THE SANDMAN ☞ TRAVIS STOLL

FIVE

WHEN VALERIE WALKS INTO THE ARENA, the campers she trains flock around her, their eyes wide with curiosity.

"Did you kill it?" One of them asks, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Did you kill the monster?"

Another one looks at her suspiciously. "I heard it bit your leg off."

Valerie glares at Travis, who stands behind the group of children and smiles widely. "Don't believe everything you hear." She says, precicely, coldly. "Practice with the dummies for a minute, and then we'll start."

The excitement and insatiable need for answers wanes from each of their faces as they all sigh dejectedly and walk towards the row of straw mannequins, picking a wooden practice sword from the massive pile in the corner.

Clarisse is still out on medical leave, it seems, for Travis has once again shown up in her place for the noon training slot. He has the nerve to look happy to see Valerie, as if the look on his face in his dream didn't make her want to take off running.

"You shouldn't have told them anything." She tells him, eyes on her sword as she polishes its marbled black-and-bronze blade with a firm and steady hand. Of course, her sword isn't dirty or scratched in the slightest—she just can't bear to look at him right now.

In the clear reflection of the blade, she sees his grin fall. "I didn't. They came to me with questions that I couldn't answer, so I told them to ask you." He pauses and glances down at her sword, almost as if he can sense her watching him through the blade. "How are you feeling?"

A loaded question for a loaded situation. Perfect. She finally looks up at him, eyes narrowed. "You saw, didn't you? Everything that happened that day in Manhattan?"

Her entire body is tense as he absorbs her words and thinks on how to answer.

Then, finally, after one too many heartbeats: "Yeah. I saw. And I'm sor—"

"Don't. It's none of your business."

He looks so frustrated as he pushes his hair back off of his forehead. "You didn't tell me. I had no idea, Valerie."

Her face goes eerily calm, and her spine straightens until she's almost eye-level with him. "You didn't know, I didn't tell you," she starts, mouth flattening into a thin line of poorly checked anger. "Because we aren't friends. You didn't know her. You don't know me."

Travis doesn't appear hurt, or angry. The emotion on his face is complex and hard to read, close to betrayal but not quite. Disappointment, maybe. "Okay."

There are very few people that are capable of making her feel small—Chiron and her mother and Josslyn, namely. But the expression on Travis's face, the way he looks down at her, makes her feel like throwing up.

"You can handle training today." She says, fighting the lump in her throat. "Just make sure Danny and Summer work on their grips today. If they keep holding their swords the way they do, they're going to get themselves killed."

His gaze softens. "I won't tell Chiron you're skipping."

Relief rises up in her chest like a cresting wave, and she feels it crash over her ribcage and heart. "Thank you. I owe you one." She says, already predicting what he'll say in response. Already knowing what she won't say to him.

"I'll cash in on that eventually."

She freezes. Since they had first met, many years ago, she had owed him many, many favors. He has always said that they were even.

"Okay." She says, and the anger that builds in her stomach is killed quickly and humanely as she forces a smile that closely resembles a grimmace. She can tell that he knows the small smile is unnatural for her, because he nods once before walking back to the group of kids that have stopped practicing and started gossiping.