Exiting the market turned out to be much more simple than entering it. They just walked back out the way they came in. Cinza handed a small handful of bills (rumpled and folded a few times "for authenticity") to the new man at the gate, who waved them out with a bored expression. Natalie was finally able to put her jacket back on and stop keeping herself warm with magic, releasing one minor strain on her mind.
According to Cinza's phone, it was now a little past three in the morning. It still looked just as dark as midnight, but according to Cinza the first buses would start running in an hour or two. Natalie felt like her legs were going to collapse, but she didn't want to complain to Cinza after everything the older girl had done for her that night.
Cinza, however, seemed just as tired as she was, and found a place for them to rest in no time. It was a makeshift shelter, another area for the homeless set underneath a natural awning created by the intersection of a few balconies and railways far overhead. A few tents were set out in the concrete alley, with small groups of people huddled in sleeping bags around small fires. There were a couple dozen people around them as they walked through, but no one paid them any notice.
"Hey, Nina. Been a while," mumbled an old, bearded man reclining in a low chair as they walked by.
"Hey, Bill. Just staying one night," Cinza murmured back. He nodded. As soon as they passed, he went back to a book he was reading, glancing up occasionally to watch for newcomers.
"Nina?" Natalie asked in a whisper.
"Another life," she whispered back. "Come on." Cinza lead them to a dark corner where they wouldn't be bothered.
Cinza pulled out her phone to check for messages, which gave Natalie an idea. "Can we call for a ride or something?"
"I could send a message, but no one would receive it until they logged in. Our server doesn't support push notifications yet." Cinza sighed. "I could call someone directly, but I don't know what happened last night. I don't want to put anyone at unnecessary risk."
"Oh." Natalie nodded. "That makes sense."
"We'll wait until the buses are running and take them home. Is that all right?"
I want to get out of this city… "...Okay."
Cinza stifled a yawn as she stretched out, laying back against the concrete with her hands as a makeshift pillow.
"Isn't that uncomfortable?"
"You get used to it."
"How do you do it?"
One of Cinza's eyes cracked open, looking at Natalie with surprise. "How do I do what?"
"Keep everything separate. All these different lives. No one knows anything about any of this, do they?"
"No. Not even Ruby."
Natalie shook her head. "I wish I could do that. I can't even keep magic a secret."
"...What do you mean?"
She hesitated, but Cinza was obviously the best at this sort of thing. And after tonight, Natalie felt like she could tentatively call her a friend. She spilled out the whole story with Quinn, how she'd accidentally revealed magic to him, knocked him out, how he'd found out her real name. She kept Rupert a secret for Hailey, but the rest was as honest as she could manage. Even Quinn's romantic feelings toward her, and her own confused feelings in return. Cinza was smart and knew about this sort of thing. She'd know what to do.
When she finished, Cinza had sat up against the wall and was gazing into space thoughtfully.
"I'm so sorry," Natalie said awkwardly. "I screwed everything up, didn't I?"
"Not necessarily," Cinza said. As Natalie looked confused, Cinza turned to her. "I can't pretend that revealing magic wasn't a mistake, but it need not be a fatal one."
Natalie blinked a few times. She wasn't sure if she was having trouble understanding because it was Cinza, or because she was so utterly exhausted. "...So what do I do?"
"It's going to be hard, Jenny. You have to go back to school or you'll draw even more attention to yourself, but the scar on your face will do the same. If you wanted, we could retreat entirely, move you to another place, try another school, but I believe you don't want that. Am I correct?"
Natalie hesitated, but the faces of her friends popped into her mind. Tyler and Steven, Mitch and Kelsey. Quinn. She didn't want to lose them, start over in a strange place with even more strange kids she didn't know. "I don't want to change schools."
"And I don't think you should have to. This isn't your fault," Cinza added, pointing at the bandages on Natalie's face. "Remember that."
"But how am I gonna keep it secret where it came from?"
"You'll need to compartmentalize."
"Com… what?"
"It means to separate your feelings and your memories into specific categories and parts. When you are in one part of your life, act in one way, and when you come to another life, act differently there. You saw me tonight, didn't you?"
Cinza gestured out to the city. "Among the homeless, I am Nina, just one of the crowd. Someone who doesn't make drama, who can be relied on as a quiet resident, who can be trusted to make a food run with money while others save a space." She gestured again, in a different direction. "On the corners, I am Candy, and you've already seen that life. In the churches, I am Theresa, and in the circles of high society I am Rose. Each of them has their own hopes and fears, their own friends and foes, but not one spills out of its compartment. Never do these lives touch, and none of them actually declare who I am."
"I don't think I can do that," Natalie said doubtfully.
