#recuperating

After sliding off the desk they landed on, he snatched her coat sleeve and took her on a thorough search through the room. She was too surprised, fully expecting to run in her own direction and gain distance. There wasn’t a good reason to stick around and wait for his next attack, but at the same time she sensed there was no retaliation from this kid.

Once he deemed the place clear of potential danger, he pulled her over to a spot of wall where a lamp’s light gleamed down. It flickered sporadically while the boy hunched down, scratching at the wood of a dresser. In the background, the soft prattle of rain stayed consistent. Normal. The rain was constant.

“For call?” He tugged on her shoulder when she remained silent, perplexed. “How make name?”

In the dark of her hood, she blinked slowly. “Six.”

The boy paused to scrub the back of his head, until his hair stuck up. “Sss…icks,” he hummed. “Hard sound.”

Only because the boy insisted on the weirdest sounds, and his speek was strange on her tongue. She couldn’t decide if the utterance was in his throat or more between his teeth. She preferred throaty growls, sniffles, and other hisses that came easily. Except her name – that was special. It was soft and quiet, and trilled her throat. Her name was special. She typically sang when numbering things off, in a pattern to help her recall the speek. She was a hand and one finger. No matter who she gave her name to, they would always understand what it meant and how she made it.

“Make sound. T’wrong.” He made a noise. “Seec. Wrong. Bah.”

She moved a little more away from the kid and worked on a mostly clean patch of the dresser wood. She preferred to make speek about the places she left behind rather than the children. She didn’t like to think of the children, or remember the names – if she knew any. Every so often, she glanced at the boy.

The kid grumbled to himself, sometimes jerking his elbow around as he worked a particularly troublesome detail into the wood. Often he stopped abruptly, putting her on alert as well when he jerked about, only to search through the room. Usually when the lamp light sputtered from an anguished howl of the wind. That sort of jitteriness should have put her on edge, but reflecting on his borderline panic eased her somewhat. An alert child was hard to catch off guard. Harder to surprise. And always the first to run.

When he had the sense to.

During the whole session, the boy stayed on high alert. Six didn’t regard much of the Case Worker, since the monster was too noisy to skulk about without crashing through a doorway. The boy wasn’t bizarre but hysteria began to put her on edge. With every draft teasing the dust mottles, the boy swept his eyes across the walls and picked through the strange patterns in the rays light; every shudder of the drywall or sigh of the pipes, the boy stood and gave his head a tilt. When the rogue tremors in the environment went dismissed, he would plop back down and return to scratching shapes into the wood.

There was one picture of her – a triangle shape atop a cone – perched above… a jagged line. Beneath the line, a figure with a square head and a cone body. Six glared at the marks. Something about it made her think of a ladder, and the other child she watched… fall.

She tweed through her teeth, and made the noise for his name. It was hard to get right. She remembered he gave her the name when there was a lot of water. Big water. For ages they sailed on the slate of wood, but she thinks it was a door. That doesn’t matter. It was a wonder it didn’t sink, like so many things thrown off the cliff. Like a child, plunging down and down to the foggy waves slithering below. Falling into a black abyss filled with—

“Mono,” the boy uttered. He didn’t look at her, but shuffled around more to press into the scars he put into the wood. There went a lot of rectangles, each had to be a building overlapping another. Then scratchy shapes resembling children… adults. Mono put children on a line behind the much larger monsters. Two children – the triangle and square on duplicate cones. “Mono. Siii…xk.”

“Six,” she trilled back. She went to her spot of the furniture and resumed the finer details of a tree, and a big round circle behind its bare branches. She put squiggles around the big round globe, if she thinks hard, it must’ve been something amazing in the sky. The skies of the Pale City did not have amazing things, aside from painful light blasts and rumbling snarls. She decided the monsters fell from the sky whenever she bundled down and hid for rest. She saw them fall, but the horrible creatures broke into soggy heaps of splint skin and ripped muscle.

