Chapter Eleven

The room they ended up in was in the back of the second floor in Jalen’s home. A few windows lit up the beds and walls; a glass prism hanging in one of them casting rainbows on the interior. The sunset outside screamed of beauty. Jalen mentally noted how unfortunate it was that the two were too unconscious to see it. Kyari was placed on the slightly smaller of the two beds, Seth on the larger. The assistants were paid and sent away, and Jalen got to work.

He set his chair by her first, delicately stirring a few herbs into a glass of water. After allowing some of the liquid to slide into her mouth, he helped the gradually conscious girl sit up. “Evening,” he said casually, allowing her body to adjust to the false awareness the herb brought. She looked so young to him, even though she was nearly seventeen. Perhaps it was the way she sleepily rubbed her eyes, just like a toddler protesting the need to sleep.

“I’m quite sorry to be doing this,” he muttered to her, “but I don’t have much of a choice anymore. So, let’s get this over with,” he said a little louder.

She nodded.

“Simple question first. What was your father’s name?”

“Kaden.”

Good, it’s working. “What was your mother’s name?”

“Adelaide Fairchild. At least, it was before she married.”

“Do you know who your mother was?”

“Not really.”

“Who knows that you are Kaden’s daughter?”

“You and Seth.”

“No one else?”

She shook her head.

He questioned her a little longer before the drug wore off and she slumped back to her pillows, beginning to bleed again.

He held his hands over the most serious of the wounds, wondering how fully he should heal her. Orders had told him to keep her weak. Despite not trusting anyone, she trusted me enough to do this for her, he determined, letting his fingers rest upon the damage.

The temporary healings he had done for Seth stayed in place, allowing him time to work on Kyari. He administered some of the herb to Seth, and asked him questions as he had Kyari. After getting the needed information, there was no hesitation in healing Seth. He was too great a prize.

In her semiconscious state, Kyari imagined the shaking to be on of the earth tremors her father had talked of from his homeland. The sound of her name bit through the fog, forcing her eyes awake. Jalen stood above her, his face gaunt and eyes sleepless, looking like he had healed one too many injuries. “I’m sorry to rush you,” he apologized, “especially after such an extensive healing, but you’ve got to get out of here. If you’d like to freshen up while I get Seth up, there’s a washroom right there,” he concluded, pointing to a corner door.

She entered, grateful for a chance to wash her face and examine the damage. Most of it was mere scar tissue now, but there were a couple places that needed more time.

If asked what the principal thing he learned at the Coliseum was, Seth would admit with grudging gusto that he had become an expert on what it felt like to wake up after having the stuffing beaten out of him. He could probably write a book on it, detailing such enthralling topics such as what aches and pains were related to which crippling physical injuries, the slight difference in painkillers used (and what they each said about how messed up your body was), and exactly how deep his hatred for the colour white ran.

So, when Seth woke up still shaking off the effects of some kind of anaesthetic he wasn’t familiar with in a room that didn’t look like it had been rejected from a minimalist’s chef-d’oeuvre, he was understandably unnerved.

“Where’m I?” he mumbled blearily, flailing about with the finesse of a wine soused drunk.
“’N who’re you?” the teen slurred, peering myopically at the fuzzy lump that was Jalen which he correctly interpreted to be a human of some type. Well, it was either that or some sort of stuffed moose and he didn’t think the latter would mind the mix up.

"I'm Jalen. You're at my home, currently attempting to recuperate. And unfortunately, you'll have to continue doing so elsewhere. Kyari's cleaning up, but you two have got to get out of here as soon as you can."

Seth made a few more feeble attempts at trying to grab onto something solid before coming to his senses (relatively speaking). Flailing patients - or prisoners his mutinous subconscious muttered - were just asking to be restrained, which was hassle he didn’t need.

The young man shook his head a few times to try and shake off the last vestiges of whatever he was on (what was it anyways? It was making him feel oddly agreeable, the knowledge of which was making him feel distinctly disagreeable, the net result being an air of discombobulation in his general cranial region which didn’t help the situation any) and asked the time honoured catch-all question.

“Why?”

Jalen fidgeted for a moment, but inevitably as he was about to say something, Kyari came out of the bathroom, and he changed his mind as to what he was going to say. "Just get out. Now."

Kyari nodded, grabbing the pack that sat by the bed.

