Centre of the Storm

Chapter Twelve: Fake It Till You Make It

A/N: currently watching series of unfortunate events

I lay awake hours before Beatrix woke up, just staring at the ceiling. I had a lot on my mind.

I had never had any real plans for my future. I had always assumed that when I turned eighteen I would leave the orphanage and get some low-paying job to pay rent in some shitty apartment in some shitty town in the middle of a radiation zone somewhere, and maybe I would meet a girl who I cared enough about to say I loved, and we would live together for a decade or so, until we didn't have enough money to live anymore, or a storm wiped out our apartment building. Or maybe someone decided they didn't want to be on the planet anymore, and took a few randoms on the street with them, and I happened to be one of them.

So overall, I had had a pretty depressing outlook on my future.

Never had I imagined I would kill my best friend, develop strange powers, run away from home, and fall in love. Not necessarily in that order. But one thought made me pause.

Was I in love with Beatrix? I had only known her for a month or so, but I felt this connection to her, and every time I was near her, I got butterflies in my stomach, not necessarily the good kind. Even though I was only fifteen and had barely started my life, I knew, deep down, that I would never feel that way about anyone ever again. She made me feel safe. I could sleep, knowing she was there.

We had put our supplies in our backpacks and had started walking down the seemingly endless highway, after a slow start to the morning of brushing our teeth over the filthy sink in the tiny bathroom.

"It's so fucking hot out here," Beatrix groaned, as she kicked at the puddles on the concrete. She was right. Even though it had been cold in the night, the sun was glaring in the sky. I could feel the sweat on the back of my neck.

"The weather is so unpredictable," I agreed. "It's ridiculous."

She chugged some water from the bottle she had been carrying, before putting it back in her backpack and replacing it with the map. "I think we're about twenty miles away from the city," she said, inspecting it. I myself could not make sense of maps, so it was a good thing that she could. "But it should take us nine hours to get there, give or take."

I really wasn't looking forward to walking for nine hours, but I knew we couldn't stay here. And there were no cars in sight. "Are you excited to get there?" I asked.

"Definitely. Are you?"

I nodded. "I can't wait to start my new life."

"So what are we gonna do for the many long hours ahead?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. I guess we could take the time to get to know each other better."

"Okay then," I said. "Tell me about you."

She tossed a stand of her newly braided hair over her shoulder. "What do you want to know?"

"Your deepest darkest secrets, obviously."

She laughed. "Okay, let me think. I was born in Cloria, and after that I lived in England, Canada, Poland, the Philippines, and then England again, apparently my mother liked it there."

"You lived in England?" I asked stupidly.

"For around eleven years put together," she replied. For whatever reason I had assumed she had always lived here, though that wouldn't explain the accent. Maybe I'd just expected her to talk about the weather more.