No Dogs Allowed

A Crow in the Meadows

(ty for reading, the corner star welcomes you)

(EDITED)(Note to readers: Some chapters ahead may not be fixed to be in line with the new edits)

C5H10

Cyclopentane.

Cycloalkane. Colorless liquid. Blowing agent for insulation. Highly flammable, can cause respiratory arrest.

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For all our sakes, I'll keep the next two weeks brief. Unless you've got the patience for another several essays of my complaints and dashed dreams.

Exactly. Start rolling.

February came for me in the same way a flash flood would: cataclysmic, unwarranted, and necessarily conspicuous. Living away from the Splinter, cutting my time up between classwork and Corvus and surviving both, managing the incessant intrusion of Mercy, feigning numbers in my bank account, ignoring the numbers above my head, was a far more difficult balance to maintain than I'd anticipated.

No one seemed keen on making it easier, either.

"Dinner." Zoe pushed open my door with a smile. She wiggled her fingers in a greeting, and I looked up from my stack of genetic code diagrams and nucleic acid models just long enough for her to go, "Oh. Are you dying?"

"Efficiently." I turned my attention back to the papers. "I'll eat later."

"Fuel for the brain."

"I need morphine more than food," I sighed. "I'll eat later."

"You can't skip another dinner." Diego popped his head in, sending me a frown. He pointed at me. "It's taco night. You're gonna miss taco night, in broad daylight?"

"It's 7PM."

"Can't hole yourself up in here forever, cobayo. Gonna have to face the crows one way or another!" he announced. "I'll drag you outta here myself."

"Do it," Wynter said from behind him. "He can't avoid us forever, I thought this was mandatory. Something about a pamphlet?"

"There's no pamphlet." Kane dragged everyone from the doorway. His glasses were still perched on his nose, giving away his own studies prior to this encounter. He glanced at me, his eyes twice as large like a caricature of himself as he looked at me through the lenses. For a moment, the sight was so out of character, I could almost laugh. "Come on. Put a jacket on, it's cold, let's go."

"I'm not—"

"You've got five."

He turned away without another word. I tilted my head back, and sighed. But I pushed the papers aside and got to my feet, snagging my one good hoodie on my way out.

Wynter raised a brow. "Are you following directions right now? In broad daylight?"

I shook my head. I brushed past her. "Before the tacos get cold."

Nia let a secret slip barely a week later.

"A baby crow, out in the wild." Nia slid onto the bench beside me, her bag of lunch sharing a similar leg with my two packs of gummy bears as my own. "Are you alone? Isn't that against the rules?"

"How do you know that?"

Nia shrugged. She reached into her bag and withdrew a wax paper-adorned turkey club. "How is it? You seem intact." She gestured at the large bandage over my cheek. "For the most part."