Ruin

Eleven

Maria walks me to the outskirts of the village towards a meadow filled with blooming flowers. She plops down in the grass and says, "You can let it all out here."

I stay standing, looking down at her and completely unsure of what she means.

She brings up her legs as she leans back. "You were about ready to cry over there. I saw it," she says as she taps her own head.

But I still don't know exactly what she means, and I'm too exhausted to figure it out.

Maria gives a sigh. "I saw you starting to cry. Not like bawling or anything, but still enough to be uncomfortable. Wanna talk about it?"

Not really. Not too far away there is a forest and those hills we saw from the other side as we were walking in. Up close they look even larger and steeper than I had thought.

I take a deep breath intent on denying that I was going to cry. It's only been a week since that night, and I don't even think about it. I don't think about Mom's screams or the fact that she's trapped there with nothing Henri is able to do. I don't think about my future or her future.

Maria waits. I cross my arms and try not to think about Brandon and his little family or the way he cares for the girl, his daughter obviously. The way he held her and looked at her. He probably only sees her when he comes to the village.

"No. I really don't." The brim of my eyes fill, tears sitting heavily on them. I don't reach my hand up to wipe them. From Maria's spot on the ground, she wouldn't be able to see them unless I wiped at my eyes and brought attention to them.

She shrugs. "Okay. But if you want to talk, I'm all ears."

Maria toys with a blade of grass near her foot, wrapping the long blade around her finger, her eyes observing as it bends like a ribbon. I don't know what to say to her or if I should trust her and take her seriously. There isn't a lot of time, and I could use a friend other than Mitchell. But Maria isn't like him. Something about her is different.

We're alone together in this meadow with no sign of a protector for her or me. "Is it safe for us here?"

She glances up at me and smiles. "Yeah, why wouldn't it be?"

I don't know how much she knows about me or where I'm from. Maybe it's safe for her, but it's not always safe for me. So far, the only reason I haven't been attacked yet probably has more to do with Brandon than anything else. But now together, we're standing here exposed.

I sit down next to Maria. "I'm Neutral. They don't like Neutrals here, right?"

"No. We don't. But, I dunno, you seem all right to me."

My lip finds its way between my teeth and I give it a slight nibble as the realization slowly creeps up. "You're not a stray?"

Maria laughs at that. "Nah. You thought I was a stray?" Her disbelief sounds in my ear and I lean heavily on my one hand away from her. "Hm. I guess in a way. Mike found me. But I have powers, so he started training me." She turns her back towards me. Over the edge of her tank and between her shoulder blades there's the top of the skull with its eyes peeking out. There are no designs around the skull from what I can see.

I manage to keep quiet about it, but I see her grin as she turns back to me. A girl my age already a part of the tribe can't be a good sign.

"What's your power?"

"I told you earlier, stupid. I can see into the future. Only twenty or thirty seconds, but it's enough to help me when I'm fighting. It's rarely ever enough to change anything. This time was different though." Maria lifts her eyes to look up at me. "Normally I see things actually happening. Someone tripping or an opening when I'm fighting. But seeing you possibly start to cry had to be the lamest future I've ever seen."

I should be insulted, but she smiles, open and friendly, and I can't help smiling back, thankful that she saw this future and acted on it.

"Mike says it probably means something. Like we're meant to be good friends."

It's hard to believe, but somehow I can see it. "Who's Mike?"

"The tall dude with Brandon last night. The one who doesn't speak a lot. Don't let that fool you. When he has stuff to say he says it."

I remember him. I thought it was weird how quiet he was. He stayed near Brandon that night, and when Brandon went to talk to Jimmy, he was right by his side.

Maria and I sit quietly as a breeze blows over the two of us, shoving my hair over my shoulder and a few strands into my face. Far off, people bustle around the village. It's still not as busy or as filled as at home. There are just enough people for it to be a lot but still know each other. Back home, my city had been so filled, everyone was a stranger.

"So," Maria starts as she picks at the grass again. "They really don't know anything about us? They haven't told you anything, not even stories about us? Because Jimmy says they do, and that it's not nice."

I want to ask her what Jimmy would even know about it. But Jimmy was there that day in the Judgment room on the Neutral Side of the fence. No one was surprised to see him or Henri, and I was just handed over to them, a message of some sort in the same way that Mom's probably a message.