Scratches and half-carved pictures filled the slate of clean wood where Six worked. When the boy stood, so did she. The rooms hung quiet in the back of her head, filled with the distant ambiance drenched through the moldering wood and musty air. It was like moving through the rooms shifted the petrified drafts, and caused the walls to creak against the miniscule travelers who had the audacity to invade the desolate spaces. She glanced around as she let the boy take her hand, and her foots began to move as he led the way.

“Am Mono,” the boy mumbled. She didn’t hum back.

It was… familiar. Dangerous. Maybe. He held her wrist like he was wielded to her, the grit in his palm ground into her sore arm. At first it felt completely normal to trail after the boy, the tail of his coat sweeping at her knees.

The doorway of the next room faded away into a chain-link fence, with a spiney gap for them to squeeze through. They ran across the cracked pavement looking at all the play things and poles, a plank of wood that tipped one way and then the other – unless you stood on the center. She sat on a swing and he stood behind her, pushing her lightly on the back to make her sway beneath the creaking pole. Neither of them said anything, the speek was danger – noisy children die. The creaking pole reminded her of trees, except that it was rhythmic and sort of made her feel good. Every time he pressed against the tattered shirt and set her off. She even hummed a soft melody, but she didn’t think he could hear it. He never showed that he noticed.

She blinked and thought they moved through a long, twisted hall. That didn't make sense, because she only remembered a stuffy vent brimming with lent and soot. He tugged her frayed sleeve, the stiff cloth ripped in his fingers, but he made sure to snare her wrist and tug. The raincoat was hiding in the downpour among spilled clothing from a trunk, always waiting for her to claim it as Her. She was Six. She hadn't found the clever coat yet, the piece of her that was - the way he said -

“You important,” uttered the boy. She couldn’t read the paper bag, but his voice quaked like he remembered something he tried to forget.

With some effort, the boy tugged open a low drawer. The countertop wasn’t too high for leap and snag, but the kid made a big effort to hoist himself the few handles and reach the top. Six went ahead and climbed up the same way – it saved her some energy.

While the boy poked at the boxes littered beside a cutting board, she gave the kitchen place a skim and listened to the sounds it gave. She didn’t remember a television babbling anywhere from when they started, but her mind was fuzzy on this place they were now in. It sort of reminded her when she… woke up in a room, and saw a shadow.

Her shadow.

“Hmm.” The boy shoved a stale block into her chest. “Mmm….” And he nibbled on something like a boot sole. “Stren’gth.”

The stuff wasn’t bad. She thought this kid was the sort that ran at a plate barely set on the floor, and scraped whatever gunk was leftover into his coat and rushed away. The Viewers didn’t usually notice stuff, but if they had eyes and still munched foods, then they still detached from the flashing screen to chase down intruders.

“Mm,” she hummed.

“Mm,” he hummed back. “Mono. An’Six. We—” But he kept gnawing on the thing. And turned a little from her, as if protecting the piece he had.

For a time or something, they sat around just nibbling on scraps littered on the countertop. The boy would do his usual alert glance around, more as if expecting than hearing something lurking. Six rather think of him as hyper tuned – the alternative spooked her imagination.

She did not forget the steady tick-click of steps, or the way her simple movement dragged as if through water. That was the worst. She still dreamed about it.

Then the boy did the thing where he showed her around the rooms, always with her wrist locked tightly in his talons. Not guiding, but sharp the way stepping through loose floorboards tried chewing your ankle. She pulled at his grip, but the vice tightened.

He didn’t show her any pictures, but he rasped at her hood about the walls or whatever. They looked at some furniture and broken chests. Beside a wall sat a few building blocks and papers, a few had been used to scrawl out a gigantic blob with thick arms, above a small figure with two antenna sticking off the rounded head. Another picture featured a kid with scratched in dark lines all over the page, except the triangle where the flashlight blazed away the dark.

