Malyn volunteered to follow the bus on his bike and Tyla insisted on riding with him. After the fire last night, the threats against Malyn, and then having to wait so long to find out whether Malyn was okay, Tyla didn’t want to be apart from him again. Maybe that was illogical, but the idea of having Malyn out of his sight made Tyla feel panicky. 

Shadow had lent Tyla some clothes, and though they were a little big, they were certainly more appropriate to ride a motorcycle in than his sleeping gown.

Sometimes Tyla felt like he wasn’t cut out for all of this in the same way that Malyn and Finch were. He’d had an easy, safe childhood. When he had been little, he'd always dreamed of doing something action packed when he grew up. He’d practised his shielding over and over again because he wasn’t allowed to learn anything violent, but he hadn’t had the real world experiences Malyn and Finch had.

Malyn had grown up roaming forests and hunting for his food, and Finch… well, Tyla still felt guilty for asking about that brand on Finch’s wrist. Finch had seen the kind of darkness Tyla hadn’t known it was possible to come back from. 

They’d never judged him for being different, though. His insecurity was a beast of his own invention. They had always insisted that their differences were what made them strong, and he agreed, but it was hard to know his place in things when Malyn and Finch felt like two sides of the same coin. They shared a sarcastic sense of humour that Tyla didn’t always get, only with Finch approaching it with an undertone of pessimism and Malyn with unrelenting positivity.

All three of them, Malyn, Finch, and Adin, were so close. Sure, there were things Adin had kept hidden even from Malyn, but they had a certain level of comfort that Tyla was still building.

And that was why it was so silly to feel jealous. They were building that level of closeness, they were letting him into their lives, into the family they’d built, but growing relationships took time. 

The strangest part was that he hadn’t felt this way at all at first. He’d felt welcomed from the start. It had only been recently and, admittedly, mostly where Malyn was concerned, that he’d started feeling so insecure.

After about an hour of driving, Malyn overtook the bus, held his arm out to signal, and they pulled into a parking lot in front of a fast food store.

Everyone got off the bus and the six of them headed towards the store. 

Just before they entered, Tyla glanced around and realised Malyn was no longer with him. Finch had held him back and they were talking together at the edge of the parking lot.

Irrational jealousy flooded through Tyla, but when he walked over to them, they were just talking about where they would go to eat the food after they bought it. Of course. Why did Tyla keep feeling this way? He had absolutely no reason to.

They headed inside the store, Malyn coordinated ordering for everyone, and then they sat down to wait for their food.

“It’s a shame I was already a vampire when I came here,” Luther commented. “There are so many different foods here, and so readily available. When I was a human, we ate the same few things over and over, with only the occasional treat for special occasions.”

Malyn propped his face up on the palm of his hand as he watched Luther. “Does different blood taste different?”

“Oh, yes, absolutely,” Luther said. “I have a source of rejected donor blood from the local blood bank. Or… did, I suppose. With people coming here from different worlds, there are all kinds of oddities that pop up during blood screenings that means they have to throw otherwise perfectly good blood away. You can imagine how even something as simple as a novel blood type can complicate things. I’ve tasted some very exotic bloods in my time.”

“And now what’re you going to do?” Finch asked. “Can’t go to your source. Can’t drink from us.”

“I can drink cow blood if I have to, and those things are just sitting in fields all over the place.”

“You’re gonna go bite a cow?”

“No. Don’t be silly. You can draw blood from a cow just as easily as you can draw blood from a human.”

“And a cow will just let you do that, will it?”

“No, of course not,” Luther said. “Shadow can do it without waking a sleeping cow.”

Finch sent a glance Shadow’s way, and Shadow nodded.

“Hm,” Finch said. “Well, it solves the problem. Guess there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“I’m so glad we have your approval, Finch.”

Finch shot him an annoyed glance. “I swear it’s as hard for you to put up with me being halfway decent to you as it is for me to do it. Every time I try, you’re snide about it.”

“I apologise,” Luther said. “It happens so infrequently and briefly that I don’t always notice.”

