Bony frame curled up real small in the diner booth.
Fork poking at a soggy mess of pancakes & mushed up strawberries.
Plate of red-brown slop. Reminds her of the someone she hosed down the drain this morning.
Ashing her cigarette in one of the empty eye sockets of a used-to-be low level telekinetic.
Disgusting. Hardly worth the ash.
Thing couldn’t even save itself with its powers. Just worthless.
Maybe she should be more nervous about a factory reset Cain. She’s seen what he can do. Couldn’t have wrangled him if she had to when he had his mind. That switch could flip any second now, and she’d wind up in a hole somewhere.
Got to play this smart. He’s nothing but a >
< again. She don’t want that neither. He’s 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴. It’s his name on her hip. No one else’s. He’s part of her, stupid as he may be. She ain’t turning him loose ‘til she’s dead.
She returns to him, offering up a nice tall glass of sweet tea.
“Sorry if’n y’take it with lemon. >
Her jaw sets at that, at the lie. They’ve played this game before, but it wasn’t so one sided. They were lying to each other because they 𝘬𝘯𝘦𝘸 they were lying. He’s lying now because he doesn’t know better.
Fuzzy eyebrows push together in barely restrained rage. Itching >
< all over with irritation. Only a fleeting break in the act. She’s got the fake smile on again in a second.
“If’n y’say so, Caleb. Be just a second on’at tea. Y’go on n’get comfy. Y’look like you was out’ere n’at heat for awhile.”
She says, shooing him towards the couch >
“Y’mean’at, baby? You’s a godsend, I think.”
She cracks a disarming, easy smile at him. Watching as he passes through the threshold into her place. Their place. Whatever.
It’s the same sort or organized chaos it was when he still lived here. Dried animal skulls and small >
< taxidermied critters here and there. Old loveseat sofa facing a less than modern television. While he’s taking all that in, she’s locking the door near silently behind them.
“Y’go on n’make y’self comfortable, alright? Won’t take me but a minute t’fix ya a glass. Maybe >



