"You haven't gone to school in three days. Care to explain that?"
I took a step back, somehow managing to keep a startled look of my face. "No, what the fuck?" I brushed past him, practically shoving him back to get through the door. "Sometimes I really regret making you my legal guardian contact."
"Mirror, baby, you need to go to school," he said, concern lacing through his voice.
"If you call me baby one more time, I'm chopping off your left hand," I snapped. He used to run a strip club and he never shaved and he creeped me the fuck out, but he was a hell of an engineer. "Besides, I don't have a uniform anymore--it burned down with my apartment."
"Oh no worries," he chirped. "I have an extra set."
I stopped mid-step. "... What?"
He raised his hands at my tone. "It's not perverted I swear, they just sent me an extra in case you needed it!"
"... I'd rather buy another."
He sighed, and I could practically feel him roll his eyes. "There's no point in wasting money when I have one already."
I ignored him and made my way into the kitchen. There was no way in hell I was wearing anything he had. I had too much self respect. Besides, I only went to school because that's what girls my age were supposed to do, and people got suspicious if you weren't enrolled.
Not knowing the difference between "affect" and "effect" wasn't what was going to kill me.
I always assumed I'd die strapped to a lab table, bleeding out from the inside as men in sterile white jackets and masks dissected me for science. Although my mother probably wouldn't let that happen. She might actually step in and parent in order to keep her biology a secret.
Dusty followed close behind, asking that I remove my shoes before I walk on his carpets and grumbling when I didn't.
The decor of his house threw me off every time I stopped by, but somehow the antique furniture and floral wallpaper fit the personality of the owner.
I snagged a protein bar from the pantry cupboard and attempted to brush the contempt out of my posture. "Where are the boys?"
His eyes squinted in what was probably scepticism. "Don't you already know? Can't you smell them or, like, feel their presence or something?"
My mouth curled into a snarl. "I'm a demon, not a fucking vampire." I did know where they were, but he didn't need to know that. Half the time he treated me like a child, and the other half I was a fascinating anomaly for him to study. Like a mutated rat or a two-tailed cat.
He raised his hands again, taking a well-advised step back. "Hey, baby, I didn't mean anything by it, it was just a question."
I glared at him, too annoyed to enjoy the fear in his gaze. "Don't call me baby."
He rubbed his neck and backed through the living room. "It's a habit, you know that."
"Then break it."
Dusty stumbled for a moment, slipping on one of his ornate rugs. "You, uh, you cut your hair. I like it."
I rolled my eyes. "It wasn't my choice." He looked confused. "Seriously, where the hell are the others?"
He perked back up as he remembered what he was supposed to be doing, eagerly jumping out of my line of vision to show me. I didn't want to move from my position against the counter, but I would rather be in a room full of people than alone with Dusty.
I held my breath as I stood, suppressing a groan. God, I'm still fucking sore. I almost smiled at the memory of the previous night until Dusty started talking again.
"We've been working on something." He grinned at me, letting out an excited noise. "I really think you're gonna like it."
I gnawed on my lip, biting back my boredom. "We'll see."
He shot me a wounded look, but said nothing and held open the door to the garage for me. My shoulder hit the frame in my effort to keep as far from him as possible.
A chorus of half-assed cheers greeted me when I walked in. I scoffed. "Don't act like you care, you assholes. I'm well aware you want to go back to your toys."
Jonny laughed, pushing his chair back to catch my eye, but the rest of them hummed absently and went back to work.
"How you doing, Mirror?" Jonny asked. He stood up and brushed the wrinkles out of his old army shirt. We all teased him for wearing it, but it looked good on him and he knew it. He offered a hand for me to shake knowing full well I wasn't going to grab it.
"I'm alright." I kicked at his shoe and he shoved his hands back in his pockets, respecting that was all the contact I was willing to spare. He was much less frustrating than Dusty. Never pushed his limits. "Rather not be here, but you know how it is. Had to check in on my boys sometime."
He raised an eyebrow. "Is there somewhere you'd rather be?"
"Lots of places," I answered, deflecting his question.
"I see I see." He shook his head, amusement glinting in his eyes. "Well then I'm assuming you're here to see about those raven stencils Toka sent us?" I nodded, and he pointed at the pile of freshly cut out, unused metal.
Dusty mumbled something about his work as I moved toward the stack. I'm sure he was working on something interesting, but I didn't have the patience to deal with him.
"Why don't these have paint on them," I asked no on in particular, my fingers tracing the sharp edges on the top stencil.
Jonny spoke up before Dusty could, thankfully. "We figured that could wait a day or two. We've been working on something for you."
"For me?" I knew better than to get excited--they may all have been older than me, but I called them boys for a reason. They were the kind of kids I imagined would carve "I love you" into the wall because they needed constant reassurance.
Dusty practically tripped over himself to reach his desk before anyone else. Not that anyone else was trying. Most of them were hunched over their respective tables, frantically tinkering with whatever it was they found interesting in that moment.
"Oh, wow, a knife," I cheered mockingly. "I've never had one of those."
"Now now," Jonny chastised, "be nice, we worked hard on it."
"I hope not all of you were working on this." I took the knife from Dusty's hands, pleasantly surprised by the weight.
"The handle should fit your hands perfectly, and if you'd turn it over" --Dusty reached out to help me follow his instructions and I flinched away-- "you'll see we engraved our saying into the blade and your raven drawing onto the hilt." He smiled. "Careful, if you grip it too hard, you'll imprint a raven on your hand."
I raised an eyebrow but otherwise didn't bother to respond to what I assumed was an attempt at humor. Instead I inspected the knife. Sure enough, on the handle was an intricately carved raven, white as snow against the black blade.
I flipped it over to read the words engraved across the length of it. "'The dead are the lucky ones,'" I read aloud, barely restraining the urge to give it back.
I didn't have words. We didn't have a saying. We didn't even have a name. As far as anyone knew, we weren't even a "we."
"That's dumb as shit." Even so, I slipped the knife into the waistband of my jeans while both Dusty and Jonny frowned at my dissaproval.
I turned my attention back to the stencils and the line of white spray paint beside them. "We need to start painting these." I glanced at the boys around me, painfully aware of their lack of athleticism. "I'm guessing none of you can manage it, so I'll get started."
"Right now?" Dusty asked, voice aghast. "But you have school tomorrow."
I shrugged away from the hand he placed on my shoulder. "So?"
"So," he elaborated, "you need to go. You have to get an education, baby, you know that."
Carefully, so as not to crush the can, I pulled the cap off the top of the spray paint, turned around, and pointed the nozzle at his face. I gave him just enough time to close his eyes before I doused him in white.
"Don't call me baby."
I tucked another can into my jacket pocket, lifted the stack of stencils, and left. I had meant to stay for longer, see what everyone was building, and maybe see about selling some of their creations, but I wasn't dealing with Dusty. As far as I knew, he wasn't a terrible guy, he just grated on my nerves for some reason.
He gave of the I-take-young-girls-into-the-forest-and-eat-them vibe.
Next time I swung by, I'd make sure he was out of the house.
I left through the back door, hoping that the dark clouds obscured my actions despite it being the middle of the day. I had tried to shove the stencils into my shirt, but they didn't fit.
So I trekked through alley ways and side streets with sheet metal digging into my arms while I tried to scrape together a list of people capable enough to help me paint white ravens all over the city.
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