The boy picked up a strange, rounded thing that was all segmented and wriggly, and stuck to a stick. Whenever and however he moved, the strange looking – she would call it a leaf – spun on its stem. She remembered leaves moved and twirled when they fell, the same way the odd spinney thing did.

Round and round in a circle he went, with the strange spinner swirling on the stick faster and faster – it glittered in the sad light. His coattail swished around out like a top, and the boy went one way and then the other. By the time he was finished, the boy was thoroughly disoriented and stumbled to his shoulder. He did manage to save the fragile leaf on a stick. With some difficulty, he held it up to her – before collapsing once more.

She took the thing, holding it by the stem and turning it this way or that. The rounded leaf spun somewhat. She exhaled at it, and then the leaf whirled in a dazzle of gleaming flashes.

Mono gasped. He could only manage to sit up enough to watch, still wobbly but no longer on his back.

“Pret’eee.” Six crouched with him, and turned the leaf to him. With a mighty puff, the leaf became a glittery storm of sparkles. His cheeks swelled and his lips looked silly with each heave and huff. When he was out of breath (at last) it was her turn to make the leaf dance.

Until their activity made the leaf fall off the stem.

It fell between their knees, and they gaped at it. No more play, no more magic, no more hope. No more happiness.

She punched the boy on the shoulder and threw him back. He was the last one making it twirl! He RUINED everything! If it was good, he broke it!

What would have been a full body tackle, became her writhing on the floor in a stupor after he cuffed her across the hood. She was only a bit dazed, but by the time she was up again the kid had already stolen the leaf.

She would have given him a jaw shattering kick to his face, but the leaf was floating. That made her stall at once and gawk, arms still out and finger knotted like claws.

“Make work,” he mumbled. He made speek ro something else, but she was mesmerized by the spectacle of the leaf spinning between his palms. His brow was crooked and deep lines formed, while the fluttery leaf rose higher above her hood. “For tol. Am’work. Mono. Him… show.” She wasn’t listening for whatever else he grumbled about. She stood beneath the whirling leaf reaching out, standing on tiptoes. It was so high. So beyond her.

Like the boy in the tree.

“Give.”

With a smothered yowl, the boy toppled to his knees, arms wilting to the floor. The leaf spun and descended to her palms. She tried to do the thing the boy did, and hold it out and let it fly tol.

It wouldn’t work for her. Whenever she raised the leaf high and let it go, it only fell back to the floor.

“How.” Six crouched by the boy and fanned the rounded leaf in his face. He was trembling, and his nose dripped red dots on his pants and the papers under him.

“Import….import’eehn.”

She tucked the leaf into her coat collar, then looped her arms around the boys ribs. On the other side the floor stood a tall and leaning bookcase, with stacks of newspaper and magazine bundled around the base. She took the boy over there, despite how he whimpered and squirmed at her grip. The speek he made was something, “Shh…” or “Kee….p.” It bothered her that she recognized the sounds. They didn't do that much share speek.

But she always picked up speek fast.

Mono did curl up behind a mound of crumpled books, and lay in a heap of tattered spines, well hidden from the open floor. She wandered off and collected more scraps of socks and a shirt, and hauled them back for the nest. Enough room was leftover that she didn’t have to touch the boy, but the enclosed and insulated papers did warm the pocket she claimed. The boy nestled into his coat forming a perfect little ball, except for the dollop of his hair. Six imagined the looked much the same… except, she was more colorful egg swaddled in the heap of cloth.

Somewhere, the television crackled about speek stuff only adults threw themselves off rooftops for. At every obscure snarl of a draft, Six turned her head and listened – no crashing, no violent noises. Always hush and stagnant first – unless the thundering steps pummeled the floor panels. She dozed the way all kids dipped into the black half sleep, her eyes got crusty and her nose got stuffy, but her mind stayed sharp. If the kid was out cold she didn’t know, and didn’t care. She had herself to look after. She was sure the Bullies still hunted for her, though that could have been panic thoughts.

