MY UNDERESTIMATION OF Triven bothered me. My ability to assess people had kept me alive on the streets but with him I had been wrong. For six years, I could pick out a threat from a mile away. But Triven had gotten close. I had let him get close. And for some unknown reason, no buzzer in my brain went off. There was no warning of an imposing threat. Yet, clearly he was not just a sensitive bookworm.
His knife-throwing abilities had proven that. I waited for my intuition to whisper its warning, but still there was only silence.
A part of me hoped it was because he wasn’t a threat, and the other part of me told the first part to shut up, that I was growing soft.
We found Mouse at dinnertime. She was sitting with several other small children, pushing her food around her plate. It wasn’t until she saw me that her face lit up. Her quick smile warmed something in my heart. Launching herself from the table, Mouse ran to us. The impact as she crashed into me was surprising for how small she was. There were tears spilling down her cheeks as her frail arms wrapped around me.
“Hey,” I crouched and wiped them away with my sleeve. “I promised I would come back didn’t I?”
She nodded, her chin still quivering.
“I won’t let anything happen to you, okay?” There was no promise of staying here with her this time. I didn’t want to lie again. Not to her.
“How about you and I go get some dinner while Phoenix finds us a seat.” Triven offered Mouse his hand.
To my surprise she took it, letting him lead her toward the queuing people waiting for their food. Her doe eyes never stopped watching me, still worried I might bolt if given the chance.
I sighed.
What the hell had I gotten myself into? I was a renegade, a loner. I shouldn’t be caring for a child.
As my conscience roiled, I turned to find a table. There were benches and long tables strewn throughout the room. Groups gathered at each, sharing food and talking. Quite a few were staring at me. To my surprise not all gazes were hostile, several possibly even intrigued. But none were welcoming.
There were so many of them. More than I thought. A hundred, maybe more?
A hand waved in the back corner of the room. Arden motioned me to join him and the others at his table. The girl from the training room was there, her dark head turned intentionally away from me.
I wanted to ignore him. To flip him a rude gesture and retreat to Triven’s room, but I could feel Mouse’s eyes on me. So, instead, I wound through the packed tables to join him. When I sat across from him, something akin to shame tainted his features.
“I’m surprised you came over.” He smiled weakly. “I figured you of all people wouldn’t have taken my deception very well.”
“Perceptive of you.” My voice was cold.
“I’m sorry.” Arden was actually being sincere. “It’s not my favorite job here, but we needed to make sure you could be trusted. There are too many innocent lives here to risk a breach.”
His gaze shifted to the table of children and I thawed a little.
“I understand. I would have done the same thing in your shoes.” Surprisingly I meant the words as I said them.
Even within the walls of our shared prison, our comradery had been tainted with distrust. He had feigned his true identity, but had I not done the same thing? In another time, in another place, we would have been considered children, barely in our teens, but in our world, we both knew better. We weren’t children anymore. The cruel world we knew had robbed us of that innocence long ago. And looking at those children sitting at the table laughing as they innocently took comfort in each other, looking at Mouse as she clung to Triven’s hand, we both knew we would kill to keep them that way. To give them a chance at what we never had.
I understood Arden’s actions. It wasn’t even about forgiving him, rather it was about respecting him. And I did. Like me, he was a child of the streets. Raised in a Tribe bent on killing and yet here he had reformed and was now protecting others. Could I follow in those same footsteps or was I too broken? Too far gone?
Guilt tightened my chest as Mouse sat down next to me. Could I be good enough for her?