I feel the usual flush of awkwardness when someone recognises my name.
“Yep,” Paige slaps my shoulder when I don’t answer. “We are humbly gratified to be allowed within the presence of such a valiant, mighty individual such as he.” She’s smirking at me. I can’t see it, but I can feel it. I resist the urge to throw her an answering scowl. She’d only ignore it anyway.
Paige would tell me it’s my own fault for going around the place acting the hero all the time. She finds my accidental infamy within the homeless community, specifically the kids portion of it, highly amusing and never misses a chance to take the piss out of me for it.
Thing is, I didn’t mean to build up a solid reputation for saving people. It was an accident. But these days my name seems to be as present on the streets as that of the Winters family. Not exactly a comparison I’d ever aspire to obtain.
“Yeah,” Princess agrees, “the stuff of legend, clearly.” There’s a note of sincerity that has me peering at the side of his face. The dark makes it impossible to get a gage on what he means by any of it.
The other kid, the one who’s been quiet up until now, speaks up, drawing my attention back to them. “Is it true you’ve been out here since were five?” Then he lowers his voice and asks in hushed awe, “Did you really kill Jacob Winters?”
Plenty of my exploits have been exaggerated by people, as stories like that often are, but there are some that I only wish were made up.
Jacob Winters was the previous head of the Winters crime family. He ruled over the city for decades with a bloody fist of iron. His stranglehold on Danger was absolute, until he died mysteriously a few years ago, leading to Paul Winters taking over from him after what was alleged to be a particularly violent internal feud within the family.
A lot of people were glad when Jacob was disappeared. But I don’t think Paul is much of an improvement. In truth, he’s just a different breed of monster we need to contend with.
I go down on one knee in front of the kids, trying for the brand of smile that will make them feel at ease. Confident. Kind. Open. It’s a smile I’ve had a lot of practice in utilising over the years, especially with traumatised or scared children.
“I’ve been out here for a long time,” I tell them. “And one thing I’ve learnt above everything else is that the best way to survive is by making friends you can trust. None of us can do this thing alone.” I dart a quick glance at Princess instinctively. He goes rigid by my side, but doesn’t comment or contradict me.
The kids, either subconsciously or not, take each other’s hands. Hopefully it means they understand how important it is to stick together. You can lose so much on these streets. People will take a lot from you. Holding on to what matters gets harder and harder, until you start to forget what it even means to care about anything other than keeping yourself alive. It’s too easy for us to write people off as nothing more than rivals, to see them as obstacles and threats and enemies. We make it too easy to give up on one another.
“If you need any more help from friends,” I smile at them again. “You can come ask for it from us.” I nod behind me where my friends are hanging back. I give the kids the address of mine and my friends’ safehouse and get them to repeat it back to me a couple times so I know they’ll remember.
After the kids take their meds, they look tired and I make noise about leaving. I expect Princess to insist on staying with them, but when I get up to go, he follows suit. We say our goodbyes to the kids and the five of us climb back out through the window.
I must be giving Princess a searching look, trying to work him out, because he turns me with an improptou answer to my unspoken question.
“Helping out is one thing,” he says gravely, “but coddling them will do more damage in the long run. They need to learn how to take care of themselves if they’re going to make it.”
I don’t agree with him out loud. I don’t need to, he knows he’s right.
It’s a grim reality of all our situations. As important as it is to form connections, there does come a point where you need to find out what you’re made of. If you’ve got what it takes, because, the fact is, not everyone does. It wouldn’t be doing them any favours by acting like their parents. Or at least, how parentsshouldact. Probably. I haven’t had parents to compare anything to for a long time.
One we’re back out on the street, I turn to Princess again, speaking quickly before he can dart off into the night on his own. “You want to come back to ours?”
His head whips around. He stares at me with confused eyes. “Why?” he demands like it’s a challenge, a gauntlet flagrantly thrown at my feet. A dare he thinks I’ll bottle out of.
He doesn’t know me well enough yet to understand that kind of shit will only ever spur me on, not deter me like he seems to want.
I tilt my head, pretending to think about it, then offer, “To experience the chewy discomfort of a mattress we found at a rubbish tip.”
Princess contemplates me for a couple seconds before responding wryly, “I’m listening, go on.”
I bring my hands together in a light clap. “Great view from our roof.”
Princess hums approvingly. “Solid point of sale.”
I go for the big guns. “We have biscuits.”
He gives me a dubious look. “Chocolate ones?”
“Mate.” I scoff. “Don’t insult me.”
“Alright, I’m in.” He hesitates, then warns, “This does not mean we’re friends.”
Paige snorts somewhere off to my left. I glance over at her. She’s standing with Bo and Amira, all three of them giving me various looks of impatience and amusement.
