Never Lost

07 - Fleeing Gleefully

...

Together they fled through the night, only stopping to rest once the sun was out again. Behind them voices seemed to echo for miles, as if the two of them were never gaining any distance at all. For the majority of the way, Torch seemed tired and pissed off. Up until that point, they had mostly been walking, and making strategic turns to stay away from mob on their tail, but now they were running for their lives and Kayda had never felt more alive.

She whooped and leapt over trashcans like a caffeinated ferret, slinging herself over walls and crashing through back allies like a morning brook.

Torch hated it. She was slightly less ecstatic with the constant cardio.

Finally she put her foot down – through a the top of a plastic milk crate. "That's it!" She declared as she swung her foot at the side of an old florist' building. "The sun is rising and – ow – the Groundhogs wouldn't dare follow us outright in the daylight."

She slumped down on the ground and started fiddling with the crate. "You might have been some...dark demigod...power child –"

"—in a past life," Kayda corrected quickly.

"Yeah yeah, whatever. In a past life or not, you still have the energy of someone who only sleeps two hours a night. How are you –"

"—how am I still alive?" Kayda crouched down, grasped at the top of the crate, and started tugging "How the fuck did you ugh –" The crate pried loose and she fell back on her ass. She sighed in exasperation; maybe it was time to take a rest. "How am I alive? I don't know how am I alive? I don't know how I keep coming back. I don't even know if I'm the only one, but I do know that neither of us are dead yet. But we will be if we stay out here much longer getting feetsy with the local crates." Kayda rose to her feet and offered out a hand.

Torch rose without her assistance. "There's a reason I stepped through a crate right here." She patted the side of the building. "The owner here owes me quite a bit after I got the Underground to drop a hit on her son. We can hole up here until nightfall and then keep moving."

Kayda crossed her arms skeptically. "Yes, that's exactly why y–" but she was unable to finish her sentence as her friend hobbled to an emergency ladder on the side building. She was at this time starting to make note that every building in Neo Neo Neo had rooftop access from the outside of the building and it was a structural insecurity. The crate incident didn't seem to bother Torch as she leapt up several feet into the air, grabbed the bottom rung of the sliding ladder and scampered up onto the roof. She stood up quickly at the edge to scan the area. Her face went pale and she gestured wildly for Kayda to follow.

Kayda sighed and hurried up secretly wondering why they always used the roof when Torch claimed that she was owed a favor by the owner.

Her companion seemed to read her thoughts as she pulled her mobile device from inside her jacket and typed on it intensely. "Texted the owner and let her know we're stopping by. She's still in bed right now; it's a little early for businesses right now."

Kayda nodded in agreement. "Alright." Several feet before them she caught sight of the hinges of a hatch down into the building. She took a step forward and threw it open, motioning for Torch to follow her as she moved down a three step ladder into a shallow alcove under the insulation. Her friend took one last wild look around before lowering the hatch shut behind her.

Inside, it was as dark as if were still the dead of night. Kayda flipped on her phone light and quickly peered into the darkness. She was standing on a narrow support beam only as wide as about one and a half times the width of her hand. She gulped as she realized how close she had been to smashing straight through the stranger's ceiling.

"We stay in here until dark again?" She gulped, feeling her eyes start to water with the dust and unusual amount of pollen than one would usually find in an attic.

"Just for a little while," Torch reassured and placed a hand on her shoulder soothingly. They both were a bit crouched over so not to hit the support bars hanging at the level their ears usually would have been. "Go forward, there's a resting room hidden in the wall where we can stay a little more comfortably."

Kayda squinted through the darkness, wiping her eyes aggressively with the back of her hand. There was an urgency in her friend's voice and she followed quickly behind, holding back a sneeze as she found herself being ushered through a thick curtain where the insulation should have been. To their right, Kayda saw the ladder folded into the floor where one would enter in the main building – and before them, built into the brick work was a room just barely large enough for two people to lay down in. There was a bookshelf on one end and a window on the far wall. A thick red carpet was thrown down over the brickwork and there was a small folding table and a crate of odds and ends in the corner next to the window.

"She's remodeled since I'd last been here," Torch murmured as she took a seat in front of the bookshelf. She pointed at the table and shook her head. 

Kayda took a moment to absorb the room. Her eyes brushed over the spines of what looked like ancient books bending the shelf beneath them. The titles were unusual to her; yet oddly familiar. She closed the curtain behind her and moved the board back into place, walling them in; before leaning over Torch to take a closer look.

"What are you –" she started but Kayda brought a finger to her lips.

"A History of Four Parts: The Philosophy of Silence. Snow: A Guide for Dingots. Heaven, Hell, And Where Alcohol Fits In. Aramaria. Capitalism and the Stans of Dark Magic Users." Kayda shook her head and sat down across from Torch. "I've seen these titles before."

Torch had taken off the cloak and Kayda grabbed it to wrap around her own shoulders. "I can't remember where...exactly; I just know it was in a past life." Torch pulled her legs up to her chest and looked sullenly out the window. Her bright eyes now dull and worn with fatigue. She pulled her gloves from her hands and Kayda warily eyed the web of scars snaking from the ridge of her left knuckle up under the sleeve of her jacket.

"We're safe here?" Kayda asked in a low voice as the sun started peaking between the leaves that covered their only window to the outside. "They won't find us?"

Torch nodded as she massaged her wrist with her other hand. "I lived here for years when my brother left to go join the Underground. I had nowhere else to stay when I was trying to get in. Monty always searched for me, sent their dogs on me to try and bring me back to live with them." She glanced up, a smile half formed onto her lips. "Despite spending my entire life trying to join them, living with them wasn't much to my taste."

Kayda for whatever empathetical reason started rubbing her wrist as well, her own nerves freezing in pain as she closed her eyes to the memories of her own childhood in the Underground. "Trust me, living with them was overrated." She cracked a broken grin and tilted her head to one side. "You weren't missing out."

Her companion took a deep breath and looked at the floor. "So I figured."

There was a moment of silence between them as they both looked anywhere and everywhere. The shag carpet tickled between Kayda's fingers as she dug them deep into the rubber matting. "I'm sorry – for what they did to you I mean." Her chest tightened as she bit her tongue to keep from saying more.

Torch looked up in confusion, all the light that usually surrounded her was now gone. "Why are you apologizing. After everything they've done to you; everything I've done in their name." Her eyes grew orange and milky and she reached her scarred hand forward; her fingers trembling before she let it fall back down onto the carpet. Her voice was barely a whisper when she spoke again. "Why are you the one apologizing."

Kayda grew silent and rested her head onto her own shoulder. She took a deep breath, the first one she had probably taken for the whole evening as the rush of the chase slowly faded from her muscles, leaving her feeling heavy and drained. "One of us had to," she murmured. "Otherwise this whole thing would never work." Torch's eyes darkened once again. It was less than a week ago that she had been trying to kill Kayda in defense of an group who...well...

Torch appeared to be looking for more words, but Kayda shook her head. "Get some rest, please." She bunched her cape under her neck and leaned into the corner. "Not that I don't trust you or anything, but I'll never feel safe as long as they're still out there."

Across the impossibly small room, Torch sighed. "Okay."