of them must have built it for their kids and then forgot about it when their kids grew up. Anyway, it was perfect because I could shelter in the treehouse, there was a small stream in the woods that I could use for drinking water and for bathing, and at night I could sneak into the neighbourhood and go through their trash for food. Man, uppers waste a lot of food. I mean, a lot. I would find whole roasted chickens sometimes with, like, maybe a thigh missing and that’s it.”
My stomach clenched and my tail thumped against the floor. “You ate garbage?”
She shrugged, the look on her face one of resignation rather than shame. “Yeah. You do what you have to, to survive, right?”
When I didn’t reply, she continued. “Anyway, one of the uppers caught on to what I was doing, he probably had security cameras or whatever, and one night when I was going through his garbage, he came charging out of his house in his bathrobe with a gun in his hand and screaming he was gonna kill me.”
She shook her head. “The crazy bastard started shooting at me, so I took off for the woods. There was a chain link fence with a gate separating the neighbourhood from the forest, but I wasn’t anywhere near the gate and for an upper, the dude could move fast.”
She laughed. “I wasn’t exactly an expert at climbing fences or anything, but I scaled that sucker like a first-rate rock climber. But the barb wire that ran along the top of it sliced open my shin as I was hauling my skinny ass over it.”
She rubbed absentmindedly at the scar. “I made it back to the treehouse and tore up a blanket to wrap my leg and stop the bleeding, but I didn’t have the money to go to the hospital. I holed up for a few days in the treehouse to let it heal, but I probably should have gotten stitches. I’m super lucky I didn’t get an infection from it. But it took forever to stop bleeding so maybe that’s why? Maybe it bled all the bad stuff out. I was really weak by the time it clotted though. I could barely climb the rope ladder to get in and out of the treehouse.”
I shook my head when she held out the container of warracot toward me. After hearing her talk about almost being shot, of almost bleeding to death, I wasn’t sure I’d ever eat again. My stomach was in knots and I couldn’t understand how or why Ellis was being so casual about nearly dying.
What happened then?” I said.
“Well, the guy told the cops I was in the forest and they showed up a few days later and sent the dogs in, so I had to leave. That was actually scarier than the guy with the gun because I couldn’t run as fast with my injured leg, you know? I got lucky though and got the hell out before the dogs got a good whiff of my scent.”
She studied my face before saying, “You okay? You look kind of sick to your stomach.”
“I still do not understand how you survived,” I said.
“It wasn’t all doom and gloom,” she said. “For a while I was friends with a group of people, and we all looked out for each other. Torra was the one who taught me how to boost… uh, how to repair ships and other machinery. She was really good at stuff like that. Her dad was a mechanic and he taught her a bunch of mechanical stuff before he died. I worked at a repair shop for a guy named Horace. He was good to me and paid a decent wage. But that was only for a few months.”
“What happened then?”
“Uh,” she cleared her throat, “business got a little lean and he couldn’t afford to keep me employed.”
“Why were you homeless in the first place? Where were your parents?” I said.
Her face closed off faster than a lokena could run. “We don’t have a relationship. I left home when I was sixteen and I haven’t talked to them since.”
“Why?”
She just shrugged. “What about you? Do you have family?”
“My father died when I was twelve. My mother is still alive and lives in the city. She remarried shortly after my father died.”
“That sucks,” Ellis said. “Why did your mother remarry so quickly?”
“She is human and at that time, human females weren’t allowed to work outside of