He began to lead us away while wrapping the cloth up into a tight ball and stuffing it into a pocket of his oversized coat.
“A place as in an abandoned area,” I asked, taking a step, “or a place as in a Community?”
He hesitated, thinking. “Neither.”
“Will there be other sentient beings around?” He nodded. I nodded. “Right. Then we’re waiting for nightfall.”
“What?”
“Why?”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I bleed in sunlight,” I answered both of them. “And whenever Rod goes where others happen to be, things can get messy.”
He snorted. “For you.”
“Yeah,” I snorted back. “For me. The one who dies if she bleeds out. And thanks but no thanks, I don’t want to suffer another twisted limb during one of your antics if I can help it. We wait for sundown.”
“But that’s…” Layla huffed, looking back and forth between us. “I can’t wait that long! Darius–!”
“Would understand,” I cut her off. “Being that we’re the same, I’m surprised he didn’t hole up as soon as the sun broke.”
Layla crossed her arms and looked away. Took a breath in an attempt to bite back whatever response she had before shooting me a look. “Fine. We move out as soon as the sun sets.” With that ultimate declaration, she spun on her heel and headed back to the room.
Arms crossed as well, Rod waited until we heard the door slam before looking at me. “Taking things a little cautionary, are we? You didn’t used to be so squeamish about the light.”
I continued to stare after her. “I have to keep her alive until I can hand her off,” I said simply. “Best way for me to do that is to be aware of my limitations.”
He stifled a laugh, reaching into his pocket to pull out a partially-wrapped sandwich. “Limitations?! You? Isn’t it your signature hunting move to leap off buildings onto your target?” I shook my head and turned away, ignoring him. He thudded himself down in the seat next to me, mouth full of bread and cheese. “So, what’s the truth?” I ignored him again, legs crossed and elbow digging into the armchair. I was listening, trying to hear if Layla was attempting to escape through one of the windows in our room. So far I had only heard the bed squeak. “Why’re you hyper focused on this girl? She special beyond reason?”
I tossed a casual glare his way before settling back against the chair. “This situation bothers me.” Damn sun created a barrier over what I could normally hear, like trying to listen to the radio through a pillow while wearing headphones. I could make out the louder noises but not nearly enough of what I wanted to hear.
“Bothers how?”
I told him. Told him about Darius insisting the Keepers were after her for an unrevealed purpose. Told him what she said, and how it didn’t make sense; The Keepers dealt with all infractions between the humans and non. This included anything from slipping into public without a qualified license to ripping apart the barrier between us and them. It wouldn’t be unusual for a small team to locate and detain Layla for murder, but as long as it could be explained in human terms without revealing ‘the supernatural’ the charges would be minimal and often dropped before anything happened.
Her being a half-blood didn’t even change matters, just made them more confusing. Half-bloods by nature were a mixed bag considering things back home. Nobody reproduced the exact same way, but there were some that crossed that boundary better than others. Being a half-blood wasn’t common, just unusual, and even more so once we started coming over here. Even then, so long as they didn’t rampage into the human world, half-humans were largely left alone. So the Keepers shouldn’t have been hunting her at all on that basis.
What bothered me more was that the Keepers had used my freedom as leverage to go after Darius. I was a known monster among them, not to be let out into the world under any circumstances, and yet they dangled freedom in front of me in order to ensnare the pair. But trading a monster for a single shape-changer and one-time murderer didn’t fit thier priorities. Something about all this stunk so bad even Rod could smell it, judging by the way face changed as I talked.
I paused there for a moment to get up and physically check on Layla. I found her grumpy and brooding in our room, plopped sideways on the bed and facing the wall. After a quick conversation that ended with her trying to throw a pillow at me and failing, I went back to the lobby to find Rod scrolling on his phone. The small grey hunk of plastic and metal vibrated once before he flipped it closed and flashed me a smile, holding up a bag of fast-food with his free hand. I opened it curiously to find an overabundance of packaged, ready-to-eat hamburger patties thawing inside.
He gave a short shrug and said, “seems like you needed a little extra protein.”
I sat down with a thump and dug around the bag with a grunt of thanks. The sun was still up, barely reaching the halfway point. I leaned back with a groan as I chewed on half-thawed hunks of meat, Rod fishing around in his pockets for various objects and continuing to type on his phone. We sat in silence after that, neither of us great at chatting. My bones ached and the patties continued to thaw in the bag as I stared out the doors, willing the sun to go down faster.
Eventually the constraints relaxed. It wasn't quite sundown, but dusk was approaching. It was...close enough. Layla came bursting from the room.
“Sun’s down,” she stated. “Let’s go.”
