Rat was sitting in an armchair, legs pulled up and a half-bowl of soup warming her lap. Somebody was talking to her, using their outside words, but it was muffled, the only real sound the pounding in her head.

She picked the bowl up with both hands and took a sip, noting that her palms were rubbed raw and that she had a long cut down the side of her thumb. When had that happened?

There was blood on her sleeve too, which made her a little lightheaded to look at, so she didn't look at it.

She looked up instead.

The teenager was sitting on the chair nearest the lamp, his foot up on his knee, and the younger woman was examining him, wielding a pair of tweezers and a little bottle of something or other.

They both looked tired and worn out.

Rat took another sip of the soup, and watched.

"You gotta clean it properly," the woman sighed, "the glass is probably still in there"

"But it huurts," the boy complained in return, "I thought this was gonna be an easy night and now look at me, I look like I've been through a warzone!"

"Ah you ain't that bad, we'll get you patched up by morning."

"But what if it gets infected!"

"That's why we're cleaning it you idiot."

She stuck the tweezers in the wound, more carefully than Rat would have expected from her words, and the boy, Shim, she remembered now? Hissed in pain.

A moment later there was a rush of blood and the glass piece was extracted. Some mopping up with a cloth and the bottle, and in no time his foot was clean and wrapped.

"There, ya see, now stop being such a baby and let me look at your arm."

Shim sighed, holding up his forearm to the light. "I don't think she even broke the skin, just scared me, was all."

Rat inspected her own teeth marks from a distance. Red blotches against his pale skin. Served him right.

She went to drink more of the soup, but realised the bowl was empty. When had that happened?

For a moment, so fast she almost missed it, his eyes flicked over to her, and then away. Prey acknowledging a predator.

She pulled her blanket around her and sank deeper into the chair, wishing she had more soup. She hadn't even noticed herself eating it, but it had been very good.

Outside the sun was starting to rise, casting in dappled light through rain-spotted windows. The storm was still ongoing, but most of the ferocity had gone out of it now, the winter gales finally blown out.

His eyes flicked to her again, and then to the kitchen.

"Man, it's a good thing we've got all that extra soup in the kitchen." He said, a little too loudly, and then, very pointedly not looking at her, he staggered to his foot and started hopping out of the room, steadying himself on the furniture.

"If you could grab that bowl from over there, Quilt," he nodded in her direction, but not directly at her, "that would be great."

He made a pained noise as his foot hit the floor at a bad angle, and Quilt watched him go with an unimpressed expression.

"It's not that bad you baby, you barely scratched it."

He tried to make a rude gesture at her but almost fell instead, and she snorted laughter after him, before looking at Rat.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Rat shrank back in the chair, trying to make herself small. All the doors were locked, but there were stairs off the kitchen, maybe one of the upstairs windows would be open and she could get either out or onto the roof. She just had to-

"- with us?"

Rat blinked, and realised the bowl was gone from her hands, missing the residual warmth.

An extended hand from the woman, Quilt? But she shook her head, shrinking back, and then, that was it. No confrontation, no more questions, she just left. Was it that easy?

-

The soup returned, this time carried by the older, still unnamed woman.

"You gave us quite a fright, back there." She said, handing over the bowl. Rat took it with nervous hands, resisting the urge to throw it back, to flee. She was gonna use her person-brain, not her rat one. Food was important. Eat, establish rapport, then flee when their guards are down.

"We've been looking for others, but we must've missed you," she continued. After the soup came a handful of sweets, wrapped in bright paper and taken from a trouser pocket, slightly warm.

"Here, you look like you need the sugar, and my grandkids always liked these." She scattered them on Rat's lap. "Do you have a name?"

Rat hesitated before shaking her head. She did, of course, but she wasn't willing to give it, couldn't speak.

The woman shrugged. "We lost ours too, when we came here, but we picked names for ourselves. Strange ones, looking back at it, but we weren't exactly in the best state of mind back then. I'm Rust by the way, the other woman is Quilt, and the lad is Shim."

Rat made no reaction, and Rust hesitated, before looking around, and then out of the window.

"Weather seems to be clearing up, I guess you bought the sun with you."

She bit her lip, "wait here a minute."

-

A few minutes later and she was back, a big orange cushion in her arms. "This here is Gertrude. She'll keep you warm, but don't let her into the soup, she's a greedy old bugger."

Rat flinched at the contact as the cushion was tucked in next to her. It was warm though, and feathery?

"And don't let her off the blanket, we can wash that, but the chair is another matter," Rust continued, and Rat stroked one hand across the cushion. It burbled a soft noise. A chicken?

There had been chickens back when she was a kid, but they were all red or white things, and they weren't pets. She'd tried to catch one once and it had taken three of them to corner it as it shrieked alarm.

She patted the chicken warily, eyes darting between it and Rust, her other hand trying to keep the soup away from its inquisitive beak.

She wanted to say something, to speak, but she couldn't. Not right now. It was like the words were trapped inside her, locked up, and to release them would break something important. A body thrown through a wall, shattered.

Her arm itched, and she resisted the urge to scratch it, wondering instead how she was going to drink the soup with only one hand.

Rust sat and watched her for a second, and then awkwardly got up. "I'll be in the kitchen, if you need anything. We were preparing to go out into the city today, pick up some food and paint, if the store's still there anyway."

She looked around, "but you're welcome to come with us, if you feel up to it, or you can stay here."

She bit her lip, "The bedroom upstairs with the green door, you can have that room if you'd like. There's some clothing in there that was for my- my-" she held still for almost a full minute, before carrying on, "- my grandchildren, for when they stayed over. There should be something in there that'll fit. Quilt can look at your arm, if you want?"

Rat shook her head very slightly, and Rust gave a final, awkward, shrug, before heading off towards the kitchen. "Suit yourself,"

She paused as she reached the door, seemed like she was about to say something, but then she shook her head and left, closing the door behind her.

Rat sat alone in the brightening room, drinking her soup and stroking the chicken.

The stove was warming her feet, the soup her hands and the chicken, Gertrude? her lap. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been warm. The blanket was a little itchy around her shoulders, but it was clean and fresh, smelling very faintly of wood.

They didn't seem like bad people, for all that she'd fought them. There were no drugs on display, the place was clean and well looked after, what little she'd seen of it, and they'd even tidied away all the glass and blood already. But, appearances could be decieving.

Beside her the chicken dozed, and there was the sound of rain against the windows. Behind that the faint sound of birdsong. A chicken was laying an egg somewhere outside, and there was quiet conversation coming from the kitchen.

She heard the sound of somebody ascending the wooden stairs, and then above the squeak of floorboards.

What would her dad have wanted her to do?

She hadn't thought of him in so long.

What would he have done, if he was one of the people in this big, rich house, and he had found her on the doorstep in the middle of a storm?

He had been kind and warm and loving. He would have taken her in and asked no questions, he would have given her soup, freaked out about how close she was to the chicken, and then tried to call her parents.

He would have told her to stay as long as she needed, but he had been unique, and now he was gone.

She thought about this for a minute, knees against her chest.

She missed him, and he wasn't here.

She would wait until they left and then sneak out, that was the plan.