Stay...Alive

Chapter 18

Victorine laughed, even though something told her she shouldn't.

"I shouldn't have just chugged it when-" Horace's voice trailed off. Crap, that's why Victorine thought. Horace crossed his arms and looked at the ground again.

"Y'know..." Horace began, his eyes glistening, "I try not to think about it that much...but karma's a biotch!"

Victorine knit her eyebrows in pity as he continued with his voice quivering, "But hell, just pretend! It's easy!"

Horace inhaled sharply and exhaled through his mouth slowly. "Like how I've been pretending not to be tired so I don't have to go to sleep and dream about it!'

Horace started to stomp back to the loft's exit, ceasing to care whose fingers he smashed. "Screw it, I'm sleeping where the Goddamn horses slept and I'm gonna hate every Goddamn second of it but I'm just so Goddamn tired of everything!"

Victorine heard his stomps get farther away as he appeared below in one of the stalls. They made eye contact for a second as Victorine stared in pity. He exchanged the look, but scowled and broke eye contact. Victorine watched him fall asleep on the dusty ground, his fists clenched and his muscles tight. She shook her head with pity.

With no one left to talk to, Victorine sat with her knees pulled in and her head leaning back. She'd tried to fall asleep, but it was nearly impossible. Not to mention all the snoring and stirring and grunting keeping her up. Eventually, she found herself staring up at the wooden ceiling, which every once in a while let the dust fall on top of them.

After about another half an hour of nothing, Victorine's body had relaxed completely. She'd done nothing and thought about nothing but was hardly restless. Well, that was until a most familiar click.

She flinched so hard she almost jumped. She rolled onto her knees in a flash and crawled to the edge of the loft, gripping the ends and scoping the barn. She didn't see a thing, but she'd definitely learned her lesson. She swung her legs over the side and wrapped them around one of the support beams the held up the loft. She lowered herself until she could grab the beam with her hands, and swiftly slid down the pole.

She landed on her feet and waited to hear the next clicking sound. She moved quietly as she could so she could detect the location of the next click. She stayed on the balls of her feet with her eyes fixed on the barn doors, anticipating the next noise.

Click.

On instinct, she bent her knees and stayed low, keeping close to the wall. The sound was loud and clear. As she approached the door, ready to pounce, another click sounded, followed by a creek. The bigs doors loudly swung open, and Victorine prepared to attack.

She let out a growl as a figure tried to enter. He or she or they or it immediately jumped back and screamed, his or her or their or its face shrouded by the glare of the sun.

"What the hell?" A familiar voice yelled. Victorine's eyes adjusted, and she saw the farmer man who owned the place lying on the ground, a tin bucket clenched in his fist.

"I try to give yous guys some grub and you try to kill me?!" he grumbled as he rose from the floor, the bucket in his hand bumping into the keys on his belt and making the all-too-familiar clicking noise. The man dug his hand into the bucket, pulling out packs of carrots and aggressively throwing them at Victorine. "Take this Goddamn food and stop causing trouble you little brat!"

The doors slammed, and Victorine was left with cold packs of carrots scattered around her feet and enough embarrassment to last her a lifetime. She heard murmurs and turned to see that half the people in the loft were woken by the noise.

"Drama," Horace mocked from the first floor. Victorine snatched one of the carrots off the ground and chucked it at his shoulder (as opposed to his face).

"Kinda wanna punch that guy in the face for how he talked to yous," Yolanda told Victorine, munching on one of the carrots, "but I don't want to get us kicked out."

The other people in the barn kept giving her weird looks that would cause Yolanda to retaliate with a glare angry enough to make them mind their business.

"Don't let anyone rag on you for defendin' yourself, okay?" Yolanda told her. "Or anyone else for that matter. You were just lookin' out for us."

Just like you were defending Primus and Cherie from the thief, Victorine thought, scowling. That went just great.

Yolanda patted Victorine on the back and smiled at her. "Enough with the long face, kid. Ya didn't do anything wrong."

"She woke me up!" a voice called. Yolanda shot that person a death-glare, and they shut up. Yolanda's face changed from angry to caring the second she looked back at Victorine. "Remember that, okay?"

Victorine nodded, and Yolanda opened her arms for a hug. Victorine fell right into them.

The barn doors swung open, and the farmer's wife entered. She was hit with a bunch of dirty looks.

"I just wanted to say sorry!" she hastily explained. "Eustace's been pretty sullen since we lost our business and our animals, and...everything. He just needs a minute."

No one was quite satisfied with that answer, but the woman continued, crossing her hands behind her back and rocking back and forth on her heels. "I was just thinking, no one really wants to be cooped out in here. So if anyone wants to maybe take a little walk around the farm. I don't know where you're all from, but...I sure it's nothing like here."

Yolanda and Victorine exchanged a smirk, and the little girl slid right down the pole.