There was a swift but brutal conflict in Seth’s mind between an intense desire to know what the heck was going on and an equally persuasive voice whispering in the back of his head that listening to the people who knew what they were talking about might just do wonders for his life expectancy. In the end, and accord was reached.

“An explanation would be really appreciated,” Seth groaned as he levered himself off the bed and made to follow Kyari as well as he could. “Sometime five minutes ago would be best.”

"When I get a chance, I will," Jalen promised, hurrying them out the door. "Try not to be seen."

"I normally do," Kyari replied.

“Hey, that goes for you too, you know,” Seth grumbled at Kyari, barely resisting an urge to extract a reply via judicious application of cheek-pokes. “Wait, normally? You come here often?”

"I don't have any more of an explanation that you," she shot back. "And I don't come here that often. I just always try not to be seen if I don't want to be seen. Now shut up and follow me."

Seth opened his mouth to argue before his common sense came limping back in and reminded him that arguing with someone who had proven herself to be more than capable of handing him his own rear on multiple occasions might not be the best of ideas.

“Yes’m.” The brunet settled on giving the warrior-thief surly glare; this wasn’t over, not by a long shot.

The next morning found Kyari much fresher and more alert as she waited for Seth in the lobby of the arena.

Seth blinked wearily as he shuffled his way through the coliseum halls, grumpily blaming his regular top-o’-the-morning state on whatever drugs he’d been on the previous day. The brunet was still rather sore about not getting any explanation whatsoever as to what had happened the previous day, and if it hadn’t been for the crippling fatigue that had followed him out of Jalen’s house like some tick-infested love-sick puppy he’d have set about rooting out the whole story immediately. As it was, all he’d been capable of was dragging himself back to his lodgings before collapsing on his bed and conking out for a good twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep.

So maybe having physically exhausting (not to mention debilitating) fights had their upsides. You’d never hear him admit it.

Seth perked up a little bit as he came out into the lobby and spotted Kyari. “Finally, time to get some answers,” he muttered as he made his way over to her.

“Ok,” Seth began, “we were both a little out of it yesterday, so we might not have been behaving our greatest, but I really need to know, what was that all about?”

"I honestly have no clue," she replied, "but I was planning on heading over there this morning. I have to pay him anyways. Assuming you'd like to come along, of course."

“Seriously?” Seth crossed his arms. “He wakes us up what seems like the moment he finished healing us, I’m almost certain we were still partially hopped up on whatever anaesthetic he was using, he rushes us out the door as discreetly as he can and we comply with no questions asked? I’m missing something here, and this is discounting how we even got there in the first place because I was under the impression we were supposed to make our own way to his place after our fight.”

Seth knew he probably shouldn’t be pushing his luck, but the whole situation flew in the face of everything he knew about his short acquaintance and it was putting him on edge.

"Yes, seriously. We're not going to find anything out if we don't go over there and ask him."

Seth threw his hands up in defeat. “Sure, I guess that’s as good a plan as anything I’d come up with.”

The young man nervously checked his equipment as he fell into step beside Kyari. The whole issue of how they had gotten to Jalen’s house the previous day still weighed heavily on his mind. How the healer had found out they were even injured, he he’d gotten them to his house; things weren’t adding up and Seth found himself beating out a rhythm on his thigh as he walked.

“Who even teaches their children dirges?” Seth mumbled truculently to himself as he jammed his errant hand into an accommodating pocket.

The door went unanswered and was unlocked. With no sight of Jalen on the first floor, Kyari made her way to the second floor where they had stayed the night before.

She was unprepared for the sight. He was covered in blood, slumped against the wall as if he had been thrown against it. She crumpled where she stood, her body convulsing with silent sobs.

If Seth had any lingering uncertainty regarding his worries they disappeared instantly and he had to physically clamp down on his left leg as the subconscious beat in his mind fought to get out.

“Kyari,” Seth muttered, placing a hand on her shoulder as he started hyperventilating, “Kyari, we need to get out of here. Now.”

"I can't...I've got to help him. It's all my fault. I shouldn't have even come to him in the first place. I don't even know if you should--" the last part of her sentence was lost in a burst of tears. Seth was lost, clueless as to what he should do. In a sense, it was a blessing he had barely known Jalen or he could very well have been kneeling on the floor alongside Kyari. There was no doubt in his mind that the healer was dead or else irreversibly on the path to the beyond. A body does not lose that much blood and remain in working order.

It also doesn’t lose that much blood on its own.

