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I let out a long whoosh of breath. I don’t feel like talking about what happened to me. I don’t think I’ll ever want to talk about it. “I’m sorry if I’ve got you into trouble. I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
“I’m not in any trouble. Xeno’s just a little bit...”
“Of an arsehole?” I fill in for him.
“No, protective of what we have here. He was just caught off-guard. When you get to know him, you’ll understand that he’s a good guy under it all.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll let you get changed then,” he says, backing out of the door and shutting it gently behind him.
It’s only then that the tears come, hot and heavy. I stuff my jumper in my mouth and sob, choking on them as they wrack my body. By the time I emerge from the cupboard ten minutes later in dry clothes, my red-rimmed eyes are wiped free from tears and the boys are talking quietly. If they’d heard me crying, they don’t mention it. Instead, Mr Face-In-Shadows makes room for me on the sofa between him and Zayn. I sit down, clutching my hands together in my lap. Feeling ten times warmer and fifty times more awkward.
“You good?” Zayn asks.
“I’m good.”
“You can stay here as long as you need. Jeb never comes down here, so you don’t need to worry about him. Besides, one of us will be here with you at all times, just in case.”
“You don’t have to do that…”
“We’re doing that.” I look up at Xeno who is now watching me intently from the armchair opposite. He meets my gaze with a glare. “We’re doing that,” he repeats.
York grins, his weird sparkly eyes, shining. “Bagsy first.”
“What are you, fucking five?” Xeno snaps.
York laughs, shaking his head with mirth.
“Don’t you have school to go to?” I ask.
“Don’t you?” Xeno retorts.
“Not this week…”
“Then neither do we.”
We fall silent for a while and I know that I’ve upset the balance between this group of friends, but I can’t even seem to find the energy to feel guilty about it. Right now, I need to sleep as a sudden bone-weary tiredness washes over me. My eyelids start to droop and before I realise what I’m doing, my head drops to the side, falling onto a bony shoulder. I jerk awake, my head snapping up.
“Sorry,” I mumble.
“S’alright. Do what you need. I’m Dax by the way,” Mr Face-In-Shadow says, pulling back his hoodie and removing his cap. He has a shorn head, a wide jaw and strange coloured eyes that are a mixture between grey, green and blue.
“I’m Pen.”
“See a penny pick up, all day long you’ll have good luck,” he mutters back, before cupping my head gently and resting it back on his shoulder.
From that day on I became their Pen, and they became my Breakers.
