The next hour passed with the sort of extraordinary stupidity that would have been difficult to explain to any reasonable adult.
Ikaris threw.
Bella attempted to imitate him.
Sometimes she succeeded. Most of the time, she did not.
On one particularly memorable occasion, she managed to wrap a roll around the trunk of a nearby tree so thoroughly that Ikaris was forced to concede she possessed a peculiar talent for decorating objects other than the ones she intended.
He hummed. "You have a talent for landscaping."
Bella stuck her tongue out at him; the more playful side of her personality rearing its head. It emerged in the rare few instances she was too comfortable, and thoroughly unaware of her surroundings.
Ikaris had found her at the perfect time of the night when she was both. He regarded the gesture with mild fascination.
"Very mature." He joked.
"You're the one who dragged me out here."
"A decision I am beginning to question."
She laughed.
He threw another roll, watching it sail across the lawn before catching against a branch and unraveling in a magnificent white arc.
"How are you so good at this?" Bella asked.
"Practice."
She frowned. "You've done this before?"
"I've done worse." He voiced. "And once you do worse, everything else becomes easy."
"Like what?" She asked as if the question hadn't been on her mind for week, lingering on the edge of her tongue, twisting it in knots.
Ikaris paused mid-throw, turned his head deliberately, slowly, in her direction, meeting her eyes directly. And she knew—she had asked one question too much. Crossed the line neither of them dares name, but it was always barring her way forward regardless.
As much as Bella wanted to convince herself she knew Ikaris, by proximity and friendship, she was constantly aware of just how much of his story remained untold. Possibly, forever.
There were moments when Bella suspected Ikaris genuinely did not understand how unusual he was.
He moved differently from other people, not in a manner that attracted immediate attention, but with a confidence that suggested he understood the precise location of his body in relation to everything around him.
He rarely stumbled. Rarely misjudged a distance.
And when he moved quickly, there was something almost unsettling about the ease with which his body obeyed him.
Bella had noticed these things before.
She had written about them.
Extensively. Embarrassingly extensively.
But tonight, she was having too much fun to examine them.
And Ikaris, for his part, was grateful.
He had spent so much of his life being observed, evaluated, and measured against standards of normality that seemed to change whenever he approached them.
Bella was different.
She noticed him, certainly, perhaps more than anyone else, but she rarely treated his peculiarities as something requiring explanation.
If he said something strange, she frowned.
If he behaved unusually, she complained.
And if he climbed a tree outside her bedroom window in the middle of the night, she apparently followed him. An alarming development. One he intended to discourage in the future.
Probably.
By now, Arthur Vancent's home resembled the unfortunate victim he often made others.
White ribbons hung from the trees, long streamers stretched across the roof, and several rolls had unraveled across the lawn in arrangements that suggested an exceptionally untalented decorator had been given unlimited supplies and no supervision.
Bella surveyed their work.
Then covered her mouth. "Oh, my God."
Ikaris folded his arms. "Not bad for our first time."
"We're terrible people." She looked at him. "We just toilet-papered someone's house."
"Tod did, remember?"
"We did."
"That's the language that lets guilty people walk free."
She shook her head. But she was smiling.
And Ikaris found that he preferred the smile to the alternative.
He had wanted revenge. That much was true.
When he woke from the dream, with the memory of golden blood and burning skies still clinging to the edges of his consciousness, he had felt something dark and familiar moving beneath his thoughts.
An appetite for violence.
For correction.
For making someone suffer because they had dared to hurt something he considered worth protecting. It was an old instinct. Older than his years—if his dreams were to be believed.
And one he had spent much of his life attempting to restrain.
There were things he could have done to Arthur Vancent, things that would have frightened him, humiliated him, perhaps even hurt him. And some small, unpleasant part of Ikaris had wanted precisely that.
But then he had thought of Bella.
Of her ridiculous clumsiness, her gentle voice, and her insistence that Arthur had merely made a mistake. And he had wondered whether revenge necessarily needed to involve suffering.
