Dayton: Junior Guardian Chronicles: Episode 26

By the time Dayton turned the corner toward the math wing, the building felt like it was trying to pretend nothing had happened. 

The SEA armor and rifles were mostly gone from this hall, pushed back toward the main office and the front entrance. The tape was far away enough that you could almost forget it existed if you did not think too hard. The fluorescents hummed like always. The floor still had that faint lemon cleaner sheen that never quite covered the scuff marks from a thousand sneakers. 

Her palm was the only thing that felt different. 

Less than four inches of very solid, very real, very not hypothetical Little weight rested there. She could feel every cautious shift of Mr. Rhys’s feet against her skin, the scrape of his tiny hands when he steadied himself, the cold little touches of metal from the collar pressing her lifeline. 

He did not speak at first. The only sound from him was the soft, uneven jingle of his charms when she walked. Soccer ball, dance shoe, the tiny D she had picked out at little mart with Sara and Chloe a few weeks when she still thought of charms as something that went on hypothetical Littles. 

Now they chimed at her with every step, a reminder sitting right against his throat. 

Her phone buzzed in the front pocket of her hoodie, a sharp little vibration against her ribs. Dayton shifted her grip automatically, curling her fingers a little tighter around him before fishing the phone out with her free hand. 

A red banner glared up from the lock screen. 

BREAKING: SEA RAID LOCKS DOWN ROOSEVELT MIDDLE SCHOOL 
Local 7 Now • LIVE 

Under it, a blurred still from what had to be a hallway camera: armored SEA officers, yellow tape, kids pressed back against the walls. The caption beneath made her stomach lurch. 

Sources: Student and Guardian Dayton Harris assist SEA in Roosevelt Middle School Raid. 

“Perfect,” she muttered. “We’re content now.” 

Rhys craned his neck, trying to see the screen. The charms at his throat gave a small, curious jingle. “What is it?” he asked. 

“News alert,” she said. “Apparently we’re famous.” 

His face went a shade paler. “They’re airing this already?” 

“Local, yeah. Which means everywhere in, like, five minutes.” 

She swiped the alert away before it could autoplay any video and opened Messages. Near the top of the list, right under Nicole, was Sara Reeves with a little yellow sparkle emoji. No new text yet, which probably meant Sara was in class at her fancy private school, or mid-stream planning, or asleep, or somehow doing all three at once like the overachieving chaos goblin she was. 

Dayton’s thumbs moved without thinking. 

Dayton ➜ Sara Reeves 

hey 
you’re probably seeing the Roosevelt thing on the news / clips 
i’m okay 
SEA kept it contained 
heading to math, can explain later 

Rhys squinted up at the screen, reading the contact name. His whole posture changed. 

“Sara… Reeves?” he repeated, carefully. “As in… the Sara Reeves?” 

Dayton glanced down at him. “Yeah,” she said slowly. “Why do you sound like you’re about to grade her homework?” 

He ignored that. “Just to clarify,” he said, voice a little too casual, “this Sara Reeves would not happen to be… Sarandipity.” 

It took her a second to connect the dots. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s her channel name. You know her?” 

“I am… familiar with her content,” he said, which was exactly how he sounded right before assigning a reading. 

“You watch Sarandipity streams?” Dayton asked, eyebrows climbing. 

“In a… limited capacity,” he said. “Her early playthroughs of Arkfall were surprisingly insightful about cooperative dynamics, and her reaction segments on Little and Guardian coverage is—” 

He cut himself off, realizing he was doing it. His ears were going faintly pink. 

Dayton stared at him. “You’re a fan,” she said, delighted. “Mr. Rhys, you watch  gamer streams. That’s your guilty pleasure.” 

“It is not a ‘guilty pleasure,’” he protested. “Her analysis is sound. And she is Little Mart’s spokesperson, She’s dating Chloe Gracewood and she holds the highest recorded Guardian training scores in the world. It is professionally relevant.” 

“That’s exactly how fans talk,” Dayton said. “ You just rattled off a whole bio on her. I’m sure you knowing that Sara is dating Chloe is professionally relevant.” 

He opened his mouth, shut it, then shifted to a different line of defense. “And you just… have her number.” 

“Our moms grew up together,” Dayton said. “They’ve been best friends since, like, grade  school. I’ve known Sara my whole life. She’s basically my older sister who is also accidentally internet famous.” 

He stared at her like she’d confessed to being secretly royalty. “You did not think this was worth mentioning at any point?” 

“You never asked ‘hey, Harris, do you know any top ranked streamers personally,’” she said. “Also, you spend half your day pretending anything fun is beneath you.” 

“It is not—” 

She cut him off by tilting the phone so the camera could see her hand. “Anyway, she’s going to freak if I don’t prove you’re alive.” 

“Absolutely not,” he said, suddenly sharp. “I do not consent to having my photograph taken in this condition.” 

“It’s just for Sara,” Dayton said. “So she doesn’t think SEA tossed you in a mop bucket.” 

“For Sara Reeves,” he repeated, horrified. “You are going to send an image of me like this to the number one ranked Guardian on the planet. Who also happens to be a globally known content creator with brand deals who casually just now.” 

“Yes,” Dayton said. “Because she also happens to be basically my big sister.” 

