as busy or as filled as at home. There are just enough people for it to be a lot but still know each other. Back home, my city had been so filled, everyone was a stranger.
"So," Maria starts as she picks at the grass again. "They really don't know anything about us? They haven't told you anything, not even stories about us? Because Jimmy says they do, and that it's not nice."
I want to ask her what Jimmy would even know about it. But Jimmy was there that day in the Judgment room on the Neutral Side of the fence. No one was surprised to see him or Henri, and I was just handed over to them, a message of some sort in the same way that Mom's probably a message.
Maria doesn't look at me or force me to answer. She just waits patiently while I scramble to find the words, thankful that with her my thoughts are at least my own.
"They say you have to fight for resources. That's true, right?" I pause, and she turns to me and gives a little nod. I don't continue until she prods me some more.
"They also say that you--" There is no nice way to say it. It comes out quick. "That you all kill people. Especially humans."
Maria's dark eyes are easy to track out of the corner of my eye. She pulls her knees up carefully and lifts a hand to cover a tiny laugh. "Stupid. Aren't those humans down there?"
She points down to the village where the people bustle around for the midday. "But those people are useful to you."
Her eyes twinkle. "You're not."
It doesn't come out any meaner than when she calls me stupid, though it still stings. "But Brandon considers me family." The girl we passed on our way to the bonfire rises to the surface of my thoughts. "What about others? Real strays with no family or powers?"
Maria doesn't laugh. She draws her legs underneath her body as she nods. "Real strays are screwed. They aren't always killed right away though sometimes they probably wish they were."
Her voice grows so soft as she speaks that I get a sense right away that there is something more there. If she were a normal friend back home, I'd pry, but our friendship is much too young for me to start picking at it.
I swallow. "So Mitchell?"
"No. Please." She waves a hand at the thought. "Angel loves Mitchell."
The way Angel had his hand on the back of Mitchell's chair made him seem more like a possession than love. Mitchell is trapped. Where would he go if he wanted to leave? How would he ever get away from Angel? That doesn't seem like love. But I don't bother mentioning it. It probably isn't a good idea to talk that way about neighbors even if I do feel at ease with Maria right now.
Maria's face brightens again and she hops up. "I know. The junk shop. Maybe you can tell me if some of the things there do what Vic says they do."
She waits for me to stand and then she starts off towards town. When I don't follow fast enough, she turns and grabs my arm and drags me off after her.
"Maria." I say her name softly, scared to ask, but absolutely needing to. "Have you ever..." I let my voice trail off. The question is so obvious it doesn't need to be spoken.
Her head turns slightly and I catch the dark rim of her brown eyes before she looks forward again. "No. Not yet."
"Has Brandon?"
She stops and wheels around with her arms crossed over her chest. "Would that change things?"
It's a good question. Would it? Something about Brandon in comparison to Henri and his brother, Jimmy, is so different, pure in a way. But it could just be my mind wanting to see it so badly that it ignores anything that doesn't fit that perfect image of what I'd always expected a big brother to be. And maybe he's even played into that a little if he can read my thoughts.
Maria shifts and puts a hand on her hip. She isn't going to answer me. If Brandon has, I'm sure it's part of his past and off limits for discussion anyway.
"Yeah. It kinda would." The words slip as background noise to my thoughts. I can guess that he has. Unlike his brother, it wouldn't be something Brandon would relish or brag about. Not when he holds his little daughter with