WHO: Kaden WHEN: Saturday night WHERE: Burlington WHAT: Kaden's on his own WARNINGS: None
For a while Kaden just ran, putting as much distance between him and Marcie as possible. Ran as fast and as hard as he could till the heat started to stifle him. Bent double, leaning on a lamppost with sweat dripping into his eyes, he tried to catch his breath, but the panic caught up with him before his breathing could, and sobbing made it harder still to breathe.
He couldn't give in to the panic, though, or he'd die. This felt like a fact. With his whole body trembling, he carried on, walking now, too overwhelmed to try to find a way to stop crying. Tragos’ hoodie hid his face, though, and he crossed the road whenever he saw people coming, making his way haphazardly to the park near the Edwards-Palmers because it was a wide open space and ringed in trees, hard to see from the road. There, with his back against a tree, he pulled off the hoodie and dumped his backpack, and sunk down to the ground, head in his hands.
He couldn’t stop hearing Marcie’s voice in his head Tragos wasn’t a very good boyfriend and couldn’t stop screaming back but he LOVED you and this constant back-and-forth kept bringing up more sobs. Tragos had loved Marcie, he was doing his best, and it wasn’t enough. Kaden loved Marcie too, Kaden didn't know if he was doing his best but he was trying, but it wasn’t enough either. But how could Kaden be enough for Marcie if Tragos wasn't?
Fuck her though. He hated her now. Hated her stupid shallow ‘he never bought me flowers’. Maybe Bethany was right, Marcie thought she was better than everyone.
Maybe he never should have let himself forget that she was Ares’ daughter. Why did he think he could ever rely on her, just because she was nice to him? Idiot. That wasn't how the world worked.
But she’d called him her kid and he’d believed her. He should’ve looked deeper, to all the fragility beneath it. Should’ve known better than to rely on it. On her. On anyone. That safety he’d found between her and Tragos after the shooting and after Barak’s beating when they’d hidden at her house... he should have known that wouldn’t last.
As it started to get dark, Kaden started walking again. He didn’t like being outside, after dark, not by himself. When he was with Adrian and the others it wasn’t so bad, but being alone as the sun was going down scared him. Never used to. He used to like the night, and being outside on his own, in his own neighborhood. Sitting in his rusted old bus if it was raining, or atop the mountain of old construction debris looking out over his world. He’d liked the night, before he was hunted through it.
He pulled the hoodie back on but kept the hood down, kept his peripheral vision clear, and walked around the park with his arms wrapped around his body. He jumped the fence into the empty high school, walking through the creepy quiet buildings, looking through the dark windows to the classrooms. There was a strange feeling here, something akin to walking the Enodia’s hallways at night, something that made him feel like he was the only person in the world.
It made it harder to believe in things like burglar alarms, when you thought you might be the last person in the world. Kaden stopped walking in front of a vending machine, hunger surging back to life inside him, and couldn’t think of any reason not to smash the living fuck out of it, pulling packets of chips and chocolate and (warm) cans of coke from it, stuffing his backpack as full as he could. His body shaking with adrenaline from the destruction and the thieving, Kaden retreated to the other side of the campus to find a secluded spot to rip open the chips and eat.
Outside the world continued to get darker, and Kaden started wondering if he should try and break into one of the buildings at the school and spend the night there. He had to do something while he figured out a way out of town, and the school would have power, at least...
But there were alarms set up around the school, and they started screaming at him as soon as he broke a window. “FUCK YOU TOO!” Kaden shouted at them, another tidal wave of sick adrenaline swamping him as he bolted out of there.
More than anything, Kaden wanted to go home. The deep undercurrent of longing in his chest cried out for it, but home was hundreds of miles away. Home was lifetimes away. The house was probably still wrapped in police tape. Going back there was asking to die. Cin had been right when she told him to leave and not look back, but Kaden couldn’t help looking back, he couldn’t help wanting it. Home, before anything had started to go bad.
His energy was wasted on wanting. Kaden knew this, but trying to work out what he was going to do tomorrow was scary as shit. He had nothing. A little money and a backpack of snacks. No car, this time. No plan. No destination. No family. Just... a couple of charms in his pocket. A couple of goddesses a very long way away.
But... he couldn’t reach out for help, he couldn’t handle being that vulnerable again. It was time to be strong, it was time to stand on his own.
He was a Murphy. They weren’t weak.
Kaden kept walking and walking, turning his face away from other people, avoiding the routes he knew for a while as it grew later, eventually winding his way through to Cathal’s neighborhood. Kaden crept, keeping on the other side of his fence, peeking through the gaps in the wood to watch the house. There was a light on, but the curtains were pulled shut. Next door too- a light somewhere in the house, but curtains shut everywhere. Good, he thought, sneaking around the back and climbing over the fence, dropping into their back yard. He flicked open the latch on the back fence, and crept closer, pressing himself up against the weatherboard house, and with his heart in his mouth he pushed open the dog door with his hand, and clicked his tongue.
Nothing happened, not for a long time. Kaden stayed crouched by Cathal’s neighbor's back door for ages, trying to think of some way to make Blueberry come out, but couldn’t come up with anything that wouldn’t alert her owners that something was up. But Kaden wanted a dog. The idea stuck in his head. He wanted a dog. He wanted to wrap his arms around her neck and curl up with her somewhere no one would find him. He wanted a dog because Blueberry wouldn’t let him down, and Blueberry wouldn’t hurt him, and the whole world had been such a fucking nightmare to him, and didn’t he deserve a dog? What had Blueberry’s owners gone through, to make them deserve her? Blueberry’s owners were a couple. They had each other. Kaden had nobody, so, Kaden was goddamn having Blueberry.
He had to wait a long time though, till Blueberry and Coconut were let out the back door. Kaden heard the footsteps coming and darted around the back of the house, pressed up against it, but whoever it wasn’t didn’t accompany the dogs out into the yard. Kaden waited till the footsteps retreated again and then came round the corner, crouching down as both dogs bounded over, jumping up and trying to lick his face and it hit with a whallop, that they were pleased to see him, because no one else was gonna be, were they?
Especially not after tonight and, well, fuck them all. Kaden pulled off his hoodie and threaded it through Blueberry's collar, and with both sleeves in one hand led her through the fence, shutting it behind them while Coconut whined on the other side.
As the gate clicked shut with Kaden and Blueberry out on the street, Kaden felt another rush of adrenaline, but this time it came with one of defiance. Fuck everyone - everyone. He didn’t need anyone else, he had himself, he had his dog... fuck everyone. No one was gonna catch him, not Blueberry’s owners, not Cathal, not Marcie, not anyone.
With another rush came the realisation: it had taken a fucking god to stop him last time.
He was a Murphy. They weren't weak. It took gods to stop them.
Riding this moment, Kaden bent down and picked up a stone from the edge of their rock garden. With his skin buzzing, he tested the weight of it in his palm, and then hurled it with all his strength at Cathal’s kitchen window. The smash was everything he wanted, and for one perfect moment he felt powerful – and then Coconut started barking, and Blueberry started barking back, and Kaden tightened his fist around the hoodie-leash he had on Blueberry, and bolted away into the night.