Displaced

Chevelle - Fifty-Five

Timber had baked chicken and scalloped potatoes ready when I got back to the apartment. It smelled like heaven, I'm sure of it. Since I didn't burn up as much of a sweat as usual, I didn't bother heading back to the bathroom for a quick shower. Instead, I sat down at the dining room table, and waited for him to serve.

"For being gone so long, you don't seem all too tired," he observed.

I took a long sip of my water. "Had a chat with our favorite person on the ship."

"Paul?"

"I was being sarcastic."

"Oh...right. Just trying to be me, you know, Mr. Optimistic." He got himself a glass of water and took a seat in his usual chair, which happened to be across from me. Don't get me wrong, I didn't mind looking at him while we spoke, it's just that sometimes I had a hard time with it. There were moments where I still geeked out over him, rare and few and far between, but it still happened all the same. When we ate together, that's when I remembered it the most for some reason.

Stirring my potatoes, making sure the cheese was evenly dispersed throughout my pile, I glanced over at Lara, our little mole. "Rumor and I bumped into each other. She knows who you are, about your condition, and about Wicken. Three things I would much rather she not know."

"H-how?" Timber swallowed, his skin growing pale and I worried he was going to yak all over the table.

I know it was wrong of me, but I glared at Lara. "She's got her ways."

For being six, Lara was fast. She shook her head, tears pooling in her eyes. "No, no I didn't tell her anything. Not since we talked, I promise." She gazed up at Timber with wide eyes. "Please don't send me away from you, I didn't say anything!"

"Then do you know how she learned about all of those things?"

"Chevelle, relax, I got this," Timber said.

I shook my head. "You thought you had it, but somehow she still knows things about us. So either someone is lying, or she's a whole lot more shady than we originally thought."

"Lara, tell the truth, did you talk to Rumor about us more than you already had before?"

The girl shook her head vigorously, and I felt like a total jerk for being mad at her. I wanted to trust her, to believe all of her words. She was only a kid. Kids lied just as badly as adults did, especially if it meant saving their own skin. In my mind, it was easier to deal with Lara being a traitor, than it was to imagine Rumor doing something even worse than using a child for her own means. If Lara wasn't doing it, then who? How? I just didn't understand it.

Timber voiced my fears. "She must have another way of spying on us."

"Paul?" I supplied.

He shook his head. "Paul doesn't know everything about me. Not all of the details you mentioned at least."

"She said something about downloading information about your relationship with Talia."

"Ugh, seriously?"

"Is your hypoglycemia thing public knowledge?" I'd never heard it before, but I also didn't stalk the tabloids back home.

He sighed. "A few people know, but for the most part I keep that information to myself because unless someone has to know, then why bother blabbing it? Maybe once a long time ago I mentioned something in an interview, but that was when I was a lot younger. Like a kid. Nobody talks about it anymore and I'm pretty sure the whole thing is forgotten. It's not even on my trivia page on the movie database site. So she either dug super deep, or she has another way to know. Either way, that's super creepy to think about her downloading information about me. Stalker creepy, and if we were back home I might consider filing a restraining order against her."