Stiff joints and grogginess was a good sign to get moving. Any longer, she would fight the dream haunts and nightmares. Sometimes a tall man in a hat was peering under a rickety table, but she always woke up before he raised his hand. She hated him.

Mono was already on watch. As he sat curled in his pocket, he pressed something against his scalp. Not against his scalp, but he took strands of his hair and pressed them over the thing. With a soft rip, the strands broke and he tossed them amongst a pile. He glanced at her, but kept at his task as he turned his attention back to the room. She watched for a moment wondering if the boy went nutty and started mutilating himself – she’d seen it a lot of times. But no, the kid was trimming and breaking tangles in his hair.

It depended on the kid. Longer hair was nice, it kept warmth and protected kids sort of from sharp edges when crawling through narrow gaps. Like chain linked fences. But also, other kids could snare it and rip, or if the tangles were too loose then they could get snared on a jagged hole. Sometimes, she was clumps of brittle hair jammed into splinters. And other times, a lot of red.

That was why she liked her hood! It was great!

All the tracks made, came from their feet prints crossing and smearing soot. So they stayed there a while, adding bits of pillow stuffing to the hidden nest, and nibbling at the scraps in the kitchen. Taking precious little time to recuperate from the running and the perilous scampering through the open unknowns – streets, corridors, rooms, warehouses, morgues hospitals, whatever. The rooms around didn’t have anything but dust to show for the absence of danger. So for a while, they pretended to be dust and forgotten.

None of the rooms had a window to shed the time or how long they lingered, but she didn’t care. Resting for a change seemed right.

On one spur of boredom, she creeped up to the boy while he was crouched by the wall scratching his wird symbols in the wall. She pounced on him and got the funniest snort. The boy reacted fast and chased, but she was always faster. On blurred feet she led him through all the rooms, sometimes she climbed a broken patch of wall to reach the high beams, or bumped through a vent to elude him for a scant few seconds. Mono was sharp though, and he was brilliant with finding the places kids snuck before they came before. Yes, he was impossible to shake, and that was how he always found her. Even when she didn’t….

She climbed onto a couch, briefly losing her balance when  her foot slipped through the rotted fabric. The boy tackled her, and they went rolling onto the hard floor. There was slashing and shoving, grabbing and biting. But not out of feral desperation.

Mono grabbed her around the face when she locked onto his knee, but she only bite onto the fabric of his ratty pants. He tried crawling away for a change, but she looped her arms around his waist and down they went again. This time, he went for a roll. It made her arms uncoil by a fraction, and he took that time to somersault away. He fell flat on his back and must’ve hit his spine or his hip, because he laid there for too long. She flopped over his tummy, getting a funny ‘oof’ out of him.

To her dismay, his arms clamped around her shoulders. “Caught. Am caught. Mono caught you.” He snorted a nasally cackle.

“Nah….” She whined. With his arms locked around ribs, he stood up and carried her like an oversized stuffed toy. “No.” She knew what he was about to do. He had never done such a thing before, but he only discovered this power some time ago and he was going to make her regret.

Mono clutched her tightly and spun on his heel, fast as he could managed with her weight, and without whipping out instantly. She bit into his shoulder (probably harder than she meant to) to stave off the whiplash, and try not to get so dizzy but she was failing.

“Weeee….” The boy cooed, with his scratchy giggling.

This didn’t last too long, since the boy had a struggle holding her and stay balanced while he was slowly going dizzy. He crashed full body into the base of the couch and they went swinging out, arms and limbs. The two space cadets lay on the floor, slayed out like duel stars – Mono snickering and panting, Six was mewling at all the spinning in her head.

“No…”

“Happy.”

She rolled over and jabbed him in the hip with her heel. She was not going to spur a game like that again.

Not until she forgot the consequences and repeated her errors. More on that later.

She flipped over onto her stomach and pulled the leaf out of her collar. It was a bit rumpled and bent, but with some tending it was good again. She reached over and set it on the boy’s chest. “Do?”

