"Fuck yeah!" Iridían shrieked, running around the common room with my award.
"It's not that big a deal, Iri." I said, grabbing it from her.
"Not that important? Not that important? Argos it's the President's Award for Educational Excellence! You got a 5.7 GPA! Do you know the bragging rights you'll get for this?"
I slumped back onto the couch. She wasn't wrong; if you told me the day I came here that I'd be getting several awards with one of them being presidential, I'd have bitten you on the leg —oh my days I was a feral child— but now…
I'm stumped on how I should react.
I mean yeah I'm happy I got the award; but now I have to go home with Gabe. I'm just trading a snitch infested prison with a possibly rat infested grave.
Who am I kidding? It's definitely rat infested now.
Speaking of rats, where are our parents? Graduation has been over for two hours now. I mean I know Gabe said he wasn't gonna show up for Graduation but I thought he'd at least pick me up.
"Hey, Iri, any idea where your parents are?"
"No," she laughed, looking at her own awards. "My stepmom was in the field but she is abhorrent with directions."
"That is, concerning. Shouldn't you be looking for her?"
Iri waved me off, "nah man. She knows where I am, I'm just gonna spend the rest of the time with you. More fun than going home."
I smiled faintly at that. It was the first real smile I'd managed since everything fell apart.
"Guess we're both orphans for the night," I muttered, leaning back into the couch and letting the late afternoon light pool across the floor. The common room was mostly empty now—no more speeches, no more ceremony music, just the hum of vending machines and the occasional buzz of the overhead lights. Everyone else had either been picked up or was already on their way out. We were the leftovers. The forgotten.
But somehow, that made it feel less lonely. At least we were forgotten together.
Iridían kicked her boots off and plopped down beside me, flailing out her arms and legs all over the place. Her curls were all messed up from the humidity, and there was glitter stuck to the side of her neck—probably from one of the confetti cannons during the closing ceremony. She caught me looking and raised a brow. "What?"
"You've got sparkles on you."
"Oh no," she said dryly, brushing at them with no real effort. "How will I ever recover? Darn. Foiled again."
I snorted. "Such a tragedy ."
"Truly."
We let the silence hang for a second. Then I shifted, tugging the edges of my certificate folder tighter in my lap. "You think I'll actually make it out there?"
Iridían tilted her head. "What do you mean?"
"Like… outside. Life. After this." I stared at the linoleum floor hoping that it might give me an answer. "I don't know. It feels like I've spent so long fighting to leave this place, and now that it's here… I'm not sure I'm ready."
She didn't say anything for a while.
Then, softly: "That's probably normal."
I looked at her. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," she nodded. "It's like a fish that's lived in a bowl all its life. You can't just dump it into the ocean and expect it to swim like it knows the place. It's gonna take time. And honestly? You've got every reason to feel messed up about all of this."
"Even the part where I broke Coach Anders' jaw?"
"Especially that part," she grinned. "I mean, it was cool, but also definitely illegal."
I laughed, more surprised than anything. "You're a menace."
"Flatterer," she said, bumping her shoulder against mine.
Another quiet beat passed.
I reached down and picked up the little metal medallion they gave us—proof we'd survived White River Legion Academy. It was kind of a dumb token, but… I don't know. Holding it felt heavy.
"Iri?"
"Yeah?"
"If Gabe doesn't come get me—like, ever—what the hell am I supposed to do?"
She went quiet again. Not the kind of silence that meant she was ignoring me, but the kind that meant she was taking it seriously.
Then she said, "You come with me."
I blinked. "What?"
"Like, not forever or anything, but… if he doesn't show up, screw it. You crash at my place for a while. My stepmom won't care. Hell, she might be glad I brought someone else home. She thinks I'm 'antisocial.'"
"That's rich."
"I know, right?" She smiled, then her face softened. "I mean it, Argos. You're not gonna end up on the street. Not unless you take me with you."
I stared at her, my throat tightening a little. The room blurred for a second, but I blinked it back. "Thanks."
"Anytime."
She reached over and squeezed my arm.
