The first training session with Marlon had ended with face down in the ground, and the aftermath wasn’t being shy about making itself known.
Sumr had gotten the collar off, and that had helped, the imdiate return of everything the thing had been suppressing had felt like surfacing after being held underwater for too long. But the relief only went so far. The weakness the collar had ground into over those hours didn’t just evaporate the mont the clasp ca loose. It clung, stubbornly, layered underneath the more straightforward pain of Marlon’s actual strikes, which had their own detailed catalogue of complaints to file. My abdon, especially, had well suffered...
Marlon had also ntioned, that tomorrow would be harder.
I believed him completely. And sohow that didn’t bother the way it probably should have.
I stood in the park with the collar in my hand, just looking at it for a mont. It was lighter than it felt when it was on, small yet so powerful.
I turned it over slowly.
A collar capable of shutting down a Symbiote Host abilities huh?
More like returning to a baseline I’d almost forgotten existed. Without the Symbiote running underneath everything, I was just . Unaugnted, unenhanced, the sa person I’d been before any of this started.
And that person, it turned out, didn’t know how to fight.
Not really. Not in any way that would hold up against soone who did.
I stared at the collar and sat with that.
"What are you daydreaming about?"
Sumr’s voice ca from beside , pulling back.
I glanced at her, then held the collar out in her direction.
"I’ll need it again tomorrow," I said.
She took it and tucked it into her bag with a sigh that had so feeling behind it.
"So the plan is just, put it back on and let my father kick you around again tomorrow? And the day after that?" She asked, watching .
"That about covers it," I said.
She gave a look. "I don’t know whether that’s brave or just stubborn."
"Probably both."
She almost smiled at that, then caught herself. "I an, from what I saw at the mall, you’re already strong. Really strong. You handled that well."
"That wasn’t much," I said, and I ant it in a way that had nothing to do with modesty. I looked at the horizon, thinking about it properly. "There are worse things out there. And I’ll probably be in the sa place as so of them before this is over."
Sumr didn’t push back on that.
She stared for a mont, then leaned over and poked my arm with one finger.
"You’re covered in grass and dried sweat and I think that might be blood on your collar," she said. "You should wash up."
"Yeah." I rolled my shoulder carefully, wincing slightly. "I’ll head to the sea."
"Open air bath?" She asked, sothing light in her voice.
"The air’s clean out there," I said. "Actual clean, salt and sea wind, none of the sll that cos with everything else now. And the light at this hour—" I paused, glancing toward the direction of the waterfront. "It’s a good ti of day for it."
She smiled hearing that in agreent.
"It really is," she said. "That’s my favorite ti out there. I stay until the sun gets low sotis. Just sit with it."
We started walking without any formal decision to do so, falling into step together in the direction of the Boardwalk and past it, toward the shore. Sumr walked with her bag over one shoulder and her hands loose at her sides, the evening breeze already picking up slightly as we got closer to the water.
The sand was warm under my shoes when we stepped onto it, still holding the heat the day had pressed into it, and the sea opened up in front of us, wide and dark and endlessly itself, the waves coming in low and steady.
It was also around the sa spot where I had ca with Cindy and Daisy back then.
The wind ca off the water and hit full in the face.
I stopped walking and just stood in it for a second.
Salt, brine, the deep clean sll of open water with nothing rotting in it, nothing wrong with it, none of the odour that the infected left on the air wherever they gathered. Just the sea, doing what the sea had always done, completely indifferent to the fact that the world behind us had stopped making sense.
Sothing in my chest loosened a little.
God, that was good. That was uncomplicatedly good in a way that felt almost unfair.
Just like back then when I ca the first ti here, it felt so good.
"I could sleep out here," I muttered, and I was almost smiling without aning to.
"I’d advise against it," Sumr said imdiately, coming to stand beside . "You never know what might co up the beach at night. And if you catch sothing weird sleeping on damp sand in the apocalypse, good luck finding anyone to treat it."
"I have a Symbiote," I said. "I’m pretty much immune to most of the ordinary stuff. Getting sick isn’t really sothing I have to factor in."
She looked at with sothing between surprise and consideration. "That’s actually really practical."
