Runaways

by Christopher Golden

Zeke crumbled, sinking into his seat, eyes downcast. “You’re right. Sorry, that was uncalled-for. Point is, yeah, we lost. I got away thanks to Tess putting herself on the line. She and Carlos…they could be dead, for all I know, but if they’re alive, I’ve got to save them.”

  Shuddering, he lifted his gaze and again he scanned the people seated around the table. “I’ve got to get Tess and Carlos back, and I’ve got to stop my mom and the rest of the Nightwatch. You all know what I’m going through. You’ve been through something like it yourselves. You also know there’s no way in hell I can do this alone, so I’m asking…will you help me? Because if you don’t, I’m pretty sure me and my friends are gonna die. I’m also pretty sure the Nightwatch is gonna kill you all and take L.A. for themselves. The Nightwatch will pick up where your parents left off and innocent people will keep dying.”

  Silence fell over the room. Nico knew what she wanted to say. After all, it didn’t seem like they had much of a choice. But leader or not, she wasn’t going to decide anything for the rest of her team.

  “I—” Gert started to say.

  “Hang on.” Nico held up a hand to cut her off. Then she looked at Chase. “I assume there are beds here. Rooms where Allis and Zeke can both clean up and try to get some rest.”

  “Of course. Wouldn’t be much of a base without bunks.”

  She nodded. “Can you and Gert get them settled and then meet the rest of us back here so we can discuss this?”

  Gert bristled a little. Nico saw it, realized that she’d offended her friend by interrupting, but that came with the territory. Someone had to be in charge. Nico noticed Zeke studying her. It might’ve been the way boys always studied her, checking out her hair and her legs and the contours of her face, but this felt different, as if Zeke had just noticed for the first time that she was a force to be reckoned with. Nico liked it.

  “Sure,” Chase said, pushing back his chair. “Let’s go. If you want anything else to drink, I can hook you up on the way. Not much for snacks, though. The Pride were all about, like, dried kale chips and crap. Very L.A.”

  Zeke stood, but when Allis started to rise she swayed a little. Karolina caught her and held her for a moment to steady her. After a moment, Allis took a breath and thanked her, grabbed a second bottle of water, and followed Chase, Gert, and Zeke out of the room.

  “I think she has a concussion,” Karolina said.

  The door closed, leaving just her, Molly, and Nico in the room.

  Molly glanced at Nico. “We’re going to help, right?”

  “Let’s wait till the others come back,” Nico said. “This is a lot to take in all at once.”

  “Except for the part about these Nightwatch asswipes planning to kill us,” Molly said. “That part’s pretty clear.”

  “Molly,” Karolina said. “Language.”

  “What? They’re gonna try to kill us. Asswipe is just about the nicest thing I can think to call them.”

  Nico did not disagree.

  Molly yawned. She tried to cover it with a stretch, but she’d been “stretching” for the past few minutes and she knew the others would notice. They’d been talking for an hour and it was super late, but she hated when anyone tried to send her to bed. Sure, it was probably like four in the morning by now, but she was eleven, not eight. They’d all been through the same things and she was the strongest and toughest of the group, so it didn’t seem fair for anyone to try to parent her. Well, mother her, really, because Chase never treated her like a little kid the way the girls did.

  Her brow furrowed with a memory of her conversation with him earlier that night—the conversation about school. Suddenly she didn’t feel quite so much like letting Chase off the hook. Nico had started talking, and Molly yawned again. She saw Gert and Karolina glance at her, but nobody said anything about her going to bed.

  Try it, she thought. I dare you.

  Not that she’d ever have punched one of them or anything. She might not want them to parent her, but they really had become her big brother and big sisters, and she trusted them more than she trusted anyone else on earth. Which was to say, as much as she trusted anyone after the way her life kept being turned upside down.

  “You with us, Molly?” Nico asked.

  She sat up straighter. Tugged her hat down a bit around her ears and tried to look more serious and mature. “Yes. I’m fine. Can you repeat that?”