"No, I don't believe you can," agreed Cinza with a sigh. Natalie felt a little indignant, but Cinza went on. "And to be honest, that's probably for the best. My life was such a shattered mess that I lost who was really me at the center. I wore so many faces and names, I nearly forgot my own. I only survived by pure chance. I got on the first train at the station and blindly let it take me away."
"...To Rallsburg?"
"Yes. There I shed every skin I'd ever worn and invented myself again, into the woman you see now." Cinza pulled out her robes from her bag, putting them on to keep warm against the night chill. With the soft, almost glowing silver, she finally looked like herself again. "Of course, that woman was insane and nearly got herself killed… but Ruby managed to balance me out eventually, " she added with a smile.
Natalie felt a bit lost. Cinza was talking too much again. "So what am I supposed to do about Quinn?"
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"It's ultimately your decision, but I think you may risk letting him in." As Natalie's mouth fell open, Cinza nodded thoughtfully. "From how you described him, he seems mature enough to understand. People your age are much more capable than most give them credit, in my opinion."
"I should tell him everything?"
"Tell him as much or as little as you wish." Cinza shrugged. "You feel alone, don't you? Isn't that why you came to the city tonight? Because you had no one to turn to?"
"...I guess."
"I don't know your life, Jenny. I haven't gone through what you have, and I don't know your friends or your family. All I can tell you is what I've experienced. For me, stranded in a strange town surrounded by strange people and facing impossible things, I would have died had I not someone to share everything with."
Natalie's face got hot. "You think I should be… like you and Ruby?"
Cinza smiled. "If you want that, yes, but I mean for you to find a real friend. Someone you can confide in and trust." She laid down and closed her eyes. "Find that person, your own age, who you trust to keep your secrets and your confidence. Most problems in this world cannot be solved by one person alone. It's too big and we are all so small. We need each other. Tell that friend everything, and let them help you. That's the only way you can ever stay sane."
They lay for a few minutes in silence. Natalie tried to see the stars, but of course with the lights of the city, she couldn't see anything at all in the patch of dark gray sky above them.
"Why is the world so terrible?" she asked.
Cinza didn't answer for a minute, and Natalie had to roll over to make sure she was still awake. Her eyes were also staring up at the empty sky.
"The world isn't terrible, but there are people in it who make it worse than it should be," she finally murmured. "There are also people who make it better. We all strive to belong to the latter group, but I know I've been in the first group a few times. All you can do is try to be better, and hope that enough people around you are thinking the same way."
Natalie wished she could feel like everyone around her was that way, as she assumed Cinza did, but it just didn't click. The world she'd seen was full of awful people doing horrible things to each other. No one really looked out for each other or helped each other. Even the people she thought she could rely on weren't there when she needed them. She didn't want any part of it, but she didn't see any way out of it either.
And I'm one of them, just like Cinza. I made the world worse sometimes. I hurt people, I lied, I killed. I… I want to be like she said, but what if I can't?
With that painful thought, Natalie curled up under her jacket and tried to go to sleep, laying in the corner of the concrete lot underneath an overhanging road, with only a strange girl she would never fully understand—and could only barely call friend—keeping her company through the night.
You survived. Hold onto that, and never forget.
----------------------------------------
Natalie watched the sun come up through the small gap of sky. The small homeless camp was quiet. Cars hummed along in every direction nearby as the city kept moving on as it always did, heedless of the drama of the night.
She was wrapped up in her jacket, laying very close to Cinza, who was still asleep. For a few minutes, Natalie watched her chest rise and fall with every breath. She looked so quiet and peaceful, yet another side of the strange grey-robed girl that Natalie had never known.
The moment Natalie moved to scratch an itch she just couldn't resist anymore, Cinza's eyes flew open.
"Hi," Natalie whispered.
"Good morning." Her voice had returned to its floaty, echoing state. To Natalie, that was a comfort, a step back to the familiar world she wanted so desperately to return to. Cinza sat up and stretched out. "Did you sleep all right?"
"No," she said. "I kept getting woken up by stuff, and the concrete hurt to lay down on." Not the real reason I couldn't sleep… I kept seeing him. Every time. Waiting. Trying to trap me again. Trying to…
"Ah." Cinza held out a hand, which Natalie refused. Cinza didn't react, just stood up as if it hadn't happened. "Want some breakfast?"
A few blocks away, they ate pancakes and bacon from a tiny restaurant that seemed impossibly busy. Natalie and Cinza had to eat out on the curb, but it was a nice day out without a drop of rain coming from the thick puffy white clouds, so they didn't mind.
"What about my phone?" Natalie asked through a mouthful of pancake.
