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The others talk quietly a little ahead, Sunshine between me and the group. I jog forward in the dirt, having to duck my head for the crumbling rocks to accommodate my height, until I’m level with the strange woman. Her eyes swivel over to me for just a moment before she sighs deeply, her brown eyes rolling straight to the back of her head.
“You again,” she mutters.
“Me again,” I grin. “Now are you going to tell me your name? Since you owe me your life and all.”
“I’m fine being called Sunshine,” she says with a fake smile. “Now will you please leave me alone? Houston said we should be quiet.”
We turn left into an old subway tunnel, water dripping into puddles on the broken tracks. I try to think about how to approach her when she clearly wants nothing to do with me. My mama would have taught me better, I’m sure, but I never met her.
So my manners are lacking, to say the least. After all, I was raised by wolves.
“I’m sorry, I just…you interest me,” I say.
“Yeah, my grandmother warned me about men who might beinterestedin me,” Sunshine says. She blows a honey brown curl out of her face, huffing a little. “Why do you even want to know anything about me? After we get out of here, I’ll never see you again.”
“Hey, Austin’s notthatbig,” I shrug.
“I won’t be staying in Austin.”
“Then where are you going?” I ask.
“I’m just going there to get help for my family,” she says. “I think they’ve been taken to the Angel facility south of Waco.”
Interesting. “You know a lot more about Angel hideaways than I think most girls your age would,” I say.
“Girls my age?” she snorts. “I bet you don’t even know how old I am.”
“Well, how could I when I don’t even know your name?” I say, flashing her a charming smile. The look is normally pretty effective, and I can’t say I’m surprised when she blushes a little. She doesn’t try to hide it—not with how dark it is—but I see it anyway.
“I’m twenty-three,” she says quietly.
“Ah,” I say. “So should I call you that from now on?”
She smiles softly. “Sunshine still works.”
It’s the first smile I’ve gotten out of her, so whatever I’m doing, it’s working. And I have to admit, it isn’t that she’s immature; I figured her for younger because most people are Blessed by the time they’re eighteen, in some form. If they’re not, it means they’re favored in some way by the Angels, or they don’t live in a city…or they’ve been in hiding, hunkered down in some decrepit suburb.
I think it’s gotta be the latter with her.
“You thought I was younger, huh?” she says.
“Well, yeah,” I say. “Don’t meet a lot of un-Blessed people over eighteen.”
“I’ve had a sheltered life,” she says.
Unsure what that means, I probe a little further. “And that has something to do with your family, I presume?”
She scowls at me, her mood changing on a dime. “You’re being awfully nosy for someone that isn’t ever going to see me again after the next two days,” she says.
“I told you, I’m just trying to be friendly.”
“Sounds like something a creep would say.”
We stop short when we bump into the people in front of us, who start and glare at us with a hiss. I raise my hands and wince, then look up at the front of the group to see that Houston has turned around, his finger to his lips.
“We’re just about to head out into the suburbs,” he says. “Stay quiet and stick with a buddy. I don’t want any of you getting lost in the woods.”
I hear Sunshine take a shuddering breath, and glance over at her.