"Wait, take you with me?" I asked as I stole her phone to pull up youtube.
Iri nodded, "yeah. You think I'm letting you go homeless alone? I already hate my mom and dad, what's stopping me from hitching a ride with you to Las Vegas."
"The fact that it's Vegas."
Iridían scratched her chin, "yeah, maybe. But there's enough people there. There has to be one person who can make fake I.D's for us."
As the video cued up I flopped onto her lap, "And where would we go? We just left this place and I am not joining the navy."
Iridían snorted, and I felt the rumble of her laugh under my ear as I lay across her lap. She absentmindedly twirled one of my curls around her finger like she always did when she was thinking too hard.
"We wouldn't need the navy, you're too pretty for it," she said. "We'd form a crime duo. Like Bonnie and Clyde, but smarter and less murder-y."
"Oh great," I muttered, letting my face half-smoosh into her hoodie. "So we're homeless and wanted."
"Homelessness is temporary. Wanted is forever," she grinned. "That's called a legacy, Argos."
I tilted my head to glance up at her. "You've given this too much thought."
"Don't act like you haven't," she shot back. "You've had your apocalypse-bug-out backpack under your bed since the day I got here. I know you've mapped escape routes."
"That's for emergencies."
"And this isn't?" She raised an eyebrow. "Gabe Ugliano is literally your only emergency contact ."
She had a point. Unfortunately.
"Okay," I said slowly, trying to test out the shape of the idea. "Let's say we run. Hypothetically."
"Totally hypothetical," she agreed.
"We pack our bags—"
"Well, I pack. You'd probably just bring a book and a bat."
"Shut up. I'd bring food."
She looked unconvinced. "Radioactive blue food dye doesn't count as food."
I waved her off. "So we pack. Then what?"
"First thing," she said, counting on her fingers, "we take the late bus as far as it'll go. Like, some sketchy two-lane gas station town in Ohio. Then we hitch a ride."
"To where?"
"Somewhere warm. Texas, maybe."
I groaned. "You want to die of heatstroke?"
"No, I want to work on my tan and ride a stolen horse into the sunset."
I raised a brow.
"Metaphorically," she added. "Probably."
The video on her phone played on, something loud and repetitive —a try-not-to-laugh compilation that we both ignored, letting it become background noise to our chaotic planning.
"And what do we do once we get there?" I asked, twisting onto my back, head still in her lap, eyes locked with the ceiling.
There was a long pause.
She exhaled through her nose. "I don't know."
That made two of us.
"I think," she said, quieter now, "I'd find a place with music. Like a bar or a dive that lets minors do open mic night, even if they suck. You could work the register. I'd sing."
I turned my head slightly. "You'd sing?"
"Yeah."
"You've never sung in front of anyone."
"I can learn."
I thought about it. A dingy bar. The clink of old glasses. A stage made of milk crates and splinters. Her voice—she could sing well, her father was a choir singer before he got lost in his addictions.
"You'd sound good," I said.
"Damn right I would," she said with a smile, eyes soft.
We lapsed into silence again, like we'd already been on the road for months. I wondered if people could just choose to disappear like that. Like if we left tonight, changed our names, started fresh—would the world even notice?
Probably not.
"Do you think they'd chase us?" I asked.
She shrugged. "They might try. But they'd never catch us."
"Why?"
"Because we'd keep running until we were somewhere no one knew our names. And then," she said, poking my forehead, "we'd pick new ones."
I laughed softly, covering her hand with mine. "What would you name me?"
She looked at me for a long time, eyes sharp and warm all at once. Then, with a small smirk, she said, "Orion. Since you're such a great hunter."
I laughed. "That's so dramatic."
"I'm being serious," she grinned, tapping her chest. "And I'd be Diana. Orion and Diana."
"Ya know, we could start a YouTube channel instead?" I offered. "You know how to find people's criminal records. All we gotta do is not show our faces and expose criminals for money."
Iri thought about it, separating my white curls from my black curls as her foot tapped the floor.
"That could work, but are you sure you wanna become an online Chris Hansen? The dive bar would make a lot more money."
