Saturn County

Six | The Birthday Party

June 14th

"a fountain of youth, we spiked it with whiskey though. I won't live too long, this I know."

It was late when the boy returned to the gas station on Condor street. Limping now, the bandana he'd tied around the wound a mile back was soaked with blood. He pressed his hands against the gash in his pants as though the pressure might stop the bleeding.

"Help!" he yelled as soon as he saw the two neon letters that hadn't yet burned out. The voice didn't sound like his own. Raspy and harsh, it sounded as though it came towards him, that the words belonged to someone else. "Megan! James!" Although there were only seconds before the gas station door swung open, it felt like full minutes had passed. The world was beginning to wobble, he thought. He wasn't sure if he was still standing upright.

Someone's arm slid under his. "I've got you," said a voice. A boy's voice, he couldn't quite tell who. He was helping him walk, taking the pressure off his weak leg. "What happened out there?"

"There was a girl," he said, though it sounded like little more than a breath. "By the mall, dressed in black."

"One of that group from before? Benji King's gang?"

"I didn't recognize her, but she was all in black, like a raven."

"Anyone with her?" By now they were entering the station's door. The pain in his leg had subsided from a burn to an aching pulse. He thought he could taste blood in his mouth.

"No," he said. "Alone. She took my bag."

"You really saw Benji there twice?" Someone asked, but not to him. "He's not that dangerous."

"I swear I saw him, and I heard from Ingrid Dane too she saw that blue-haired girl," said someone else. "Maybe they've expanded."

"I thought the mall was still unclaimed." A hand was placed on his shoulder. "You saw nothing else about that girl? That raven?"

"Nah, man," he whispered. "I didn't even see her face."

~*~*~*~*~*~

Tyler hadn't planned on staying at the mall. It was supposed to be temporary, a stopping point as they ran from the gas station gang where they'd accidentally trespassed. But as the nights turned to mornings, he and his friends had found a comfort in the eerie silence. There was no creeping sensation in his gut, warning it was time to run. In some strange way the mall felt safe, safer than any other resting stop in the past few months.

They'd arrived just over a week before, and for the most part the days were quiet. They'd moved their camp out of the Macy's and onto the lower level of the mall where one set of outdated paisley-cushioned benches remained unclaimed. Clara Green had suggested it, said nobody had used that space in the last couple weeks. They saw a good amount of Clara and her brother Lucas—they'd travelled together before and he'd known Lucas much longer than that. At the start that kid Emma would appear from time to time, sometimes with her brother Sebastian. Emma only ever paid attention to Marko, but Sebastian was warmer to the crowd. He'd seen their older sister Aria from a distance, but she'd never paid his group any attention. He found that he wished she would; they might not have been friends in school but he always thought she was a good person. Sometimes he missed those empty conversations with peers you didn't know and didn't need to know.

"Proposition for you guys!" someone called. He shot his head up to see Lucas approaching the group. He seemed to be walking from the opposite direction of Daisy Quinn and Emma Delos, who were instead walking up the escalator back towards where they'd set their camp. As he got nearer his voice dropped, "Sebastian turns eighteen today. Daisy and Emma think we ought to have a birthday party."