Part 21:
 

Rating: PG-13
 

"I need a steak."

Darius glanced at her suspiciously and recoiled back into the doorway. "What?"

"Not a stake, you dope, a steak," Arianna clarified. "Your girlfriend's a werewolf, you've gotta have a chunk of beef in your house somewhere."

"Yeah, I do. Why?" Darius stared at her more closely, and Arianna saw his nostrils flare. "Hey, step into the light for a second…"

Arianna came forward into the light of the living room and Darius' eyes widened in shock.

"What happened to you? You been fighting again?" he asked.

"We got jumped," she answered simply. As she followed the lamia into the kitchen she glanced in a mirror. Damn, she did look bad. Her hair was messed up, and her clothes was dirty and covered with blood - not hers, for
the most part. There were dried rivulets of blood running down her chin, and bruises darkening on her face and arms. Her back and legs ached, and she was sure she'd be feeling this in the morning.

"Here." Darius handed her a bloody package wrapped in freezer wrap. "How's that kid you hang out with? He get beat up, too?"

"We did not get 'beat up,'" Arianna corrected. "We were ambushed."

"Oh, is that what they call it now?" Darius smirked.

"We won, though."

"How many were you up against?"

"Five. It was a gang."

"Human?"

"Yup."

"How many did you take out?"

"Each and every last one." Arianna forced herself to grin. It was what a true Night Worlder would have done.

"You killed all of them?" Darius looked impressed. "You'll do alright, after all." He patted her shoulder. "Go get cleaned up. I'll see you later."

Arianna took the steak and left.

"Ow! That's cold! Get it off my face!" Gabriel pushed the steak away. Arianna dropped it on a plate and glared at him.

"You want a bruise to ruin that handsome face of yours?" she asked. "How many girls are gonna look at you when you've got a black eye?"

"Even more than usual because I've got a black eye," he replied. "They'll wonder how many of the guys out there that are jealous of me are stupid enough to try and take me on."

"You flatter yourself." She pressed the wet washcloth on his lip. "Keep still. You really got beat."

"But we won."

"True that, true that." Arianna sat in the seat next to him and picked up the roll of soft white gauze. She began wrapping it around Gabriel's ointment-covered knuckles. Hers were similarly treated. She sighed.

"What's wrong?" Gabriel asked, wincing as she carefully attended to his hands.

"We have to move," she told him. "We've been here too long, and now we might get noticed. The police are going to be around, and they're probably looking for you. And if they see me…well, that won't be good, either. Fortunately,
we're the last people they would suspect had killed those guys. They'd never expect a fourteen year old boy and girl to be able to fight and shoot like that."

"Yeah, I meant to ask you," Gabriel said. "How did you learn to shoot like that?"

Arianna shifted to reach the ice pack. She placed it on Gabriel's bare back. "A guy in Massachusetts taught me. He taught me how to fight, too, and how to do pretty much everything else that would keep me alive."

"Where is he now?"

"Still in Massachusetts, I guess." Arianna put a bag of ice cubes on her wrist, where Sonic's hands had bruised the tender skin. "I left after about two and a half months."

"Why?"

"He'd taught me everything he could," Arianna lied. "It's not good for me to stay in one place too long."

"Where do you get all these places to stay?" Gabriel inquired. "You're my age. How do you know so many people around the country?"

"I don't know them," she confessed. "They're all friends of a friend, just like the guy who trained me. They all owe him favors."

"Him?" Gabriel repeated. "It's a guy who's helping you out like this and keeping you supplied with cash?"

"Yes," Arianna replied shortly, getting up.

"Oh, no you don't." Gabriel grabbed her arm just above the wrist, careful to avoid the bruises left from Sonic.

"I need more ice!" she protested.

"There's ice right here on the table," Gabriel pointed out. "Now, I want to ask you something, and I want you to answer me honestly."

"Why should I?"

"Just do it, okay?"

Arianna sighed. "Go ahead. Ask."

"What are you doing for this guy that he's treating you so well?"

Arianna stared at him in shock. "I'm not sleeping with him, if that's what you mean."

"So what are you doing, if not that?"

"Absolutely nothing!" Arianna tugged on her arm and Gabriel let her go. "And that's the truth!"

Gabriel smiled at her. "Fine," he said. "That's all I want to know."

"And that's all you're going to know!" she told him. "Let's make an agreement, here and now. You don't ask questions about me, I don't ask questions about you. Deal? 'Cause I know you don't like it when I ask you stuff. Am I right?"

Gabriel didn't answer. After a moment he said, "It's a deal."

Arianna picked up the steak and stuck it to his face again. "Let's make another agreement," she said.

"What now?" he groaned, taking the meat and holding it himself.

"We trust each other," she told him, pressing a cold compress on his bruised ribs. "We can't trust anybody, so why not trust each other?"

"Sure, why not?" Gabriel winced at the cool temperature on his stomach. "Can't you make that a little warmer?"

"If I did, then it wouldn't be a cold compress."

"Fine." Gabriel grinned at her from behind the steak. "But after this, you take off your shirt and I get to play doctor on you."

"Go to hell."

"Is that a yes?"