Ruin - By N.M. Martinez Page 0,37
those hands, touches her human mother who lives here in the village. Is that a theme with men like Brandon and Henri? Sleeping with women they don't take home and then having children they don't need to take care of? But Brandon is different. He actually loves his daughter. It was all over his face when he was holding her.
I start walking again and Maria walks alongside me, leading me towards the shop. She doesn't argue with me, nor does she answer me. Not even to deny it.
"If it makes you feel any better, we can't all kill." She says quietly as we walk. "There wouldn't be anyone left if we all did it. So some of it is just talk."
"Unless they get a stray, right?"
She shrugs. A tiny muscle twitches her brows.
The junk shop is filled with all sorts of little oddities. Some are stored in crates and on wooden boxes. Displays are created on old shelves and worn and faded tables. Clothing hangs on racks with some items folded on a nearby table.
The woman who runs the place watches us closely with an unchanging smile plastered on her face. If it's supposed to make us feel at ease, it doesn't. She examines me the same way Angel had last night and Jimmy had before that. Before we stepped in, Maria warned me. "Junk shop owners collect information," Maria had said when we were walking in. "So don't say too much. Information is a commodity."
Maria ignores the woman as she pulls me to various tables asking me about things that had been regular everyday things in my old life. Cables, remote controls, tools. Everything we look at is in some sort of disarray. There's the rusted tool box with the battered tools and the stack of non-matching plates. These are all items that once belonged to someone and have now come here to wait for re-purposing. From one owner to another.
Next to a cracked clay vase, I find a small stack of books. I pick one up and flip through the yellowing pages, bound with darkly discolored glue that stains the edges of the spine and a tiny bit of the fabric cover. A book is a perfectly good way to keep myself entertained, though I don't know how much free time I'll really have with Henri. It's possible that he'll give me a list of things to do, or he'll have some job already picked out for me to go to during the day that only a human can fill. Some menial job that needs to get done, but not by someone important and necessary.
Maria looks at the book in my hands. "Aw man. I wish I could read."
"You can't?" It's a thought that hadn't occurred to me. Why would she read? It won't help her fight better or defend their home any better. The time she would spend reading could be better spent learning to fight and staying in shape.
"No. I always wanted to read though. Mike said if he could read he'd show me, but he can't really either."
"Maybe I can teach you?"
She smiles and looks our age for once instead of a miniature adult. "Would you really?"
"If I can. I don't know what Hen--"
Maria throws her arms around my neck suddenly. She's an inch shorter than me and much skinnier, but she's heavier than she looks. We almost fall to the ground with her unexpected move as she lets out a squeal that's very unlike her from what little I know of her.
"Say no more. Even if you can't, just that you'd offer is enough."
She pulls back and lets me free just as the proprietress steps up with her semi-creepy smile. "This book here is a great book for teaching, if you don't mind my saying so." She lifts the books to grab one of myths and stories closer to the bottom of the stack which she then hands to me. Her bright eyes search my face for a moment before she flat out asks me, "So whose pet are you? I don't think I've seen you around here before."
The proprietress stands just a little bit in front of Maria, and so it's over her shoulder that I catch Maria's flicker of annoyance. It annoys me too that this woman would assume I'm someone's pet, and I want to tell her so, but I don't. I wait for Maria to say something, remembering her warning earlier. Maria smiles instead, her eyes looking past me. "There