One look at the scene automatically ruled out suicide, which left foul play, and if the freshness of the blood was anything to go by the perpetrators could still be in the area. Seth had no desire to feature in round two of this shadowy game of tick-tack-death, especially given Jalen’s desire to shoo them out of the house the previous day.

“He’s dead, Kyari, and we might end up joining him if we don’t leave right now” Seth squeezed her shoulder.

Don't snap. He's helping. Calm down. Don't snap. Don't...

She stopped almost immediately--no final sniffle, just a quick drying off--and then stood up. "Where to?"

Seth was too nervous to question Kyari’s immediate compliance and he was rarely one to look a gift horse in the mouth besides.

“Anywhere,” the boy shivered, executing a swift, jerky bow towards Jalen’s corpse and muttering something unintelligible under his breath before pulling Kyari along. “Just… anywhere but here. If whoever did this is still nearby…” He left the sentence hanging. "Then let's go," she replied, waiting for him to lead.

Seth tugged Kyari along through the city’s crowded morning streets, periodically looking around for anyone who might have tailed them from Jalen’s house.

‘This isn’t working,’ the teen thought to himself. ‘If I keep this up I’m liable to walk into some giant merc with a chip on his shoulder.’ Aloud, Seth asked, “Hey Kyari, do you know anywhere that’s public and private? Somewhere with enough people that we won’t be overheard ?”

"If you're taking suggestions, I'd say the woods would probably be the safest."

Seth shook his head.

"Sorry, I should have phrased that better. I meant somewhere crowded. Somewhere where we can sit down and have our voices drowned out by the people around us."

"The main square is just a couple blocks from here. That might work..."

True to Kyari’s word, the main square was absolutely packed. Walking into the arterial crossroad was almost like wading through a molasses composed of people, sound and, oddly enough, smells. There were vendors everywhere and, if the human traffic was anything to go by, they were doing a roaring trade. Food, however, was the last thing on Seth’s mind, and he took a moment to find what he was looking for.

“Perfect,” the still-recovering improvisationalist smiled, pulling Kyari over to a bench sitting at the edge of the square. “Never hurts to have your back to the wall…”

Slumping onto the wooden slats, Seth patted the space beside him and gave Kyari a tired look, saying, “We need to talk.”

She leaned against the wall, her eyes closed. "Alright, talk."

Seth rested his elbows on his knees, staring out at the shifting mass of humans. Then young man sighed and took a deep breath before beginning, “Jalen was the one who convinced you to go to him for all your medical needs, right?”

"Essentially, yes."

"Besides Jalen, did anyone know we were going to go to him for healing?"

She paused, and then shook her head. "Not that I know of."

Seth twitched and his fingers fought to kick up a nervous staccato on his knees. The teen distracted himself by instead searching through the crowd of passers-by, looking for someone, anyone, who might be listening in on their conversation.

“Don’t you think it’s a little suspicious that this just happened to happen right after the very first time we had to go to Jalen for healing?”

"If I took everything as suspicious, I'd be constantly paranoid. Are you saying it's Jalen's own fault he got killed?"

“Says the girl who trusts no one,” Seth scoffed, scanning the square to no avail. There were simply too many people moving here, there, everywhere. The boy could feel a migraine building right behind his eyes and knew he was kidding himself if he thought he was doing anything useful.

In retrospect, coming to the crossways was probably a terrible idea.

“But really,” the teen continued, “he seemed oddly eager to get us out of his house yesterday. So far as I know, there should have been no reason why he should have booted us out. Well…” Seth paused, turning to peer at Kyari, “unless he’s got some sort of shady side business that you forgot to inform me about.”

"I've told you everything I already know. My guess is this: the reason he was trying to get us out of the way is that the person who murdered him was coming, and he didn't want us getting hurt."

“Which begs the question…” Seth paused for a moment to rub his temples and sigh. “Well, questions,” he amended. “A) How did he know someone was coming in the first place, B) How did he know they were coming for him and C) Why didn’t he come with us?”

"I don't think he expected to be killed, nor do I think they were necessarily coming for him. He would've left if that was the case. I think they were coming for us..."

“Well there you go,” Seth replied, spreading his hands in the universal gesture of demonstration. “By that logic, the only one who could have informed them that we would be in that location, at that time, is Jalen himself.”

