Black as Night | P. Parker

Chapter Five

Hannah didn't like that idea one bit.

"Go to school? Onyx, have you finally lost your mind?" she demanded.

"Hannah, listen to the logic. We saw his face, we know what he looks like! And we can't very well just wander into the high school and lure him out and kill him, we'd be arrested in an instant! If we attend Midtown, we can get close to him and then kill him without arousing suspicion," Onyx explained.

"You just want off the streets, don't you? You're tired of living on the run, you're tired of me! If that's how you feel, you could just say so!" Hannah snapped.

"Hannah!" Onyx exclaimed. "That is so not it! You think I want to go back to a place that reminds me of my family? You think I would rather live with those reminders, as long as it's in comfort? You've known me for a long time now, I thought you'd know me better than that."

Without waiting for a response, Onyx stomped off up the stairs, leaving her best friend behind in anger.

She was supposed to know that Onyx would rather stay on the streets than be reminded of her family. She was supposed to know that she would take every night they went without food, every day where they suffered in the cold, rather than be in a place that would bring up those memories. Hannah was her best friend, her partner in crime, her confidant. She was supposed to know these things...

"Onyx?" Hannah's voice came an hour later. "Onyx I'm sorry, really. I didn't want to go to some bad home again or be reminded of my family... It's a good plan. I mean it, it really is."

"Go away," Onyx told her.

"No," the redhead insisted, trying to follow her friend's voice. "I want to apologize, and I want to do it to your face."

There was a moment of silence. The cupboard door opened, and Onyx's green eyes appeared in the darkness. "Really?"

"Yes," she admitted, moving toward the closet. "I know your experience is worse than mine, I know that you have worse memories of your family. And I'm sorry for snapping at you, and yelling and everything."

"Thank you," Onyx said, stepping out of her hiding spot. "Apology accepted."

With the two girls not fighting, they discussed what their plan was. First, they had to get caught by social services and placed in the foster system, they knew how to do that, they'd had many close calls over their years on the streets.

They could get placed in a bad home, but as long as they could convince their foster parents to enroll them at Midtown High, they could deal with whatever home they were put in. They could defend themselves easily, of course.

Onyx and Hannah also agreed that just because they weren't on the streets anymore didn't mean that they couldn't keep working. Hannah didn't think she'd survive if she didn't have some way of working off her anger and frustration.