cinder || dnf

chapter thirty two

Dream waited half an hour before limping back to the elevator. The apartment building had come to life again. He kept himself plastered to the wall, crutches tucked behind him, as his neighbors danced by in their fine clothes. A few pitying glances turned on Dream as he kept out of their way, careful not to smudge any of the beautiful dresses, but mostly his neighbors ignored him.

Making it to the apartment, he shut the door behind him and listened for a moment to the blissful emptiness of the living room. He ran a mental checklist of everything he wanted to grab, green text rolling across his vision. In his room, Dream spread out his blanket and filled it with his few belongings- oil-stained clothes, tools that had never made their way back to the toolbox, silly little gifts that Patches had given to him over the years, like a 'gold ring' that was actually a rusted washer.

Both Patches' personality chip and Drista's ID chip were tucked safely in his calf compartment, where they would stay until he found a more permanent home for them.

He shut his eyes, suddenly tired. How was it that with freedom so close on the horizon, he suddenly had the overwhelming desire to lie down and take a nap? All those long nights fixing the car were catching up to him.

Shaking off the feeling, he finished packing as fast as he could, trying his best not to think of the risks he was taking. He would be considered a runaway cyborg for real this time. If he were ever caught, Adri could have him imprisoned.

He kept his hands moving. Trying not to think of Patches, who should have been at his side. Or Drista, who should have made him want to stay. Or Prince George.

Emperor George.

He would never see him again.

He knotted the blanket corners with an angry tug. He was thinking too much. He just had to leave. One step at a time and soon he would be in the car, and all this would be behind him. Settling the makeshift bag over his shoulder, he hobbled his way back to the hall and down the labyrinth of underground storage spaces. Limping into the storage room, he dropped the bag onto the floor.

He paused only for a moment to catch his breath before he continued, unlatching the top of the handheld toolbox and shoveling everything off the desk into it. There would be time for sorting later. The standing toolbox that came nearly to his chest was much too big to fit into the car and would have to be left behind. His gas mileage would have been ruined with all that weight in the back, anyway.

He surveyed the room where he'd spent most of the past five years. It was the closest thing to a home he'd ever known, even with the chicken wire that felt like a cage and the boxes that smelled of mildew. He didn't expect to miss it much.

Drista's crumpled ball gown was still draped over the welder. It, like the toolbox, wouldn't be coming with him.

He moved to the towering steel shelves against the far wall and began rummaging for the parts that would be useful for the car or even his own body, should anything malfunction, throwing the pieces of miscellaneous junk into a heap on the floor. He paused as his hand stumbled across something he'd never thought he would see again.

The small, battered foot of an eleven year old cyborg.

He lifted it from the shelf, where it had been tucked out of sight. Patches must have saved it, even after Dream had asked her to throw it away.

Perhaps in Patches' mind, it was the closest thing to an android shoe she would every own. Dream cradled the foot again this heart. How he had hated this foot. How overjoyed he was to see it now.

With an ironic smile, he slumped into his desk chair for the last time. Pulled off his gloves, he eyed his left wrist, trying to picture the small chip just beneath the surface. The thought brought Drista to mind. Her blue-tipped fingers. The scalpel against her pale white skin.