The old schoolhouse tastes like sadness.
Neeko thinks this is because there are no children here now. Only broken desks, chalk ghosts on a blackboard, and sunlight sneaking in through cracked windows like it is not supposed to be here.
She steps carefully inside, rifle held low.
The gecko creeps in after her, tail twitching.
Sunny said the place had mantises in it. Big ones. Nasty ones. The kind that get bold when no one's around to bother to remind them where they stand in the food chain.
Neeko would like to remind them politely.
Sunny also said not to ever borrow her sho'ma like that again.
This made Neeko sad, too. At first. But Neeko cares more about her friend's feelings than she does about how fun it feels to walk around in different skins.
She hears a skittering sound.
Click-click.
Scrape.
A mantis unfolds itself from behind a desk like it was always waiting there. Long limbs. Bladed forearms. Eyes that do not blink because they do not need to.
"Oh," Neeko says softly. "Hello."
The mantis does not say hello back.
It tilts its head. Clicks its mandibles.
Neeko crouches slowly, hands open, rifle resting against her knee.
"We do not want trouble," she says. "This place is for learning. Even though you are very big, you could still learn many things."
The mantis advances one step.
Neeko nods encouragingly.
"Yes! Like… sharing."
Another mantis drops from the ceiling with a dry thunk.
The gecko hisses.
Neeko's smile tightens.
"Okay," she says. "Two of you. That is… harder."
She keeps talking anyway.
"This town has water," she continues. "And snacks. And places to hide outside. You do not need this building."
Several more mantises appear and fan out.
They are not listening.
One lunges, but not at Neeko.
At the gecko.
Everything inside Neeko snaps into place.
"No!"
She does not raise the rifle gently this time.
The shot is loud in the small room. The mantis jerks, exploding in a spray of limbs and green ichor.
The second mantis screeches and charges.
Neeko fires again.
Misses.
Too close to ready another shot now.
She hits it, launching it with a swing of the butt of the rifle.
It folds in on itself, legs twitching, then goes still.
The silence afterward is heavy. Like the room knows something has changed.
Neeko lowers the rifle. Her hands are shaking.
She feels… embarrassed.
Like it was her failing that it came to that.
The gecko crawls onto her boot, unharmed, chirping like nothing important just happened.
"Oh," Neeko breathes. "Oh good."
She crouches and scoops it up, pressing her forehead briefly to its small, warm head.
"I am sorry," she whispers. "I tried talking."
The gecko blinks. He understands.
Neeko stands slowly, looking at the mantises on the floor. At the broken desks. At the blackboard where someone once wrote letters that mattered.
She swallows.
Some things you cannot befriend.
Some things will not listen.
And some things will hurt the small ones if you allow them.
The gecko leaps out of Neeko's grasp and scurries forward before she can stop it, and begins enthusiastically chewing on what remains of the mantis.
There is a wet crunching sound.
Neeko blinks.
"Well," she says. "At least someone enjoyed that."
Neeko wipes her hands on her jumpsuit and shoulders the rifle again.
She does not like this lesson.
But she understands it.
Back at the diner in town, the smell of gunpowder has been replaced by grease and old coffee and something sweet that has been burned too many times to be called food anymore.
She sits across from Sunny in a cracked vinyl booth, boots dangling a little because the seat is too high. The gecko curls up beside her plate, gnawing on something it absolutely should not be gnawing on. But Neeko is too somber right now to address it.
Sunny sips her coffee, watching Neeko over the rim of the cup.
"You did good out there," she says. "Schoolhouse'll be quiet for a while now."
Neeko brightens. "Yes! The mantises did not want to talk, but they did want to eat my friend, so—" She pauses, tapping her temple. "Different solution."
Sunny snorts. "That's exactly right. It's like learning different languages."
Neeko shifts, suddenly excited.
"Oh! And also—Sunny—Neeko can show you something else she learned about herself!"
She leans forward, lowering her voice conspiratorially.
"I can—"
Sunny's hand snaps out and clamps gently around Neeko's wrist.
"Hey," she says, soft but sharp. "Not here."
Neeko blinks.
Sunny glances around the diner. A man nursing a drink at the counter, chatting it up with Trudy. Someone laughing too loud in the corner. Chet from the spare munitions store pretending very hard not to listen.
Sunny releases Neeko's wrist and slides out of the booth, jerking her head toward the door.
"Come on."
Outside, the sun is lower now, the light slanting long and tired across Goodsprings.
