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“We can’t keep doing this,” Karolina whispered, her breath tickling the dark hair curled around Xavin’s ear. They’re tangled up together at the top of the hill near Chase’s Malibu house. “We can’t just keep running forever. We’re only ever a step or two ahead at a time.”
“It’s enough to keep us all alive,” Xavin said, tightening her hold on Karolina’s waist.
“Not forever,” Karolina breathed out. “At some point, it’ll catch up. It already has, multiple times. That’s why we keep losing people. It isn’t enough.”
“It will be, some day.” Xavin promised. “We do not run solely to escape, but to regroup and to train. We run to grow stronger, to come back and prove ourselves against that which threatens us.”
“And the people that are a threat, but that we can’t fight for other reasons? Captain America, the X-Men, everyone that keeps trying to make us join their side when we just want to be left alone?”
“From them, we run simply to run.”
“Right.” Karolina scoffs, but it’s a wet sound, a sad one. “God, it feels like it’s only a matter of time before we lose somebody else.”
“We won’t.” Xavin presses a kiss to Karolina’s neck. “We won’t lose anyone, not anymore.”
“And how do we make sure that happens, Xavin? How do we fight the demons and monsters and adults that keep killing us off?”
Xavin can’t answer that. She just pulls Karolina closer and promises to herself that, even if she can’t save anyone else, even if she can’t save herself, she will save Karolina.
She will be the last to die.
(When the day comes that Xavin must keep that promise, they are loathe to cry about it. They have made their choice, and they will keep to it.)