Marroo found Dhret in her garden when he returned from the courier route with Podmandu that went bad. They’d long ago stopped attending the tower when the other was on duty and they were not. Without his bike he’d had to walk from the burning sub-sect headquarters, eventually taking to the building tops to cut across cul-de sacs and labyrinths of narrow alleyways.

Air traffic streamed around him as he leapt rooftop to rooftop in the clear air. It felt liberating to use the powers he’d ignored since getting his bike, yet, at the same time, like some kind of betrayal after all his work just to suppress what he’d maintained through cultivation. When he stopped to look behind him, he could still see the smoke rising between the towers from the sub-sect headquarters he’d helped destroy.

He dropped to the street as he approached the tenements and used the fire escape to climb the outside of the building. He felt Dhret on the roof before he reached her, and he slipped quietly onto the top of one of the utility boxes to watch her working with her plants without interrupting. She held the leaf of some broad leaved exotic imported from the heavens in one hand and slid a brush over it gently with the other. When she’d brushed the entire leaf and examined it closely, she moved to another and repeated the process. Eventually she looked up and found him watching her.

She hesitated before she returned his smile.

He hopped down from the utility box.

“See how big he’s gotten?” She spun her plant to show it off. “He’s grown so big since I got him. He’s got mites now though. I’m worried I don’t have what I need to get rid of them.”

He bent to look and found tiny white dots crawling around on the leaves where she hadn’t gotten to them with her brush yet. He touched one to lift it and examine it more closely then wiped it off on the leg of his pants without looking at her. “It’s not going to matter.” He told her. “We have to leave.”

She spun her plant back to its original position and wiped absently at one of the leaves, then looked up at him. “What do you mean?” She asked.

Marroo grimaced and glanced over his shoulder in the direction from which he’d come. He could hear distant sirens of the fire brigade around the burning sub-sect headquarters but the smoke was lost to view behind the city’s towers. “I mean we have to leave.” He said, turning back to her but not looking at her. “We have to go somewhere else.”

“Like where?” Dhret asked.

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Somewhere outside of Iblanie territory. Maybe somewhere in the dunes. Anywhere but here.” He looked at her but she just looked confused.

“The dunes? Marroo. What are you talking about? That’s practically wilderness.”

Marroo nodded. “That’s why it’s the best place to go.”

“But…” Dhret wobbled to her feet and Marroo moved to put his arms around her. She put out a hand to stop him and stepped away. “Marroo.” She said without looking at him, then turned to face him. “Why? I don’t understand. What happened?”

Marroo stepped away but hesitated. “I… may… have killed some people…” He scowled down at the floor. “I can’t, I can’t stay here anymore.”

Her eyes widened. “Who?” She demanded.

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Right now we need to pack up everything we want to bring with us. Only what we can carry.” He looked around at the garden they would have to leave behind, and didn’t meet her eyes. “We have to go.”

Dhret followed his gaze to all of her plants and shook her head, but Marroo was already moving towards the fire escape. “I’ll start inside.” He told her.

“Marroo!” She shouted, and scrambled after him.

In the apartment Marroo spread the blanket across the bed and piled his dirty laundry into it. It reminded him of another time when he’d done something like this, gone through his parent’s apartment to bundle everything he wanted into a blanket before leaving most of it behind. It would be different this time. This time he had less to take, and it wouldn’t matter if anyone pursued them.

“Marroo!” Dhret pulled herself through the window. She tripped on her way in and sprawled on the floor and he offered her a hand to help her up.

“Do you want to bring your clothes or get new ones?” He asked.

“Stop.” She said. “Just stop!”

He stopped.

She put her hands to her face and ran them down to her chin. “You killed someone?” She asked. Her voice rose in pitch as she went on. “Just who did you kill? Was it someone in the family? How did you kill them?”

“They were Kotem. I think.” Marroo replied. He shook his head and looked at the clothes bundled onto the bed. “It doesn’t matter. We have to go.”

“But why Marroo?” Her hands went to her hair as she shook her head. “If they were Kotem then who cares? It doesn’t change anything! The family will reward you if anything, if you’re scared, then they’ll protect you! If they’re Kotem than it’s a good thing! It will show them that you can do more for them than deliver messages!” She tried to put her arms around him but he pushed her away.

“It is never good to kill!” He snapped. He almost shouted it but felt his breath churn in his chest and suppressed it at the last moment.

She recoiled from him only to bump into the wall as he jerked away and curled his hand into a fist. For a moment neither said a word.

He threw a book onto the pile on the bed then glared at it all. “I don’t want more.” He told her. “Not if I have to kill people for it.”

He glanced in her direction, but she had her eyes pointed to the floor. Her hands shook and Marroo closed his eyes and turned away.

“I don’t understand.” She whispered.

He put a hand to his forehead and squeezed while his breath tumbled inside his meridians, restrained, through force, from rotating into his aura where they could manifest the blades he’d used to slaughter their ambushers only a few hours before.

“You don’t have to understand,” he said as he dropped his hand, “we have to pack.”

He moved to the foot of the bed to reach underneath it. The sword sang in his spiritual vision when he bumped it, but he reached past it for the bag he’d tossed there when he moved in and he pulled it out to lay it next to the pile of clothes and the book on the bed. “You should be able to get your clothes in this.” He told her as he laid it out. “If you can fit everything it will make traveling easier.”