"By now, it's totally worthless. If he managed to sell it, he's going to have a very unhappy customer," Cinza smirked. "We laid a few pieces of remote code in our custom ROM. The moment they turn it on, it'll already be gone. It may even melt the battery, if we did it right. Tezofarl quite enjoys tinkering with malware."
"...Good." She could always get a new one, and she liked the idea of a bit of quiet revenge on the two men that had caused her so much trouble.
"Did you decide what you're going to do on Monday?"
Natalie shook her head. "I've got all weekend though right?"
"I suppose, though if I were you, I'd head it off tomorrow. It'll be much easier to deal with if you don't have to explain in the middle of school, I presume?" Cinza shrugged. "Although, I've never actually been to school..."
"You haven't?"
"One of many regrets."
"...Tomorrow then," Natalie said firmly.
She nodded. "Whatever you decide, I'm sure it will be the correct decision. Let me know what happens, though?"
"It'd be easier if you talked more online," Natalie said petulantly.
"If I… I'm sorry?"
"You never chat online. I was really surprised you answered me at all. I'm really glad you did," she added quickly. "It's the only way a lot of us have to talk to anyone, you know. It'd be nice if you showed up more."
Cinza smiled. "You're right. I've been neglecting our extended family. I'm sorry."
"S'okay," she mumbled, a little embarrassed.
Their bus pulled up a minute later. It was a long ride. Cinza took the aisle seat, making sure no one would sit near Natalie as she leaned against the window, watching the city blocks pass by one by one. Every single shadowy alleyway reminded her of another nightmare she'd lived through that night, but Natalie had made it.
She was still alive, even if she wasn't totally intact anymore. Something was missing. She felt like she was still broken. Parts had been fixed, but not the whole thing, and someone had shoved new uneven pieces in that didn't belong. She wasn't sure what it was, and she didn't know if she'd ever find out. Cinza had told her it was just the scar on her face, but Natalie felt like it was more than that.
As she got home and trudged in the door, she didn't even bother to think about what Lily or Kendra might say—and to her total lack of surprise, they barely noticed her. Lily saw the bandages and made a passing comment about being careful when she went out, but her eyes flicked back to the laptop screen in an instant. Percy was nowhere to be found. His perch was empty and the window open. Natalie assumed he was out hunting.
She wandered up to her room and shut the door. She threw the blue dress away as if it were on fire, deep in the corner of her closet, and found her favorite pajamas. She pulled them on, desperate for anything that could bring comfort. Leaving her window open for Percy, she curled up on her bed, shut her eyes tight and tried to block out everything.
But she still couldn't sleep. Horrible images dogged her brain—of Tom and his friend, of the sleepwalking dead-faced people in the park, of Tattoo-face and his gang. Of a voice in her head. Of Meltyface and the girls in the horrible building, of Niddles and Harley. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw one of them, leering at her with sunken eyes and horrible smiles.
Sunday rolled around, and Natalie had only slept a few hours at most, fits and starts forced upon her by sheer fatigue. She couldn't take it anymore. Even Percy's return was of little comfort. She texted Quinn, using a new phone Cinza had given her. She gave Lily the excuse that she was going out to the library, which wasn't actually a lie.
As she stared down at the very same library table they'd sat only a few weeks before, hidden from the cameras and deep in the stacks, she waited and stewed through her options. No one else was around. This section of the library wasn't a very popular one, apparently. She had the whole wing of the place to herself. It only took a few more minutes for Quinn to show up.
Since he walked up from behind her, he didn't see the bandage on her face until after he'd already sat down. He opened his mouth, about to say something—and in that moment she could see.
Quinn didn't look eager, and he didn't look excited. All the stuff she'd hated about him from the last few days evaporated from his face the instant he saw her in real pain. He looked worried and concerned. It wasn't fun or cool anymore, it was scary. He saw she was hurt, and his first instinct was to try and comfort her, do what he could to help.
You should not tell him.
He's a good person. I need that.
It didn't matter what he was going to say. That was enough. She made her decision, in spite of everything Rachel and Hailey had told her to do.
"Hi, Quinn."
"Jenny, are you okay? What happ—"
Natalie held up her hand, palm flat and upward. A tiny flame burst into life in the center of it. It danced in place in her palm, unmistakable.
She stared at it, too afraid to look up at his expression.
"Magic is real," she whispered, as much to herself as to Quinn.
Magic is real, and I really hope it can help me out here, because everything in my life is horrible. The world is an awful, evil place, full of scary people, and I might be one of them, and I'm about to introduce you to all sorts of terrible dangerous things because I need you as my friend and I'm too scared to go through all of this alone anymore.
Please don't hate me.