Maria doesn't look at me or force me to answer. She just waits patiently while I scramble to find the words, thankful that with her my thoughts are at least my own.

"They say you have to fight for resources. That's true, right?" I pause, and she turns to me and gives a little nod. I don't continue until she prods me some more.

"They also say that you--" There is no nice way to say it. It comes out quick. "That you all kill people. Especially humans."

Maria's dark eyes are easy to track out of the corner of my eye. She pulls her knees up carefully and lifts a hand to cover a tiny laugh. "Stupid. Aren't those humans down there?"

She points down to the village where the people bustle around for the midday. "But those people are useful to you."

Her eyes twinkle. "You're not."

It doesn't come out any meaner than when she calls me stupid, though it still stings. "But Brandon considers me family." The girl we passed on our way to the bonfire rises to the surface of my thoughts. "What about others? Real strays with no family or powers?"

Maria doesn't laugh. She draws her legs underneath her body as she nods. "Real strays are screwed. They aren't always killed right away though sometimes they probably wish they were."

Her voice grows so soft as she speaks that I get a sense right away that there is something more there. If she were a normal friend back home, I'd pry, but our friendship is much too young for me to start picking at it.

I swallow. "So Mitchell?"

"No. Please." She waves a hand at the thought. "Angel loves Mitchell."

The way Angel had his hand on the back of Mitchell's chair made him seem more like a possession than love. Mitchell is trapped. Where would he go if he wanted to leave? How would he ever get away from Angel? That doesn't seem like love. But I don't bother mentioning it. It probably isn't a good idea to talk that way about neighbors even if I do feel at ease with Maria right now.

Maria's face brightens again and she hops up. "I know. The junk shop. Maybe you can tell me if some of the things there do what Vic says they do."

She waits for me to stand and then she starts off towards town. When I don't follow fast enough, she turns and grabs my arm and drags me off after her.

"Maria." I say her name softly, scared to ask, but absolutely needing to. "Have you ever..." I let my voice trail off. The question is so obvious it doesn't need to be spoken.

Her head turns slightly and I catch the dark rim of her brown eyes before she looks forward again. "No. Not yet."

"Has Brandon?"

She stops and wheels around with her arms crossed over her chest. "Would that change things?"

It's a good question. Would it? Something about Brandon in comparison to Henri and his brother, Jimmy, is so different, pure in a way. But it could just be my mind wanting to see it so badly that it ignores anything that doesn't fit that perfect image of what I'd always expected a big brother to be. And maybe he's even played into that a little if he can read my thoughts.

Maria shifts and puts a hand on her hip. She isn't going to answer me. If Brandon has, I'm sure it's part of his past and off limits for discussion anyway.

"Yeah. It kinda would." The words slip as background noise to my thoughts. I can guess that he has. Unlike his brother, it wouldn't be something Brandon would relish or brag about. Not when he holds his little daughter with those hands, touches her human mother who lives here in the village. Is that a theme with men like Brandon and Henri? Sleeping with women they don't take home and then having children they don't need to take care of? But Brandon is different. He actually loves his daughter. It was all over his face when he was holding her.

I start walking again and Maria walks alongside me, leading me towards the shop. She doesn't argue with me, nor does she answer me. Not even to deny it.

"If it makes you feel any better, we can't all kill." She says quietly as we walk. "There wouldn't be anyone left if we all did it. So some of it is just talk."

"Unless they get a stray, right?"

She shrugs. A tiny muscle twitches her brows.



The junk shop is filled with all sorts of little oddities. Some are stored in crates and on wooden boxes. Displays are created on old shelves and worn and faded tables. Clothing hangs on racks with some items folded on a nearby table.

The woman who runs the place watches us closely with an unchanging smile plastered on her face. If it's supposed to make us feel at ease, it doesn't. She examines me the same way Angel had last night and Jimmy had before that. Before we stepped in, Maria warned me. "Junk shop owners collect information," Maria had said when we were walking in. "So don't say too much. Information is a commodity."

Maria ignores the woman as she pulls me to various tables asking me about things that had been regular everyday things in my old life. Cables, remote controls, tools. Everything we look at is in some sort of disarray. There's the rusted tool box with the battered tools and the stack of non-matching plates. These are all items that once belonged to someone and have now come here to wait for re-purposing. From one owner to another.