Perhaps it could involve embarrassment. Perhaps it could involve inconvenience. Perhaps it could be something so extraordinarily childish that even his therapist would struggle to classify it as evidence of a dangerous psychological deterioration.
Though she would undoubtedly try.
And now, standing beside Bella beneath the warm Phoenix night, Ikaris discovered something he had not anticipated.
He no longer cared particularly much about Arthur Vancent.
The boy was somewhere inside the house, presumably sleeping, blissfully unaware that his lawn had become the site of a minor paper-based catastrophe.
He would wake tomorrow. He would be irritated.
Perhaps furious.
Someone would clean it. And life would continue.
But Bella—
Bella was laughing.
And that seemed a considerably better outcome than anything he had originally planned. Of all the possibilities available to him, that would have sent him into dark spirals, Ikaris was sure, in this moment, he had chosen the right path.
The right path amongst infinite paths.
"Are we done?" she asked, realization of what she had done settling into her chest like a horse's kick.
And thus Bella frightened herself into learning the second lesson of criminal activity—always ensure you are not caught.
Ikaris looked at the remaining roll. Then at the house.
"Almost." He picked it up, examined the roof, and threw.
The paper sailed upward, crossing the distance with extraordinary precision before catching against the highest visible branch of the tree beside the house.
It unraveled slowly, a long white ribbon drifting down through the darkness.
Bella watched it settle.
Then smiled. "Okay. That was pretty good."
Ikaris inclined his head. "Your praise is appreciated."
She rolled her eyes.
He gathered the empty packaging, tucked it into his bag, and glanced toward the street. "Come."
Bella looked at the house one last time.
Then at him.
"Where?"
"Home."
She hesitated. "Already?"
He raised an eyebrow.
She immediately looked embarrassed. "I mean—it's late."
"Indeed."
"And my mom might wake up."
"You do realize you are arguing against yourself, right?"
Bella nodded, cheeks flushing with embarassment.
But as they began walking away, she found herself looking backward, not toward Arthur's house, but toward the strange, ridiculous little adventure that had somehow become one of the happiest memories she could recall.
And for reasons she did not fully understand, she wished it could last a little longer.
…
The walk home was considerably quieter.
Not because either had become uncomfortable, nor because the novelty of their evening had diminished, but because Bella was beginning to discover the unfortunate consequences of remaining awake well beyond her usual bedtime.
She was exhausted.
Thoroughly.
Spectacularly.
The sort of exhaustion that settled into one's bones and made even the simple act of placing one foot in front of the other feel like an unreasonable demand.
Ikaris noticed the slight drag of her steps, the increasingly frequent yawns she attempted to conceal behind the oversized sleeves of her hoodie, and the peculiar way her head occasionally dipped before she straightened it again with renewed determination.
"Sleepy?" he asked.
Bella shook her head. "No."
He regarded her.
She yawned.
"A convincing demonstration."
"I'm fine."
"Of course."
She walked another few steps.
Then stumbled.
Ikaris caught her elbow. Again.
Bella looked up. "Sorry."
He sighed. "At this rate, I should consider purchasing protective equipment."
She smiled faintly. "For me?"
"For myself. Catching you is becoming a full-time occupation."
She laughed.
Quietly.
Then leaned against his shoulder.
It happened so naturally that neither seemed to consider the significance of it.
One moment she was walking beside him, struggling to remain upright through sheer determination, and the next her head had settled against his shoulder as though it had discovered somewhere it had always intended to rest.
Ikaris glanced down.
Bella's eyes were half-closed.
Her fingers remained loosely wrapped around his.
He considered telling her to straighten, not because he disliked the contact, but because walking in such an arrangement was awkward, particularly when the person leaning against him possessed a remarkable ability to trip over objects that did not appear to exist.
Then she sighed.
A small, contented sound.
And he said nothing.
They continued walking beneath the streetlights, their shadows stretching across the pavement in long, uneven shapes.
Bella's breathing became steadier.
Her grip loosened.
And somewhere between one street corner and the next, Ikaris realized she was no longer entirely awake.
"Isabella?"
No response.