Mono plucked the leaf off his chest and sat up. He held it between his palms and stared at it, his hands still had the red stains on it. For a long time he didn’t utter a sound, didn’t move aside from idly twirl the leaf and its sparkling blades between his fingers, and rub at the texture… it was grungy, and some of the dirt flaked off. More colors and glimmer sparked through.

The boy shoved it back into her hands. Without a noise, he pushed himself up and walked away, headed for one of the darker rooms with the simmering bulb. Sometimes he went into that room and lurked in the gloom, no flashlight or anything. It scared her. He was strange.

It was quiet and she didn’t see the boy anywhere, so decided he must be hiding in a wall or huddled in the dark room still. Not that she cared. During the spans when she wasn’t scouting around and checking for dangers, she took advantage of the food tins and boxes left in the cupboards. A few times she picked up on the faint whisper of cloth, not the same as curtains in windows or clothing out on the lines, the other sort of wispy sweeping of fabric that was so familiar to her but also slid beneath the other sounds of the creaking building.

Wandering around was a kid thing between the rest and eats, but she didn’t stumble across the boy whenever she did scout. If she was a lesser kid, she might’ve suspected him to run off on his own and abandon her.

During one of her stops to put marks in the wall, over beside the building blocks, she sensed the kid there. She turned from the picture, in time to have a block chucked into her stomach. She got her arms up to keep it from socking her straight in the gut, but the boy tackled her amid the distraction and they were again rolling in the dirt and scattered papers.

They were back to biting and kicking – his hair was harder to grip now… after his traitorous trimming. She didn’t get why it always got this way. Why did he hate her?

Somehow she made it to her feet, but Mono had climbed up as well and shoved at her shoulders. The papers coated in soot skid under their heels, nearly throwing Six off her feet. With some tugging, on his collar, and stamping on his feet, she forced the kid into staggering backwards. His heel caught on the block and he went down with a thud. Six fixed her hood and kicked him hard in the ribs, then ran away.

She dashed to the piles of newspapers and stacked magazines, but climbed stop the short towers and scaled the bookcase. On one of the bare shelves she pulled herself into the gap between two books and curled up in her coat. The murky room made seeing far hard, but the fluttering shadow of the boy did wander off. She wouldn’t leave the shelf, not until her rumbling stomach forced her to uncoil and jump down.

The boy was somewhere in the kitchen place. He probably hid before she slipped in, darting among globs of shadow. She knew he was there someone long before the cabinet above her right side hissed open, and the boy leaned over the edge. She pretended not to notice him while munching on something from a taller, flat box. She was ready for an attack of any sort, though it would be difficult for the kid to get her by surprise with how the cupboard hung over the countertop a ways.

She scooted away when the boy climbed down from the shelf, and from the countertop he plopped onto the floor below. The kid poked around at the cabinets, but they had searched the place through and over for a dozen times over and hadn’t uncovered much but packages riddled with tiny beetles.

After she successfully stuffed her pockets with crumbs, she climbed off the counter. The boy was still roaming around, poking at the boxes they had shredded in their search for any crumbs. When he aw her, the boy wandered over and took her wrist. As before, she didn’t lash out or snap away.

They never searched the place for a way out, but she guessed the boy had gotten a jump on that with all his roaming around. He led her to one of the rooms with a soft light from a lamp, lying on the floor and flickering.

Nothing caught her eye on first take of the room, aside from the furnishings and a busted lamp dangling by its cord some ways up. The boy led her to a dresser and let go of her wrist in order to climb. With no other direction, Six followed him up the handles – one snapped under her toes and she nearly fell, but she recovered easily.

At the dressers top, the boy made an impressive leap and landed on the sloping shade of the lamp. As he spun on the tether – the ceiling above creaking – he motioned for her. Briefly, she debated on the injuries she could suffer with a bad fall, if the boy tried to wrench the lamp away. During the return sweep, she made her move and landed deftly on the shade with the boy.

