V. H. King's Ink

No one looked at Caegan funny when he showed up on the steps of the Community Center. No one looked at him at all. Kids and volunteers and adults all gave him more room than they needed to. Pick-up and drop-off time was the most chaotic, but also the most important. Send the wrong kid home with the wrong person and—well, it wouldn’t be the first time someone had disappeared off the streets.

Irene spotted him in the hallway and raced up to one of the volunteers. Not an adult, of course, but one of the older teens, and tugged at their shirt. Irene pointed at him—discretely—and was allowed to leave. They circled the long way to a side exit, coming out on South Keppler Boulevard.

Middle of the afternoon, the metro shouldn’t have been busy. Except it was summer, and there are at least a dozen day-programs for parents to ship their kids off to while they worked. Most of those programs had a hard twelve-year-old cut off, but no one thought twice about how those kids were supposed to get from one place to the other if their parents were otherwise occupied—like sitting watch at a hospital bedside.

“Stay close, Reenie,” Scott said. “The metro is extra busy.”

“I’m not five, Sweets.”

“Yeah, but you’re still a kid, so like—you might get turned around or something,” Scott said offering her his hand. “Metros are like spaghetti tunnels that take you anywhere in the city, but spaghetti noodles all kind of look the same unless you put different sauces on them.”

“Spaghetti only has red sauce, duh,” Irene scrunched her face. “The pasty stuff might be fancy, but I think it tastes gross.”

“Where you been eating fancy sketti at, huh?”

Irene made a beeline to a bench near the handicapped seats. Scott rushed after her, double-checking the distance to the exits. Caegan wedged himself next to the storage racks, his hands slipping into his pockets.

“Miss Edith makes it sometimes,” I rene was saying. “But it ain’t fancy. She puts peas and carrots and bologna in a big casserole dish with spaghetti and bakes it. It tastes like old-people food, and old people food is always mushy and salty.”

Hospital food was like that too. Caegan can see she’s thinking it, even though she doesn’t say the words.

“You wanna know a trick?” he asked her.

“For surviving another dinner that’ll ruin my tastebuds forever? Always, please and thank you yesterday.”

“Creole seasoning.”

“Oreos?! In spaghetti?”

If Irene had wrinkled her nose before, her entire face soured over now. Beside her, Scott tilted his head, frowning as he thought it over.

“I wonder if that would be like cookies and cream spaghetti. Like, it could actually be good, I think—as long as you figured out a way to keep the Oreos from getting too soggy.”

“Put ’em in last,” Caegan suggested.

“I’m never eating cookies and cream anything ever again.” Irene pressed her hands to her face, pulling down her cheeks in agony. “I’m not going to eat spaghetti either. No more noodles for me.”

“But you haven’t even tried it yet” Scott grinned, sneaking in a tickle to her sides.

“No!” Irene flailed away from him, shrinking into the wall. “I don’t care, I’m never eating it or anything like it and you can’t make me!”

“What if Cae makes it for you?” Scott tried. “He’s a pretty good cook, you know.”

Irene peeked between her fingers, eyes narrowed in suspicion. Caegan shrugged—it was up to her, so he wouldn’t push it one way or the other. Not that he would actually make cookies and cream spaghetti, of course. Scott could try that concoction, if he wanted to explain to Mr. and Mrs. Washington why their other kid was in the hospital for food poisoning.

“Miss Edith wouldn’t believe me, but she’d let Spy bring something over.” Irene moved her hands from her face. “You think Spy could come over, or is she busy?”

“She’ll come with a trunk full of groceries,” Scott said, grinning. “We can make all sorts of things!”

“Great,” Irene muttered, slouching into the seat. “I always wanted cooking lessons anyway—but you’re not allowed in the kitchen, Sweets. No weird shit.”

The side of Caegan’s mouth quirked at that last part. Skylar had probably taught her that phrase in the first place, and Miss Edith was the type to let Irene get away with it as long as she didn’t get anyone else in trouble with it.

---

Izzy being laid up for the last two weeks meant Irene could get away with just about anything right now. Scott, Caegan, and Skylar were good company for keeping her occupied when she didn’t want to think about how scared she was—because deep down, there was a tiny part of her that believed her brother was dying.

The three of them took the Red Line from the intersection at South Keppler and Kingston to the stop on Hodgens. From there they switched to the Yellow, which took them halfway out to Brighton. Irene thought taking the metro was the coolest thing, since her parents only took the bus. But all those stops only made her anxious, and she wanted to get this over with.

Izzy had been sick for days before he’d gone to the hospital, and now he’d been in the hospital for weeks. Miss Edith said he would get better, but Irene wasn’t sure. And at first she hadn’t gone to see him, because the way they’d loaded him up into the ambulance still gave her nightmares. She hadn’t told Miss Edith that part, but Skylar had gotten it out of her. And then Spy had talked to Caegan and now they were here—at this giant concrete building that looked like a hotel and a prison all at once.

Irene didn’t want to cry but her eyes were stinging anyway. The smells didn’t help, either. At least they could open the windows when they had to clean at home, so that by the time they were done it didn’t smell so bad you could taste the chemicals. Irene shivered, her hands balled into fists. She was too old to run away screaming and hollering, but that’s exactly what she wanted to do. She stumbled into the huge lobby and then her legs stopped listening to her brain. She couldn’t make them go forward, but she refused to leave without seeing her brother.

Miss Edith and everyone else was praying he’d get better, promising her he’d be okay. But how could they know? And hadn’t it been too long already? Cici’s cousin had gotten their appendix out and was back to work by the end of the week. But Izzy…

Irene bit her lip, but it didn’t help her legs keep her up. You’re not a baby. You have to be strong. For Izzy. Come on, Reenie. You can do this. Nope. She couldn’t. Not by herself, anyway. Scott and Izzy and Skylar and Caegan weren’t afraid of anything, but Irene was scared. She was scared shitless.

“It’s a hike to the room,” Scott said. “You want to sit a minute?”

“Or you can hitch a ride.”

Caegan’s voice came from behind her and beside her at the same time. She was leaning against him, she realized. She would have been embarrassed, if she hadn’t seen Skylar do that sometimes. And besides, Caegan was so still, it was almost like he was a wall. Nothing got to him—even though her brother had said Cae could do serious damage in a fight.

Irene took a breath to try to clear her head but it didn’t quite work. The hospital stank in ways that made her stomach sink all the way to her knees. Caeagan held onto her to keep her from falling.

A second later he’d hoisted her up nearly to his shoulder. Irene closed her eyes and her head thumped against Caegan’s hood. She would tell him to put her down once they got to Izzy’s floor, because she could walk into the room on her own. She had to do at least that much—right?