The four of them filed back outside and then into the house. It was pretty dark inside by that point, so Tyla moved his hands together like he was moulding a ball of clay and produced a ball of light, which he set on the coffee table.

“Should you be using magic?” Malyn murmured.

“I’m okay,” Tyla murmured back.

Finch sat down on the arm of the couch while everyone else found their seats. “So, pros and cons. I’ll start. Being around Luther for longer than we have to is a pretty fucking big con.”

“Having six people on a single bus is quite close quarters even without considering who those people are,” Adin added.

“But if it’s safer for Malyn…” Tyla argued.

“Could be,” Finch said. “Could be worse. Katrina might just forget about us as soon as she has to go to any trouble to find us. She won’t forget about Luther.”

“I don’t think what’s safest for me matters much,” Malyn said. “Like, yeah, we probably do have to skip town, but I’m okay with my life being kinda dangerous. It always has been.”

“There is one major pro to staying with Luther,” Adin said. “The original plan wasn’t to go anywhere in particular. It was simply to stay wherever we ended up. If we agree to stay with Luther, we can still change our minds and leave at any moment. It would allow us to be more selective about where we do stay. If we instead choose to leave as soon as possible, we end up where we end up and that decision can’t be reversed. Luther will be gone.”

“Fuck,” Finch hissed. “That’s a really good point.”

Adin offered him a tight lipped smile. “Unfortunately.”

“Well, okay, raise your hand if you’re in favour of staying with Luther,” Finch said, and immediately raised his own hand. Everyone else’s followed, though nobody looked overly enthusiastic about the idea. Finch sighed as he dropped his hand back down. “Guess we don’t need to hold a vote for against, then, though for the record, I would have raised my hand for that option as well.”

“Just remember that we can ditch him literally whenever,” Malyn said. “We could just pull over to the side of the road and leave in the middle of the day, and what’s he going to do about it?”

“Tempting,” Finch said. “Unfortunately, that would also be bad for Shadow, and I’m kind of attached to him at this point.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Malyn said. “Don’t think I didn’t see you holding his hand last night.”

“I was comforting him. I’m allowed to comfort people.”

“Uh huh. You’ve never comforted me by holding my hand.”

“Different people need different things. Unlike you, he’s not a very verbal person.”

“Hey, I can be touchy!”

“Yeah.” Finch’s eyes flicked to Tyla, but he left it at that. If he and Malyn had been alone, he would have said exactly what he was thinking, but addressing whatever was going on between Malyn and Tyla so directly when they were both there probably would have just been awkward for everyone. Finch didn’t need to be in the middle of that mess. “Anyway, I guess we should go talk to Luther again.”

By the time they entered the bus again, it was apparently officially night, because Luther was up and sitting across from Shadow at the small table.

Finch leant back against the kitchen cabinets. “We’ve decided to take you up on your offer to travel with you, but there are conditions.”

Luther’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh?”

“You’re not drinking any of our blood,” Finch said. “And that includes Shadows.”

“And do I get to counter with a boundary of my own?” Luther asked. When Finch just stared at him, arms folded over his chest, he continued. “I have never bitten Shadow. I don’t intend to. I—we—do not need you to police our relationship.”

Shadow nodded his agreement.

Finch ignored Luther and turned his attention to Shadow. “Sorry, Shadow. You haven’t said much to me, but you did tell me he’s never bitten you. I did listen. Just… I guess you became a part of our family while you were staying with us, and I’m very protective of my family.”

“And that’s wonderful,” Luther said. “But he’s my family too, and he was my family first. I’m happy to share, but I expect you to as well.”

“Fine.”

“Any other conditions?”

“That we can leave at any time, but I assume that was obvious,” Finch said, and Luther nodded. “Malyn and I can take turns driving it tonight, but we’ll need a rack for the motorcycle. You’re paying for it.”

“Am I?”

“If we pay for it, we’ll feel obligated to stick around because otherwise we just wasted a ton of money. If you pay for it, well. Maybe you’ll be motivated to behave in a way that makes us want to stay.”

“Why do I feel like you’re deliberately trying to make this a very bad deal so that I say no?”

“Because I don’t like you very much, Luther.”