“Just… shut up until after I’ve eaten.”

“Okay,” Luther said, and to his credit, he did stop talking.

They collected their food, made final confirmations about where they would stop to eat, and then split up again. Malyn had asked if Tyla had wanted to get back on the bus with the others, but Tyla had responded with a firm shake of his head and Malyn hadn’t questioned him.

#

It was odd, being with both Luther and these new people. In a way, having Luther with him gave Shadow a place where he belonged, but it also felt like it made his place in things less certain. He had been becoming closer to this new group, and now he felt like the path of least resistance was to simply stay near Luther and go unnoticed. 

Luther noticed him, of course. He had a kind of mental determination to do so that broke through the gentle discouragement Shadow often unintentionally emitted. Finch noticed him sometimes as well, though in a more erratic way. He would forget Shadow was there entirely, and then suddenly look directly at him and then try to temper his aggression towards Luther for a little while.

They drove a little further after getting their food and pulled into the parking area of a national park. There was room to park buses to serve tourists who went hiking here during the day, but at this time of night, they were the only ones there.

Shadow grabbed a bag of food, a drink, and then the sleeve of Finch’s shirt. Finch’s gaze cut to Shadow’s hand, and then his face, and he didn’t resist as Shadow led him out through the door of the bus.

It would have been nice to take him somewhere that they could truly be alone, but they weren’t far enough away from Katrina to let their guard down like that just yet. Instead, Shadow climbed up on top of the bus and helped Finch up behind him.

Shadow waited until Finch had settled in and then he sat down next to him, shoulder to shoulder, so that he wouldn’t have to speak too loudly. Finch glanced at the tiny gap between them, but he didn’t comment or shift away.

Finch pulled a burger out of his bag of food and peeled the wrapper off, but he didn’t bite into it just yet. “I’m sorry. I know I keep making jabs at Luther and I know it’s not doing any of us any good. I just… I don’t know.”

“It’s okay,” Shadow said around a chip.

“It’s not fair to you, being in the middle of this.”

“You can’t just stop feeling how you feel because it would be more convenient if you weren’t mad at him.”

“Mm.” Finch took a bite of his burger and let out a groan as he chewed. “Fuck. I didn’t realise how hungry I was.”

“That probably didn’t help with you being angry.”

“Probably not,” Finch admitted. “Maybe things will get better. I don’t know. He seems like he’s changed.”

“He has.”

Finch paused to eat a few more bites of his burger. “I kind of get it. How trauma can make you be a shithead. The way I treated Adin when I was younger was fucked up, but you know, I was a kid. But… I don’t know. If someone killed everyone I cared about and it was sort of my fault, what kind of person would I be? It’s so much easier to just decide you’re a bad person than to deal with the fact that you’re not, that you chose to do the wrong thing. Or… well, it’s not even always really about choices. Luther made some bad ones, but he didn’t choose to have his children killed. Sometimes it’s just where you end up, but it becomes a part of you anyway.”

Shadow nodded.

“Trust has just always been tough for me, I guess, and it’s hard to go that far into not trusting someone and then just accept that they’re sorry and that they’ve changed. That fucker scared me when I was younger. Not many people are stronger than me, but he is. And, you know, he never did actually go as far as holding me down and biting me, but I was never sure he wouldn’t. And he broke into my fucking hotel room when I was hurt. He left without doing anything, but still, what the fuck. Of course I was scared.”

“You should talk to him about that.”

“I’ve tried. He dodges the question.”

Shadow looked down at the roof of the bus. He knew Luther could hear this whole conversation from inside. “He doesn’t get to do that anymore. If this is going to work, he has to be honest with you. And that night, that time he broke into your hotel room, I think it’s important.”

“He ever tell you about that one?”

Shadow nodded. “He’s told me about a lot of things.”

“Hm. Okay. I still don’t know if I’m going to be able to forgive him, but I’ll try to talk to him about it.”

“You don’t have to forgive him. It’s okay if you don’t.”

“Is it?”

“Yes, Finch. It really is.”