"Yeah, I'm sure." I said almost immediately, my mind wandering to the thought of Percy.
"While it would be cool, I don't wanna become a criminal. Or at least a wanted one."
Iridían nodded, "I guess that makes sense. But I still say becoming Bonnie and Clyde is more fun."
I started to roll my eyes at her when the floor beneath us rumbled—barely, as if someone dropped a bass drum on the concrete outside. Then came the music: obnoxiously loud and bass boosted. Something classic rock, maybe Aerosmith or Guns N' Roses, blasting from an engine that was already causing the air to reek of smog.
Iridían blinked. "…You hear that?"
We both sat up at once. I scrambled off her lap and crossed the room to the wide bay window, pulling back the curtain just enough to peer out.
A car had pulled into the parking lot.
A bright blue Triumph Herald.
I don't know much about cars, but this one was weird. First of all, it looked like it had been pulled out of a mafia movie, then dipped in cheap gloss paint and forced to spit smoke. The kind of car that was somehow both small and intimidating. A cigar-chomping mobster in vehicle form. And it roared.
The windows were tinted too dark to see inside, but I could make out the silhouette of the driver: thick neck, beer belly, one arm draped lazily out the window. Rings on his fingers. The stereo screamed, "Livin' on the Edge!" by Aerosmith, which somehow felt like an insult to the band.
"What kind of crusty-ass Batmobile is that?" Iridían muttered beside me.
"No idea." I squinted. "Maybe your dad came to pick you up?"
"Nah, my dad can't drive. Maybe it's your dad's?"
I almost laughed. My dad. Right.
"Nah," I said quietly. "He probably doesn't even know I exist."
We watched as the car idled, the bass of the music thumping through the cracked blacktop. Then the driver stepped out of the door, making my stomach go cold.
"Wait," I whispered. "No way…"
Gabe Ugliano leaned against the door, shirt unbuttoned enough to expose his beer belly, cigarette dangling from his mouth.
I felt my spine lock up as if someone had poured cement down the back of my shirt.
"Gabe," I groaned, voice dry. "In all his greasy glory."
"Seems he's got friends too," Iridían said as she pointed toward two women coming out of the car.
The first of the two that came out was —Margot Robbie?!
Out of the car stepped a tall blonde woman in white and blue tube top and jean shorts. Her bleach blonde hair fluttered in the wind as she popped her neon green bubble gum. Following her was another woman of similar age, maybe a couple years younger. Her hair was black like charcoal with eyes so green you would think she had emeralds in her sockets.
"Who the heck are they?" I mumbled, leaning closer to the window.
"If you don't know how am I supposed to?" Iridían asked.
I rolled my eyes. "Smart ass."
I didn't even get a chance to flip her off before the building doors creaked open. The air instantly reeked of cheap perfume, cigar smoke, and Axe body spray. I didn't even hear his boots; just the sound of his voice slithering down the hall.
"Argos!" Gabe's voice boomed.
I tensed. Every muscle in me knew that sound. It was the sound of a lazy fist slapping a kitchen table, of arguments over burned dinners, of a Camaro door slamming shut right before the yelling started. Iridían must've felt me stiffen, because she slid a little closer, brushing her arm against mine to act as a grounding wire.
"There's my guy," Gabe said as he stumbled into the common room, arms wide expecting applause. He looked akin to something that had crawled out of a beer commercial from hell—cheap sunglasses propped on his forehead, a floral button-up that didn't even try to button over his gut, cargo shorts, and a belt that might've been older than me.
Behind him, the blonde and the brunette followed like backup dancers who'd taken a wrong turn into the Twilight Zone.
"Damn, this place is bleak," the blonde muttered. She gave me one sweeping look before rolling her eyes. "You lived here?"
"Sugar," Gabe grinned, "they don't all get to live in a penthouse, babe."
Sugar. Right. That had to be the bleach-blonde one, chewing her gum like it owed her money. She smiled at me with all the warmth of a wolf at a petting zoo. "So you're the kid. Huh. Thought you'd be scrawnier."
