Run, rabbit, run...{WT}

Two months into life in District Two, living around other people still feels unnatural. Lalik's apartment isn't too different from the one she used to comfortably call home in District Eleven—small enough to monitor, with an owner shady enough not to ask about documents she can't or won't provide—but after years on the move, sleeping in the same place every night feels more vulnerable than sleeping outside. If anything, every time she catches the relief of familiarity creeping up on her, the walls close in a little harder than before. Comfort, she has long since learned, is in itself a recipe for danger.

She compensates. Not having a defined, traceable routine settles her nerves a little, and every few days she checks up on a different supply stash, just in case. She sleeps dressed and armed in the front from of the apartment, where anyone breaking in would have to wake her up. Still, sometimes when she means to work she finds herself staring at the door for hours instead, hissing at the ferret when she makes too much noise.

Nights like that—like tonight—she always eventually laces up her boots and gets out. If she's going to be useless inside, she might as well burn the energy on getting to know this place. She explores during the day too, of course, but some places are easier to haunt at night, with fewer people to notice her coming and going. Bit by bit, one anxious night at a time, her mental map of that second layer of District Two expands.

Tonight she skims over one of the nicer neighborhoods, the sort of place with tall, clean houses where she could imagine Arcadia growing up. She didn't—Lalik would recognize that neighborhood, however short and however long ago their stint in it—but it has that sense. Rich homes are the same anywhere: turmoil stuffed into painstakingly pristine façades with just enough space between for people like Lalik and Cady to make the shadows a second home.

At some point, no doubt, she'll revisit some of these roofs and backyards as escape routes. For now, she slides calmly under windows and over fences and lets nostalgia sand away the nervous energy from earlier.

It's early enough in the night that the streets are thinning, but she isn't yet alone with them. Here and there a lone figure hurries home after a late night at work, or a couple wanders along on a walk. Lalik either ducks away from them or strides right by like she was born here, paying each person just enough attention to know where they are until they vanish down the road. So she notices immediately when she rounds a corner to find a silhouette running lopsidedly at her, and tenses her feet to run the moment she registers that someone keeping pace despite an obvious limp is probably running because they have to.

Her first step is barely off the ground when the silhouette rams into her. Lalik overbalances and falls back, barely catching herself on the raised foot. Throwing one hand out keeps her upright, but the final position forces her to scramble on the way up. Cursing herself for that moment of sloppiness—on another night, that could have meant her life—she puts her back against the wall and pulls her hand back in to draw a knife.

Up close, the shadow resolves into a girl not far from Lalik's age. Even on the ground she clearly has the height advantage. On the other hand, she's on the ground, and she got there by running directly into a stationary target. For now, though her hand still hovers against her hip, she leaves the knife sheathed.

"Who's after you," she says flatly, more an order than a question, ignoring the apology entirely in favor of scanning the street again. It remains quiet, but whoever is coming may not be as clumsy as their prey, and Lalik is as uninterested in taking off in the wrong direction as she is in standing here like an extra target.

Any doubt about whether the stranger was a threat evaporates in moments. She apologizes again, as though Lalik didn't hear her the first time; more tellingly, she stays down as she does so, apparently completely unconcerned with lying prone in front of an unknown quantity in the middle of the night. She was in a rush, she says, as though that's any excuse for this level of ongoing carelessness.

Lalik wrinkles her nose at that. If possible, getting herself knocked down now feels even clumsier. Inconvenient as a fight would be, proving she still knows what she's doing sounds therapeutic. On the other hand, she can't complain about hearing that no one else is involved. As she folds her arms and steps lightly to the side, where she'll be out of arm's reach whenever the stranger gets up, Lalik only bothers to keep her usual half an eye on the street around them.

The other girl is busy mumbling an entire speech, only about half of which Lalik catches—something about a shitty aunt? A friend? Sneaking out, evidently. If she cared enough to say so, Lalik could admit that she can kind of relate—her parents tried to keep her from Cadia toward the end, it's a dick move—but as it is, she doesn't even care enough to roll her eyes at the theatrics. The world as we know it, indeed. All she does is quirk her eyebrows upward as the girl finally launches to her feet and declares her own dramatic exit.

... And almost immediately lurches to reach for her ankle.

"Silk-fucking-sharp," Lalik hisses, reaching to grab the other girl's arm—still from behind, where she would have to twist awkwardly to attack, because she does indeed have the height advantage and Lalik doesn't take chances even with fools—before she can stumble too far. It's no skin off her nose if some inept teenager goes home with an inflamed ankle and can't walk for a week, but being here to watch this is embarrassing. A teenager in the nice part of town is this impaired by a sprained ankle? The hell kind of show have they been running in District Two since Arcadia took off? "Wrap that or something."