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She should have known today was going to be different from the moment she opened her eyes.
It was late.
Gilda was never late.
At least, not in waking up in the morning. Sleeping in was a foreign concept, restricted to people like Thoma and Lanni, and occasionally Don when there wasn’t anything important to do that day, and Gilda was not going to lump herself in with people like them.
Not that there was anything bad about them – she loved them, she really did – but there was a certain air of irresponsibility that she didn’t want to have associated with herself, now or ever, and it hadn’t escaped her notice that when any of the kids ever went along with anything Thoma and Lanni had to say, there would be consequences.
Usually, it was either Gilda or Ray dealing out said consequences in the form of chores, and sometimes Yuugo would chime in with a good deal of yelling that Gilda thought was far too much. In any case, there were consequences.
She woke up late – that was the first sign that today was not a very normal day, but she’d attributed it to the fact that she’d stayed up late with Emma and Ray making plans in the library, so it was to be expected. It was also expected that Emma and Ray would be up before her anyway, because Ray was an insomniac who had never known sleep in his life, and Emma was – well, she was Emma, and Emma-cells could not stay in one place for too long.
She exited her room to the smell of cooking – was it really lunch time? She had the moment to ponder. Had she really slept in that late? – and wandered over towards the bathrooms where she noticed two troublemakers huddled up in a corner, whispering something to themselves.
Gilda narrowed her eyes at them, contemplating whether or not she should demand explanations, but she was still lethargic and she wanted to wash up before having to start her everyday big-sister duties. God, she hated doing it.
Why couldn’t she just teleport to the human world and go clothes shopping instead?
When she emerged after ten minutes, feeling clean and refreshed, Thoma and Lanni had disappeared from their spot, and Gilda decided she wouldn’t hunt them down to ask about it. There was no guarantee they were up to something, anyway.
That line of thought should have been her second sign that today was not a normal day, because when were Thoma and Lanni not up to something? The T and L in ‘troublemaker’ clearly stood for Thoma and Lanni.
Still, Gilda had better things to do with her time than run after two boys who wouldn’t listen to her anyway, so she wandered over to the kitchen instead to ask if Ray needed help with cooking. He didn’t, and Emma gave her a wave from where she was sitting on the counter. Gilda sat herself at the small table in the corner and poured herself a glass of water, watching as Emma stole one of the pieces of carrot Ray had sliced so carefully, and laughed when Ray yelled at her.
No one else would dare do that, Gilda thought to herself. But then Emma was Emma and Ray was Ray. It was always Ray and Emma or Emma and Ray, like some kind of package deal, and it was no secret – to anyone, though she knew Ray thought he was hiding it pretty well (he wasn’t) that Emma was his weak spot and he would do anything for her if she asked.
Gilda sighed to herself, suddenly feeling like a third wheel, even though she was only there to drink water, and decided she didn’t want to hang around two teenagers who couldn’t stop flirting.
Honestly, they were even worse than Norman when he was still around.
Thinking about Norman made her kind of sad. She wondered what Norman would have done if he was here. Would he have let them carry on, or would he have intervened?
No, those three were joined at the hip from the very start, and Don had made the very interesting observation that all three of them seemed to be very into each other. They’d have been the same now, if Norman was around. Three people constantly flirting back and forth with each other, completely unaware of their feelings.
That must be why Ray and Emma are so close, she thought. Losing Norman must have affected them pretty badly.
It had affected everyone – Norman was loved by everyone, but particularly those two, and Gilda felt her heart ache for her precious friends who’d faced so much loss at such a young age. She closed her eyes and murmured a silent prayer that Norman be out there somewhere, no matter what.
“Look, it’s them,” she heard to her left, and there they were, those troublemakers, peering into the kitchen in what was meant to be an inconspicuous way, though it wasn’t at all, really. They seemed to be giggling to themselves, and probably hadn’t noticed Gilda standing to the side at all. “I bet if you screamed, they wouldn’t hear it.”
“What are you two doing,” Gilda asked, folding her arms across her chest. She did not expect either Thoma or Lanni to scream, but scream they did, toppling over one another and pushing themselves back so that they weren’t visible through the door frame.
Out of curiosity – just curiosity – Gilda snuck a side glance at the two in the kitchen, but neither Ray nor Emma seemed to have heard anything. Emma was saying something, and Ray was looking at her with what Gilda could only describe as ‘googly-eyes’ and frankly speaking, it was disgusting to watch.
“Oh my god,” Lanni said, gathering his bearings first. “They actually didn’t notice.”
