The Empty Ones

Chapter Ten- Let's Make Some Friends.

Behind him, the door squealed.

Something gripped his shoulder, and he crashed to the ground.

The door slammed shut behind him, rattling as the thing slammed its fists against it. "Not fair!" it screeched. "Mine! Mine!"

Harriat let out a breath. And another. He let out more and more until his shoulders shook and he choked. A pair of arms clung to neck. Hayes cried into his chest. She said something over and over again, but it was a shaking, wet sound he couldn't understand.

He was in a foyer. A pair of dark eyes glared down at him. She had short, spiky hair and the sort of scowl that gives you the inability to imagine that person smiling. Her body was small, almost scrawny, a dusting of freckles littering her face. On anyone else, it would have been petite, friendly. But there was nothing friendly about this woman.

She looked away, glaring at Pebble-eyes, who ran a hand through his hair. It was the kind of hair, the kind of face, that might have been handsome before this all started, but was now worn, like a doll someone had thrown out.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" the woman snapped. Her voice was soft, but that didn't make it any less frightening.

"What do we know about him, huh?" Pebble-eyes said, glaring at Harriat as if he'd offended him by staying alive.

"Get out."

He took a step forward. "You don't tell me what to do, Argo."

The woman-Argo-pulled a gun from her belt and pointed it at him. Harriat should have been surprised, but he really wasn't. The world now seemed to be the sort of one where people pointed guns at each other without a second thought.

"Beg to differ," she said.

The man gave one last glare, and shoved past her, out the door.

"Thank you," Harriat whispered.

She turned and pointed the gun at him. Hayes screamed into his chest.

"Got any weapons on you?" said Argo.

He shook his head.

"Why were you on the streets?"

"We were staying at the arcade. Couple of punks drove us out." Put it away, he begged silently. Please, God, put it away.

She got down on one knee, magpie's eyes level with his. "You give me one reason to regret pulling you in and I'm blowing a hole through your head."

He nodded, let out a breath as she put the gun away. Lily scurried to his side and clung to his arm.

Argo's face softened. Well, not softened. He wasn't sure if it could soften. Just got less steely.

"Get up," she said. She looked at boy in the corner, Pebble-eyes' fearful friend. "Come on, Harper."

Harper couldn't have been much more than a teenager, hair long and dishevelled in a shell of what was once fashionable. Darkness burrowed beneath his eyes. He pushed his headphones, adorned with angry looking skulls, further over his ears. It was ridiculous, it's not like he could actually hear anything, but that wasn't he wore them, Harriat knew. He wanted to feel normal, feel like he used to. He didn't quite realize that person was long gone.

His eyes determinedly avoided Harriat's. He felt guilty. Good, some nasty little part of Harriat thought.

Harriat stood, Ernest padding over to him. Those murky eyes gave him a quick inspection. No licking, no elated bark; caring wasn't part of Ernest's mindset.