"Depends on how you look at it," I said. "If you don’t mind being on the radar of an alien race, then sure. Very practical."
The lightness went out of the mont slightly.
"Right," she said quietly, and exhaled. "Sorry."
I glanced at her. She was looking out at the water, the wind moving through her blond hair held by her cap.
She’d heard about all of it, then. The Starakians, the bigger picture, the thing that sat behind all of this that was stranger and larger than a simple collapse of civilization. Marlon must have told her, or Maribel, it wasn’t the kind of thing you could keep contained forever, not when it was already shaping every decision being made around here.
I didn’t push the subject. I just looked back out at the water.
The sun was still above the horizon but moving toward it with intention, the light going long and amber, the sea catching it in broken pieces across the surface. The sky further out was already deepening, a rich darkening blue stacking up against the last of the gold.
It was truly a beautiful thing to look at.
My knees had developed strong opinions about standing, and the rest of my body wasn’t far behind in registering its complaints. The sand looked flat and soft and nice, so I made the decision and dropped myself onto it, and then imdiately groaned as the impact travelled up through my back and reminded that the back, too, had been having a day.
I adjusted, shifted, gave up on any posture that involved dignity, and just laid flat out on the sand with my arms folded behind my head, staring straight up at the sky.
"What are you doing?" Sumr looked down at surprised.
"Resting," I said. "After your father spent the afternoon using as a practice dummy."
"You signed up for that, if I rember correctly," she said, folding her arms.
"I did. And I don’t regret it." I stared up at the darkening sky. "But I’m also going to lie in this sand for a few minutes without apologizing for it. I also don’t particularly want Maribel finding like this."
"Why not?" Sumr laughed.
"She’s taking her babysitter role extrely seriously," I said, completely dry. "I feel like she’s one bad report away from putting in a tiout."
Sumr settled down onto the sand beside , not lying down but sitting with her knees drawn up, arms resting across them, looking out at the water.
"Well, you still have to prove yourself, don’t you?" she said. "Loyalty goes both ways around here. People want to know who you are before they trust you. So?"
"Fair enough," I admitted. "t Deshawn and Petra today. Good people, both of them. That helped."
"Yeah, they are," she nodded easily.
I stared at the sky for a mont.
"By the way, is Deshawn related to Doctor Shawn?"
Sumr turned and looked at dumbfounded.
"Are you stupid?" She asked.
"I’m just asking," I said.
"You think that because they both have Shawn in the na," she said.
"...Yeah," I admitted, a bit embarrassed.
"That’s the whole basis of your theory."
"When you say it like that it sounds worse."
"Because it is worse."
I closed my eyes briefly. "I’m tired. My brain is not fully operational."
She laughed again, shaking her head.
Though, honestly, if I was being fair to myself, my head had been running badly all day and it wasn’t entirely about the training. So corner of my mind kept going back to what Sydney had described. The way i had apparently been, in that hotel. The word rejected sitting sowhere in my chest in a way I hadn’t found the right drawer to put it in yet.
I left that alone and moved on.
"You should probably head back," I said after a mont. "Your dad’s going to have things to say."
"I’m not a child," Sumr replied, unbothered. "And I already told you, this is where I co at dusk. This is my ti. I’m not rearranging it."
"Sure, but do you usually sit here next to a man?" I asked, glancing up at her. "Because your father has a very particular set of feelings about that kind of thing. I’ve been on the receiving end of his attention enough for one day and I’d prefer not to add that to the reasons he works over tomorrow."
Sumr tilted her head slightly, conceding the point even if she didn’t fully surrender it. "He just worries. He thinks the world being like this makes it easier for soone to take advantage. I’m not gullible though."
"No, you’re clearly not," I said honestly. "But I’m the one he’ll look at. And I don’t have the energy to deal with it tonight." I paused. "I also have a feeling so of those hits today were, slightly personal, let’s say."
She pressed her lips together like she was trying not to smile.
I let that speak for itself.
"Well," she said after a mont, "you already have a girlfriend. So he has nothing to worry about."
I felt my expression do sothing involuntary.
Again.
Again with this.
I’d co here once with Cindy and Daisy, once and sowhere between that afternoon on the beach and now it had apparently been unanimously decided by everyone in the general vicinity that Cindy and I were a couple. Filed, confird, recorded in the unofficial social ledger of Marlon’s community without anyone consulting about it.
