--XXXII--

MONDAY

7:46 AM

Thornton Building

OMG DOGGY YAY!!!, screamed a voice in my mind.

Mine.

Happy the raccoon bounded instantly up and onto my shoulder, like a cat that needed to climb up a tree to avoid a mutated coyote-wolf hybrid- the kind you occasionally still saw in some areas of V6 and V8. The Samoyed followed minus the climbing up on top of me.

"I'm calling you Jupiter Two," I said to the dog.

Jupiter was an Alaskan Malamute we had before Crayon or Skittles. He didn't die of old age or natural causes, either. Good thing Emberion didn't just randomly incarcerate these two or else I would've ignited him in the balls. The Samoyed looked up at me with its tongue out, wagging its fluffy white curled tail and alternately flapping its ears. I knelt on one knee and patted its head.

"Awwwwww!" I squealed, the way I almost always did around virtually any dog. "I'm sorry," I said to the Samoyed, and the raccoon, "but neither of you can come with me right now!"

The Samoyed cocked its head.

"You can't come with me," I repeated.

Almost in answer- and much to my surprise- the dog turned to face the tile-and-cement wall, barked at it, and then offhandedly opened its jaws to projectile vomit flame at it.

PROJECTILE VOMIT FLAME at it.

I had to stand there and process what I just saw.

Same labs whe' they expeeyimented ahn us, Ember had said.

My jaw dropped but only barely.

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"Okay," I said. "So..." I was still wrapping the rest of my mind around how simultaneously perplexing and bothersome, yet also riveting, these... results were. I cleared my throat, flexed my fingers, and continued. "A fluffy, adorable, fire-breathing... doggy."

"Samoyed," Ember said.

"YES EMBER I KNOW WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE," I replied. "Does the raccoon... shoot lasers or something?"

"The 'yacoon iz a combination," Ember said, turning to look at me with a rather grim look on his slightly lopsided face, "of youse' and the Davenport girl."

I wasn't sure how much information I could handle at once.

"Which means?" I demanded, yet not at all certain I really wanted to know an answer.

From nothing at all and with only a very subtle flash of light, between its little hand-paws, our fluffy, brown, white, and gray friend created what looked almost like... a small, red apple.

A slow exhale hissed through my imperfect teeth.

A combination of youse' and the Davenport girl.

Was it, really? Could it? And if so, how? And if so, was it a coincidence?

How could...

I took a breath.

It has to be a coincidence.

"Okay, it makes apples." I looked at the floor, pressing the tips of my middle fingers to the tops of my ears. "I..." I paused, I took a breath. I pinched the bridge of my nose. "I don't do that, I don't make apples. I just tumble."

Emberion took the tiny red fruit from Happy's forepaws, casually took a bite and crunched away next to my ear.

Within seconds he swallowed, and then he made some kind of sighing sound that to me sounded almost like relief- really sweet relief.

"Ember," I said.

"Thyea' both male. Both move pretty fast. Should be helpful. New pets youse' can take to the beach."

"Just tell me, Ember."

Jupiter Two sat down in front of me and raised his paw in the air. I wrapped a hand around it.

"Chris," Ember said, "it'z not dat big of a deal."

Emberion Myelantic put his hands, perhaps in his most comforting way, on my arms, just below my shoulders. The little apple core was still in the fingers of his left hand.

Maybe not that big of a deal if you weren't the boy that actually lived through Nightingale with exactly one other survivor- and wanted nothing to do with that trauma and that fear. No, thank you. Even if that reminder was a cute raccoon with superpowers. Even Kaylee wouldn't need it.

So maybe not that big a deal for Ember.

He was talking, but I was in a fog. I shook my head.

"Sorry," I said, perceptibly, gradually coming back into focus. "Say that again." What were we talking about, again? Somewhere in the last couple of moments I released Jupiter Two's paw and he was holding it up for me again, but I didn't move at all this time. I was a frozen statue with lungs and a beating heart. "My fault. Sorry. What was that?"

"We don't know," Ember said, very slowly, in a low and soft voice that almost didn't belong to him- save for the very conspicuous Vicinity Four accent and the rough, raspy speech- "if it'z coincidence. Maybe it iz. Da frootz take away pain, too."

--

Because to you

It doesn't matter if I mean it, no

It only matters if it "sells"

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