“Then it’s his fault.” I always signed as I spoke, so he wouldn’t feel alone communicating with his hands.
“You’re allowed to defend yourself. It’s not okay for anyone to touch you without your permission—ever. Don’t forget that.”
Charlie pulled me into a full hug. His body engulfed mine, and I leaned into it.
I loved his hugs.
We held each other.
When he finally leaned back, he held up his arm, showcasing the black “C+A” tattooed across his forearm.
I tapped my matching tattoo against his.
It was our thing.
A man waved out of his trailer window, and we waved back.
It was the kindest soul in the entire park.
Last year we’d borrowed a stick-and-poke tattoo kit from him. He was the only person who gave us cardboard boxes and blankets.
Without him letting us inside his trailer during the coldest, snowiest days of the year, we’d both be dead.
He was our savior.
Our personal saint.
He was also covered head to toe in animal skulls and satanic symbols, which if you didn’t think about it too hard, was inspiring.
A pentagram was stark on his forehead as he watched me and Charlie dip behind the tree line.
Behind carefully placed branches, we pulled back the tarp that protected our network of cardboard boxes from the elements.
The floor was covered in old blankets and rugs we’d stolen from trailers right after people died in them, just before the federation hauled them away.
Fluffy—the eighty-pound husky Charlie had named—stood up and flung himself at me like a battering ram as I fell to my knees.
I kissed his muzzle as he shook his butt with excitement.
Fluffy had been abandoned by someone in the park three winters ago and had wandered into our shelter and refused to leave our sides.
I’d been worried about feeding him, but it turned out that he liked the dead squirrels and rabbits Nyx brought for us.
Sometimes Charlie and I ate them when we were extremely desperate, but too much made us sick, so we left them for Fluffy, who never got affected.
Now, three years later, Fluffy was the best fed out of all of us.
Speaking of food, I pulled up the corner of the piles of carpet and hid our new food vouchers in an old glass beer bottle, since they were only redeemable on Fridays.
Today was Monday.
We only had four more days of hunger to get through. Three, technically, because Monday was almost over and we’d get a meal on Friday.
Seventy-two hours of starvation.
Not long at all.
I clicked on the cracked solar-powered lantern we’d stolen, and flickering green light filled the space.
