Chapter 167: Not Anyone’s Savior

Chapter 167: Chapter 167: Not Anyone’s Savior

The boat unfolded from Vanya’s storage space in a way that made even Harold — three weeks into watching her pull increasingly strange things out of thin air — go quiet for a moment.

It wasn’t inflatable. It wasn’t storm-rated camping gear scavenged from some abandoned sporting goods store. It was sleek, matte-black, unmistakably advanced in a way that had nothing to do with anything currently manufactured on this planet, its hull humming faintly with some internal power source that clearly owed nothing to gasoline or batteries.

Persephone studied it for a long moment before climbing in, expression carefully neutral — the same practiced blankness she’d perfected years ago, sitting through family dinners where half the table smiled at her while quietly calculating how useful or dangerous she might become to them someday.

"That’s not something you found," she said, settling near the bow.

"No," Vanya agreed, offering nothing further.

Persephone didn’t press. She simply filed the observation away, the same way she filed everything about Vanya and Harold — not suspicion exactly, but the old, ingrained habit of cataloguing every person around her as a variable rather than a given. She didn’t trust Vanya. She didn’t distrust her either. Trust, in Persephone’s experience, was earned in blood and time, and she’d extended it to exactly four people in her entire life. Everyone else remained a question mark, however useful or pleasant the company.

Harold climbed in without comment, settling near the console beside his cousin, entirely unbothered by whatever mysteries the boat’s origins carried. He’d stopped needing explanations weeks ago.

They pushed off from the flooded lobby entrance, and the moment Vanya engaged whatever passed for the boat’s propulsion, it surged forward with a smoothness that put every other vessel currently navigating the flooded streets to shame — silent, fast, cutting through debris-choked water like it wasn’t there at all.

They reached the pharmacy district within minutes, a fraction of the time the trip would have taken by ordinary boat, and Vanya guided the vessel carefully toward a side street where a partially submerged convenience store still showed promise — untouched windows, shelving visible through the flooded entrance that suggested nobody had fully cleared it yet.

"Quick," Vanya said, already stepping out into the knee-deep water near the entrance. "In and out."

They moved efficiently, Persephone and Harold sweeping shelves while Vanya kept watch near the door, and within twenty minutes they’d cleared most of what remained — canned goods, bottled water, a modest stash of first aid supplies — all of it vanishing into Vanya’s space the moment it left the shelf.

They were nearly finished when the shouting started outside.

"That’s it! That’s the boat, right there!"

Vanya’s expression didn’t change at all, though she moved to the doorway with the unhurried economy of someone who’d already anticipated exactly this scenario the moment she’d chosen to bring the boat somewhere it could be seen.

A small crowd had gathered near the water’s edge outside, six or seven people, drawn by the boat’s distinctive silhouette and the low hum of its engine still idling near the flooded curb. At the front of them stood a heavyset man, soaked to the waist, gesturing angrily toward the vessel.

Persephone stepped up beside Vanya, already assessing the crowd with the same detached, practiced calculation she’d have applied to any room full of people with competing agendas — who held real leverage, who was simply loud, who might actually be dangerous versus who was just desperate enough to look it.

None of them, she decided within seconds. Desperate, yes. Dangerous, no. Not yet, anyway.

"We need that," the man called out, already wading closer. "My family’s stranded three blocks over, water’s rising fast, and that thing looks like it could make the trip in half the time anything else could."

"It’s not for lending," Vanya said, voice flat.

"You don’t get it," the man pressed, closing more distance than a smarter man would have. "This isn’t a request. People are dying out here every single day because nobody’s got the resources to help each other anymore. You’ve got something that could actually save lives, and you’re just going to what, keep it for yourselves?"

"Yes," Vanya said, without hesitation.

The bluntness of it seemed to catch the man off guard, his face flushing with fresh anger. "That’s disgusting. You know that? People like you, hoarding everything useful while the rest of us drown—"

He lunged for the boat’s edge, hand closing around the rail.

