Little footsteps patting on the old wood floor were followed by a little kid appearing from around the corner. It was the same kid that Z saved that other night. I sifted through the memories from what I had heard back then, and suddenly things were coming together. So Kona was his mom, that’s who Z was talking about when she mentioned his mom back then. Wait so why was this kid taken in the first place? His mom doesn’t seem rich so it couldn’t have been a ransom right? Was it an attempt at blackmail? But even then, blackmail for what? What does Kona have that someone else would want? The kid’s tight curls bounced slightly as he stood there rubbing his eyes. He looked half asleep but suddenly perked up when his eye’s landed on Z.

“Z!” He ran up to her and suddenly hugged her. Kona looked a little panicked and tossed a towel over my arm, I guess she didn’t want the kid to see it. Z seemed caught off guard by the hug. She regained her composure before patting him on the head.

“Hey kid.” She said before looking over to Kona who seemed to be signalling something to her with her eyes. Z then looked back at the kid and picked him up. “There we go, why are you up huh? Your mom just put you to bed didn’t she?”

“Yeah but…” He leaned in and whispered into Z’s ear, cupping his hands around his mouth. “There’s bad guy’s under my bed.” I saw Z’s expression change hearing his words and she hugged him a bit closer.

“Don’t you worry about that, I’ll go scare them off ok?” He nodded a bit and she went to step in the direction of his room.

“But um Z…” She paused hearing him speak up again, his little fists gripping onto her shirt.

“Yeah?”

“Can you um… can you stay? So the bad guy’s don’t come back?” I never really knew how to interact with kids so I’ve just never been good with them in general. I’m not around them often enough for that to have ever changed ether. But hearing him say those things, I couldn’t help feel my stomach twist in on itself. I mean being kidnaped is going to mess up anyone, but a kid I mean, I can’t even imagine. When my attention turned to Kona I could see the pained expression on her face, her lips were curled in slightly and her brows were furrowed, she looked like she was about to cry.

“Yeah, of course.” Even Z’s voice sounded pained. “Let’s get you to bed.” She walked down the short hall with him in her arms and I heard the door shut behind them. I felt odd. It’s not the first time I’ve known something that others thought I didn’t, like the fact that Elis and Lex definitely have some kind of history, but this was the first time I felt somewhat guilty about it.

When I was a kid I would overhear things I probably shouldn’t have too, but I didn’t really feel any kind of way about it. Granted back then I didn’t really have a hold on my abilities so most of the stuff I would hear was just random stuff. This time I had witnessed someone being saved from a kidnaping, plus knowing about Z, and now I was in there house. It felt a bit dirty, but I had also gone to long without saying anything now, I couldn’t just bring it up. Kona removed the towel that was tossed over my wound and got to cleaning it again, I tried to keep myself from twitching when it stung.

“Sorry about that, I just didn’t want him seeing this.”

“I’m a stranger in your home taking up your time, I should probably be the one apologizing.” She smiled a bit in response, still working on my arm.

“You seem like a good kid, I don’t know what happened that got you this injury but if it’s something you can get out off… do it, alright? Because trust me, it only get’s worse with time.” Yeah I guess with me being so odd about the injury, and with the area we were in, I probably gave her the wrong impression. But I don’t think saying, yeah I was running real fast across the city roofs and tripped so I skidded at sixty miles an hour, or however fast I was running, would have made much sense. “Do you have anyone at home waiting for you?” My stomach tightened a bit. Why was I trying to be so secretive? It shouldn’t be a problem for her to know I have a family right?

“Yeah, just my uncle… and my dad.” It felt weird to talk about my family, I just typically don’t talk about them very often.

“Do they treat you well?” This shouldn’t be a hard thing to answer, despite how my dad has been acting since I came out, he hasn’t kicked me out, and he hasn’t told me I shouldn’t transition. Well… not in so many words anyway. But since I had just had that fight, or whatever you might call that, I still had a bitter taste in my mouth.

“Yeah just, normal family stuff I guess.” I couldn't figure out how els to answer that question with how I was feeling at the time. Kona gave a sympathetic frown.

“I’m going to stitch this up so just take a breath.” I didn’t even notice that she had already gotten the needle and thread in hand. It was curved which I guess made sense, even though in movies it always looks just like sowing up fabric there was bound to be actual differences. I gritted my teeth a bit as the needle tired though my skin. It didn’t hurt as bad as I thought it would but having that thread pull through me felt odd. The felling of something tugging at you but from under your skin is not something I thought I would ever experience.

