TWENTY-THREE #3
Humor isn’t always running away. But sometimes it can be, and I suddenly know, with a startling clarity that makes my chest feel a little too tight, that I don’t want to run from this. Not from her pain. Not when she’s finally put a piece of it down between us and is trusting me not to kick it.
“He sounds pretty smart,” I say. Her eyes cut over to me, but I keep looking at the music player as I add, “For finding something your body could understand before your head caught up.”
Silence follows.
And it’s a big one, too. A dangerous one.
Then Dakota looks away, her thumb dragging over the black polish again, only slower this time.
“He was annoying,” she tells me, and there’s a crack in it. A soft one. The kind that makes you watch where you’re stepping.
“The best people are,” I inform her, and her gaze flicks back to me. I lift one shoulder. “I’m obviously a delight.”
“That’s debatable,” she mutters.
“Wow. Rude,” I tell her. “I’m deeply wounded, just so you know.”
“No, Kaito’s wounded. You’re just a pain in the ass,” she counters.
My lips twitch. “Both can be true at the same time.”
Her eyes narrow on me, and there it is again. Well, almost. The start of something that might have been a smile if she didn’t catch it by the throat, strangle it, and shove it into a cupboard Harry Potter-style.
I pretend like I see nothing, because I am clearly maturing. Someone needs to give me a sticker pronto.
The music shifts, the next song crackling to life with a soft guitar and a man’s voice singing about roads and going home. The device really does choose violence sometimes.
Dakota hears it and her shoulders go stiff.
I reach for the player slowly, offering, “I can skip it.”
“No,” she protests, the word coming quickly. Too quickly. Then, quieter, she says, “Leave it.”
So I do.
Outside, boots pass somewhere overhead, and every soft thing in the room suddenly disappears like it was never there to begin with.
Kaito’s eyes pop open. Fletcher raises a hand from his place by the window.
And Xeon shadows behind him, rifle low and face calm in a way that makes him look deadly lethal.
Human steps.
Three sets, maybe four.
Vector or looters, but it’s hard to tell from under a line of concrete. I’d put my money on Vector, only because the universe has been serving meals with a theme lately.
The old song keeps playing faintly, high-pitched and wrong.
The pilot’s breathing hitches, and I shake my head.
No. Mate, not now. Don’t pick this exact moment to become the main character, for the love of all things good and pure in this world of bollocks.
Carefully, I move to him, crouching by his side, my fingers reaching for his pulse. He’s running hot. Way too hot, and his throat bobs like he’s about to cough, talk, or do something equally as fatally stupid and inconvenient.
Dakota appears opposite me without a single sound, knife in hand. She leans down, eyes fixed on the pilot’s face, and, in the softest, most terrifying little whisper I’ve ever heard in all of my life, she says, “Don’t you fucking dare.”
The pilot’s mouth closes and I stare at him. Then I stare at her.
For one mental second, I almost lost it. Because of course he listens to her. Half-dead man, feverish, bleeding, barely conscious, and even he’s got enough survival instinct to realize Dakota’s not making a suggestion.
I press my lips together tightly.
Don’t laugh.
Don’t laugh.
Don’t laugh.
Not in the murder cupboard while possible Vector men are above us and Dakota is holding a knife tightly in her hand.
The boots pause just then, right above us, and my heartbeat stutters in my chest. The room falls still. Above, someone mutters, but the words are swallowed by the concrete. I only manage to catch snippets.
“...station…”
“...pilot…”
“...tracks…”
Dakota’s eyes sharpen. Fletcher doesn’t move away from the window. Kaito’s hand tightens around his blade, knuckles turning pale with the force. And the pilot remains blessedly silent.
The boots move on. One step, then two, then the sound fades.
Fletcher keeps us frozen for about another full minute before he lowers his hand, and only then does the room remember that breathing actually exists.
Dakota sits back on her heels and glares at the pilot like he pissed in her Weetabix, muttering, “He listens better half-dead than you do.”
That’s it. I’m fucking gone. Not loudly, because I’m not suicidal. But a laugh slips out before I can stop it, quiet and helpless.
Dakota’s head turns slowly. So dangerously slowly, but it’s so worth it.
“Don’t be pleased with yourself,” she warns.
I shake my head. “Too late.”
“I can fix that,” she tells me, as serious as a heart attack.
“I fully believe you,” I promise.
She returns to her corner a second later, but she doesn’t go as far back into it this time.
It’s only a small difference, but it’s actually pretty massive.
It’s the kind of thing Fletcher might miss because it doesn’t have bullets in it, and Kaito would notice so hard that he’d probably injure himself emotionally.
I notice because the music player is still between us and she doesn’t shove it away.
Fletcher and Xeon step inside a few minutes later.
“Movement’s heading east,” Fletcher says quietly. “Vector, likely. They’re sweeping the station.”
Dakota leans her head back against the wall. “Then your leak is worse than that little ‘maybe,’ huh?”
Fletcher’s jaw tightens. “Looks that way.”
“When do we move?” she asks him.
“Before dawn if the tunnels clear,” he responds, no-nonsense and straight to the point. I already miss that brief sparkle of personality he showed before. Sad times.
“And if they don’t?” she pushes.
Fletcher doesn’t hesitate before he answers her. “Then we clear them.”
She nods once, like that’s the first sensible thing anyone has said in hours. Which, I’ll have you know, is pretty damned insulting, because I’ve said at least three sensible things.
Maybe two, actually.
One and a half, minimum.
Kaito shifts by the door and grimaces before he can hide it, and Dakota’s eyes snap to his side. This time, she doesn’t look away fast enough, and Kaito sees it. He presses a piece of cloth harder to the wound but says nothing. No smile. No reassurance. No okay.
Good.
The man is proving he can actually learn. Always a good trait to have.
The room settles again. Well, if settling is what you can call five exhausted people, one fevered pilot, and a city full of teeth waiting for morning in a damp little cupboard while armed enemies meander about up top.
I check the music player. One bar left.
“Careful,” I whisper.
Dakota looks over and mutters, “What?”
I point at it. “This thing is fighting for its life with one bar. Apparently, it’s feeling dramatic.”
“Like you, then,” she mutters.
My lips twitch. “Rude. Not exactly a lie, but I digress.”
She stares at me for a long second, and then her mouth almost moves. Almost. She catches it instantly, then glares at me like I’m the one that put it there. Which to be perfectly fair, I did actually try.
I set the player back down and let the music keep going.
It’s low and crackling, a ridiculous little thread of sound in a place built for echoes and fear.
And all the while, I think about her brother painting her nails badly.
I think about her hands shaking around a knife.
I think about how she didn’t thank me for the headphones, and how she also didn’t give them back.
And I think about humor.
My oldest trick. My best tool. My favorite shield.
It’s easy to use a joke to dodge pain. I’ve done it for years. Made an entire personality out of quick words and well-timed bullshit. Keep people laughing and maybe they won’t ask where it hurts. Keep them rolling their eyes and maybe they won’t notice when you’re scared.
It actually works pretty beautifully. Well, until it doesn’t.
Dakota doesn’t need me dodging her pain, though. She’s dodged enough on her own.
So I decide, sitting there with only one bar of battery left and Vector somewhere loitering above us, that I won’t use humor to step away from what hurts her. I’ll use it like a crowbar. Wedge it into the next five minutes and make just enough room for her to finally breathe.
Across from me, Dakota slips one side of the headphones back over her ear.
She doesn’t thank me, but she doesn’t move away either.
And for tonight, that’ll do.