"But why? What does he have to gain?" Recognition dawned on her face. "Money. He thought he could get money from getting information from us and giving it to someone--Marcin, most likely--but he didn't want to actually turn us over, so he had us leave before they arrived..."

“Could be any number of things, really,” Seth shrugged. “Cash is the most… ubiquitous of motivators, but it’s rarely what people really want. Who knows? Maybe they kidnapped someone Jalen cared about and are holding them ransom, maybe they have rare and valuable medical techniques that any healer would kill to get their hands on; the list is endless.”

Seth sighed and looked out at the city square flooded with humans, “Long story short, we’re don’t have any access to healers and we’ve got no idea what Jalen told Marcin, assuming it’s Marcin, about us. For all we know, he could have slipped us one half of a two-part paralyzer while we were under and all it’ll take is a small sprig of holly in our next meal to render us completely insensate.”

"So what do you propose we do?"

“Cool it on the fights,” Seth replied, almost immediately. “I don’t mean stop them entirely,” he clarified quickly, “just… tone them down a bit. Which, I guess, is what we were supposed to be doing, but now we’ve actually got a reason to follow through with it that isn’t just ‘I don’t feel like ending up in a hospital in the near future’.”

Seth tilted to his head as the deluge of sound around him melted into a mellow pressure, pushing softly against his eardrums. Easing up on his and Kyari’s sparring sessions was an absolute must " neither of them could afford to be incapacitated for any significant length of time anymore " but it weighed on Seth’s mind. Time was running out and his deadline was starting to seem more of a grim promise than an off-colour euphemism with each passing day.

She nodded tiredly. "It's probably best if we stop them. At the rate we go, you never know how badly we could be injured."

That… was not what Seth had been hoping for. They’d just come off a combat lacuna and while Seth had enjoyed, and even benefited from, the downtime, his ability to fight had taken a severe nosedive. He couldn’t afford any more laxity in his training.

Kyari, however, was right. There were people out there after them. Or her, rather, if it was indeed Marcin who had called in the hit on Jalen. In that case, the solution was simple: find someone else to train with. Kyari was the best fighter in the area, yes, but she wasn’t the only one capable of handling themselves in a fight. “All right,” Seth conceded. “So then what should we do in regards to our increasingly deadly shadows? Should we just keep our heads down and hope they go away, or should we eliminate the problem?”

"You mentioned earlier that getting rid of them would be problematic and bring up questions. But quite honestly, I'm tired of dealing with them."

Seth held in a wince. He needed to watch what he was saying more closely; another slip up like that would cost him his credibility and then some. His mother had been right, he’d have made a terrible spy. Oh well, another failure for the pile. What else was new? “That was before they decided murder was fair game,” Seth said, waving Kyari’s reply aside. “Before, we’d have looked like common murderers if this whole debacle had been taken to the authorities. Now we at least have some semblance of an alibi.

“So, assuming I’ve interpreted your intentions correctly, is there any particular way you’d prefer to go about ridding ourselves of these buzzards?”

"We have to find them first. We have no guarantee that it's Marcin, though that's a good guess. For all we know, it could be the medics."

“Exactly,” Seth replied, “it could be anyone, which is why I was wondering if there was a particular way you wanted to go about hunting them down. So far as I see it, having either one or both of us acting as bait would probably be the most effective way of dragging them out of the woodwork. That is,” he craned his neck and peered over at Kyari, “unless you have a safer way of going about it?"

She leaned forward, putting her head in her hands. "It will probably be the most effective. What do we do, go stand out there in the middle of the square and yell, 'Hey, it's Kyari, come and get her!'?

Seth idly reached for the pocket of a passing man before thinking better of it and retracting his hand. “So long as we’re cracking jokes, you ever hear the one where a gladiator, an extortionist and a charlatan walk into a bar?” Seth smiled while quirking an eyebrow at Kyari.

"No..." she replied, mostly welcome for a change of pace. It was either crying or laughing, and she preferred laughing.

Seth barked out a laugh. “I was actually kind of hoping you’d call me out on account of cheekiness,” he admitted. “I honestly have no idea, though with a combination like that I’m sure someone would end up dead, someone would end up broke and the barkeep would hose whoever ‘won’ for damages accrued.

“Speaking of barkeeps, you want a drink? I think we could both use one and my reason for coming out here in the first place is pretty much shot. And, well, so long as we don’t end up gift-wrapping ourselves for whoever’s coming for us.”

