Until We Break (Formerly Wicked, Wild, Wonderful)

Original Edition: Chapter Twenty-Five

"Alright, remember no phones. Stay close. If you see something, speak. And no one gets left behind." His voice was a lot more like the version she heard on the television now, bold, rebellious and inciting. He turned to her again, "If you need anything, just ask Chyna. She'll stay with you today," he said lowly. Just over the couch Naomi saw a hand pop out and twinkle its little fingers.

Naomi muttered something in agreement as they moved off, Saint at the front with Cairo, Lia and Sully bouncing into step behind him. The four of them seemed, older somehow. In that moment, she saw the organized lost kids turning Riverside upside down one mural at a time. Then, Naomi heard them all ascend the steps and they left without another word.

She looked over the room, catching Chyna, without a mask, bag, or even proper clothes, looking back at her. "We're kinda out of breakfast, so you'll have to wait till they get back," she said, tucking her hands into her washed-out sweatpants.

Naomi shrugged and wiggled herself out of the sleeping bag. "That's fine. You've done so much already, really."

"Saint has," Chyna corrected as Naomi came toward her, rubbing her eyes, "The rest of us are still on the fence. You haven't really explained much."

"I just—" her thoughts, without willing them to, retraced the outline of Jessica's dead smile and the battling tongues of her father and his mistress. Bile rose in her throat. "I can't go back."

The other girl raised her eyebrows and leaned back against the back of the weathered couch. "Go back where?" Chyna's eyes, Naomi realized, were a lot like Cairo's, cold and wary; and despite being a whole head taller than her, Naomi still found herself cowering beneath her.

"Home," she answered. In her head, the answer had felt heavier but aloud it somehow sounded so light. Meaningless. Pathetic.

The words floated between them for a moment as Chyna's hands came out from her pockets and were crossed under her chest. "You're running away from home?" she asked her.

"It's a lot more complicated than that—"

"No, no, I get it," Chyna bit into her bottom lip, "It's suffocating out there. You think you're free at home but it turns out you're just living in a very well furnished prison cell, right?"

"Right," Naomi whispered.

Chyna nodded. "We're all running away from some sort of home, if we're honest."

Without saying it, Naomi knew she was talking about the rest of The Guise. Were they all like her? Trying to escape the very people who raised them and the very life they once loved live? Naomi thought on it. "Why'd you run away?" she decided to ask.

Chyna chuckled bitterly. It was an answer, it seemed, she had already rehearsed. The words rolled right off her tongue. "My big sister died. After that, it didn't really feel like home anymore. You can't move on from that kind of thing, you know?" She glazed her eyes over the cobwebbed ceiling of the basement all the way to the dusty furniture and empty pizza boxes, "This," she gesticulated, "is my new home."

Naomi stared.

"I get it if you don't want to talk about it right now. But, we need to know...eventually." Secretly, Naomi hoped that day would never come.

Both girls looked at each other. Chyna shrugged. "In the meantime, we have Netflix."

She pointed her thumb behind her at the television and a little smile lit up her face. It was incredible, or insane, how she made the entire atmosphere lift with only a sentence. She turned on the giant television and invited Naomi to join her, which she did, after attempting to fold her sleeping bag and putting it back in the storage closet Saint had taken it from.