Next to a cracked clay vase, I find a small stack of books. I pick one up and flip through the yellowing pages, bound with darkly discolored glue that stains the edges of the spine and a tiny bit of the fabric cover. A book is a perfectly good way to keep myself entertained, though I don't know how much free time I'll really have with Henri. It's possible that he'll give me a list of things to do, or he'll have some job already picked out for me to go to during the day that only a human can fill. Some menial job that needs to get done, but not by someone important and necessary.

Maria looks at the book in my hands. "Aw man. I wish I could read."

"You can't?" It's a thought that hadn't occurred to me. Why would she read? It won't help her fight better or defend their home any better. The time she would spend reading could be better spent learning to fight and staying in shape.

"No. I always wanted to read though. Mike said if he could read he'd show me, but he can't really either."

"Maybe I can teach you?"

She smiles and looks our age for once instead of a miniature adult. "Would you really?"

"If I can. I don't know what Hen--"

Maria throws her arms around my neck suddenly. She's an inch shorter than me and much skinnier, but she's heavier than she looks. We almost fall to the ground with her unexpected move as she lets out a squeal that's very unlike her from what little I know of her.

"Say no more. Even if you can't, just that you'd offer is enough."

She pulls back and lets me free just as the proprietress steps up with her semi-creepy smile. "This book here is a great book for teaching, if you don't mind my saying so." She lifts the books to grab one of myths and stories closer to the bottom of the stack which she then hands to me. Her bright eyes search my face for a moment before she flat out asks me, "So whose pet are you? I don't think I've seen you around here before."

The proprietress stands just a little bit in front of Maria, and so it's over her shoulder that I catch Maria's flicker of annoyance. It annoys me too that this woman would assume I'm someone's pet, and I want to tell her so, but I don't. I wait for Maria to say something, remembering her warning earlier. Maria smiles instead, her eyes looking past me. "There he is."

The proprietress and I turn just as Brandon enters the shop. He hesitates only for a second when he notices all our eyes on him before he continues in, walking as smoothly as his brother had last night when he walked from the shadows. There's an edge to his smile as he turns it on the proprietress.

She stiffens next to me and then takes a few steps back from us as he walks up, stopping just by my shoulder. The same smile is still one her lips, but I get the sense that instead of using it as a weapon, now she is using it as a defense.

"I was just showing them some of my books. They seemed interested."

I turn slightly to look up at Brandon. It's clear that the way he has let me see him is different from the way others see him. I would find it impossible to believe that he'd ever be cruel, but still the proprietress is cautious and I have to wonder how much of that is him and how much of that is the effect of his brother. Maybe that's what Maria had meant when she said it was "complicated." Maybe that's why he didn't tell me. At least I hope. Because the last thing I want is for Brandon to be the sort of man a human like me would normally fear.

"Figures I find the two of you here." Brandon looks from me to Maria before he sees the books and looks back at me. "Did you want some? You can pick a couple out. Vic owes me, right Vic?"

The proprietress agrees with a nod of her head. "Yes. That is true."

For the first time I see the two possibilities. Either the face value or the hidden threat, and it sends a chill down my spine that I refuse to react to. I hand over the first book I'd been looking at and put the other book down. Brandon takes the book then picks out a couple of toiletries that look handmade-- soap in a bag, a toothbrush in sealed paper, and a hair brush.

"I think I've got everything you'll need, right?"

He doesn't mention the trip to Henri's, so I don't either. I just nod. These were all things I was borrowing from him for the past week except for the toothbrush. I'd just been using my finger all week.

Brandon shows the items to her and she gives another nod though she doesn't take it down. The items go into a small bag that he hands over to me to carry and then we make our way out.

As we walk out into the busy street, Brandon asks Maria if she told Vic about my relation to him.

"Of course I didn't. Though she almost slipped and told Vic herself." Maria glares at me, halfway in jest, but mostly serious. "After I said not to."

I shrug, "But haven't you already told some people?"

Both Brandon and Maria look at me, but she's the one who answers. She leans in and speaks low in my ear. "Only people that he trusts. Last thing we need is anyone broadcasting that Brandon has a weakness."

That gives me a jolt, but Maria hardly seems to notice it, and if Brandon can read my thoughts, he doesn't say a word about it. He just keeps looking straight ahead, leading us through the crowd.