Luther inclined his head, accepting the point. “I regret the way I treated you when you were younger, if that helps at all. Or even if it doesn’t. I’ve felt that regret privately, to myself, even if I haven’t truly addressed it between us. If I’m honest, it’s embarrassing. At the time, I was still trying to figure out if I was a monster like Katrina. Or if I was becoming one. I processed that confusion by becoming a bully. At least to the outside world. At the same time, I was trying to earn the trust of the reclusive child who had taken up residence in my house.”

“Well then, I guess I’m glad you saved the bullying for me.”

“Bullying no one is preferable,” Luther said. “I do still have trouble understanding the feelings of others sometimes, but I’ve also learnt that you don’t always need to understand. I don’t understand how a refrigerator works, but I know it needs power to function and I can provide that.”

“Human beings are about as emotionally complex as refrigerators, so I’m sure that’s fine.”

“I see that the important parts of this conversation have passed,” Adin said. “I’ll start getting our things together so that we can leave. I have some old clothes here as well that we may as well take with us. Including some of yours, Finch.”

“The hospital gave me pants,” Malyn said, patting the legs of the sweatpants he was wearing. “But I don’t have any shoes.”

“We’ll get a safe distance, grab some food, then find somewhere to pick up some clothes and shit,” Finch said.

“Do you think they’ll let us into a clothing shop with no shoes?” Malyn asked. “Some shops don’t. It could be like a shoe buying paradox. You need shoes to get into a shop to buy shoes.”

“Tell them that you’re shoeless because your house burnt down,” Luther said. “You all still smell of smoke, though perhaps a human would need to take a closer sniff of you to tell. They would feel too socially uncomfortable to send you away.”

“Genius,” Malyn said. “I’ll just have the shop assistants sniff me. That’ll fix it.”

Luther smiled. “Let me know when you’re ready to go.”

Finch went back inside the cabin, found a flashlight, and started looking through the cupboards for anything they could salvage. There wasn’t a whole lot. Adin had never had much, and he’d taken most of it with him when they’d moved in together in their little house in the suburbs.

Finch had been so young the first time he’d seen this place. The first time he’d met Adin. He hadn’t trusted anyone, but he’d taken to following people around for food probably within a week of ending up in this world. He’d liked the weird people, and Adin had been the weirdest of all. After Finch had followed someone up here, he’d kept coming back.

Some of the other people had tried to trick and trap him — in retrospect, probably for his own good — but Adin had realised that wouldn’t work and had prioritised providing a safe place for Finch instead.

Finch had learnt about this world, how it worked and how to speak the language quickly, but the love that Adin had shown towards him had continued to baffle him for far longer. There was still a part of him that felt he hadn’t deserved it. He’d been such a brat. He’d been rude and ungrateful, he’d stolen things, he’d refused to do what he was asked out of pure spite. 

And then one day, Adin had asked him to help plant a lemon tree in the front garden, and for the first time, Finch had done something that had been asked of him. He had helped to plant it and he had watched it grow, and he hadn’t wanted to break it like he’d broken so many other things. Sometimes he’d even watered it when Adin wasn’t looking. He had desperately clung to the one beautiful, innocent thing he’d had a part in.

Adin had been the original owner of the breach tracker Finch had used throughout his teenage years, the one they still had stored safely in the saddlebag on Malyn’s motorcycle. Finch had been fourteen the first time that Adin had taken him out deep into the woods, following a faint signal. Remote breaches sometimes went ignored, Adin had said, and if someone ended up lost in the woods, they could die.

It had been Finch who had found her, tucked so deep in the undergrowth in an attempt to stay warm that he’d nearly walked right past her. A baby, barely old enough to walk, dressed in animal skins and with blood that was not her own smeared on her. Finch had been wearing a jacket, so it had been him who had tucked her in close against his body and carried her back to Adin’s little cabin in the woods.

Finch had held onto her and cried when they got back, had let himself hurt for that child in ways he’d never let himself hurt for himself. When it had been himself, he’d never let himself think about all the things a child didn’t deserve to have to go through.

Adin had called someone to come and take the little girl away, of course. She was young enough that she would get adopted, find a proper family. Finch wasn’t jealous, though. He had Adin, and Adin was all the family he’d needed. Or at least he’d thought so, until a few years later when he’d met Malyn, and then much later, Tyla as well.

When Finch headed back outside, he saw Shadow helping Adin pick lemons from the tree. Concerns about Luther aside, Finch was glad they’d be staying with Shadow for a little bit longer.