--VII--

There were old discarded bookshelves to my left. To my right, there were piles of armchairs, a blackboard on the ground beside them, and some shrubs with pretty light purple flowers.

A small red squirrel was scurrying about. It stopped and stared at me.

I stared back at it.

"Hi," I said.

The cute little thing twitched its nose, and then ran away. My eyes followed it until it disappeared from view.

I could let the water from my eyes fall here.

I didn't cry in front of them. Thank God.

I positioned my feet against the broken wall of the school. I wondered if my family studied here; I wondered if I had one.

Perhaps I didn't have one; perhaps I was the byproduct of an experiment. There were so many. One experiment started on a November and concluded on a February.

They called it Nightingale.

"Chris!" a voice yelled, not far behind me. The voice was Caleb's.

I was torn between just going or letting him catch up.

It was routine for me; whenever I visited the Davenports this was my favorite hopoff position, as I called it. One controlled maneuver off of this perfectly diagonally placed broken thing, and I landed in the most beautiful part of the Port, every time.

I let him catch up.

Caleb was out of breath. He had to hunch over, his hands on his knees.

Suddenly all I wanted to do was hug him. I wanted a human embrace.

"I can't be near you right now," I said.

"What?" he said. "Why?"

"I just can't."

"I'm sorry about Dad, you know how he can be someti-"

"You ran here," I said, interrupting. "There must be something important; say it now, and I'll go."

"I just wanted to say you don't have to pay for the potato salad."

"Wonderful," I said. "Goodbye."

Then he grabbed my hand- typically I would've freaked out and ran at such sudden physical contact. But with Caleb, it was different sometimes.

It took me a few seconds, as it always did. And then, Caleb wasn't out of breath and sweating anymore; I was. I was out of breath and sweating and my legs burned.

The little red squirrel came back, dropped an acorn in front of me, and then scurried away.

There was something else I was feeling, too, it was some kind of pain, not so much a physical pain, but maybe more so a vague hollow ache somewhere over my chest, where my heart was. I couldn't explain it.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"Danny," said Caleb. He called me that, sometimes. Either I liked it or I didn't care. "You really don't have to do that for me, you know."

"I'm only doing it because I love your eyes and I think they're a really pretty color," I said.

"No." He pulled me closer to him. "You're doing it because you love me."

I smiled.

"Okay," I said. "You win."

I closed my eyes; it wasn't easy staying in that moment, but I did, and I did it for as long as humanly possible.

"Danny," he said. "You're not reading my mind, are you?"

"No," I said. "Of course not."

"Okay," he said. "All right. What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking love is so overrated," I said.

"I'm thinking that's just you putting walls up," said Caleb.

"Speaking of walls, there's a wall I need to go and literally hop from." The burning in my legs was starting to ebb, but the strange feeling, the unexplained one over my chest, was just as profound and confusing to me now as it was earlier. "Caleb, there's some kind of a feeling, somewhere in your chest almost? What is it?"

His eyes searched mine. He said nothing.

"Are you gonna tell me?" I said.

I looked at the sky; it was dark and empty, save for some tiny silver-blue specks. I wondered if the Union of Stars took their name from the big bright burning things. They definitely used lots of hydrogen and helium, and burned things.

...I guessed it made sense.

And I guessed Caleb wasn't going to answer. "The stars are the color of your eyes," I said.

"It's how I feel when I can't get close to you," he said.

"Wait. What?" I almost did an actual facepalm. "You are very close to me."

"Not close enough."

My heart skipped a beat. "Wait," I said. "Do you always feel this way?"

I felt guilt. Awful, horrible guilt. A person was in pain, and I, in some form, was the cause for it.

"A lot of the time," he said.

His voice echoed in my mind. Either that or he was telepathically telling me again; I didn't know which.

Not close enough.

I was nervous when I spoke.

"What's closer?" I said. "Can I make it better?"

In answer, he took my face in both his hands and kissed me.

I was revolted. Or should I say- the broken parts of me, were revolted. The rest of me wanted it; I wanted it so much.

It was a long time before he pulled back.

"There," he said, softly. "You made it better."

I had nothing to say. At least, nothing I could think of. I desperately tried to think of something. Anything.

"Did I ever tell you how much I love the stubble on your face?" I said.

He laughed. It was a really weird, really loud, really accented laugh. I loved it.

"Yes," he said. "On at least one occasion. It's nice to hear it again."

My brain had completely shut down.

If I had one.

"Cool," I said. I did a thumbs-up gesture with both my hands, which were still shaking. "All right, I'ma go now."

Just then my phone buzzed.

I instantly was pissed off- I HATED text messages, absolutely despised them. The only reason I even had a phone was because I had a thing, called a job. Apart from Kaylee, Caleb, James, Scott, and Connor Meadows, no one else had my phone number, at least not that I knew of. Even Belinda didn't have it. Maybe it was some kind of urgent e-mail?

"Really?" I whispered. "Now? Tonight?" I was disgruntled, and I wasn't trying to conceal it. "I swear, if this is Klein-"

"It isn't Klein," said Caleb.

I looked at him. One of Caleb's abilities was that he could manipulate almost any technology, communicate with it from afar. Technopathy.

"What do you mean?"

"Chris, I think you're in danger."

I shook my head. I fumbled for the cell phone. "I've been in danger before. I live in the Overwoods. It's not new."

I unlocked the phone. There was one new message on it.

It was from an unusual number, a string of digits that didn't seem to follow any format.

I tapped to open it.

Caleb stood next to me, so we both could see the message.

"MISSED YOU

CAN'T WAIT TO SEE YOU AGAIN

- M M"

"Wow," I said. "So original."

Caleb didn't look amused when he took the keys from his pocket. In fact, he looked obdurate. Frigid.

Expressionless.

Even I was concerned then.

"You're staying with me tonight," said Caleb.

I felt something creep up on me. Fear. A certain kind of it. But I was no stranger to it, either.

"What do you mean?" I said. "Where?"

"Dad's office," said Caleb. "Scott's. It's more secure than the house."