Mary puts one hand on mine, and Gillian grabs the other just as quickly. The two of them stare each other down across me.

Nope.

---

I walk through dozens of warped reflections as we pass down the streets in the dusk, my heart still racing. Gillian and Mary are somewhere in the background, ways and ways behind us in the thick of the muggy urban jungle: they're finally somewhere I might be able to turn a blind eye to the both of them, for the moment. Even then, given the choice of companions, I might have chosen someone besides Elle.

Elle's face, visible only in the hazy, broken windows, is twisted into something akin to a snarl. She keeps messing with her hair without breaking pace, looking down at her hands, and then she looks back at me, or rather, the me in the window watching her. We appear as if we're in one of the shops, which are all sparing in inventory. Usually shops smell better and are full of music and shiny plastic. Instead, the air here smells like poison and the only sound is cars rolling through and leaving the other way.

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" asks Elle.

"No," I peep. "Do... you?"
Elle finally turns. "Yes. I do."

"Oh. Could I come?" I ask.

Elle's eyes narrow even further, until they're little more than eyelash with a tiny slit of hatred between. "What can I do to make you leave me alone?"
"Sorry," I say.

Elle cuts the corner into a store, the bells jingling behind her. She runs her hand down the dusty, maltended shelves, rubbing the debris from her fingers. "Do you need something?"

"Not really."
"Everyone needs something," she says, still screening the shelves. "Humans use all kinds of things to pacify idiot children. I only assumed it might work for you."

"I'm not an idiot kid! I just... I didn't want to be back there, Elle." I say, dropping my voice when the man behind the huge metal hunk in the corner raises his grizzled chin to look in our general direction. "How do you even deal with them?"

"I don't care," Elle says. "You're letting them tug you around. Stop doing that."

Easier said than done. I find myself scanning the shelves myself after another period of prolonged silence. The only sound in the store is the machinery of human cities buzzing around us, a thousand pipes and machines chomping and rattling like the innards of a living being gone horribly wrong. My fingers reach out for a wooden item, curved into a shape resembling that of a child... kind of. It has several thin lines across the front, and when I run my hand down them, tentatively, it makes the most beautiful noise I've ever heard.

"Elle," I whisper.

Elle tips it up. "We don't have the funds for that."
It feels like a small animal, with strings instead of bones. I strum it again, and it responds with another yip. It doesn't sound like a bird, but it's not a yelp either... I experiment, running my hand up and down it, and music pours out of it, almost like the kind that comes out of my mouth, but without a single word.

Elle's head turns from the clock. "We need to leave, Damien."

"Do we?" I ask.

Elle raises an eyebrow.

"I'm being assertive," I explain.

Elle takes the thing out of my hands and places it back in the shelf, where it lies on its side like an overturned turtle. I want to nudge it back to life. Elle leaves the store and begins walking away without me. Meanwhile, a cold rush of air ruffles my hair. I spy a blue rectangle in the distance, just past a few quick turns into the darkness, past a desk of some kind and then a gate. I sneak back that way, holding myself against the item-less end of the shelf, and then I bolt to the back and run back towards her through the alley. When I return to her, my new prize clutched in my hands, I feel unnecessarily proud and more than a little terrified. The conglomeration of feelings settles uneasily in my stomach, and I look up into Elle's hard glare.

"What's that in your hands?" she asks.

"Oh, um..." I guiltily look up and down the streets, then down to my own hands. Elle looks at me with fire and ice in her eyes, freezing and burning over both at once. I clutch the instrument closer to me. Its strings tremble, emitting a whining pitch, and I let my eyes glaze over. "I don't know what happened. I could put it back."

Elle stares over me down the street, which is practically deserted, and then turns in a flash of ebony hair to the clock that overlooks the whole town. "That's not going to be necessary."

Light pours across my face. "Thank you so much."

Elle's eyes raise, like she can't even be bothered to roll them at me. "Now can you leave me alone?"

