Chapter 187: Someone Else’s Boat

Chapter 187: Chapter 187: Someone Else’s Boat

The supply run had started as an ordinary one — a hardware store three blocks from the pharmacy district, generators and fuel low enough now that Erik had insisted on a proper haul before the week’s end — but it ended, unexpectedly, with a second boat cutting across the flooded intersection ahead of them, sleek and dark and unmistakably not built by human hands sometime in the last century.

"That’s not one of ours," Kai said, already reaching for his axe.

"That’s not one of anyone’s," Ben said, staring.

The boat drew closer, and Penelope recognized the shapes aboard before either of them had time to worry further — Vanya at the helm, Harold beside her, and Persephone waving cheerfully from the bow, already calling out before the two vessels had even fully closed the distance.

"Fancy running into you three blocks from home!"

"Seffy," Penelope called back, some of the day’s tension easing instantly. "What are you doing out here?"

"Same as you, probably. Hunting supplies." Persephone grinned, gesturing at the boat beneath her. "Also showing off. Look at this thing. It’s disgustingly cool."

Vanya guided the boat alongside theirs with practiced ease, and up close, the craft looked even stranger than it had from a distance — matte black, seamless, humming faintly with some internal power source none of them could identify.

"Where did you even get this," Kai asked, leaning over to study it with open, delighted fascination.

"Long story," Vanya said, the same careful non-answer she’d given before.

"We’re headed to the hardware store on fifth," Penelope offered. "You’re welcome to join, if you’re not set on going somewhere specific. Might be safer, traveling together, given everything happening lately."

Persephone glanced toward Vanya, a silent question passing between them before she voiced it aloud, quieter now, meant just for her. "You trust them?"

Vanya considered the question with her usual deliberate care, eyes moving briefly over Erik, over Killian, over the whole small group waiting patiently a few feet away. "Do you?"

"With my life," Persephone said, immediate, certain.

Vanya nodded once, decision made. "Then we join them."

They transferred what little they’d need to carry between boats, and within minutes, the group had consolidated onto Vanya’s craft — sleeker, faster, considerably more comfortable than the storm-rated vessel they’d been using, the whole boat humming faintly beneath them as it cut through the flooded street with barely a ripple.

"This is insane," Ben said, running a hand along the smooth interior paneling, delighted. "How is it even this quiet?"

"No idea," Kai admitted. "But I want one."

Persephone laughed, settling in beside them with easy, bright energy. "Don’t get too excited. She won’t tell either of us how it works either."

"Trade secret," Vanya said, unbothered, guiding the boat with the same calm efficiency she brought to everything.

Erik sat near the front, quiet, running one hand almost unconsciously along the boat’s smooth console, something unfamiliar and oddly, inexplicably comfortable settling into his chest at the contact — a strange, wordless recognition he had no explanation for and didn’t voice aloud, filing the sensation away with the same careful discipline he applied to everything he didn’t yet understand.

Killian, seated near the back beside Penelope, noticed the tension in her shoulders the moment they’d boarded — subtle, carefully hidden beneath perfectly polite composure, but present all the same.

"You good?" he asked quietly, low enough that only she could hear.

"Fine," Penelope said, too quickly, the same automatic deflection she’d used weeks ago in a different context entirely.

"You don’t have to be fine," Killian said, easy, unbothered, giving her an out without pushing for more. "You could just be tired. Or annoyed Kai’s about to try climbing over the side to inspect the hull mid-transit."

A startled laugh escaped her, some of the visible tension easing at the deliberate, gentle distraction. "He would absolutely do that."

"He’s already leaning."

"Kai," Penelope called, "don’t."

"I wasn’t going to," Kai said, though he was, visibly, already halfway to attempting exactly that.

Killian’s mouth curved, satisfied, and Penelope caught the small, deliberate kindness of it — steering her attention somewhere easier rather than asking her to explain a feeling she still didn’t fully understand herself, let alone one she was ready to name aloud.

Harold, seated near the console beside Vanya, watched the unfamiliar faces around him with careful, guarded attention, saying little, his grip on the small crowbar he still carried out of habit tightening slightly every time someone moved too suddenly. He’d learned, over these past weeks with Nya, exactly how quickly trust could curdle into betrayal — had watched her carry a weariness that felt older than the short time they’d actually known each other, the particular caution of someone who’d already lost more than she ever talked about. He didn’t dislike this group. He simply hadn’t decided yet whether liking them was safe.

"You’re quiet," Persephone observed, nudging his shoulder gently.

"Just watching," Harold said.

"You’re always just watching."

"Someone should be."

Persephone let it go, turning her attention instead toward Ben and Kai, already deep into an animated argument about whether the boat could theoretically outrun a horde if it came to that, inserting herself into the debate with obvious delight, goofy and bright in a way that drew both of them easily into her orbit.

"Obviously it could," she said. "Look at it. This thing probably has better acceleration than half the cars that used to exist."

"You don’t know that," Ben said, laughing despite himself.

"I absolutely know that. I have excellent instincts about vehicles."

"You have excellent instincts about causing chaos," Kai corrected.

"Same thing, honestly."

Erik, still near the front, found himself glancing back at Vanya more than once, something quietly curious pulling at him beyond the strange familiarity of the boat itself.

"Where did you learn to pilot something like this," he asked eventually, settling into the seat nearest hers.

"Somewhere far from here," Vanya said, the same careful evasion as before, though something in her tone suggested she wasn’t entirely closed to conversation, simply cautious about the shape of it. "You get used to controls eventually, regardless of what they’re attached to."

"That’s not really an answer."

"No," Vanya agreed, faint amusement threading through the single word. "It isn’t."

Erik let it go, some old patience settling comfortably into the exchange, content for now to simply sit beside her in companionable, unresolved curiosity rather than push for more than she was willing to give.

Penelope watched the small exchange from further back, something complicated tightening briefly in her chest — not quite the old, sharp unease she’d carried since the stairwell weeks ago, but something adjacent to it, quieter now, worn smooth at the edges from weeks of deliberate effort to be fair to a woman who’d genuinely done nothing to deserve her wariness.

She kept her expression carefully pleasant regardless, the same practiced courtesy she’d maintained since the reunion at the dock, though she couldn’t quite stop her eyes from tracking the easy, unhurried conversation between Erik and Vanya a beat longer than strictly necessary.

Erik caught it.

He didn’t say anything, not yet, but something in his chest sharpened with quiet, careful attention, cataloguing the small, involuntary tightness in Penelope’s expression the same methodical way he cataloged every unresolved threat — not suspicion toward Vanya exactly, simply a fact worth understanding eventually, filed away alongside the wolf’s warning about a very different woman entirely.

Killian, seated beside Penelope, noticed it too, and said nothing, simply shifting slightly closer, offering his presence as the quiet, steady distraction it had become over these past several weeks.

"Almost there," Vanya called back, guiding the boat toward the hardware store’s flooded entrance. "Everyone ready?"

"Ready," Erik confirmed, rising, the strange, unexplained pull toward the boat’s console settling back into something he could set aside for now, though he suspected, quietly, that it wouldn’t stay forgotten for long.

They docked together, the combined group moving toward the store’s entrance with the easy, practiced coordination of people who’d fought side by side more than once now, and Penelope fell into step beside Killian without needing to think about it, grateful, as she often was lately, for exactly how easy he made it to breathe through the parts of this world that still didn’t come naturally to her at all.