Devour

Chapter 33 - Dax

Saturday dawns bright and deliciously late. At the dumb party, I fell asleep in some little side room thing where there were extra chairs to sleep on. Christine eventually found me and woke me up and told me it was time to go, then she told me off for disappearing on her like that. I attempted to care about the telling off because that's who I am, but I was still tired. She walked me back to my dorm, where I curled up with tea and scones from Emma's mum and read my comic books until I fell asleep. Sometimes, I read them aloud and pretend Rose is listening. Really, I just use Rose. I barely knew her and it's creepy to pretend it's really her lying with me. I use her as a place holder. And just pretend someone is curled up next to me, enjoying the sound of my voice as I read quietly. And eventually I go to sleep.

Anyway, by the time I wake up it's basically time to go to Emma's so I get dressed, in civvies because I don't have any class or anything today. I put on a dark blue sweatshirt from one of the West-End shows I got to go see. Emma won a drawing and took me. That made me glad. She picked me to go, said I'd like it. I did I suppose.

I wear the sweatshirt and some regular khakis, and trainers and I am ready to go. I ring Christine eighteen times to wake her up and get her to me so that we can get there in time. That thrills her to no end.

"You can ring other people," she says, when she meets me at the gate to buzz me out.

"You said not to," she did as well.

"I was being stupid," she mutters.

"Are you still cross with me for disappearing last night? I am sorry," I am not overly I find. I enjoyed myself chatting with the girls and then sleeping mostly the sleeping part.

"You know better, I try to be nice to you," she says.

"Sorry," I say, a little pathetically so she'll forgive me, "Are you having a nice weekend?"

"Yes, other than having to run out to do this----are you going to stay late do think?"

"Probably till evening---I can ring for somebody else to walk me back then," I say. Pippa did say she'd come if I rang I could take her up on it.

"Either way," she shrugs which means she wants me to ring her.

"Look, I am sorry about last night," I say, sighing, because she still seems cross.

"You talked for quite a while with Philippa Yeager," she says.

"She and a few of her friends were chatting with me, yeah," I say as calmly as possible. I hardly want her to know about the night before last she'd never let me have a tracer again if she knew I was wandering the streets.

"She's quite pretty."

"So am I!" I say, indignantly.

That does make her laugh, actually.

"What are you implying? You'd prefer her company to mine? Go on, I can take it, come right out," I say, which makes her continue laughing.

"You are ridiculous," she says, laughing and shaking her head.

"What's going on?" I ask, frowning, "You're acting off and you didn't come and see me at all this morning." She usually does to get away from the kids.

"I was going to wait to tell you----they're going assign you a different handler, after your birthday, something to do with your class schedule versus mine, I don't know," she lies, shrugging.

"Right then," I nod. I'm gonna kill him.

It takes us a good fifteen minutes of walking plus bus time to make it to Emma's parent's flat. When we do get the others are being dropped off as well and the handlers pause to sort out tracers. So long as there are two additional handlers to Emma's mum and dad we're fine. Patch's handler and the girl who brought Jules over offer to stay and watch television in the den while we have our study group/party.