Prison Break

Part 20

At the end of a particularly long day, Ekko tiredly pulled himself into his room, closed the door, and somehow made it to the bed to sit down.  Actually sitting down, though?  Well, that was a bit harder.  He turned around once he was in front of the bed, bent forward at the waist, bent his knees, and...  "AAAHHH!"  His butt plopped down as pain shot through his right leg!  He caught his breath.  "Well...  could be worse.  Least, I'm not on the floor," he grumbled.  He slowly pulled off his boot and sock, then rolled up the leg of his pants, and carefully fingered the long gash on his foreleg, where a chem baron's thug had caught him.  "Damn..."
The door suddenly flew open!  "Ekko!" Sen yelled excitedly, bounding into the room.  "Ekko, Caitlyn was here!  Caitlyn was here!  She brought a letter!"
Ekko couldn't help a laugh.  Even with a letter coming every other wees for the last three months, Sen still got just as excited for them.  "Okay, Sen, okay, calm down.  Here, lemme see."
"Okay!"  Sen reached forward and gave him what was in his hand that wasn't holding Mr. Bunny.  He was always holding Mr. Bunny now.  He handed over the envelope, then looked down and saw the gash.  "You're hurt!"
"Yeah...  Some bum got me pretty good.  Think you could...  get some stuff to clean it for me?"
"Yeah!"  Sen nodded quickly.  "Don't read it without me!"
"I won't.  I promise."  Sen smiled at him approvingly, then ran out.
While he waited, Ekko turned the letter around and around in both hands and smiled to himself.  He hadn't counted on Powder writing quite as often as she did, but he could hardly complain.  With all the things he had to worry about constantly down here, it was at least good that she didn't have to be one of them.  He and Sen had been able to follow her and Vi through Vi getting a job as a farm hand, them getting a house, Powder making a LOT of friends with the children and little siblings of the other hands, and even her starting to make her own sort of hangout.  Besides that, she always sent plenty of drawings of the things she wrote about, which Sen was always excited to see.
Presently, Sen came running back into the room with some disinfectant and strips of cloth.  "Okay, okay, I'm back, I'm back, I'm back!" he said eagerly, running up to the bed.  "You can read it now."
Ekko laughed.  "If you can take care of the cut while I read it."
"I can!"  Sen knelt down, wetted one of the cloth strips, and started dabbing at the gash.  Ekko screwed up his face for a second as he felt it sting, then he smiled again.  Sen was quite the good, little helper.  He could see why he and Powder had gotten so close.  He messed with the boys hair a little, then found Powder's letter in the envelope and started to read it out loud.

"Hey there, buddy and boy savior!

So, it's raining today.  Vi has the day off, obviously, so we've just been at home all day.  We played a couple games earlier, but now, she's taking a nap, and I got bored, so here we are.  I thought the rain stopped a minute ago, but it was just the sound being drowned out by her snoring."

Sen laughed at that, just a bit more than the joke deserved.

"It's been raining a lot this week.  We went to a friend's house for the day yesterday, and some of the kids came over.  That was pretty fun.  We mostly just read stories, but still.  I think Sen'll like these guys a lot when he comes.  A couple of them might come over here for dinner tonight with their family.
I was stuck in bed for a few days last week.  I got a little sick.  You should've seen Vi.  I could barely get her to leave me alone.  You would've sworn I was dying.  No worries now, though, I'm right as rain.  Hehe, rain!
Not much progress on the hideout this week, for obvious reasons.  We did find some really cool purple glass for a window last week, though.  If gave me a pretty neat idea, but we found it the day right before I started feeling sick, so here's hoping it stops raining before this thing in my head drives me totally crazy.
I finally found out why Vi hasn't been letting me see hers and Caitlyn's letters to each other lately!  She couldn't hide it from me forever!  Just kidding, she just told me.  Cait thought I'd like a little friend at home, so...  she's gonna be sending over a kitten!"