Persephone’s crossbow was already up, unhurried, the same easy, practiced motion she’d have used adjusting a stray hair at a gala. She didn’t hesitate. The bolt caught him cleanly through the shoulder, and he staggered backward with a sharp cry, releasing the rail.

"I don’t enjoy repeating myself," she said, voice pleasant, almost bored, already nocking a second bolt with the same unhurried grace. "It’s not for lending. He heard that the first time. This was just for people who need a visual aid."

The crowd froze. The man clutched his shoulder, blood blooming through his soaked shirt, staring at her with a mixture of shock and disbelief.

"You shot me," he said.

"I did," Persephone agreed, entirely without malice, the same easy smile she might have worn at a party surfacing briefly on her face. "You’re welcome for the shoulder. I was aiming for the throat."

A ripple of unease moved through the remaining crowd, several of them exchanging glances that had shifted rapidly from anger into something closer to genuine fear.

"Get your own transportation," Vanya said, addressing the wider crowd now, voice carrying easily across the flooded street, no heat in it at all — simply fact, delivered the way she delivered every fact. "This isn’t a public resource. We’re not a rescue service."

"That’s cold," one of the women in the crowd said, disgust plain in her voice.

"It’s accurate," Vanya replied, voice flat, giving nothing else away. "I’ve carried responsibility for people who never thanked me for it before. It didn’t end well for anyone, including me. I’m not interested in repeating the arrangement."

The woman opened her mouth to argue further, then seemed to think better of it, the particular exhausted resignation of someone recognizing an argument she had no chance of winning.

"You could at least try," she said instead, quieter now.

"I am trying," Vanya said. "I’m trying to keep the two people in this boat with me alive. That’s the entirety of what I owe anyone right now."

The crowd’s anger curdled slowly into something more resigned, several of them beginning to disperse, muttering, casting bitter glances back toward the boat as they waded away through the flooded street.

"Assholes," one man muttered, just loud enough to carry. "The whole lot of you."

"Probably," Vanya said, entirely unbothered, already climbing back into the boat.

Harold followed after her, glancing back once at the dispersing crowd, expression unreadable — not uncomfortable exactly, just quiet, thoughtful, the particular careful attention he gave everything Vanya said or did these days, cataloguing it the way a student catalogued lessons he intended to remember for the rest of his life.

Persephone lowered the crossbow, reloading it with the same unhurried calm she’d used to fire it, and climbed in after them, a bright, easy smile already settling back over her features — the same one she wore at parties, at family dinners, in rooms full of people who’d smile at her while quietly deciding whether she was worth the trouble of killing.

"You’re very good at that," Harold observed, glancing at her.

"At shooting people?" Persephone widened her eyes, mock-innocent. "Harold. I’m a delicate flower."

"That’s not what I meant." Harold fought a smile of his own. "I meant the way you did it. Like it wasn’t a big deal."

"It isn’t." She shrugged, cheerful, nudging his shoulder with hers. "He grabbed the boat after being told very nicely not to. That’s just poor manners catching up with him. I don’t lose sleep over rude men."

Vanya glanced back at her, something faintly, briefly assessing in the look — not surprise exactly, more like the recalibration of a piece she’d been slotting incorrectly into a puzzle. "You’ve done this before."

"Loads of times." Persephone flashed her a grin, easy and disarming, the exact expression she’d have used to deflect a nosy aunt at a gala. "I contain multitudes, Vanya. Try to keep up."

Something almost like amusement flickered behind Vanya’s composed expression, though she said nothing further, simply guiding the boat back out into open water.

They rode the rest of the way back in comfortable, watchful silence, the flooded city sliding past on either side. Persephone kept the easy smile in place, the same reflexive mask she wore whether she was surrounded by enemies or simply strangers whose loyalty hadn’t yet been tested, and let her eyes drift over Vanya with quiet, unhurried attention — the flat, unbothered certainty in everything she said, the particular exhaustion sitting just beneath her composure that Persephone recognized, distantly, as the same weight she’d seen behind her own father’s eyes more than once, in quieter moments when he thought no one was watching.

Not someone I trust yet, Persephone thought, smile never wavering. But not someone I need to worry about either. Not today.

That, for now, was enough.