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kidjoyShe'd heard about a school once.
It was a thousand lifetimes ago now, back when her world was small and safe. Her boys and their oddities were all she needed to know. Always hiding, always watching their backs. Other people didn't like their kind, they'd said, and she knew it from tense standoffs in small town gas stations and the ugly looks they got the few times Party let them eat in some backwater diner. There was a memorable moment when she'd been getting snacks with Kidd; when she'd grown annoyed with his slow progress, already cranky from so many hours trapped in a car. The Girl had touched the vending machine because she'd forgotten their place and it was so much easier to force the packages out with a power surge than watch someone count coins. People screamed and stared and someone threw a can and-
It was terrible. It was a long day. At the end of it, when she'd been tucked into her ratty sleeping bag and they'd shut her up in the back of the car, the Girl heard them talking. Low voices muffled by night winds and car windows, but she knows she heard them talk about a school. A fleeting worry if she was safe with them, idle thoughts squashed out by the next sunrise.
She'd forgotten about it herself, until days after she watched her small world crash and burn. After crying and screaming and running blindly from the cabin they'd broken into, the Girl remembered the school. If it was good enough to be considered once, it had to be worth checking out. There was little choice in the matter. She could wander until someone caught her, or she could have a goal. So the school it was. Even if all she could remember was north.
She just had to find a way to get there.
The Girl stood in front of a payphone, eyeing the run down bar across the street. Most of the people that stumbled out of it paid her little attention and it was late enough that she figured all of them must be too drunk to remember her anyway. Maybe they'd think the little light show was a product of one too many beers. She held her hand over the side of the money slot, concentrating until she felt a familiar pull in her chest and then the machine sparks. She tasted electricity in the air, like someone running a live wire across her molars, in the moment before coins start spilling out of the return tray.
She laughed, her little oddity a simple delight, and starts scooping the coins into her pockets. It would have been easier to knock over an ATM, get all the cash she needed for a bus ticket in one swoop, but her friends had always been wary of security cameras. She didn't think a place so dodgy would bother. So she moved to the other phone, amused to find two side by side, and started the routine again. A long breath, a frustrating moment of concentration. Caught up in her work, she didn't look to see who was watching and let the power surge grow- sparks large and bright and catching on the trash littered on the ground.
It was a thousand lifetimes ago now, back when her world was small and safe. Her boys and their oddities were all she needed to know. Always hiding, always watching their backs. Other people didn't like their kind, they'd said, and she knew it from tense standoffs in small town gas stations and the ugly looks they got the few times Party let them eat in some backwater diner. There was a memorable moment when she'd been getting snacks with Kidd; when she'd grown annoyed with his slow progress, already cranky from so many hours trapped in a car. The Girl had touched the vending machine because she'd forgotten their place and it was so much easier to force the packages out with a power surge than watch someone count coins. People screamed and stared and someone threw a can and-
It was terrible. It was a long day. At the end of it, when she'd been tucked into her ratty sleeping bag and they'd shut her up in the back of the car, the Girl heard them talking. Low voices muffled by night winds and car windows, but she knows she heard them talk about a school. A fleeting worry if she was safe with them, idle thoughts squashed out by the next sunrise.
She'd forgotten about it herself, until days after she watched her small world crash and burn. After crying and screaming and running blindly from the cabin they'd broken into, the Girl remembered the school. If it was good enough to be considered once, it had to be worth checking out. There was little choice in the matter. She could wander until someone caught her, or she could have a goal. So the school it was. Even if all she could remember was north.
She just had to find a way to get there.
The Girl stood in front of a payphone, eyeing the run down bar across the street. Most of the people that stumbled out of it paid her little attention and it was late enough that she figured all of them must be too drunk to remember her anyway. Maybe they'd think the little light show was a product of one too many beers. She held her hand over the side of the money slot, concentrating until she felt a familiar pull in her chest and then the machine sparks. She tasted electricity in the air, like someone running a live wire across her molars, in the moment before coins start spilling out of the return tray.
She laughed, her little oddity a simple delight, and starts scooping the coins into her pockets. It would have been easier to knock over an ATM, get all the cash she needed for a bus ticket in one swoop, but her friends had always been wary of security cameras. She didn't think a place so dodgy would bother. So she moved to the other phone, amused to find two side by side, and started the routine again. A long breath, a frustrating moment of concentration. Caught up in her work, she didn't look to see who was watching and let the power surge grow- sparks large and bright and catching on the trash littered on the ground.