Inkchanger

2: Runaway Heights

The girls threaded their way in silence through the first few fall-reddened trees and navigated alleys between boarded up, bowed row houses. They had been running buddies – not to mention roommates and fast friends – for the last two years, and when you've lived in close quarters for that long, there's not much to say when you're walking home. 

A distinctive variety of silence grows between people who have mastered confidence built on knowing each other's secrets. It's nurtured by long, deep conversations in the dark, curled up in the same bed; it's cultivated by breakdowns and intimacy; it's fed on fighting and making up, rescues and escapes. It's a texture on your tongue like a perfectly crisp apple calling every sense to be present. Its arrival is welcome, rather than awkward or demanding to be filled. There's simply nothing that can be said. The intimacy of the moment tethers you together. It simply is. It was a silence Zara and Sofi were quietly proud to have cultivated.

After a few minutes filled only with the hushed clanking of cans in pockets, the graveyard of forgotten houses gave way to a yellowed, overgrown soccer field bordering a three-story brick building. It loomed over the field like a bouncer with missing teeth and a heart tattoo, daring anyone to set foot there that didn't belong. Only the lonely remaining letters SC - - OL plastered above the rusted double doors hinted that it used to be a lively hub of education.

Runaway Heights. The Heights. Home.

"Home sweet home," Sofi said, as she sighed happily at the monstrosity. "Always looks beautiful after a narrow escape."

Zara nodded. It might be ugly, dirty, crumbling, drafty, and filled with a dozen other street kids who thought she was a freak, but it was home. More than any other place she'd lived in the last six years, anyway.

"Let's head on in." She jiggled the swollen front pocket of her hoodie. "I'm sure Eric is anxious to see us home safe."

"Wouldn't want to keep the boss waiting, now, would we?" Sofi said mischievously. The implied nudge-nudge-wink-wink telegraphed between them, and Sofi waggled her eyebrows.

Zara rolled her eyes dramatically. "Oh my god, Sofi, shut up." 

She tried to sound serious, but a tiny sliver of amusement leaked through – the fuzzy chemical remnants of their successful lift and serene walk home still had her, if just barely. The situation with Eric wasn't new or particularly funny to her, but it was never far from the surface. Sofi liked to tease her, but Zara tried not to snap at her friend about it, even if it did slice at her heart every time.

"Fine, you old curmudgeon," Sofi said. She made an over-exaggerated bow towards the break in the property's hedges. "Ladies first."

As Zara picked a careful path across the neglected soccer pitch, Sofi stood casually near a tree on lookout duty, pretending to bop along to music through headphones that weren't attached to anything. This abandoned school, loving called "Runaway Heights" or "The Heights" by its residents, was one of the city's best-kept underground secrets, and it had to stay that way. When you're sheltering runaway teens, there's always someone sniffing around looking to cash in on reward money and truancy citations. Secret passageways, irregular entrance protocol, and simple vigilance, supplemented by the crudest of security tech, helped prevent an all-out routing of the building's population. Residents had to enter one at a time, unobserved; keeping your mouth closed if the fuzz interrogated you was one thing, but getting across the lawn without being spotted was another.

Zara made a beeline for the discolored brick on the east side of the building, carefully scanning the perimeter for potential threats as she went. Dealers, hobos, and bimbos weren't a big deal – they minded their own business - but every once in a while a jogger in a grey sweatsuit would turn up with his German shepherd and make several laps around the school. No sign of Not-A-Cop-at-All today, though.