"If you're going somewhere, Red and the others will want to know about it," I scold. Elle reaches for her side, where a knife could manifest at any time. The inside of her dress is allegedly covered in them, according to Mary, but I'm not dumb enough to try to pull up Elle's dress, nor do I want to risk the safety of my new child. "Woah, I mean... I'm not going to tell you off."

"Smart," Elle's voice is like a knife across my face. "The others are around here somewhere. Tell them I'll be back after dusk. Give no location. Do you understand?"

The clouds reflect off the copper surface of the wooden object in my hands. My fingers are itching to get at it. "Will do."

Elle strides down the street with refined elegance, accelerating into something more akin to a hard sprint. I fall back into the sounds of streets, from the errant hum of the occasional car to the sound of bells overhead. My peripherals demand my attention, and everything around me could be one of them. My herd? Predators? I might as well already have Mary's hands around my neck.

I choke back unexpected tears. "I didn't... We're friends." I repeat to myself, clutching the smaller end of the object to my throat. "I'm not scared of anyone because none of them would ever hurt me. On purpose. I think?"

"Sup," A hand hits my back, hard as a slap, and I jump out of my own skin.

"How much of that did you hear?" I demand, swinging around and brandishing the object at Alex's neck.

Alex's face splits into a wide, unimpressed smile. "You can't kill me with a ukulele, Dam."

"What's a ukulele?" I ask, withdrawing my 'weapon' from his neck.

"I don't know. You're the one holding it."

I examine my ukulele. "This?" I ask.

"No, I meant the other ambiguous item you were holding in your hand."
I survey my free hand. "There's... nothing there."

Alex puts his hand to his face and creases it. "Yes, I meant that. What are you doing alone?"

"I was with Elle. A long time ago, though, and I don't know where she is... she'll be back after dusk?" I stumble over my words and conclude in dead silence. Was there anything else?

Alex tips his head. "You must've been really desperate to go anywhere with Elle. She's completely loco. I bet she threatened to put a knife through your head. Weren't you with Gillian and Mary earlier?"

"That's the problem," I wheeze. We move out of the way of a stray pedestrian, and I feel a rush of self-consciousness. The sudden motion is enough to force me to check the edges of my vision again. No weird noises, all the tops of the buildings are probably free, and I can't see any animals where they're not. She could be anywhere anyways. I can't even trust the birds out here.

Alex nods. "You know? I think we're all crazy. Might be a bit of an issue. 'Course, that's a little unfair to you. You're just... passive."

I'm almost familiar with the word, so I continue pretending I understand what he's saying. "Actually... I do have... one thing. I guess that's crazy, but ever since I saw that article... okay, maybe I haven't even been thinking about it that much. Sorry. We don't have to talk about me. This is kind of dumb."
Alex grins. "Now you have to tell me."

"I want to sing for someone. Birds sing because they want a mate, right? I sing because I want someone... not romantically, but I want someone to listen. But humans have 'contests', whatever those are. They have huge halls for singing in, where the music echoes off, and people watch you. Okay, that part is scary, but I want to-- it's stupid." I say. My hands and face are practically on fire.

"I don't think it's stupid," Alex pats my back. "It's just impractical."

"Oh." I tear up a little, then furiously rub the mist on my eyes away. "Isn't that worse?"

"With us? Of course." Alex rolls his shoulders back again. "But if that's never stopped anyone else here, maybe it doesn't need to stop you either. I don't know about 'contests', but there are ways to set yourself up places they can't find you. Places where no one knows you but the people on the other side of the screen, and they don't judge." He offers up his phone. "I'm on a bunch of forums and stuff on here. If you want, I could help set you up."

I understood about half of that. Nonetheless, my hand goes for the black mirror, then recoils back, stung by realization. "Are we allowed to?"

Alex shakes his head. "We'll only be in trouble if we're found out, Damien."

All eleven of them are staring me down. I squint my eyes shut and take the screen. I can stop at any point. No one needs to know. I just want one song.

Excuses, excuses, excuses, hums the ukulele. It's the most beautiful sound I've ever heard.