"I don't drink, but I'll have something else. Besides--why not?”

Seth rose from the bench and stretched before placing his hands back in his pockets.  “For all that I’ve been here for a while, I still don’t know the best places around. Are there any watering holes around here that you prefer?”

"Would you rather have it quieter or busier?"

“Quieter, if possible,” he replied, looking vaguely at the blurred masses flowing by the two of them. “A lot quieter.”

"Something off the main street then..." she muttered, slowly pulling herself off the bench, heading towards a quieter section of town. Quieter doesn't necessarily mean dirtier, she reminded herself. Besides, it's still morning. She opened the door to a well-lit dining hall, designed more for workers to get meals than for them to get drunk. It was at least an hour before the lunch rush, and the employees were doing a morning clean-up. She nodded at them, and then moved across the room from the only other patrons there.

“Nice place,” Seth commented as he followed Kyari into the venue. It was one of those establishments that could only ever really be described as ‘local’; something in the atmosphere that smacked of a certain sense of… familiarity that most places who catered to all and sundry could never quite capture. It felt like a small slice of home. The irony of that sentiment wasn’t wasted on Seth. “Do you come here often?” the young man asked.

"Often enough. Actually, I like having breakfast here, when I don't want to make something at home."

Seth blinked and paused. "... Who taught you how to cook?" He asked at length. It had just hit him how little he knew about his companion, and, well, how little he knew in general. He hadn't the foggiest idea how to navigate a kitchen and were he given a cooking implement he'd be more likely to think of the most efficient way to go about braining someone with it than how to employ it in the alchemy of cooking.

“My father taught me a few things, but I picked it up when I was trying to find work after he died. That's not to say I was good at it right away," she smiled. "But the Lower District doesn't really care much if the food isn't the best. They're just happy it's food."

"I'm surprised you had ingredients to work with in the first place," Seth replied as he eased himself onto the bench that hugged the corner of the small eatery and settled down in front of the table with his back to the wall.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, people who are looking for work generally don't have all that much money, much less enough to feed any number of people in the Lower District," Seth shrugged. "Maybe it's different here, but where I was from people who didn't know they way around a ladle were generally relegated to serving when it came to, ahhhhh, charitable enterprises.

"It's not that their help wasn't appreciated," Seth added quickly, "just that since their supply of ingredients was rather limited, they preferred to employ the best cooks they had on hand so as to limit cooking accidents."

"I found an employer who was willing enough to teach me enough to get by for the time. The job didn't last long...mostly because the management changed a month later..."

“What happened?” Seth asked.

"The owner was killed in a fight. He was trying to earn more money by fighting at the arena, but it backfired. His wife sold the place, but couldn't afford to help me out...and the next people didn't want me."

"I suppose there always needs to be those who lose for the Coliseum to stay in business..." Seth sighed, looking around idly before asking, "Hey, were we supposed to order before we sat down, or are there servers?"

Kyari pointed to the menus sitting on the table. "They usually wait until we wave them over. So pick something..."

Seth blinked before looking down at the table. There before him sat a pair of plain, if handsome looking menus. "Next thing you know I'll be buying a pair of glasses," the boy mumbled, reaching for the drinks menu just as his stomach rumbled its displeasure at his having skipped breakfast. "Buuuuut perhaps I'll start with a late brunch," he blushed, picking up the main menu instead. Flipping through the menu, Seth quickly settled on a plate of sausages and bacon, and decided to forgo his earlier desire for something alcoholic to take his mind off the situation in favour of a simple glass of orange juice.

"Are you getting anything?" He asked, setting down the menu.

"Pancakes and sausage, plus orange juice." With an acknowledgement to the servers, one came over, taking their order and promising it'd be out shortly.

"Great minds..." Seth chuckled lightly before subsiding into silence.

The pause hung in the air until the server came back, Kyari waiting for Seth to say something, but dreading what it would be. As the food was set down before them, Seth opened his mouth as if to say something, but then checked himself.

"An appropriate table conversation this would most definitely not be..." He laughed softly, more to himself than to his companion. "Well, enjoy," Seth said, gesturing to Kyari's pancakes and bacon before picking up a knife and fork and following his own advice with no little enthusiasm. Perhaps there was something to be said for putting off meals; no matter how he framed it, Seth swore the sausages were juicier and the bacon was crispier. Or perhaps Kyari simply had good taste in restaurants.

