Vagabonds

Chapter Thirty-Five: Territorial

They fell.

The autumn leaves crunched like radio static beneath them as they rolled, shrieking, punching, grabbing.

"Catfight!" Moose crowed.

"Pull them apart!" Aquila snapped, shoving his brother aside.

But the two girls couldn't hear them, each consumed by their own passions. Eliza wrapped her dark fingers into Tori's light hair. Tori responded by elbowing Eliza in the gut. A branch jammed into the tender skin behind Eliza's knee and she jerked, giving Tori the opportunity to wrap an arm around her neck. Eliza shifted, bit down. Tori shrieked and threw out a wild punch that collided with Eliza's hip.

Someone grabbed Eliza's feet, yanking her away. She tried to roll back, claw her way closer, but Aquila was too strong. Like the unforgiving pull of a tow truck, he hauled her to safety, ignoring her spitting and cursing. On the other side of the clearing, close to where Old Betty sat crumpled and silent, Otto lifted Tori from the ground, careful to keep his hands from touching her bare skin.

"Calm down!" Aquila barked, breaking through Eliza's fury. "Everyone calm down!"

Eliza would have ignored him and kept on fighting if not for Tero's expression. The boy was curled into the shadow of his own wings, mouth open, sightless eyes huge and terrified.

So she forced herself to stop, taking a deep breath.

"I'm done," she spat, not yet able to mean it.

Aquila grip relaxed. Across from her, Tori swayed, a glistening handprint on her sweater.

"Sorry," Otto said, ducking his head.

Tori ignored him, nostrils still flared as she met Eliza's gaze.

"I didn't plan this," Tori said again, breathing deeply.

"Bullshit," Eliza snapped.

"Look, you don't know the first thing about me. So I'll tell you. My mom left when I was five. My dad raised the two of us with what he earned in his hardware store, but there was no way he could afford Meru. So I studied my ass off for the scholarship that lets me go there. So no, I'm not stupid. I wanna go to law school. But I can't do that if I get kicked out or involved in some weird shit that ends up on my record. So no, I did not plan any of this."

Eliza shook her head, ready to turn away and leave Tori to her lies. But then the other girl spoke again and Eliza was rooted to the spot.

"And with Martin, I... I didn't want you to know about him because..." Tori swallowed. Eliza watched her pale throat pulse. "He doesn't like me. Meru me I mean. He says I've changed. So I keep him separate from that life and that life separate from him."

"Are you sure it's not because you're embarrassed that your brother's in the army?"

Tori straightened, lifting her chin with the most imperious expression Eliza had ever seen.

"My brother is a goddamned hero."

Eliza stepped forward, extracting herself from Aquila's arms.

"If it weren't for you, we wouldn't have gone into that lab," Eliza said.

"If it weren't for you, Joe wouldn't have either," Tori shot back.

"Um, ladies...." Moose said, head whipping back and forth between them.

They both ignored him, stepping closer like predators about to strike. Tori spoke first.

"I'm not giving up on them. You can accuse me all you like, but I'm going back in there and finding my brother. You owe it to Joe to do the same."

"Don't you tell me —"

"We need to work together. So are you with me or not?"

Eliza clenched her fists, but Tori was right. She couldn't dissolve into her own self-pity and anger, not now when someone she cared about was in trouble. Her eyes drifted around the clearing, to jittering Moose, petrified Tero, Daisy in the shadows, Otto in the light. And Aquila, who looked ready to collapse.

She swallowed. Forced herself to relax.

"Fine," she said at last. "I'm with you. So what do you want to do?"

Tori glanced back at Otto.

"We need to get back to the dorm."

"Excuse me?" Eliza said.

"We need weapons."

"What are you going to fight them with, pencils?"

When Tori swung back around to Eliza, there was a ferocity in her gaze that Eliza had never seen before. But now that she saw it, she realized it had been there all along and she'd just never wanted to admit it. Flinty, crackling, terrifying, there was something about Tori that made Eliza think of tigers and wildfires.

"There's a lockbox under my bunk."

"I remember," Eliza said, suddenly cautious.

"I have three handguns in there, plus ammo. Should be enough to get us started."

"Woah, I did not see that coming," Moose said, bouncing from foot to foot.

Eliza gaped at her roommate, this creature she'd lived with for two months and suddenly realized she didn't know at all.

"My dad's into guns," Tori continued with a shrug. "I've had one of my own since I was seven."

Eliza had thought that after meeting the boys and seeing the test-subjects in Fitzgerald Labs, her world couldn't possibly get any weirder. But here it was, sliding out of control again. Tori was a gun person? A girl who'd grown up shooting things and then somehow clawed her way to the top of a prep school?

"That's... new," Eliza said, hating that she sounded impressed.

"Whatever. It's not important. What's important is that we get back there before that woman does something weird to Joe or weirder to my brother."

"Alright then," Eliza said, rolling her stiff shoulders. "I guess it's high time I learned to hold a weapon."

The expression on Tori's face, despite everything that had happened, was enough to make Eliza laugh.