Charlie’s voice is barely above a shell-shocked whisper when he answers Buffy.“An army. It was an army of those mini pig demons.”I look over at him and don’t miss the dead-eyed look on his face as he stares out at the smoldering ruins that were his house. He’s seen some things after last night.
An army of mini demons sounds awful to me. I’d take Granny Jean’s loud purse pig any day. “They came from that way, but I don’t understand why. There’s nothing out there, right? It’s just woods?”
Buffy puts her hands on her hips and frowns.“Yeah, Sunday used to roam out that way. She says there’s a town,” Buffy says. “I’ve never been there but Wrath knows about it or at least I think he does. I can ask him. Sundays been off on a walk all morning.”
Sunday’s walks are more like boot camp training. She gets up before sunrise and just starts walking. She says it helps clear her mind but I don’t see how. The one time I went with her, I gave up around mile fifteen. I begged off and headed into town for a pastry while Sunday just kept going. She likes to spend her time in the woods when she’s on her walks.
“Maybe Sunday’s seen something in the woods then? And what do you mean you think he knows about it?” I ask while I keep an eye on Charlie. He’s wandering through the wreckagenow. I wave my arms at him. “Stay out of there! You’re going to get hurt.”
“I have nothing of value left to hurt, Meadow!” Charlie kicks at a board and immediately trips and lands on top of his games book he’s been clutching to his chest.
“Hells above.” I rub my temples. “He’s insane. He’s going to get himself hurt real bad one of these days.”
“Yeah,” Buffy nods and watches Charlie roll around on the ground where his living room used to be. “You’re right. He is going to get hurt.” She turns to look at me and I take a step back. I recognize that look on my best friend’s face. I know what she’s about to ask me.
I hold up a finger to stop her. “Don’t you even-”
“I need him to stay with you.”
“Come again?You want the insane gamemaster to stay with me?”
Buffy clasps her hands in front of her as she pleads. She gives me her best puppy dog eyed look and I hate that it starts working immediately.
“Please, Meadow. Please, please, please. We need someone to keep an eye on him while we sort, you know,” she waves a hand at the decimated house, “all of that out.”
“Why me?”
“He trusts you.”
It’s true. Charlie isn’t that trusting of people he doesn’t know, which tracks seeing as he knew our cult was a death cult before either of us figured it out.
“I don’t know…” I hesitate and bite my lip while I think about what it would be like to have Charlie staying with me. It’s not that I don’t like him. I love Charlie. He’s wonderful and kind, smart, even when he’s babbling about his games book stats to me like I’m any good at math.
“This is going to add plus 10 Int and oh my Wrath, we’re getting a faster cool down on Mana Rush! And it’s scaleable, Meadow! Do you know what I could do with that?”
I hadn’t known then and I still don’t know now.
I do know that I like Charlie though.
“Wrath and I would put him up but we have a full house right now.”
Sunday, Nina, and Elijah live with Buffy and Wrath. It was a little bit of a bummer not being able to live with my best friend too at the makeshift headquarters of the new Sweet Tooth but I understand. They’d been settled in by the time I’d come out of my cult coma and then there’d been no room for me besides the basement and that was a no go from me. It all worked out, though. I’d gotten settled in a cute little house with a greenhouse out back. It doesn’t get much better than that, and it was nice to have a little quiet after visiting Buffy. Wrath’s Embrace was always bustling with activity, meetings and the like going on nearly every day. It’s hard to think straight sometimes when it’s in full swing.
“I just don’t know what to do with him since we’re still trying to reorganize housing in town now that we gave all of the Founding Families and their supporters the ban hammer, you know? I promise it won’t be for long. We’re cleaning out some of the houses on the east side of town and repairs should be done within the month.”
I didn’t know they were repairing the houses on the east side. I’d been trying to pick up as many skills as I could to be useful in rebuilding Sweet Tooth. I’d even branched out from books to the internet, which really meant I was all in because damn was the internet terrifying.
Yes it was great for learning new things but it was almosttoo muchinformation. Too many voices shouting they were right and sending me down all kinds of rabbit holes of researchthat turned into me not realizing I’d lost a whole afternoon. I preferred the library and had been spending afternoons there studying as much as I could. I’d gotten pretty decent with plumbing in the month since Lethos had been obliterated and the Founding Families done away with. Buffy and Wrath had let anyone that renounced O’Hare and Lethos stay. Unsurprisingly, almost all of the Founding Families opted to leave Sweet Tooth. I don’t know where the hell they went though, seeing as they had as much experience in the real world as I did.
They’d all gotten together, packed their things and then just left town, one by one. The cars had driven right on out of town and we hadn’t heard a single chirp from them since.
“The east side? I didn’t know you were repairing homes there.” It feels weird. The new normal of not really knowing what my best friend is doing. A month ago we used to tell each other everything down to what we were wearing so we could coordinate. Now she was repairing houses on the east side town and I hadn’t even known.
“Really?” Buffy looks surprised. “Oh, I guess, well–we decided a few days ago at dinner. I thought I told you. Sorry,” she gives me an apologetic look and I know she feels bad. When she says dinner she means at Wrath’s Embrace, her home where the whole gang would have been gathered for dinner. “You know, this is really wonderful timing, Meadow. Can you come look at some of the pipes this week? We could use your help. Not even Wrath can figure out the system they set up in town but I know you can figure it out in no time,” Buffy finishes with a bright smile. She’s a good friend. Trying to make sure that I feel included and wanted but still…
Sometimes it feels like Buffy lives in a different world, even though we’re living in the same town we’d grown up in. Sweet Tooth is the only place I’d ever lived, my whole world. Overnight it had changed and so had my best friend. It wasn’t that my bestfriend didn’t include me, she did. I was always there with a quick invite but it wasn’t the same as before when we were Blossoms. That was what I thought of as theBefore Times, and in theBefore Timesmy world was Buffy’s world.
Things are different now that she’s a superhero and I’m not.
