“Here.This is how you use them.”His ears turn red as he explains how the wings fold and where they stick.
When he’s sure I understand, he leaves me to it.
Doesn’t take me long to wash up and get the pad in place.Then I join him on the cushions.
He opens his arms, and I crawl into them the way I always do, chest to chest with his heartbeat rumbling under my cheek.Our legs pretzel together, and all my cold edges immediately warm.
“We’ll have to leave by morning.”He exhales into my hair.
“I know.”
It’s what we do after he washes blood from his hands.We run.We start over.We change names like other people change shoes.But it’s harder now.He has all this equipment.
“Will you leave the computer stuff behind?”
“I’ll get a car.”
“By morning?”I pinch his ribs.“You already know which car you’ll steal.”
“Maybe.”He pinches my ribs back, making me giggle.Then he falls still.“I’m sorry.For yelling.For scaring you.”
“You didn’t scare me.”
“I’m sorry for what that monster did to you.”He tightens his arms around me.“I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”
My throat aches again.
“I’m getting better.Every day.I’m learning all the things I can do with a computer.Hacking, tracking, watching.Next time…” His hand slowly travels up my back like he’s counting my bones through the shirt.“Next time, I’ll see the threat coming before it happens.I’ll be able to stop it.No one will hurt you again.Not while I’m alive.”
I nod into his chest.I love hearing it, but I’m afraid of it, too.The way he watches me and kills anyone who hurts me… It’s wrong.I know that.But it’s also the only thing that’s ever made me feel like I matter.
His arms loosen enough for him to stare at my face, brushing hair from my cheeks, gentle again.He studies me like he’s memorizing me.Like I’m his secret, his obsession, and his home.
I nestle closer and fall asleep with the thud of his heartbeat against my cheek, safe in the only place I’ve ever been safe.
Two years later
The air smells like steaming shit in this part of Fresno.Feels like it, too.
By the time I finish sweeping out the bays at the mechanic shop, the heat eases enough that I don’t feel like I’m inhaling buttholes.
I zip my backpack and start the long walk back to my foster house.
The neighborhood is too quiet at night.The held-breath kind of quiet.The don’t-blink kind.My shoes scrape along the sidewalk as I keep to the streetlights.I’m not scared.I’m also not stupid.
Halfway down the block, my spine prickles.
It’s not a noise or a shadow that unsettles me.It’s that other thing, the instinct I picked up from living on the streets for seven years.
I keep walking.My heartbeat doesn’t change.My breath stays even.That’s another thing street life taught me.Don’t show fear before my brain figures out what to do with it.
I turn casually, pretending to adjust a twisted backpack strap, and peek behind me.
Empty sidewalk.
But the danger’s here, pressed against my skin, whispering,Pay attention.
I scan the rooftops, parked cars, gaps between houses, and the busted streetlight on the corner that creates a pocket of dark.