Sunny leans against the wall, arms folded.
"Listen," she says. "What you showed me earlier? That thing you can do?"
Neeko nods eagerly. "Yes! The becoming!"
"Yeah," Sunny says. "That."
She exhales slowly.
"Best you don't go showin' that off," she continues. "Not to most folks. Not out here."
Neeko's smile falters.
"…Why?"
Sunny doesn't answer right away.
She watches the road instead. The hills. The wild blue yonder where danger usually comes from.
"Because word spreads," she says finally. "And when it does, people stop seein' you." She looks back at Neeko. "They start seein' somethin' to use. Or fear. Or kill."
Neeko absorbs this in silence.
"That would be bad," she says at last.
"Yeah," Sunny replies. "Damn right it would."
Neeko nods, slow and solemn.
"Okay," she says. "Neeko will keep it secret."
Sunny relaxes visibly. Just a little.
"Good," she says. "You're a good kid, Neeko."
Neeko's chest warms at that.
Sunny's smile doesn't quite reach her eyes.
"Too bad," she adds, "there's no shortage of folks out there that'd just as soon shoot you in the face as get to know you."
Neeko tilts her head. "That seems… inefficient."
Sunny laughs. A short, humorless sound.
"Welcome to the Mojave."
Neeko looks back toward the diner.
She nods once more.
There is still much she doesn't understand.
Some things you share. Some things you hide.
Sometimes you make friends. Sometimes… you shoot to kill.
Neeko thinks it doesn't seem like a very friendly place, this Mojave. Not like Goodsprings. She wouldn't even still be breathing if it weren't for the kindness of its people. Even if she had to keep secrets from them, she feels like she belongs here.
She looks at Sunny then.
"I want to watch over it," Neeko says quietly. "Like you do."
Sunny blinks, caught off guard.
"Goodsprings?" she asks.
Neeko nods. "Yes. It feels… important."
Sunny studies her for a long moment.
Finally, she exhales.
"That's a good thing to want," she says. "Just don't forget—towns like this don't survive on good intentions alone."
Neeko smiles, earnest. And a touch feral.
"I will be careful," she promises.
Sunny doesn't say anything to that. She just nods once.
She watches Neeko for a moment longer.
"Hey," she says, tilting her head. "Back in the diner. "What were you gonna say before I dragged you outside?"
Neeko fidgets.
"Oh."
It was something she'd noticed about the mantises. The sho'ma she'd felt there was different from the gecko's: sharper, more alien, but present all the same.
She had realized it before, with mild surprise, that she could probably do it.
Become a mantis.
Neeko imagines it for half a second—Sunny Smiles turning around to find a little bug where her new friend had been. The rifle coming up on instinct. The yelling. The very strong reaction.
Neeko giggles.
Sunny raises an eyebrow. "What?"
Neeko shakes her head quickly, smile bright and innocent.
"It was nothing," she says.
Sunny squints at her, unconvinced.
"…You sure?"
"Yes," Neeko says, nodding very seriously. "Very nothing."
Sunny snorts, letting it go. "Alright then."
The next few days pass quietly.
Neeko learns the shape of Goodsprings by moving through it with purpose. She helps Sunny patch a fence where something big once leaned too hard. She carries water, listens more than she talks, learns who needs what without being told. People stop watching her so closely. That feels like progress.
She runs errands for Trudy. Cleans tables. Figures out which mugs are chipped in ways people like and which ones they avoid. She learns how to pour a drink without spilling and how to smile without inviting questions. Chet tries to overcharge her once. Only once. She helps Easy Pete stack mysterious crates and listens while he tells the same story twice, then a third time with different details. She does not correct him. The gecko naps in the shade of the crates, belly round and content.
At night, she sits near the diner with Sunny, listening to the radio crackle through old songs. Sometimes they don't talk at all. Neeko thinks it feels like friendship.
Doc Mitchell checks on her when he can. He asks about her head. About the pain. She tells him it comes and goes. She does not mention the warmth in the dirt of a burrow left behind by some unknown creature where she sleeps. Or the way her skin sometimes shimmers when she's tired.
Still, she does not use the Jet.
Not yet.
The gecko curls against her throat at night. She would protect him with her life but still can't decide on what to call him.
Goodsprings begins to feel… familiar.
Like a place that has made room especially for her.
Neeko thinks—briefly, carefully—that maybe she could stay.
Just for a while longer. Maybe forever.