Kit dusted off her dress, even though there had been no ash to have touched her, and pulled her notepad out of her apron as she stepped into the stock room. Riryn stood tucked among the shelves with a perfect view of the kitchen to perform his trick. She scribbled him a note and gave it over.
"Thank you for that. I just saw them leave."
Riryn gave her a smile and a nod, "those guys are animals, it was my pleasure. Do me a favor though and stay in the backroom for a bit. Just in case I'm a bit rustier than I thought."
Kit nodded and put her notepad away, trading place with Riryn who stepped outside and closed the door on her. She pulled the string dangling from the ceiling and an old, dim lightbulb coughed itself to life.
For some time, she paced there and caught sight of some Dust Sailors (the tiny molecules of dirt and dust that have a soul: truly miniature creatures). She watched them race along the shelves like raindrops down a window. She even stepped up to the shelf to see who won.
It turns out she got a little too close because the Dust Sailors got scared by her and blasted her with a Pepper Storm (much like skunks, Dust Sailors defend themselves with a cloud). Kit fell back several steps, blinking and wincing, her nose and eyes stinging as she coughed. As she tried to shake the dry particles out, the lightbulb burst, leaving her in pitch blackness.
Desperate for fresh air, she pushed out through the back door. There was an alley there and she figured if she stayed behind the dumpsters she would still technically be hiding. Most of all, she needed a moment to clear her eyes and throat.
"Do you think she's clumsy enough to die in a grease fire?" the modulated voice of a familiar Terrorling mused from just beyond the alley.
Kit quickly choked out the pepper and blinked through the dust in her eyes, taking sloppy steps to the edge of the dumpster in too much of a daze to think about whether or not it was wise to assume Lovell's presence was a mistake of her paranoid brain.
"I... well, she... Kit was..."
"She did elude Silus for some time," that Porcupine Demon chimed in.
"You think that makes her smart. I think that makes Silus incompetent," Lovell sneered.
"Look," from Remis.
She thought she was hidden by the dumpster, but thinking it over, wasn't entirely sure. Kit squinted open one eye against the pain. Her tear-flooded vision washed out the figures but her thudding heart warned her this was bad news.
Some muttering made it to her ears, but she couldn't distinguish it. She was so focused on not coughing. All those times in school when she would hold a cough in during a test seemed like a faraway joke compared to holding in a scratchy-pepper-dust breath, sopping up all the air in her lungs to make a tumbleweed in her chest.
"Let me take care of her."
She couldn't do it any longer. Kit hacked up the dust in her throat, doubled-over in the middle of the alley. Her outburst was just enough to get the substance out, but the relief was short-lived when she heard footsteps. Two set walking away from the alley. One set coming at her.
Kit straightened up and swept her tears out of her eyes. Her vision remained washy but each blink cleared it just a little better until she saw a tall silhouette entering the alley. She was petrified in place. Another blink and she saw Silus. Another and she saw his pistol in his holster.
With tensed shoulders, he came at her. He reached for his gun and Kit's jaw dropped open, eyes widening in preparation to swallow the last image before her death. Silus gripped the handle and threw it to the side. The handgun skittered across the dirt and hit the brick wall.
Kit still fell a step back as he approached her.
His eyes ventured across her face with haste and urgency, his hands touching the sides of her face in tender disbelief. Kit felt his breath fall across her mouth in pieces and her cheeks matched the warmth of his palms, though she wasn't sure if this was at all the time to feel delighted. Silus leaned his face down toward her, examining her briefly before pressing closer like it was second-nature to kiss her. Then he stopped. Their noses brushed, but rigidly he stopped. Like he suddenly remembered where he was.
Kit watched him. She was confused (and a little afraid) before but now she was pulling at understanding. It was very much like Silus had stepped into the wrong house. He walked in after a day at work, throwing his jacket (pistol) over the couch and he rushed over to her before realizing this wasn't his home at all. He was in the wrong place. He had intruded.
Silus drew back, his hands falling to his sides and he muttered, "I thought you were dead."
Kit swallowed hard and pointed at the mouth of the alley. Where his partners had been. She flickered her gaze with panicked eyes. Whose side was he on?
"I told Lovell I'm playing you and he thinks I'm doing that right now. He thinks I'll bring you to him."
She grabbed her notepad with a hand that was premeditating another slap and her pen with a hand that was premeditating a punch. With angry fingers, she wrote to him.
"Will you? What are you doing? What's happening? How can I trust you?" she smashed into his chest.
Silus quickly glided his eyes across it and he met her eyes as soon as he was done, "I'm not going to take you to Lovell. I'm only with him because I'm trying to make sure he doesn't get you."
Kit flung her hands into the air with an exasperation aged into her features like wrinkles. She snatched her note from before and folded it so that "how can I trust you" was the only thing visible and then she tapped at it in the air before shoving it into his chest again.
His snakes withered in defeat and he breathed out heavy, running a hand over his face before saying, "I want my first heart back so much but not as much as I..."
Her eyes popped up from the dirt covered wooden ground and fixed upon his face.
"... hate Lovell," he finished in a patchwork kind of way that made Kit think that wasn't what he was going to say at first. Silus cleared his throat, "he's taken an interest in your case and I would rather go back to being a statue than watch him turn you into the Collector."
Kit gnawed on her lip. She leaned to the side to peek behind Silus and check the road beyond the alley. She glanced around the dumpster. She even checked the upside of the tree and the brick building built next door along the root system. Then she opened the backdoor of The Cherry Tree and pulled Silus inside.