  Nico smiled, but it was a kind smile. “I was saying I really want to take a look around this place, but for now I’m exhausted and so I’m just going to trust that Chase has cleared it and that we’re safe here for now—”

  “I gave Molly the tour earlier,” Chase cut in. “It’s safe, don’t you think, Mol?”

  Molly nodded. “Definitely.”

  “We all need sleep,” Nico said. “But even if we can let the grand tour wait until morning, we’ve got to agree on how to handle our guests.”

  Gert hadn’t bothered to sit back down after Zeke and Allis had been brought to rooms where they could sleep. She leaned against the wall, hands jammed into the pockets of her oversize shorts. Molly thought she was cool, but also felt jealous that she hadn’t thought of standing up. If she’d been standing, she thought she might not be so sleepy.

  “Listen,” Gert said, “I’m not inclined to trust anybody these days.”

  “Me either,” Molly said, then blinked in surprise as she realized she’d said the words out loud.

  Gert gestured toward her to acknowledge the support. “I’m guessing we all feel that way. But we’ve got them here, at least for tonight. We can’t put them out on the street now and I know none of us is eager to get the police involved. I don’t want to lock them into their rooms like prisoners, but I’m sure this place has some serious surveillance. Our parents were too paranoid to do anything without it.”

  “You’re right about that,” Chase said. “I haven’t had time to learn the whole system, but there’s great security, surveillance everywhere, even motion sensors.”

  “Perfect,” Gert said. “So we don’t lock them in, but you can set it up so that they’ll trigger an alarm if either of them goes wandering around tonight?”

  Chase gave her a thumbs-up.

  Molly gave them both a thumbs-down, plus a loud raspberry.

  Nico frowned. “What’s that about?”

  “It just feels gross. Our parents didn’t trust anyone. They didn’t even trust each other, or they wouldn’t have needed that much security.”

  Karolina yawned, which made Molly feel a bit better.

  “I know how you feel,” Karolina said. “And I like both of them. Or maybe I just feel bad for them. He’s been through a ton, and we’re just about the only people in the world who can really understand what he’s experiencing—”

  “I don’t like him,” Chase said.

  “You don’t like him because he’s prettier than you,” Nico muttered.

  Chase shrugged. “Probably. Still don’t like him. I get a weird vibe off him. I don’t trust him.”

  “—and Allis…” Karolina continued. “She’s a runaway. She has nobody. Every time I look at her, all I can think about is the girl we saw our parents murder that night, when we learned they were the Pride. We couldn’t save that girl, but now here’s Allis—”

  “I know what you’re saying,” Nico interrupted. “But we’ve already saved Allis. How far does our responsibility to her go?”

  “I’d say it goes at least a few days to let her recover from her injuries and try to figure out her next step,” Karolina replied, a bit sharply. “I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

  “Neither do I,” Molly agreed. “Also, you guys interrupt Karolina a lot. Why do you do that?”

  Nico looked stricken. Gert and Chase exchanged a thoughtful look.

  “We do,” Nico admitted, turning to Karolina. “I’m sorry. And you’re right. I just wish we didn’t have guests underfoot on our first night in this place. Chase and Molly say it’s safe, and that’s good
enough for me—”

  Molly frowned. She loved Nico, but she knew it wasn’t good enough. Nico was the kind of person who needed to verify everything for herself. It was one of the things that made her a good leader, but it could be insulting and annoying.

  “—but I wish we’d had a chance to feel comfortable and confident here before letting strangers in.”

  “We all do, I’m sure,” Gert replied. “But it is what it is.”

  “And Zeke?” Chase said. “Okay, so we let Allis stay for a few days, but what do we do about this Zeke guy? We don’t even know he’s telling the truth.”

  “Well,” Gert said, “he didn’t lie about somebody beating the crap out of him. And we saw the Nightwatch down in that old subway station—we saw his mom. Those people were not playing games. At the very least, if we’re letting Allis stay and recover, we need to do the same for Zeke.”

  “And look into the Nightwatch,” Nico agreed. “We can’t let them pick up where our parents left off.”

  “Them or anybody else,” Karolina said.

