Page 67 of The Sixth Spring

“No, actually,” Will twined his hand with Itori’s. “Uh, my friend Becky at work, she kind of fended them off.”

“She fought them?”

That got a startled laugh out of Will. “No, uh. Not exactly. Well, kind of?”

Itori pulled him in, curling an arm around his shoulders. “How does someone ‘kind of’ fight?”

Will laid his head against Itori’s chest. “So… uh.” He paused, trying to find a way to put it that Itori would understand. “There’s this medicine we have. But if you take it when you don’t need it, it’s bad for your body. Makes you sick. She sprinkled some on food and gave it to the police.”

“They will die?” Itori asked.

“No, no. Nothing that serious. They’ll just have a really bad day or two.”

“Oh. I see. And they will not come for you in that time?”

“Yeah,” Will said, even though he wasn’t sure. He doubted Gary would be put off his trail for long.

“She could also poison the humans digging?” Itori asked.

“Maybe,” Will said. “But it would be risky. If too many people get sick the same way, they’ll figure out it was her. Like how when too many humans die in one area. She’d get punished.”

Itori made a derisive sound. “Punished for doing what is right. I do not like the way humans live.”

“Me either,” Will said.

“I did not understand before, when you said it was a prison here. I am understanding better now.”

“It’s the same most places,” Will said. “It’s not just this town. There’s rules you have to follow, the boxes you have to fit yourself inside. You never know who you can trust with–with who you really are.”

Itori squeezed his hand. “Can you trust Becky? She is your friend?”

“She’s my friend, yeah,” Will said. “But I don’t know if I could trust her. Those things don’t always go together. I don’t know if I could tell her about me, about–about who I really am.”

“Do you want to?” Itori asked.

The second Itori asked it, desire swelled in Will’s chest. He realized he did. That knowing Itori, that getting to be with him, had unlocked something inside him. Something that ached to be seen and validated.

“It’s not worth the risk,” Will said.

“Everything you do as a human sounds like a risk,” Itori said. “But do you want to?”

“I do. I shouldn’t, but I do.”

There was a pause. Itori’s other hand stroked his arm thoughtfully. “If you could leave here, if you had somewhere to go, would you?”

Will thought about what California. About Becky’s plans to move there. Will didn’t know much about the place, but he knew it was more… friendly to people like him than where he was now.

But he wasn’t as brave as Becky.

“I would want to,” Will said.

“What would stop you?” Itori asked.

He sighed. “My father. Money. Fear,” He slid his hand out of Itori’s to gesture vaguely. “It’s hard to move, hard to start over. And if I failed, if it went wrong…”

I’d be alone.

But wasn’t that exactly where Will was now?