He stopped.
She continued leaning against him, apparently unconcerned by the interruption, walking with the unconscious steps of a drunk.
Ikaris stared.
Unbelievable.
He gently touched her shoulder.
"Bella."
She stirred. Barely. "Hm?"
"We're walking."
"Mhm."
"You need to remain conscious for that."
"Okay."
Her eyes remained closed.
He waited.
Nothing.
Then she shifted closer.
Ikaris looked toward the sky.
Wonderful.
He considered his options.
He could wake her properly, though doing so would almost certainly require several minutes of increasingly unsuccessful persuasion.
He could allow her to continue walking in her current condition, which seemed likely to end with another unfortunate potential encounter between her face and the pavement.
Or—
He sighed.
Bent slightly.
And lifted her.
Bella made a small noise of surprise, her eyes opening just enough to register that the ground had apparently abandoned its usual position beneath her feet.
"Ikaris?"
"Yes."
"What are you doing?"
"Preventing your inevitable death."
She blinked.
Then, apparently satisfied with the explanation, rested her head against his chest.
"Oh." A pause. "Okay."
And she closed her eyes again.
Ikaris stared down at her.
There were several things wrong with this arrangement.
First, she was remarkably comfortable with being carried through the streets by someone who had, only a few hours earlier, appeared outside her window without explanation.
Second, she seemed entirely unconcerned about where he might take her.
And third—
She trusted him.
Completely.
Bella had followed him out of her bedroom, allowed him to guide her down a tree, walked through unfamiliar streets without knowing their destination, participated in a ridiculous act of revenge, and now apparently decided that he was sufficiently reliable to assume responsibility for delivering her unconscious body home.
It was an extraordinary amount of faith to place in another person.
Especially him.
Ikaris adjusted his hold, ensuring her head rested comfortably against his shoulder while one arm supported her back and the other beneath her knees.
She stirred slightly.
Then settled.
Her breathing deepened.
And he continued walking.
For a while, he watched the road ahead.
The night had grown quieter.
Even the occasional passing vehicle seemed reluctant to disturb the stillness.
He could hear the faint rustling of leaves, the distant hum of electricity, and the soft rhythm of Bella's breathing against his chest.
It was peaceful.
An unfamiliar sort of peace.
His dreams had offered him magnificent things: great cities, ancient civilizations, battles fought beneath impossible skies, and affection from people whose faces he could no longer remember.
But those experiences always ended.
He woke.
And the world became ordinary again.
Small. Disappointing. Sometimes unbearable.
Tonight, however, the ordinary world had offered him something he could not remember experiencing in any dream.
A girl asleep in his arms.
Not because she was injured, nor because she needed rescuing from some terrible danger, but because she had spent an evening laughing with him until exhaustion finally overcame her.
And she trusted him to take her home.
He looked down.
Bella's face was relaxed in sleep, her expression free of the familiar uncertainty she wore around other people.
There was no embarrassment.
No hesitation.
No anxious attempt to make herself smaller.
She looked peaceful.
And for some reason, that pleased him.
He had made her happy, and if not that, then deeply comfortable.
It was such a small thing.
Such an ordinary achievement.
And yet—he found himself wondering when he had last done something simply because he wanted another person to smile.
Not out of obligation. Not to secure some advantage. Not because his therapist had instructed him to establish meaningful relationships with his peers.
But because their happiness had become something he genuinely desired.
The answer was troubling. He couldn't remember. Perhaps he never had.
Bella shifted in his arms.
Her fingers curled against his hoodie.
And somewhere in the quiet, she murmured something.
He glanced down. "What?"
Her lips moved again.
A sleepy whisper. "Ikaris."
He stopped.
For a moment, he wondered whether she was awake. But her eyes remained closed.
She was dreaming.
Of him, apparently.
He stared at her for several seconds.
Then smiled.
A small smile.
One that no one was awake to witness.
"Isabella," he murmured, appreciation lingering on his words.
He adjusted her slightly, pulling her closer so that her head would not slip from his shoulder.
And he continued walking.