“You know, when Z said that she had hurt someone by accident, and that the person had refused to go to the hospital, all I could think was that she’s really about to bring home someone that’s exactly like her huh?” She laughed a bit at her own words. I didn’t know what to say to that.

“She seems good with kids.”

“Hm? Oh,” She laughed a bit and brushed a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Well I don’t know about other kids, but Ahe really likes her.” As she spoke, she eyes had a softness about her eyes that was hard to miss. I felt like I couldn’t just sit in the silence for to long though.

“I mean, I don’t really know either of you but, from what I saw it seems like she really likes him too.” She smiled a bit warmly hearing my words, continuing to stitch.

“Yeah, I think you’re right.” It fell silent again but it wasn’t the kind that was uncomfortable. It was the kind of silence you could sit in for a while without even realizing that it was silent in the first place. As we sat there though I was forced to remember that my leg was still messed up, I should probably tell her.

“I should have mentioned this earlier but, I actually hurt my leg too.” She didn’t have any reaction to what I said, which I thought was odd.

“If that was supposed to be a secret you probably should have gotten rid of those socks.” I looked down, realizing that my sock was soaked through with a dark crimson that was semi dried in places. I had felt it soak in earlier too and yet still forgot about it, or maybe I just thought she wouldn’t notice.

“Ah, yeah, I guess so.” I watched her finish stitching up my arm, there were smaller gashes that she left as is. I guess she didn’t think those needed stitching.

I stayed as still as possible as she did the last few stitches, trying to keep the flinching to a minimum. As she went along doing it though I kind of got used to it. It definitely still hurt but I had become familiar with the pain, and she was doing it so rhythmically I wasn’t as surprised when she would run a thread through. It seemed like she had done this a lot.

“Are you a doctor?” I found myself asking. She chuckled a bit at my question.

“No I’m not a doctor, just lot’s of practice.” She’s not a doctor but has a lot of practice stitching people up?

“Kind of a weird thing to have a lot of practice with.”

“Is it? Everyone gets hurt, it’s better if you can just save yourself a trip to the hospital and do it yourself no?” Well I agreed with her since to prove her point I was in-fact being patched up by her and not someone at a hospital.

“Yeah, fair enough.” Despite understanding what she was saying, I didn’t believe that was really the reason, not that I had any idea what the real reason could be.

The sound of a door opening slowly and shutting softly could be heard down the short hall. Z came sneaking around the corner and took a seat on the edge of the coffee table, watching Kona work.

“He’s asleep.” Z spoke softly.

“Thanks.” Kona flashed her a sincere kind of smile. Some more time passed and Kona needed to work on my leg. “You’re gonna have to take those pants off so I can get a look at the damage.” My stomach twisted in on itself. The thought of anyone seeing that much of my body made me very uncomfortable.

“I don’t really need these pants to stay in-tacked, I can just cut the pant leg.” I state.

“Oh no you don’t have to do something like that-“ I had already started to tear them. Kona sighed. “I was going to offer you some shorts to wear while I worked on the wound.” Oh. I guess that would have worked. To late now though.

“Ah, I see.” I paused, before finishing tearing my pants.

“You’re surprisingly strong being able to just do that with your bare hands kid, and here I thought you looked pretty scrawny.” I tried a half chuckle to casually brush that moment off as best as I could.

“Yeah, I get that a lot.” I don’t know how convincing that sounded. I don’t know why I felt nervous. I should be more careful though, sometimes I forget what level of strength is normal for people. I heard what sounded like a text tone, both me and Kona looked towards Z. She had her phone in her hand and a frown on her brow as she looked at the screen.

“What is it Z?” Kona sounded concerned. Z tisked and shoved the phone in her jacket pocket.

“Just some more bullshit.” She grabbed a pack of cigarettes out of her back pocket, popping one out of the packaging and placing it between her lips. “I’m gonna go for a walk, don’t wait up.” She spoke with her lips still loosely holding the cigaret between them. Kona looked like she wanted to say something, but instead there was just a pause of silence as Z made her way to the door.

“Be careful.” She finally managed to say, it was whispered but Z seemed to have heard it anyway. They exchanged eye contact and Z just nodded before shutting the door behind her. Was Z going to get involved in something like what I saw with Ahe again? I really wanted to ask her, but I had a feeling she would get defensive quickly. If I asked Kona I don’t have any idea how that would go. At this point, I felt stuck.