Wow, he really did look into my disappearance. “I did in a way.” I laugh darkly. “If you count sleeping beneath an underpass falling off the face of the earth.”
His smile dissolves, but I’m relieved that the nuance in his turn of lip doesn’t seem to hold disapproval. Instead, there’s pity there, delayed as it may be, and I’m okay with that. It was a pitiful time in my life.
“I couldn’t continue to impersonate Effie because she’d be let out of that room as soon as the cleaning crew found her. I shed her illusion in the restroom at the first stop outside the border and abandoned her identification there. Tossed it in the back of a truck.”
“We wondered how it ended up in Pennsylvania.”
I chew my lip. “Only problem was I couldn’t be myself, obviously. So I took on the identity of a woman who was cleaning the bathrooms. Once I looked like her, I was able to take her purse from the employee area. I used her identity to get as far as Nashville, but after paying cash for the bus ticket, I only had enough for one very meager meal. I didn’t dare use her credit cards. When we stopped in Lexington, I knew I had to change again and find some food quickly. Between the morning sickness and starvation, I was in danger of running out of luck. The only thing saving me was Kiko.”
“Who’s Kiko?”
I clam up. I don’t want to tell Seven about Dark Stranger. What if he judges me? On some level, he knows what I did, but knowing something in the abstract is different from visualizing the details. I strip the memory down to its most basic components and say, “She’s a Japanese lucky cat statue. She’s made of jade with a blue-iron arm. I siphon off extra luck into her to store for later. She helped me a lot in the early days when I couldn’t produce enough luck at one time to get by.”
“Hmm.” Something unreadable passes through his expression. Curiosity about the lucky charm?
I glance toward the woods. Almost there. “She was a gift from a friend,” I say vaguely.
He grunts.
“Anyway, I used what luck was left in her to pose as a human undocumented worker and take a job as a maid. No one I worked with had papers, and the hotel owner was kind to me. But the pay wasn’t enough to cover a place to live, so I bought a sleeping bag and slept along the underpass with other homeless people. Slowly I saved money, and with time and regular meals, I recharged my luck.”
I stop speaking when Seven’s finger goes to his lips. We’ve reached the woods, but he’s hesitating to step onto the trail in front of us. Luck swirls around him like an anxious dragon. He darts a glance in my direction. “I have a feeling we shouldn’t step on the path.”
“What sort of feeling?” My bow is in my hand and I’ve nocked an arrow before I take my next breath.
He swipes a stone from the ground near our feet and throws it as far as he can down the path. As soon as it drops to the trail, a dozen six-inch tall creatures swarm it, teeth and claws flashing. Pebbles fly. The stone is reduced to gravel in seconds.
“Brutal little suckers,” I whisper, backing behind Seven and returning my arrow to its quiver. My bow is useless in this situation. There are too many of them.
Seven grabs my elbow and yanks me into the thick of the trees. He holds a finger to his lips, clasping my hand in his. We begin silently picking our way through the woods until the ground ramps up and the walk becomes a climb. Hours later, we break from the trees and find ourselves on an outcropping of stone at the mouth of a cave. Seven motions for me to wait and searches within. When he comes out again, he’s smiling.
“Our lucky day,” he says with a wink. “It’s vacant. We can spend the night here. It should be safe.”
“Spend the night? I didn’t know we were spending the night,” I say, my voice rising in pitch.
Seven looks confused. “You thought we would cross into Shadowvale, find Yissevel’s lair, and get him to answer our questions, all before popping back home in time for dinner and bed?”
I shrug. “Honestly, I was too focused on coming here at all to think about that. It sounds obvious now. Hey, there’s no tent or bedroll in my pack!”
He chuckles. “That’s because your old friend Seven is carrying it for you. There’s only the two of us after all. More efficient to share.”
He doffs his pack at the mouth of the cave and starts digging inside it.
Realization dawns. “Wait, is that your way of telling me there’s only one tent?”
“It’s only one night, Sophia, and I promise to keep my luck to myself, unless you don’t want me to.” He casts me a crooked smile and then wanders off toward the trees.
“But… but… Where are you going?”
“To collect some firewood. Do us both a favor and find some meals in that pack of yours. I’m starving.”
ChapterTwenty-Five
The better yourattitudeand the harder you work, theluckieryou get. —Robert G. Allen
I’m going to have to sleep next to Seven tonight, on the same mat, under the same covers, inside the same tent. Anticipation and anxiety war in my gut, flip-flopping my stomach until I can barely taste the reconstituted stew I’m eating or feel the warmth of the fire glowing in front of me. All I can think about is the kiss we shared earlier. I squirm on my log, thinking about the sleeping arrangements. Seven must sense my discomfort because we haven’t said anything to each other in over an hour.
“You never finished your story.” He breaks the silence, crumpling the remains of his stew bag and stowing it back in his pack to carry out. “You said you’d been… living on the streets, regaining your luck.” He swallows heavily and stares down at his feet.
