Ravens and Crows

Chapter 8 ~Jesper~

Wylan and I sat on the ground outside in silence for awhile before he finally spoke.

"Sorry," was the only thing he said.

"For what?" I asked. He was leaning on my shoulder. His curly strawberry blonde hair tickling my neck.

"For freaking out," he looked up at me and I stared into the ocean that was his eyes. "I guess I'm just tired of being useless."

My eyes widened in shock. "Wylan Van Sunshine, you are the least useless person I have ever known."

He casted his gaze back down. "I can't even read."

"But you can do math, and run a business, and overtake a Barrel boss, and make bombs."

"Yeah, I'll make bombs, that'll impress the merchant council."

I did a double take. "Who cares about the merchant council?"

"I do!"

"So that's why you never mention me around them?" I shouldn't have said it. I wanted to take it back. But I couldn't.

Wylan sat up. "It's not like that!"

"So what is it like!" I didn't want to fight with him, really I didn't, but the conversation was in the air and I couldn't help it.

"It's just-well- you know the way they look at us, Jes. I just- I can't take them looking at us like that."

I sighed, I thought that was the reason. "Wylan, I quit college to gamble and ended up working for Kaz, I'm used to getting those looks."

"Well I'm not. It bother me that people look at you like trash and us like we're..." He didn't finish.

"Well," I pulled him back to my side. "To them we are."

We sat there and cuddled for little bit. Then, I took Wylan's arm in my hands and rolled up his sleeve. It was bare and for a moment I imagined the Crow tattoo on his forearm.

"Did you mean it," I asked him. "that you were never part of the Dregs?"

"No," he said quietly playing with my hands, "in all honesty, the time I was with Dregs was the only time I felt like I had a family."

"So let's go back!"

"And leave the mansion to who?"

"Your mom?"

"I'm not leaving my mom to run a business empire!"

"So we change the business! The merchants are already as corrupt as the Barrel Bosses, let's make the Van Eck estate into a casino! Or we could work with Kaz and the Dregs or Inej or Ni-"

"Jesper, are you seriously suggesting we take the Van Eck name and turn it into a corrupt business?'

"Is your mind confused in this century or something? What the hell has the Van Eck name ever done for you?"

"Nothing! Nothing at all!"

"Then why are you trying so hard to protect it!"

"To prove to my dad that I can do everything he said I couldn't!"

I backed off. It made sense. Wylan lived his whole life being told by his father that he couldn't do anything. That he would never do anything. The opportunity to prove him wrong was in his grasp and Wylan was determined to not let it slip away. "I'm sorry."

But he stayed silent. Something was bothering him.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Call me crazy," he scratched at his jean leg. "But what do you think would happen if we stayed here?"

"...here...?"

"In the future. Where the Barrel doesn't exist and the Van Eck name means nothing. Where people like us aren't glared at." He grabbed my hand and turned up to me. "We could get a farm, just like Adam and Ronan, like the one you had in Novyi Zem, and no one has to know us and we can be whoever or whatever we want!"

I bit my lip and he snuggled into me.

"You think I'm crazy, don't you." He mumbled into my shirt.

"No,"

"Will you stay in the future?"

"Wy, everyone we love is back home. I mean my dad, your mom, Kaz, Inej, Nina. But if you want to leave, we can. We can go to a farm some place off the beaten path that's never heard of Ketterdam. Just not in the future."

He ran a hand through his hair. "You're right, I don't know what I'm thinking."

I didn't either. One minute he couldn't bare to leave his mom or the mansion the next he was ready to leave everything. Maybe the future was messing with him.

"Hey," I held his soft face in my hands. "We'll figure this out, together."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

And I promised. This wasn't one of those promise that were too big to keep. I would go anywhere with Wylan as long as he'd have me.