As I near the school, I curse under my breath- in my haste, I forgot to grab my schoolbag. No matter. It's not like I'm going to go to any classes today. Unless Karma for some reason has a change of heart and decides to attend math class, we're going underground.
Karma meets me at the gate, and we walk in together, ignoring the glances from random passer byes. Everybody knows Karma, and because they know Karma, they know me. Witch-Bloods and their associates end up pretty infamous pretty quickly.
Karma's like my brother- that is, Siete. Seventh son of a seventh son. The difference between Karma and Siete, however, is that Karma actually has six older siblings and a sane family that didn't murder their children or obsessively name them after numbers. As a result, he never developed the self-righteousness that so many other Witch-Bloods have. Lucky, otherwise I would still be a total loner.
We stroll to the back of the schoolyard, find our patch of dirt, and he grabs my hand. "You ready?" he asks, grinning, but doesn't bother waiting for an answer. This is routine. We ignore the shouts from teachers as we sink into the ground, tunnel sideways, and finally burst out into an open space- our den.
This is Karma's power. Tunnelling. It might seem a little pathetic at first, but it's surprising useful for defensive tactics, if not escapes. That's all the school cares about, anyway. Offence. Defence. But all Karma uses it for is to get us here, to the den.
The den is our safe space. Just a cave he found underground when he was seven or eight, we've progressively filled it with little touches of us. A colourful rug. The old couch that was almost thrown out when the kindergarten classroom was demolished. Photos of us at four, five, six, eight. Not seven. Never seven.
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