“Well, yeah,” Thoma said, pushing himself to his feet so he could peek into the kitchen. “Look at them.”
“Are you two spying on Ray and Emma?” Gilda asked, incredulously, and only felt half-surprised when both boys gave her a thumbs up, indicating that they were indeed, spying on Ray and Emma.
Why would you want to watch that? Gilda wondered to herself but didn’t voice, choosing instead to grab both boys by the arm and leading them off towards the living room.
“What are you doing?” She hissed. “Ray will kill you.”
“No,” Thoma told her, with an astounding level of confidence in his voice for someone who was on the receiving end of Ray’s wrath so frequently. “Emma will tell him not to, and Ray will listen.”
“Because,” and Lanni giggled stupidly at this. “Because Ray has a crush on Emma.”
Gilda watched wide-eyed as the two boys broke out into a loud peal of laughter at the very thought of Ray having a crush on Emma. Not that they were wrong, everyone in the shelter could see that. Gilda had even heard Yuugo and Lucas talking about it to themselves one night when everyone was supposed to be asleep.
Still, that didn’t mean these two had to go around spying on them.
“I bet my dessert they’ve already told each other.”
“Told each other? I bet they’ve kissed.”
There was a round of scandalized oohs before a round of pained yelps as Gilda smacked them both over the head.
“You will not spy on them, and definitely not make bets about it.”
“We won’t spy.” To her surprise, Lanni almost seemed sincere about it. “That was never the plan from the start.”
“Yeah, we’re going to go ask Ray what it’s like to kiss Emma and then he will react how we want him to all on his own.”
“You want to die?” Came a new voice from behind them, and all three of them screamed, fearing the worst (Ray).
“Don,” Gilda hissed, smacking his shoulder. “Don’t scare us like that.”
“What, did you think it was Ray?” Don grinned. “You’d have been dead by now, he wouldn’t even give you a warning before killing you.”
“That’s exactly what makes it so fun,” Thoma said, and Lanni nodded in agreement. “The danger of being caught by Ray, but also of having something to hold against him – “
“I bet he wishes it was Emma, but no, it’s just our knowledge of his terrible, terrible crush—”
The boys hooted and fist-bumped. Gilda watched them in horror.
“Thoma, Lanni, no.”
“Thoma, Lanni, yes!” they chimed in unison, and before she could do anything else about it – though there was really nothing she could have done, to begin with – they were running off towards wherever they went when they started scheming. Gilda didn’t know and was too afraid to try and find out, by this point.
“I’ll prepare the coffins,” Don said, and Gilda slapped him on the arm.
Lunch would have been an uneventful affair, as usual, if it weren’t for the fact that Ray and Emma were seated next to each other – something they’d done since the very start, way back in Gracefield House, but now things were different¸ and now Gilda also could not ignore the way Emma would reach over to steal pieces of food from Ray’s plate, who would then do the same, or the way Ray would pick up a piece of meat with his fork and feed it to Emma, who would let her lips linger on the fork for a while before pulling back –
All of this, Gilda could have spent her entire life not having seen, but her life was a big mess since the very beginning, anyway. She was meant to have been eaten so she supposed this was a small price to pay.
She also could not ignore the fact that Thoma and Lanni sitting to her right would constantly make commentary on what was possibly going through Ray’s mind right now, with a few dialogues that made her want to slap them.
Where did they hear about things like that?
She gave Thoma – since he was closer – a pinch on the thigh under the table, and relished in the way he howled in pain. Shooting a warning look at Lanni, she managed to ensure that they would be quiet for the rest of lunch, but she could not unhear some of the things she’d heard.
(Where did they find out about things like that?!)
“Gilda,” they said, approaching her once lunch was over and handed her a piece of paper that she was only allowed to open after five minutes. Gilda watched them in confusion as they ran off to god knows where, and despite herself, counted the seconds before she eventually opened up the note.
If we die, please let the world know we were murdered.
“Oh for god’s sake,” she groaned to herself, and hurried off to find them.
Not knowing the whereabouts of their secret lair was a menace, Gilda decided after ten minutes of searching the ginormous bunker and still having no clue where Thoma or Lanni could possibly be. Maybe Ray had murdered them already.
Ah! Ray!
Considering their plan, if she found either Ray or Emma, she’d find both of them as well, and so she hurried off to look for the two who were much easier to pinpoint than anyone else in the shelter.
The library.
She bumped into Emma along the way. Even in the faint lighting of the corridor, Gilda thought Emma looked a bit pink in the face.
“I’m sorry,” she blurted out. “I tried to stop them, I really did –“
“Huh?” Emma tilted her head to the side. “Sorry about what?”
