No Dogs Allowed

When You Hear The Crows Go Flying By

H2O

Water.

Inorganic compound. Transparent, tasteless, odorless, colorless. Created via burning highly reactive gases or a hydrogen combustion reaction. Vital to the creation and survival of all forms of life.

___________________

Here's the secret of life: Or die trying.

If you want a translation, that means: Win.

Bullshit. It's really not that clear, if you think about it. Win. Or die trying. Too quick. Too broad. You might use it in the wrong situation. Give me a chance.

Let me explain.

Nami came to see me three days after the match.

The hospital had cleared me to return home under Ramos's watch, leaving me with half a dozen types of ice packs in the freezer to rotate between and a bottle of painkillers to top it off. It took an additional hour and a half for her to patch up the other wounds that had torn into my body from the two matches, and by the time she was finished, I was already promising her a box of cupcakes at some point to make up for the efforts.

She held up a hand and held out her pinkie. "Just keep yourself out of this kind of trouble for the rest of your very long life, Echo. Promise?"

I hooked her pinkie with mine. "Yeah. Promise."

Half of Corvus was asleep by the time I returned. Wynter, Zoe, and Diego had taken it upon themselves to sleep in the living room with extra blankets to keep warm, Rosalie on dish duty alongside Zahir, and Kenzo aimless on his phone at the table. At my entrance, Meredith came bounding over to me from Kane's room.

"You're back," she said. "Hungry?"

"You waited?"

"Hey, don't sound surprised," Rosalie snapped. "It makes me depressed."

Zahir smiled at me from over his shoulder. "I'll heat it up for you. It's a veggie stir fry."

My heart was warm.

Kane and I didn't talk for nearly two days. Fact, he didn't talk to anyone, content to stay inside his room and only leave at times no one could really catch him. No one blamed him, however. It just meant our dinners were far more quiet, and when the end of the semester struck, the unit far more mournful.

"Have you seen him at all?" Rosalie asked me.

"No," I admitted. "I think that's a good thing, though. I don't think he's in a position to talk with anyone."

She just sighed. December was beginning to feel more like January, with all the melancholiness that had soaked through Corvus, all the anticipation that felt more like dread seeping into the Talon's bones.

Nami's arrival was a half-hearted attempt at hope, then.

"Hey." Diego cracked my door open and gestured behind. "Some angry bloodsucker is here to see you. Nani?"

I got to my feet. "Where is she?"

We sat across from each other at the dining table, Diego and Zahir out on last-minute Christmas shopping, Kenzo out on a more cryptic reason, and Kane holed up in his room. It left me no one as defense, just Nami and me and an intimidatingly high stack of papers at her right.