  “Chase, maybe tomorrow you can do some data-mining in the Pride’s computer files, see if you find anything on the Nightwatch?”

  “I can do that,” Chase agreed.

  Nico slid her chair back and stood. “Okay. Everything else can wait. Let’s get some rest.”

  “Finally!” Molly said, exasperated. She jumped from her chair and marched toward the door. “Come on. I’ll show you guys the rooms I picked out for you. They’re fancier than you’d expect and the beds are super soft.”

  She paused at the door, trying to look alert. “Y’know, because you guys are all so tired. I’m not tired, but you guys seem exhausted.”

  “Definitely,” Nico said. “But let’s check on our guests before we hit the sack, okay?”

  “I’ll look in on Allis,” Karolina said.

  “I’ll go set the motion sensors and alarms,” Chase announced.

  Gert volunteered to check on Zeke once she’d found her own room. Molly noticed that this news made Chase’s brow furrow, but he didn’t say anything. Nico thanked Gert and then they were all moving out into the warren of corridors in their new hideout, tired and wondering what the morning would bring—at least Molly figured they were all feeling that way—but happy to be in a place they could call their own.

  The La Brea Tar Pits, she thought. She wondered if she would dream of dinosaurs.

  That’d be nice. It’d be fun to dream of dinosaurs.

  Molly hadn’t had any nice dreams in a very long time.

  Karolina knocked lightly, then stood outside Allis’s door. As tired as she was, she still felt a kind of strange exhilaration from the night they’d had—first the dancing and then the mystery of the missing girl, then the fighting and running for their lives. I’m so weird, she thought. Most people didn’t feel most alive when they were in peril of death. Or maybe they did? How did she know? How many people faced the real possibility of death multiple times a week? Soldiers, firefighters, police, daredevils…and Super Heroes.

  The term Super Hero made her uneasy. The Runaways had powers—and, okay, hers were because she was from another planet—but that didn’t make them Super Heroes. They were just kids trying to get by in some pretty ugly circumstances, and trying to help other people who found themselves in trouble. Yes, back on day one Gert had wanted them all to have Super Hero—style code names, and a part of Karolina had embraced that, but even then it had felt false. They weren’t heroes. They were just survivors.

  She glanced up and down the corridor. Molly was already in bed. Gert had gone off to find the room where Chase had put Zeke. Karolina felt bad she couldn’t remember, but it had been that kind of day.

  Zeke, she reminded herself. She thought of his bruised and bloody face and once again felt the connection the Runaways had with him. Zeke was a survivor, too.

  So was Allis, in a different way. An innocent civilian. Karolina knocked softly again, then stared at the door. The wood had a dark gleam to it. Their new hideout had a bizarre medley of styles, which was no surprise given how different their respective parents had been. Magicians and scientists, time travelers and aliens. The decor reflected that odd variety, but the woodwork around the bedroom doors looked antique and hand-carved, and she wondered whose mom or dad had insisted on that.

  Tired, Karolina stared at the door. She didn’t want to barge in on the girl or sneak in and watch her sleeping like some creep. She raised her hand, thinking she’d knock one last time and then go off to discover her own new accommodations, but then she thought better of it. Chase had showed her where her room was, and right now all she wanted was to discover if the bed was as soft as Molly had claimed. Although, at the moment, Karolina thought she could have slept on a rock.

  “Okay,” she whispered to the closed door. “I hope you’re okay.”

  She turned, pulling her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans to check the time. Past two a.m., which was earlier than she’d thought, but after the day they’d had it was more than late enough.

  The door creaked open behind her.

  “Karolina?”

  She turned to see a sliver of Allis’s face as the girl peered out from the darkness at her. Her eyes held a flash of suspicion, a wariness that seemed quite unlike her. But, of course, Karolina had only just met her—how could she know what might be out of character for Allis?

  “I’m sorry,” Karolina said quickly. “I’m just going to sleep and wanted to check on you. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  The wariness vanished from Allis’s eyes so completely that Karolina couldn’t be sure it had ever been there. “No,” the girl said. “No. It’s really nice of you.”