“Thoma and Lanni! I told them to leave you two alone but they kept making bets on whether or not you’d kissed yet and trying to spy on you—”
Emma cut her off with a hand over her mouth. She looked a whole lot pinker than before.
“You knew?”
Gilda paused for a moment and nodded.
“I tried to stop them,” she said, when Emma took her hand back, but Emma shook her head.
“Not that – you knew Ray and I were – um. Like, we’re—?”
“Dating?” Gilda hesitated. Where was this going? Wasn’t this about Thoma and Lanni?
“We’re not dating,” Emma said, laughing nervously. “It’s just – um. Weird, I guess. Sort of. Though we did uh…kiss? A few times?”
You what, Gilda thought to herself, but didn’t have much time to ponder over that because suddenly there was loud screaming and Thoma and Lanni popped up out of nowhere, to dance around Emma who looked like she may explode at any moment.
“I knew it!” Thoma yelled. “I told you!”
“Ray and Emma sitting in a tree!”
“K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”
“Oh my god, shut up!” Emma squeaked out, but was visibly too flustered to do anything. “Stop singing that!”
“Let’s go sing it to Ray!” Lanni yelled, and before either of them knew what was happening, they had run off to the library where they knew Ray would be.
Gilda still wasn’t sure what had just happened.
“They tricked you into making me say that,” Emma said, breaking the terrible, terrible silence that had settled. “I know you didn’t do it on purpose.”
“You kissed?” Gilda screeched. “You did?”
“Um, yeah.” Emma scratched the back of her head nervously. Her face was still plenty red. “It just sort of…happened?”
“You kissed, oh my god,” Gilda said. And then, realizing the situation: “Oh my god, Ray’s going to commit homicide.”
Emma blinked at her in confusion, before realization set in. “Oh no,” was all she had to say before both of them were running toward the library as well.
In all honesty, Gilda didn’t know what she was to expect. Perhaps, Ray standing over them, yelling like usual. Maybe Ray running after them with a book so he could hit them. Ray grabbing them both by the ear like he did sometimes.
Not: Peace. Silence.
Though there was some kind of tension laden in the air, it was surprisingly quiet for a place where a murder was supposed to have taken place.
For a second, she thought Ray might not have been here, but then she noticed him sitting by himself at the back, with Thoma and Lanni seated politely on the seats across. They noticed her entering with Emma, and immediately, Gilda understood what was happening.
“So Ray,” Lanni said, loudly. “I heard you kissed Emma.”
Beside her, Emma let out a squeak, freezing in place. Gilda watched in horror as a shade of red that she hadn’t ever thought was possible on human beings spread across Ray’s face while he tried to process the forbidden words that had just been uttered.
“I’m sure it was Emma who kissed him first,” Thoma added, digging their grave even further. “Ray wouldn’t be able to taint Emma like that.”
Ray stood.
“You know, I bet there was—” Lanni’s voice dropped to a dramatic whisper. “Tongue?!”
“I’m going to murder you,” Ray said, and even though he was calm, so very calm, there was danger in his voice and Thoma and Lanni seemed to get off on it.
Why were they so troublesome?!
“Would Emma want to kiss a murderer, Lanni?” Thoma asked innocently. “I don’t think she’d like that very much.”
“Mhm,” Lanni nodded. “I think Emma would hate to witness a murder too. Don’t you agree, Emma?”
Ray swiveled around to look at them, barely glancing at Gilda but eyes visibly lingering on Emma. “Emma, I’m going to murder them.”
“Oh,” Emma said, smiling brightly. “Go ahead.”
Gilda watched as the color on Thoma and Lanni’s faces drained.
Before she knew it, there were books flying as Ray’s spectacular aim hit each target with surprising precision, and pleas of forgiveness that came out mostly as screams. A small scuffle later – they should have known they stood no chance against Ray – the boys were being dragged out by the ears, while Ray’s face remained pink – not something she witnessed everyday, but hey, it wasn’t a very normal day now, was it?
Next to her, Emma laughed. “I feel kind of bad now.”
“He’s going to kill them.”
“No, he won’t,” she said. “He has a soft spot for them. And besides, it’s not like they were wrong about anything. I’m starting to worry about all the things everyone knows about us while we thought we were being secretive.”
I don’t want to know anything about any of that, Gilda thought to herself, and when Emma ran after Ray and the boys to make sure they were still alive, Gilda shot a disgusted look at the spot in the library where she knew Emma and Ray sometimes stayed for hours on end.
She was never going to look at it the same way again.