The frustrating part was that I couldn’t entirely argue against it either. Not with any real conviction. The way we were with each other, the way it must have looked to anyone watching from the outside, I understood why people landed there.
I an it was hard to hold back and act like a friend with your girlfriend...
But still.
"So which one is it?" Sumr asked, tilting her head. "The girl with the broken glasses, she’s very cute. Or the really pretty blond one?"
I looked at her for a mont.
"Can you remind ," I said slowly, "why I’m lying in the sand discussing my love life with you?"
"Because I’m bored," she said simply, like that settled it.
I stared back up at the sky.
"I’m not discussing it," I said.
"You don’t have to," she said pleasantly. "I’m just going to sit here and co to my own conclusions."
"That’s worse."
"Probably," she agreed.
"By the way did you get those shoes back?" I asked, glancing up at her from where I was still lying in the sand.
"Yeah, I did," she nodded.
"Good." I paused, turning the thought over for a second before I said it. "Then I think you should stop going back to that mall."
Sumr looked at with surprise. "Why?"
I sat with the question for a mont.
The truth was complicated and I wasn’t sure how much of it I wanted to lay out right now. My Dullahan senses had picked sothing up the last ti, sothing on the top terrace floor of that mall, sothing that had very much the signature of Starakian technology sitting dormant up there. I’d felt it and then not thought too hard about it, because thinking too hard about it ant deciding what to do about it, and what I needed to do about it was eventually go up there and deal with it.
Which I wasn’t looking forward to.
The Frost Walker had been enough. The Screar had been more than enough. Every ti I’d found one of these things it had co with a price attached, and so part of that had been through enough wanted to just leave it alone and let it be soone else’s problem.
Except it wasn’t. It was sitting there, and sitting there ant it was eventually going to be a problem for soone, and that soone was probably going to be whoever wandered up there without knowing what they were walking into.
"It’s dangerous," I said finally, which was true even if it wasn’t the whole truth.
I could actually tell the truth but I don’t know. I preferred to keep it myself just in case she had so funny ideas even though I didn’t think she was that stupid.
Sumr gave a neutral look.
"I’ve been going there plenty of tis," she said. "I’ve always co back fine."
"The last ti you nearly got yourself killed," I said.
"The last ti," she corrected with a pointed look, "was when I went back to get the shoes you dropped and left behind. And I was perfectly fine. If anything, you seem to be the one who attracts disasters."
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
She wasn’t wrong, technically....
But that didn’t change what was up on that terrace, waiting.
"Then whenever you go to that mall," I said, "call . I’ll co with you."
Sumr glanced down at , those aqua green eyes carrying sothing between suspicion and sothing harder to na.
"Why would you do that?" She asked carefully.
"Because I’m concerned," I said, after a mont that probably lasted a beat too long to be casual.
She made a short sound, sowhere between a scoff and a laugh, and shifted like she was about to stand up and close the conversation.
My hand moved however fast, catching her arm lightly.
"I’m serious, Sumr," I said.
She stilled.
I looked up at her. The last of the evening light was behind her, the sky going deep and dark at the edges, and I ant what I was saying.
If sothing happened to her up there, if she went back and walked into whatever was sitting on that floor without knowing what it was, I’d feel it. That wasn’t sothing I could pretend otherwise about.
And yes, sowhere in the back of my mind, the practical part that never fully turned off, I was aware that going with her might give a chance to get eyes on the Starakian tech. Maybe even secure it. A power stone added to what we had wouldn’t be nothing, and leaving that kind of hardware sitting unclaid in an abandoned mall with the world the way it was seed like a waste at best and a liability at worst.
But that wasn’t the whole reason. It wasn’t even most of it.
"Next ti you go," I said, holding her gaze, "you call . Okay?"
The wind ca off the water between us.
Sumr’s expression had gone through several things in the last few seconds and landed sowhere quieter, the sharpness softened out of it. She looked at for a mont longer than necessary.
Then she pulled her arm gently away.
"O...okay," she said quietly.
I was about to thank her but she turned and walked off up the beach without looking back.
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