She fumbles with the cord as the boy begins yanking them, leaning hard one way and then shifting his weight to the other side. Uncertain of the ploy, she mirrors his movement. By little grunts and hoists, the lamp begun to creak and ark across the room. It became apparent that the boy zeroed in on a spot of the wall, which on first glance looked uninteresting. Yet, as she fixed on the wall and they swooped closer, ruptures became apparent through the wallpaper.

The first tremor, she neatly launched off. But Mono latched onto her wrists and looked her in the face. She was still flighty on the second and fourth crack, but it was only on the sixth – the longest swing of the lamp, when Mono tore her hands free and they fell to the floor.

The light punched through the fissures, cutting through moldy wallpaper and knocking out chunks of plaster. When she hit the floor, she tumbled to the side and barely missed a chunk of bent metal crashing to the floor. Dust and grit drummed over her hood, but it protected her from most the debris.

“Hey.” The boy was there, tugging her shoulder. “Come.” He took her wrist and hauled her up and onto her feet.

Slates of ruptured wood bent outward, and the base of the drywall was jagged enough for decent footholds. The boy tugged her to the reconstructed wall and left her, to begin climbing herself. Once more no other option, she scaled the patchy tears of chalky plaster. The boy squeezed among the gaping infliction in the wall, and dropped into a space within.

It was some navigation through the musty gaps behind the walls, and sometimes beneath the floors boards. A vent was luxurious with its slate walls and solid sides, absent of the menacing creaking as the boards debated if a sneeze should tear them down. Worst was when some creature – probably a Viewer since they did sprint – clattered above, and propelled gravel down onto their heads. The kid at one point pulled a cap out of his coat and put that on.

That tinkled the small flame of familiarity bubbling in her head. He reached back and too the hem of her sleeve, and this time the sturdy material wouldn’t rip.

While creeping along the upper beam running across a caving ceiling, the board had enough of abuse from the ages and rumbled as it wretched free. She was right behind the boy, and latched onto the back of his coat when it looked like he had the reflexes to latch onto the swinging board. But he didn’t have a good enough grip, and they both went sailing to the floor in a bundle of limps. By some freak fortune, the landed on the backside of a crumpled and long dead creature lying on a heap of timber torn from the wall. It saved them from being skewered, since the creature looked as if it had been speared through.

The room was not yet done with its tantrum. The walls began creaking and flaking away, more of the unstable ceiling rained down barely before they had recovered.

Six didn’t waste a second in gathering her feet beneath her and vaulting over the bent arm of the stiff creature. In the light of a lamp – already sputtering gray to dark from the storm of collapse – the boy’s long-long shadow fumbled at her side.

The doorway she was rushing to was only visible through torrents of plaster and wood, but it was soon cluttered by the churning mess. It could have crumbled to bits for all she knew. Her eyes snapped across the room, seeking through thick clouds of dust any cover or opening that might give shelter, or a way out. A gritty hand snapped her wrist and before she could rip away and pick up speed, her head went dizzy all over. At first she thought the floor opened up and she was tumbling head over heels into the black pit, thousands of eyes watching, and the flesh groaning with excitement.

She fell forward, knocking the boy down as well when he tried to keep going. A wall of dust swirled around them. She fitted her hands over the back of  her head and tucked her legs up, anticipating a chair or chunk of plaster to grind her flat. However, the crackling faded and the vibrations slithered away. It was longer before she risked opening her eyes and popping her hooded head up.

The boy was beside her, holding his head and swaying a bit. Six didn’t see ruin, not until she glanced back and focused through the bellowing smog. The doorway was obliterated, aside from the few slates of the entry, and a few panels from the door. Splint beams and chunks of drywall cluttered any space, and the chatter of falling pebbles slid through the tentative calm. A good portion of the floor at her toes was missing, revealing only a black space where thick clouds of powder bellowed.

