Grant dropped into the seat across from her, turning sideways so his knees almost touched hers. Chase and Dylan crowded the row behind him, phones already halfway out of their pockets. "You work at that bakery, right?" Grant said, "The one that smells like a funeral home." Somebody near the front laughed quick and nervous, then stopped.
Ren said nothing. "That's rude, by the way. Dylan added, grinning. Phone already up and recording. Not answering people.
My mom always said that's rude. Your mom also says you moving back into her basement was temporary. Chase muttered. And Dylan shoved him. And for a second, the whole thing might have drifted somewhere else might have burned itself out the way small cruelties sometimes do when they get bored of themselves.
But Grant wasn't bored yet. He leaned closer, close enough that Ren could smell coffee and cologne. Close enough that a dozen instincts she'd spent years sharpening. Began quietly taking notes. "I bet you don't even have friends," he said.
"I bet you go home to some sad little apartment and just sit there every night alone." The words were meant to sting. They didn't not the way he wanted them to, but something in his tone, the casual cruelty of a man who had never once had to sit alone with anything, made her jaw tighten, just barely, just enough that a careful observer might have noticed. Nobody on that bus was careful enough yet. "Hey," he said, snapping his fingers an inch from her face.
"I'm talking to you." His hand moved to her neck. "Not violent, not yet. Just careless the way a man reaches for something he thinks belongs to him. His fingers caught the thin paracord cord under her collar and pulled.
It snapped. A small piece of metal skittered across the floor of the bus, spinning once before it stopped near the front step, worn dark from years of being touched, shaped, if you looked closely, like a trident. For half a second, something happened in Ren's body that nobody on that bus understood. Her right hand rose 2 in off her knee. Her weight shifted barely onto the balls of her feet.