  Allis opened the door and the light from the corridor cast a dim glow into the bedroom. Karolina saw the wooden sleigh bed and the matching furniture. She’d grown up privileged, but even so, the room was nicer than many hotel rooms she’d stayed in. Mostly, though, her focus was on Allis, whose red hair seemed much darker in the dim light, though somehow her skin looked even more pale. She wore the shirt she’d had on earlier and not much else, but she didn’t seem at all self-conscious.

  “With what you’ve been through—you and your friends,” Allis said, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She turned and moved back across the room, leading Karolina to follow. “I’m so grateful you were there for me tonight.”

  She sat on the bed and tucked one leg up beneath her, pushing her hair back so she could watch Karolina come farther into the room. A high-backed wing chair occupied a space several feet from the bed, and Karolina perched on the edge.

  Allis smiled softly. “You really are stunning, you know that?”

  Karolina felt herself blush. “How’s your head?”

  Allis reached up to gently prod her wound. “Not bleeding, which I guess is a plus. But it does hurt and I felt kind of queasy before. I’m sure I have a concussion, but I don’t think it’s too bad. I mean, I still know my name.”

  Her arm rested on her pale thigh. Karolina stared at the bruises and chafe marks on her wrist, which had been bleeding earlier.

  “Um, hello?” Allis said.

  Karolina blinked, then smiled. “Sorry. I’m not staring, just thinking that we should have cleaned those cuts with something other than soap and water.”

  Presenting both wrists before her, Allis studied them. “I guess. But it’ll wait till morning.”

  Karolina stood up. “I should get some sleep.”

  Allis did not rise from the bed, just watched her go. She looked pretty, there in the dark. Safe and comfortable and quiet and alone.

  At the door, Karolina hesitated. “You should know we all talked, and we’re cool with you staying a few days until you feel better and you can figure out what you want to do next.”

  For several seconds, Allis said nothing. She just sat in the shadows, watching Karolina.

  “I mean, you don’t have to—” Karolina began.

  Then Allis did get off the b
ed. She rushed to Karolina and threw her arms around her, holding her tight. Her hair smelled of lilacs in bloom.

  “I’d be dead if not for you,” the girl whispered.

  Karolina hugged her back. It felt peculiar to be sharing such an intimate moment with a virtual stranger. But good, too. Allis’s gratitude, her rush of emotion, made Karolina feel that no matter what else she had been through, joy remained possible.

  “I’m glad we found you,” Karolina said. In time, she’d meant to add. She was glad they’d found Allis in time. But those extra words didn’t seem very important. “Now, if you really do have a concussion, you need rest more than anything, so back to bed with you.”

  The words echoed between them.

  “If you say so,” Allis replied, and she arched a suggestive eyebrow, which Karolina didn’t understand until after she’d said good night, closed the door behind her, and started walking down the corridor in search of her own room.

  A good thing, too. If she’d caught the flirtation in that raised eyebrow and Allis’s tone, she’d have blushed crimson, and blushing like a fool was never a good look for her.

  But as she found her room, undressed, and slipped into bed, she wore a little smile that stayed on her lips long after she’d fallen asleep.

  Zeke had left his door wide open. Gert felt her pulse quicken as she strode down the corridor toward his room. Had the guy already slipped away? Was he snooping around or trying to find the way out?

  Why are you so paranoid? If Zeke had gone wandering through the new hideout, it was more likely he was looking for food or something to drink, or medical attention, given the condition the kid had been in when they’d let him on board the Leapfrog.

  Gert heard a footstep and a soft grunt behind her and she jumped, startled, and spun with her fists up, ready to fight Zeke if she had to. Her heart thundered even as she saw that it had been Old Lace behind her. The dinosaur padded along, her claws making little ticking sounds on the floor, but otherwise very quiet for a creature her size.

  “It’s okay, girl,” she whispered as Old Lace approached. The dinosaur cocked her head inquisitively. “I get it. I’m definitely on edge tonight, so of course you felt it.”