Though the boy didn’t seem ready to walk, he still took her by the wrist and tugged her up. “Come. S’go.” A little sting pricked her wrist when he fastened his hand to hers. It startled her, but she resisted the urge to tear away. Instead, she let the boy haul her off as before.

Always the same. Like a repeat.

“Six.” The boy looked back, a strange smile flashed under his cap. “Am… protect.”

Whatever that meant.

The kid seemed more calm and not too high strung. Except for the one part where a Viewer tore through a boarded up door and barreled at them, but even then, the boy led her to a room with a window. The climbed up the dresser and through the gaping glass, and traced along the concrete catwalk wrapped around the building. They hadn’t gone more than a meter before the Viewer threw itself out the window, but without any perch or surface that could hold it, the thing went tumbling to the misty roads bellow. It made Six smirk to watch its arms lashing at the cold rain like a damaged bird hurtling, betrayed by the wind it once trusted; nothing to catch it and no one to care.

They slipped down a drain spout to reach a crusty fire escape, and through a shattered sliding door returned to the relative steadiness of the buildings interior. It was still damp and mildew clogged her nose, but better than the drilling pellets.

She left the boy while he took an uninteresting route towards an open slot of a door. The scent of food came from an archway to the side of the large room, and as she expected she discovered a space where food was served. The room had only a table, but no boxes let along a sink or other kitchen stuff, but the plates still had chunks of food left out. The clothing lay stretched across the seats, and the shoes awaited beneath the holes of the pant bottoms. She ignored the huddled shape in the corner of the room, which did not resemble anything but a doll dressed in clothing.

Sometimes children stumbled into a score of food too late. Even Six had some trouble climbing onto a chair to sample the scraps off the plate.

The boy might’ve gone off on his own at last. She didn’t know what his plans were or what he wanted, but it would be odd since he didn’t stumble onto the room of food. She was going to eat everything.

Not all at once. She climbed off the chair and grunted when she fell to the floor. Taking on silent steps, she went from the room and back to the larger room. The prospect of dangers didn’t slip her mind, either. She moved with deftness to the doorway where the boy went, while keeping her senses sharp for a hide spot or way to get out if she discovered the hazard that lurked somewhere.

The corridor was bleak and sunken to one side, the bulbs left bits across the floor, yet in one doorway a pale flash gleamed and bristled. She slipped beside the wall and poked her hood around the door edge.

An immediate and horrifying image burst in her recollections. The televisions, always burbling and chattering through the distorted lashes of black and grays. They wailed for the boy, the static screeched through her mind – a few times, her knees couldn’t hold her weight and she toppled. But the boy always made it to the screen, and pressed his palm into the glossy surface. Sometimes she thought a ticking-tock pulsed through, or other times, the boy moved his lips… he always wore that idiot bag.

The long arms speared through the glass, bringing with them narrow shoulders and a head topped with a crisp hat. She was already gone before the lithe body slipped out – the boy stayed, crippled by the grating shriek that tore through the room.

Before she knew it, she had the boy around the ribs and hauled him from the screen.

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When she got Mono several feet from the television, the screen burst and the back spewed black smoke. She kept dragging him back, while the boy hung in her arms. She dropped him on the floor and stood over him, now facing the chopped-out screen. Shoulders squared and fists clenched tight. Not like she would fight anything that crawled out and towered over her…..

A dry gasp issued by her, and the boy knocked against her knee as he flopped up. His hat tumbled off his head as he glanced the room over, as if taken by his surroundings. He blinked blearily at her and frowned.

He was an idiot.

Six was about to lunge at the boy and throttle his neck, but a creak from the doorway, a very specific sort of creak, instantly snared her attention. She jerked her head to the entry and the murky patch, where a figure now stood. The gnarled hands clutched the child that had been huddled up in the other room of table and plates, its other hand coiled around the handle of the briefcase it always possessed.

Somehow, the Case Worker had found them.