Chapter Seventeen

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by fints008

by fints008

“I know I said try the bed but I didn’t mean my bed.” Her voice awakens me from my troubled sleep. My dreams haven’t felt haunted in a long time. “Get up.” She throws my new jacket at me; this time without the knife in the pocket. “We’re going for a walk.” Her voice has its familiar mischievous lilt to it. I silently follow, pulling on the jacket as adeptly as I can – which, unfortunately, isn’t very.

“So where is it you’re taking me?” I break the silence which I only managed to let hang in the air for a matter of minutes before I felt the need to ask.

“The store room, Puck’s in there.” I bet there’s also a lot of knives. Wherever there’s Puck, there’s knives. Usually a lot of knives, very sharp knives which she has a tendency to throw, particularly at people who annoy her. I better warn anyone who ever meets her about that. Well, that depends on how much I like them, I wouldn’t warn Oscar but I think he’s worked it out for himself.

“What does Puck want?” I ask, receiving no reply. We continue to walk in silence until we reach the door.

“Luca,” Artie stops me before I walk in. “About yesterday, I–”

“It’s okay, I’m sorry.”

“Luca please stop being so selfless, stop being so nice all the time.” Her voice cracks as the volume raises.

“Then what do you want me to say?” The words fly out of my mouth, sharp but duller than the knives that usually fly inside of that room.

“Just listen to me.” She turns her head to the side slight, biting down on her bottom lip. “I’m just scared about today.” Oh my god it’s today. I hadn’t realised it’s today. Today. “When you were saying all that stuff about how we care about each other – of course we care about each other. Ever since you got here I’ve regretted letting you in and do you know why, Luca? Do you? Because I am fed up of people getting hurt and the more people we drag into HQ with promises of some sort of freedom the more people are gonna get hurt and you and Eve and Emi and Josh and even bloody Oscar should have never ended up here because you guys had a chance at a normal life and Jesus Luca I just love you.” Her torrent of words stops and I just stare at her, I just stare at her, I just kiss her. “You know you’re not allowed to get hurt today.” She breathes into my ear,

“I know,” I whisper back, “we have a pact: ‘wedonotgetourselveskilled’, remember?”

“Oh yeah.” She laughs and everything is quiet and everything is calm and no one anywhere would have thought that we’re about to run into a government facility and commit what is essentially treason.

“Is Puck even in the store room?”

“I didn’t think you’d want to talk to me after yesterday.”

“Well, you were probably right about that.” I kiss her again.

“I love you.” She says.

“I love you.” I say.

“And I love both of you.” Puck adds from just behind my ear. “Should I go tell Zed that we should postpone the plan because you guys are a little bit busy?” She grins, I can tell that she’s just trying to lift the cloud of anxiety that has settled around the whole of HQ. “Get your stuff together, final preparation is in fifteen minutes at The Belt.”