A Local Habitation

They didn’t follow. If the look on Tybalt’s face meant anything, he wasn’t going to let them.

I made it as far as the hall before my knees buckled and I sank to the floor, starting to cry in vast, exhausted gasps. How dare they? How dare they? I cried until I ran out of tears. It took a frighteningly long time. It wasn’t until I stopped to wipe my eyes with the back of my hand that I realized someone was leaning against me. I froze, realizing I’d just broken my own cardinal rule for surviving: I’d gone off alone. It would be a beautiful, annoying sort of irony if I got killed right after making my dramatic exit.

Whoever it was wasn’t making any hostile moves; they were just leaning. Most psychopaths seek blood before cuddling—it’s a trait of the breed. And no, I don’t think they’d have killed less if they were hugged more. I just think that by the time they start killing, they aren’t necessarily looking for a pat on the back.

I looked down. April was huddled against me, eyes closed, tears rolling down her cheeks in fractal patterns. “April?”

She didn’t open her eyes. “I didn’t think my mother could go off-line.”

“Oh, April.” I bit my lip, not sure what to say next. It was easy to forget her origins and focus only on her strangeness. Maybe she wasn’t normal, but Jan was her mother—probably the only one she’d ever had. Dryads don’t exactly come from nuclear families. I settled for the most inconsequential, least hurtful words I could find: “I’m sorry.”

“She was supposed to take care of me, but she left the network without me. How could she do that? She has to take care of me.”

“I’m sure she took good care of you.” I winced as soon as I spoke, realizing how patronizing that had to sound.

April realized it too, because she raised her head, expression fierce. “She did take good care of me. She always did.” She paused, continuing more quietly, “People said she only cared about me because I was new, and she’d forget me when she found something else new. But they were wrong. She took care of me. When I was hurt or sick or confused or anything, she took care of me. She always . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“She always what, April?”

“She kept my systems operational,” she said. “She loved me.”

That surprised me more than it should have. I knew April was devoted to Jan. I hadn’t realized she understood what love was. Quietly, I said, “I think I understand.”

“Do you?” she asked, pulling away. It was hard to get used to the emotion in her voice. She’d been sounding steadily more alive—more “real”—since Jan died.

I only wished her mother could have seen it.

“I think so.”

“I would never have let anything hurt her.”

“I know.”

“I hope so,” she said, and shook her head. The tears on her cheeks disappeared like they’d never been. “There aren’t many choices left. I have to go now, and you have to think. It’s important.” Then she was gone in a haze of static, leaving me alone.

“April? April, come back—what’s important? April!” I stared at the empty air, hoping she’d reappear and explain herself. No such luck. “What was that about?”

Picking myself up off the floor, I raked the fingers of my good hand through my hair, looked toward the futon room door, and turned, with a sigh, to walk back toward the cafeteria.

I couldn’t go. I wanted to, and I couldn’t. If it had just been Jan, maybe I could have left the mess for Sylvester, but April . . . April needed someone to find out what had happened to her. I owed that to her, and I owed it to her mother.