It tasted good, certainly, but she just couldn't put her heart into it. She was hungry, but still, all she could do was pick at her food.

Seth kept half an eye on Kyari as he ate his meal. Oh, she moved her food around a lot, but it rarely ever went anywhere near her mouth, and he thought he knew why. Now if he knew whether to push the issue or leave this can of worms unopened, he'd be set. 'And perhaps I can go into professional fortune telling and direct people to hoards of buried treasure,' the young man mentally snorted to himself.

Deciding he'd put the problem off for a spell, the brunet finished his breakfast and asked, "Not hungry?"

"Sort of. I just don't really want to eat..."

Seth blinked. "I'm sorry," the boy apologized. "You mentioned breakfast and I assumed..."

"No, it's fine. There's no reason for you not to eat."

"Fair enough," Seth replied, finishing his brunch "So. Now what?"

"What do you suggest?"

"Well, we're still not 100% sure what situation it is that we're in," Seth said in a low voice, tapping the table. "We know that Marcin was hunting you, but we don't know whether or not he was involved with, ahhhh, Jalen.

"Ideally we could somehow capture one of the people involved so we can find out what kind of situation we're even in, but we aren't even sure who they're after, so what I'd suggest is that we both take turns shadowing the other in some of the more shadier sectors of town. Hopefully we can lure out someone who won't question something too good to be true."

"So, I follow you around while you're pretending to be unprotected?"

"Or vice versa," Seth replied.

"Which would you prefer to do?"

"To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure," the brunet sighed. "You're the one who knows this city inside out, so you'd be more capable at either role. That and I trust you to watch my back than I'd trust myself to watch yours. On the other hand, if we assume that these are Marcin's men we're dealing with, then there doesn't seem to be much point in me wandering around if you're the one they're after."

"I'd prefer to be the bait, but so far as I can see we'd get more results if you were the one on point. How about you? Do you have any preference?"

"I'll be the bait," she sighed. "We'll end up with more results that way."

“The faster this is through, the sooner we can stop looking over our shoulders every five seconds,” Seth acknowledged as he did just that, feeling incredibly foolish when his budding paranoia rewarded him with a faceful of wall. Pretending he was simply examining the décor, the teen turned back to Kyari and asked, “Are there any areas you think might serve our purposes best?”

"They're going to expect us to be near Jalen's, if they didn't already see us the first time. I'd say we go back towards there, but stick to the alleys."

Seth nodded absently and reached for his pocket to pay for the meal, only to find his hand already playing with two coins, nervously clicking them together in a frantic, erratic pattern. Slowly placing them on the table, Seth went and retrieved the rest of his money as he signaled the server that he was ready to pay.

"Are there any... others place you might consider putting this plan into effect," he asked Kyari hesitantly.

"I'm sure there are other places, but there is probably the best place to start."

Seth fidgeted as the waitress collected his money and adamantly stuffed his hands into his pockets. "... All right. Do you want to get this over with right away, or do you need to grab anything from home?" He asked as he waited for his change.

Kyari handed her money over as well, and then responded. "I'm good. I don't need anything else but what I'm wearing to defend myself. And hopefully I won't even need that."

"Hopefully..." Seth frowned before accepting his change from the waitress with a small thank you.

The teen returned his change to his pocket, but froze before slowly retracting his hand and staring at the single coin it held. It was a small, thin silver affair, identical, undoubtedly, to a coin one would find in any other country. With and expert flick of his thumb, he sent the coin flying, watching as it bounced along the table top and slowly span to a halt exactly on its edge. Withholding a grimace, the boy flicked the coin violently off the table and felt no little satisfaction as it ricocheted off the chair opposite him and came to a rest somewhere beneath his seat. He made no move to retrieve the coin, nor to get up.

If asked later why he'd done what he'd done, he would have no response. All he knew was that he'd felt as if he'd been robbed the answer to a question, one he'd never asked and would never know.

She shook her head, trying to puzzle out what she had seen. Standing up anyways, she began heading for the door. "Ready?" she called over her shoulder.

The boy stared at the tabletop for a minute before replying, "Yeah. Yeah I am." and getting up from his seat to follow Kyari out. He didn't look back.

As she walked out the door, she realized she was more worried about whether or not Seth would be there for her than if she was attacked. It had happened before--getting attacked--but the first time had been when she was underprepared, undertrained, and years younger. She sighed, hoping her trust in him wasn't unfounded.