Planet Omega

Chapter 5

 "So it's essentially a train graveyard," I say flatly, staring out into what looks like a dump site or a junkyard.

"But less sad looking," Will in a bird form replies.

I tilt my head to the side, as if seeing the abandoned trainyard from another angle might change my mind about it. "Just as sad looking," Emma points out, confirming what I was thinking.

"You live here?" I wrinkle my nose, unsure about anything Emma and I had agreed to just a few days ago. The idea of a trainyard that outskirts the city and no one ever goes into because of how it looks was significantly better when I didn't actually know what it looked like.

The truth is, Emma's apartment just isn't safe unless we stay indoors most of the time. Even Emma doesn't just go out whenever she feels like it, and it's getting awfully stifling in there. I refuse to just rot in that basement, and I know to an extent, Emma agrees. Besides that, she made a home for herself there, and having me live with her like that for much longer will eventually put her in a lot of danger she never asked for.

Which, I like to remind her that she did actually ask for it by choosing to save my life that night. She could have chosen to mind her own business and go about blowing buildings up without me, but she wanted to be involved. She wanted to preserve magic.

"It's far enough away that those who wander out here never wander in, and pawns don't quite have any jurisdiction on the outskirts of the city. It's as safe as it'll ever get this close to Spectre City." Will shrugs their birdlike shoulders, still healing from the wounded wing they'd had, but is better at mobility than before. "And, if anyone does ever wander too close, we can hear them before they ever reach us."

They had a fair point. The abandoned trainyard was so far removed from society that the humans weren't even curious about this place. The train cars left to rust on these tracks were never going to be moved anywhere. And if there's one thing I know about humans, it's that they love to leave abandoned things alone to rot. Predictable.

I turn to glance at Will, who's now settled on my shoulder, and at Emma, who knows that whatever I say next, she'll have to go along with it. "If you're willing to share your home with us, then we'd be honored," I finally tell Will, and I can hear Emma audibly sigh.

Weird how the tables turned with us, because normally she's the polite one and I'm the one that reluctantly agrees to do the thing I know is logical but dislike. Hell, sometimes I'm stubborn just to argue with her.

This time, I got my head out of my ass in favor of having some freedom. The city is bound to go on lockdown after the armory raid, and Emma's place simply won't be safe to use anymore. They'll find us eventually, and they'll execute all of us, Will included now. I don't care if humans die because of us, but I won't risk the lives of two people who actually give a shit about succeeding here.

They both have something worth fighting for.

"Since everything for this raid is back at Emma's place, we'll bring whatever we need other than those things, here. When we run, we run here and avoid the city at all costs until the next raid," I explain, feeling a sense of pride swell up inside of me. It's an odd feeling, because it certainly rivals the disappointment I feel about myself almost at all times.

I guess, for the first time in weeks, I feel like maybe what I want to do, no, need to do, isn't as impossible as I thought. I still wish I was strong enough to go in guns blazing, but doing things that way won't even put a dent in the half a million humans that live in Spectre City, not to mention the million pawns. One would think the city is crowded, and I'd argue that the ghosts of those they murdered are definitely crowding the city. As for the humans and pawns, they're just taking up space that doesn't belong to them.