"…Thanks?" I said, not sure how I was supposed to respond to that.
"Don't mind her," Gabe said, waving it off like she was the weird one. "She's just mad she had to cancel her facial for this."
"Oh my God," Iridían whispered beside me. "He brought his girlfriend."
"Correction," Gabe said, slapping a hand on my shoulder hard enough to make me flinch. "Girlfriends."
The black-haired one gave a tiny wave. "Hi. I'm Stella."
Sugar scowled at Gabe. "I told you not to introduce us like that."
"Right, right," Gabe said. "She's not my girlfriend. She's Sugar's sister. Family and all that." He leaned in close and stage-whispered like I wasn't right in front of him, "but between you and me, she's just as much trouble."
Stella's smile sharpened.
I tried not to look as horrified as I felt. Iridían looked like she was watching a train wreck.
How the heck did this guy get a girlfriend in two weeks?
Gabe grinned as though he'd just won the lottery, but I wasn't sure if it was because of me or something so much worse. He slapped my shoulder again—because one awkward, greasy pat wasn't enough—and said, "Got a surprise for ya, champ."
"Is it my mom?" I muttered under my breath.
He didn't hear me—or didn't care. Probably the latter.
"Nope," he said, fishing something from his cargo shorts. "Got you this."
He held it out like he expected a drumroll. It was a phone. A brand-new one, still with the little plastic screen protector clinging to it.
I blinked. "What…?"
"It's yours," he said, waving it enticingly. "Top of the line. Unlimited data. Games. Social media. Hell, it can probably order you a hooker in Portuguese. Or whatever you kids are into these days."
Iridían gagged beside me. "Oh my days."
I just stared at the phone. It looked… surreal. As if it had fallen out of the sky. Or a commercial. Definitely not something Gabe would give anyone without strings. So I asked the obvious:
"Why?"
"Glad you asked," he said, smiling oily. "There's this little talk show out in Vegas. Daytime slot. Real popular with the rich and expensive saps. They're doing this segment on 'Inspiring Youths of America.' You're one of 'em!"
I blinked again. "What."
Gabe raised his hands like he was presenting a new car. "Picture this, kid: you, on TV. Shining like a star. Telling the world how your wonderful, grieving stepfather took you in, gave you a roof after your mom croaked and your spaz of a brother ran out, raised you up into this little genius the government wants to shake hands with. Maybe cry a little. Really milk it, you know?"
I didn't say anything. I couldn't. My throat had closed up, and all I could hear was Iridían's breath beside me, tight and angry.
He only came to bring me on to a TV show? What the hell?! I should slap him and run.
But then I got an idea; what if I do go on the show? Maybe if I go with him I could gain traction and use it to help find my mom and clear Percy's name. If he still has a name to clear.
Iridían began to protest, "why would he do tha—"
"When do we go?" I asked, interrupting her.
Iridían looked at me with confusion. "What do you mean when? You're really going to go with this guy?"
"Uh, yeah." Gabe sassed. "I'm his legal guardian Dora the Explorer. What illiterate brat doesn't want to be on television to help their family?"
I'm already regretting this.
Iridían looked pissed, reaching into her pocket for something but I stopped her.
"Iri, I know what I'm doing." I told her, taking her hand into mine.
She looked at me like I was insane —well, more insane than I already am. Her eyes darted between Gabe and his girlfriends before landing back on me. With a sigh she squeezed my hand.
"Fine. Go ahead."
I gave her a smile and a hug. "Don't worry, I'll be fine."
She hugged me back tightly, "no you won't."
"At least let me lie to myself."
Iridían let out a laugh before breaking the hug and instantly snatching my brand new phone.
"If you're going with him, we're going to keep in touch." She said as she typed furiously. "Don't want a repeat of the incident that sent you here."
I heard Gabe wince from behind me, followed by sounds of confusion from Sugar and Stella.
Once Iridían was done typing, she tossed the phone back to me.
"See ya Iridían," I said.
Iridían flopped onto the couch with a wave, "see you later Argos Jackson."
I waved back, following Gabe and his "girlfriend's" to the car.