The Wrong Kind of Weird by James Ramos

Author:James Ramos
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Inkyard Press
Published: 2022-11-16T15:17:02+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“I finally saw Pacific Rim,” D’Anthony said during breakfast. “Oh, I’m sorry, I meant, I finally saw Guillermo del Toro’s Shameless Rip-off of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Can I just say that I think it’s unforgivable that in this day and age we don’t have mech-technology yet?”

I couldn’t help laughing at D’Anthony’s rant. It was just the sort of normalcy I needed right now in these weird times. “Would you trust anyone you know, any of these people—” I waved my arm to indicate the swath of people pressing in on us in the hallway “—with a giant weaponized robot?”

“I wouldn’t,” D’Anthony said, “but that’s why we would have mech battles. I have a laundry list of people I’d love to demolish with an arm cannon or shoulder-mounted torpedoes.”

“Okay, Char Aznable, press the breaks on those homicidal tendencies.”

“You know you’d do the same—your laundry list is probably longer than mine.”

“Maybe.” A couple of weeks ago, that might have been true. But these days I wasn’t so sure who my enemies were and who my friends were. The lines were blurring.

My mind was still stuck on last night. In a way, I was glad we hadn’t been able to go through with it. Suppose Karla and I did have sex. Where did that leave us? We weren’t a couple, that much was certain, and I wasn’t delusional enough to pretend that we were, but we were definitely more than friends, even though I didn’t know whether we even considered ourselves friends or not. That left us in some sort of nebulous, nameless relationship that defied definition or classification. Were I a romantic, I would’ve thought of us as a modern-day Romeo and Juliet, only hopefully without the whole suicide pact at the end. As it was I was only a regular idiot, and I knew that this thing between Karla and me had little to do with romance.

And besides, at least Romeo had Mercutio to back him up. I couldn’t even tell my best friends about us, even though I sure as hell could use their advice right now.

Or maybe I was thinking about the wrong piece of classic literature.

Something Cassie had said came to my mind. She’d called the relationship between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet a “slow burn.” Was that what Karla and I were? A real-life slow burn?

A loud commotion erupted behind us, and we pressed ourselves against the wall as the Caravan passed by. Generally it was best to avoid the Caravan if you weren’t a part of it; the last thing you wanted was to make yourself a target. Most of them were content just ignoring the common folk, but there were a few among their number who actively sought someone to make the victim of their games. Today’s toxic mix didn’t include Lucas or his cronies, but a shark missing some of its teeth was just as dangerous.

My stomach twisted. That was the group of people I needed to ingratiate myself with.

“God, I hate them,” D’Anthony muttered.

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