She looked at the bag and her face screwed up as though she wanted to cry. “No.” She said. “No!” She put her hands on the bed and leaned towards him. “Where are we going to go? What are we going to do at the dunes? Or in the dregs? How are we going to live?”

Marroo just looked at her. He felt her anger reach for him, and then part like a page before his father’s blade.

“Does it matter?” Marroo asked.

“Yes. Yes damn you! It does matter! It matters to me.” There were tears now, real tears that she wiped angrily from her eyes. “If you don’t want to work for the Iblanie who are we going to work for where we’re going? Whose going to take us when haven’t even reached our majority?”

“I’ve got two more months to my majority.” Marroo replied. “I’ll be nineteen. I can get a real job.”

“A real job.” She said it as though to mock him. “Where? With what connections? The city is crawling with people trying to get real jobs, you could have a real job right now if you didn’t refuse to look for one. You killed some Kotem! That’s a good thing for the family.”

One hand shot out before he could stop himself and he shook her. “That’s why we have to leave!” He shouted. Restrained, his voice was still too loud, his grip too hard. He dropped her as soon as he’d touched her and backed away, became aware of his breath spinning around them, spiritual blades on the verge of manifesting as he covered his face and tried to control his breathing and his spirit at the same time while his father’s sword burned lie a torch in his third eye and Dhret crawled away on the floor until they were as far apart as they were able in the small apartment.

He could still smell the blood imprinted on the palm of his hand.

“I don’t understand.” Dhret said as she watched him from the floor. “Help me understand.”

For a moment he thought about showing her what he could do, but when he looked at her he remembered her response when he told her that he loved her and he looked back at the pile of clothing and books he’d made in the middle of the bed and abruptly decided it would be enough. “Stay then,” he said, “It doesn’t matter. But I’m leaving.”

He threw the corners of the blanket over his meagre pile and she tried to grab him. “Marroo.” He knocked her hand aside and looked at the gap beneath the bed his sword was hidden under, but snorted when his spirit sharpened around it and turned to the window.

“Talk to me, don’t be like this!”

He jerked out of her hands and she scrabbled at his clothes. “No you don’t!” She pulled and his shirt slipped off of his shoulder as he pushed the makeshift sack out of the window. It was just a bit too large and he had to shape the contents until they slid through and he pushed his chest through. She grabbed one of his shoes and he kicked it off.

“Stop!” She shouted as he got onto the escape and started down. She stuck her head out of the window to glare down after him. Tears glistened in her eyes. “You said you loved me!” She shouted after him.

Marroo slowed.

Dhret swallowed. “If you want to leave, let’s talk about it.” She said in a quieter voice. “But don’t, don’t just go, like this. Not like this. Let’s talk first.”

Marroo dropped from a section of the fire-escape’s ladder and stopped to stare at the wall in front of him. A piece of his spirit manifested as he stared at it and gouged a line across the brick. He closed his eyes, then hiked his bag onto his shoulder and climbed back up the fire escape until he stood outside their window while she watched from inside.

Tears shone on her cheeks and he studied her before meeting her eyes. “Do you love me?” He asked her.

She looked away from him. “I do.” She replied.

They stayed like that for a moment longer, then she reached outside and pulled him in. He didn’t resist. She hugged him as his feet found the floor of their apartment and he hugged her back, buried his face in her neck while she did the same in his.

“You say you love me, but you act like you don’t want me here.” She whispered in his ear as she held him.

“You act like you don’t want to be here.” He replied.

She sniffed and pulled away to wipe her eyes and look around the apartment. She hiccuped again, what could have been a laugh or a sob or some combination of the two. She covered her eyes with her hands. “I’m sorry I’m such a bitch.” She pressed her face into his chest, hard, and he held her while she tried to knock him over. “Will you forgive me?” She asked.

Marroo pursed his lips and shook his head. “What am I supposed to forgive?” He asked. “I thought you wanted to find a different apartment. I thought, I thought you’d be happy to leave.”

She lifted her head to kiss him, then pulled him tight to her and laid her head back on his chest and rolled it around as though to blot away her tears on his shirt. “I don’t want a different life than this one.” She told him. “I want a better one.”

She looked up at him and he just stared into her eyes. She looked at the blanket over his shoulder then took it gently from him and turned to empty it onto the bed. Put the book back on the shelf, folded his shirts and pants and put them into piles while he crossed his arms and watched her from the other side of the room.

“How are we supposed to get a better life if we stay?” He asked her quietly.

She put her hands on the clothes and stared down at them for a moment.

“You don’t have to join the red squads.” She turned to look at him over her shoulder. “Do they know you killed some Kotem?”

Marroo scowled. “There was an ambush.” He told her. “Podmandu got hurt, but, I killed them before… Athesh… arrived.”

She nodded and looked back down at the laundry in front of her. “Then they owe you something. Something better than being a courier, anyways. They can give you something better.”

She folded the last shirt and turned to kiss him, then stared up at his face while he held his arms crossed over his chest between them and refused to meet her gaze.

“I don’t want to stay.” He whispered.

And yet he did, for far too long.