The Quimby Hotel

━ 15: Epilogue

five years ago

"Do you remember your... dad?"

They sat in the scraggly clearing, a beautiful, messy wasteland. Cairo shook his head. "No. I was far too young. All I remember is the washing machine." He sighed. "Everyone insisted on playing hide-and-seek last night. I can tell you it's much harder in the dark. I didn't even really try. The game is horrible. I refuse to stuff myself into small spaces."

Lucille's lips formed an o, making the connection between his past experiences and his claustrophobia. She reached up but hesitated, lips pursed in question. Her mind wandered like that, bouncing from one thing to another at leisure.

"Can I touch your hair?"

Cairo eyed her through half-closed lids. His hands were worn from the day's work, his mind exhausted for no other reason than that thinking about anything at all was a drain on his usual autopilot. Or maybe it was his siblings, loud and unruly and ever-present, that kept him perpetually tired. "Sure," he said.

She pulled his head onto her lap and began slowly weaving her hands through his hair, massaging his scalp. He let his eyes close; this was an intimacy he'd never experienced before. Everywhere her fingertips touched small blossoms sprouted. They trailed through his curls, across his head, behind his ears. The little flowers that she seemed to leave behind everywhere she went. Lucille was the only person who could ever make Cairo appreciate the beauty of magic. Everyone else was using it as a shortcut or a weapon but she only ever used it to create. Lucy was the embodiment of life, all sorts of colors and emotions Cairo didn't yet understand. But he would learn, for her.

Lucy paused on a thin scar near his hairline. "Failed haircut?"

"Good guess," he said with an air of playfulness that seemed to be reserved only for her. "Tokyo with a pair of scissors." He lifted his arm to show off another one. "Swordfought with Shanghai just last week. I lost."

"You're really going to have to start winning at things sooner or later."

"Sooner would be nice."

"I believe that would require effort."

He smiled silently and they rested there for a while, her touch something breathtaking and otherworldly. She was all flowers and dry humor and she made him feel like someone, like he wasn't just passing the time. Or perhaps that passing the time was enough. She always seemed to believe he was worth something.

"I'm going to marry you, you know," he whispered, so faintly that he was sure she hadn't heard it.

But she'd heard. "We can go to Italy," she replied with that bright-eyed enthusiasm.

Cairo laughed softly, going along with her musings. "I don't think we're permitted in Italy. They're afraid everyone's a vampire."

"Spain, then," she amended, undeterred. "We'll go to Spain and I can go to school for history and then we can open a library or a museum, something nice."

"Anything but a hotel."

"No hotels." Lucy's fingers stilled in his hair. "You mean it, don't you?"

Cairo took a breath of cool spring air. "I've never said anything I don't mean." He pushed himself up, turning to face her, and she froze at their sudden closeness. "You owe me one."

Her eyes, blue as the sky, danced with curiosity. "Owe you one what?"

"A kiss. Eye for an eye and all that."

"Oh, because of yesterday?" She pressed their foreheads together. "Are you always this needy, Mr. Quimby?"

"Only for you, Miss Hayes."

━━ ⬫ ❪ ❖ ❫ ⬫ ━━

present day

"The world's not fair, Lucy. I got to grieve and you didn't."

He was talking to a cat. The cat his kid sister had taken in and called Blue. Blue, like her eyes.

He wished she would be angry with him, righteously angry, angry that he'd gone and vanished and never voiced the thousands of sorrys that had echoed through his head. But all she did was flick her tail and curl up beside him on the front steps of the hotel, and if he closed his eyes he could even imagine it was really Lucille sitting there with her head resting on his shoulder. Didn't she understand that he couldn't bring himself to love a cruel, persistent reminder of everything that once had been?

Maybe he could, with time.

Berlin emerged from the front doors hefting a bag stuffed with art supplies, diverting Cairo's attention. He glanced over. "You ready to go?"

He nodded, pulling the knapsack over his shoulders. Shanghai peeked through one of the doors to see them off.

"You'll come back, won't you? Paris's birthday is coming up."

Cairo smiled crookedly, thinking of the cute little brat. "We wouldn't miss it."

Cairo tossed Berlin his helmet, instructing him to put it on. He picked up the cat and swung onto his motorcycle, his brother awkwardly climbing on behind him. Shanghai frowned.

"Do you know where you're going, exactly?"

He shrugged. "Wherever the world takes us."

Mother came out from the doors to fuss with hair and clothes, her touch seeming to put Berlin's slight anxiety at ease. She cupped his face with one hand, ensuring he looked at her.

"You understand you're not running from them anymore. Yes?"

"This feels like running," he said wryly, in his soft, quiet voice. But in all truthfulness, he'd chosen to come—Rome had tried talking him out of it, but Cairo knew better. He knew what it felt like to be unsatisfied, to be searching for something more beyond home. He supposed that now he could finally fulfill all those dreams he'd had with Lucy. Now that he wasn't alone.

"There won't be anyone coming for you. The enemy has been warned. And if a threat does emerge—"

"We can handle that," Cairo finished, his tone deadpan. He tossed Berlin a glance over his shoulder. "You want to talk?"

He shook his head.

"Alright, then. Riding in silence it is."

Mother petted Lucille briefly and leaned over to kiss Cairo on the forehead. "We'll miss you. Don't get yourself into trouble."

"Trouble? Ah, I never do."

With that, Cairo revved the engine, and the three of them—two brothers and a cat—rode off into the horizon, finally running not from something, but towards something new.

- 1045 Words -