Izza returned to the warehouse late, tired, scared, and found Cat seated in the center of the floor, legs crossed so each foot rested on the opposite thigh, hands palms up on her knees. Cat’s green eyes reflected the thin light that filtered through the broken warehouse roof.
“I found Nick,” Izza said. Her voice shook. She steadied it. “I told him off.”
“Thank you,” Cat said. “Must not have been easy.”
Izza nodded. She stood by the hole, and did not enter the warehouse.
“You want to talk?”
But the words hung on empty air. Izza was gone already. She climbed to the rooftops, and crossed a few blocks over to bed.
The next night she brought Cat food and water, and the next and the next after that, but each time she said “you’re welcome” when Cat said “thank you,” and left.
On the fourth night, when she entered the warehouse, she heard footsteps behind her. She turned fast, felt the food she’d brought slosh in the wicker basket. Cat crouched in the hole they used for a door, blocking Izza’s avenue of escape. “Hey,” she said. “Are you okay?”
“Get out of the way.”
“You’ve been on edge. If we’re watching out for one another—”
“I never asked you to watch out for me.”
“What happened that night, with Nick?”
Izza walked to Cat’s bedroll, set down the basket and the water jug, and turned back. “I took care of it,” Izza said. She wanted to sound blunt, badass, but she knew she didn’t.
“Something scared you. You want to protect yourself. I get that. So do I. I need to know if we’re in trouble.”
“If you’re in trouble, you mean.”
“If you’re in trouble, so am I.”
“We’re fine.” But she was tired, and alone, and Cat remained in front of the exit, not threatening, just there. The woman had saved her—they’d saved each other. She deserved to know. “When I found Nick, he was about to get caught. Basically. I tried to keep him safe. Ended up running from a Penitent.”
Cat stepped into a shaft of moonlight. If Izza wanted, she could sprint around the other woman and out. She didn’t. “You got away.” Cat said it like a fact, but there was a question hidden.
“No. I got caught. Don’t worry, we’re fine, nobody knows about you. Someone saved me. Bailed me out. I didn’t—I didn’t even know him.”
“A kid?”
“No. A man in a bad green suit.”
“What’s his angle?”
“I don’t know,” Izza said. “He asked me about the Blue Lady, that was all. And he looked at me like they do.”
“Like the kids.”
She nodded. “Like the kids.”
“The Blue Lady, that’s the story you tell the children.”
“More than a story,” Izza said. “She’s real. Or she was. But she was ours. That guy doesn’t know her. Couldn’t.” She was pacing, and she hated pacing. Her hands hovered in front of her, palms up, cupped as if to catch rain. When she noticed she stuffed them in her pockets.
“But he asked about her anyway.”
“He did.”
“What did you say?”
“I ran.”
“Okay.”
“Hells, do you mean ‘okay?’” She wheeled Cat, but she did not flinch. “Why should I let another person come to me for help? Help people and you get caught. They stick you in a Penitent forever, if you’re lucky. If not, you just die.”
A rat scampered over a box in the shadows. Beneath the warehouse, Izza heard the waves.
“You’re a good person,” Cat said.
“You say that as if it’s a problem.”
“It makes what you’re trying to do harder.”
“What do you think I’m trying to do?”
“Survive,” she said.
“I’ve survived this far.”
“But it’s not easy for you. You want to help people, even strangers”—and she tapped her own chest, below the collarbone—“of debatable character. But that way of life means sacrifice. You don’t belong to yourself. You live in, you know, connections. Duty.” She broke off, shook her head. “Listen to me. As if I know what I’m talking about. I’m the wrong woman to offer advice. Life sucks, especially for good people.”
“I knew that already,” Izza said.
“Sure.” Cat sat beside Izza on the bedroll. “It’s not like the world comes down to one neat choice—help myself or help other folks. Survival and duty. More like, every day we make a hundred little choices, and sometimes they contradict. Hells.” She lay back, arms crossed behind her head, and stared up at the ceiling. “Now you see why I suck at being a priest.” She sniffed. “Food smells good.”
“Plantain,” Izza said. “With chicken.”
“Thank you.”
“Have you ever had one of those clear choices? Between duty and survival?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“What did you choose?”
Cat didn’t speak for a long time. At last, she shrugged. “I came here.”