Page 75 of Flock This

I sat down on a rock nearby, glancing around, surprised to find us somewhere quiet and deserted. This man, on the times when we met this way, was usually surrounded by people.

“You look confused.” He sat beside me and pulled another sucker, this time putting it in his own mouth. The sight of his lips parting was far sexier than it had any right to be, and I wondered if it was some weird kink I’d just invented.

No, that’s absurd. There are no new kinks. If it exists, someone somewhere has been turned on by it.

“It’s quiet around here,” I pointed out. “You’ve always been in busy places before.”

“I don’t like the quiet.” He leaned back on the bench, then set the ankle of one foot on his opposite knee. “Quiet feels simple, and simple is dangerous. I prefer noise and busyness and people.”

“So why are you here? Are you lost?”

“Getting lost is fantastic. You find the best places when you’re lost, after all. But, no, I’m not lost. I knew you’d reach out to me today, so I came somewhere we could talk.”

“How’d you know?”

“I told you—I can feel your emotions, especially when you’re upset. You’ve been like this cord, fraying more with each passing day. I figured you’d show up today, and I thought somewhere quiet would make you feel a little better.” He shrugged, as if that were perfectly normal.

Which it for sure wasn’t. This asshole did what he wanted—all the time. He wasn’t the type to show up when needed. In fact, I was shocked he even knew he might be needed, let alone give a damn about it.

However, I had a feeling saying that would be biting the hand that fed me, so I kept it to myself.

“I don’t know what to do,” I said softly. “I feel like I’m running around blind, just slamming into walls and ricocheting off and not making any progress.”

“That does sound like you.”

I sighed, wondering just why I thought he’d be any help at all. Probably just because he had no dog in this fight, nothing to gain or lose, which made him safe, at least to pour my mess of a brain out to. “Yeah, that’s fair. You want to help me or just point out the obvious some more?”

“You never really listen. Remember the night we met?”

“That isn’t the sort of night I’d forget.”

“You’re the only crow I’ve ever made. Did you know that? You are unique in the entire world.”

“Yeah, I figured that out when I almost broke the silly little crystal.”

He pulled the sucker from his mouth, rolling it by the stick between his fingers. “You know, I wish you had. Wouldn’t it have been hilarious if you touched it and it shattered? Oh, if I could have seen the look on the Justice’s face when that happened. They’re all too serious for their own good.”

“You were talking about the night you made me,” I said, guiding him back on topic like a teacher dealing with a hyperactive kid.

“Right. Do you have any idea how many things had to happen for you to end up there that night?”

“Just one—the edibles gave me munchies and my stupid ass thought walking three miles through the desert at two in the morning was a good idea.”

The man shook his head. “No, it took far more. You had to decide to eat those edibles that night—not any other night. You had to get hungry and not have anything in the house. You had to decide to walk instead of calling anyone else to drive you, and you had to decide to go to that fast food place. If we go back further, you had to be living in that apartment. Someone had to open that restaurant in that location. There are so many things that had happened for us to meet there that it is an almost impossible thing. People don’t recognize how much chaos really exists, how many things have to happen for each moment to occur. If they ever really stopped to think about it, I think they’d start believing in the Old Gods again. It’s just too much.”

“So you made me because of that?”

“You were a beacon for chaos and mischief well before I ever met you. For you have met me, of all people, and for you to have stepped in on my behalf when any intelligent person would have left me be, it all drew me. The truth is, you’ve always run into walls over and over again until you break through them. Now isn’t any different than before.”

“What if I don’t break through this time? What if I slam into the wall and just break my face?”

“Then I think I’ll be very sad to lose my one and only crow.”

“You always give me the most unhelpful answers.”

“That’s because you don’t need answers, Grey. You never have. You’re one of the few who understands that, who doesn’t look to others for those answers. That’s always been one of your biggest assets, the ability to see the world as it is. You don’t pretty it up, you don’t try to force it to obey some arbitrary rules. You just enjoy it.”

“And that’ll look real nice on my tombstone.” Even the sucker didn’t lift my mood anymore.

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