swallow hard. I’ve got joke lines up in my head, because of course I do. Little bright pockets with sharp elbows. I could say something about brotherly nail salons. Apocalypse manicures. Family discounts. Any one of them might make the moment easier.
Or they could ruin it.