Rhys let out a disbelieving huff. “Wonderful,” he said. “Next thing you’re going to tell me is you know Chloe Gracewood.” 

Dayton blinked at him. “Uh… yeah,” she said. “I do.” 

He gave her a flat look. “You realize hyperbole only works if you do not immediately turn it into a factual statement.” 

She rolled her eyes and dragged her phone back out one handed, thumb flying over the screen. She popped open Contacts, scrolled two entries down from Sara Reeves, then tilted the screen so he could see. 

Chloe Gracewood  

He stared. “That is not a fan alias,” he said faintly. 

“Nope,” Dayton said, popping the p. “That’s Chloe. She and Sara have been a thing for a while. But being such a fan I’m sure you already knew that. We spend holidays together with the Reeves. Chloe’s there a lot.” 

He just kept staring at the name, like the phone had grown fangs. 

“You personally know Sarandipity and the future CEO of Generitech,” he said slowly, “and you have spent the last year arguing with me about extra credit.” 

Dayton shrugged. “You’re the one who assigned it,” she said. “Now hold still,  I’m taking the picture.” 

He went very still, then, absurdly, straightened his posture. His hands flew up, smoothing his hair back, then fussing with the knot of his tie, like he could iron dignity into the situation by brute force. The charms at his collar jingled with every fussy adjustment. 

“If you insist on sending something,” he said, trying to sound dignified and absolutely failing, “please give me a moment to—” 

Dayton had already hit the button. 

The picture came out ridiculous and perfect: her palm filling most of the frame, his miniature form standing in it, collar gleaming, the little soccer ball, dance shoe, and D catching the hallway light. He looked startled and determined, like a guest speaker who had just realized the assembly was being recorded. 

She attached it. 

Dayton ➜ Sara Reeves 

also he’s fine 
see attached 

The three-dots bubble popped up almost immediately. 

Sara Reeves is typing… 

That was a later problem. Dayton tucked the phone back into her pocket, her fingers automatically curling closer around him again. 

She adjusted her grip a little, automatically curling them closer around him when a pair of seventh graders came barreling around the corner. Their sneakers squeaked on the tile. They saw her, saw what she was carrying, and broke their line without even thinking about it. One veered toward the lockers, the other toward the wall, splitting the hall so Dayton had a clear lane straight down the middle. 

“Is that him?” one whispered, not nearly as quietly as he thought. 

“Yeah, that’s Rhys, bro. Look at his collar. Shark Harris really said ‘mine.’” 

Shark. 

Dayton’s shoulders twitched. She’d heard that one before, half compliment, half warning. Some boy in gym had started it after she bodied him off the ball so clean the coach had actually laughed. Don’t go near Harris, man. She’s a shark. Rest of us are just bait. 

She hadn’t loved it. 

She hadn’t exactly hated it either. 

Now, from the way the boys stepped back to give her more hallway without being asked, it felt a little more literal. 

“Wonderful,” Mr. Rhys muttered. “I see my reputation is going to be a hallway conversation for the foreseeable future.” 

“You wanted impact,” Dayton said, aiming for light and landing somewhere closer to tired. “You made one.” 

“That’s not—” 

Walking down the hall with a collared teacher in her hand, it suddenly felt less like a sports meme and more like an actual warning label. 

Her shoulder twitched. She did not slow down. 

“You walk very quickly,” Mr. Rhys said finally, bracing one hand against the curve of her thumb. “For someone allegedly calm.” 

“You are very tiny,” she replied, eyes forward. “For someone allegedly used to being in charge.” 

“That is hardly a fair comparison.” 

“Neither is this,” she said, and that shut him up for a second. 

They reached the stretch of wall where the blue numbers over the doors said 210, 212, 214. The door to 214 was propped open with a rubber wedge. The familiar rectangle of the classroom was visible beyond it, whiteboard bright, rows of desks, Mr. Greene’s too neat handwriting already spreading across the board in dark blue marker. 

Inside, Hayden Walsh was turned in her seat, half out of it, craning toward the door like her spine was a spring someone had wound too tight. Her ponytail was crooked. Her math notebook was open but untouched. When she saw Dayton, she straightened like she had been plugged into an outlet, eyes going huge and sharp. 

Dayton stopped just before she crossed the threshold. 

“Okay,” she said under her breath, angling her hand so she could see him properly. 

Up close, he still looked like himself, which was the worst part. The same dark hair, just scaled. The same sharp nose. The same teacher eyebrows that could make you feel like an idiot from across the room. The new pieces were the collar, snug at his throat, and the little cluster of charms that had no business being on a man who used to assign essays about exile. 

She could see them clearly from here. Tiny soccer ball. Tiny dance shoe. Tiny D. They clicked gently against each other with every shift of his shoulders, a soft reminder that there was no taking this off. 

“Ground rules for math,” she said. “Because I really do not want to get tackled by enforcement for improper classroom management or whatever.” 

“Ground rules,” he echoed, dry. “How appropriate.” 

“You stay where I put you on my desk,” she said. “You do not climb around. You do not yell. If you want to talk, you talk quietly and only to me. No teaching, no speeches, no trying to get the room to think about civil rights. SEA already thinks you are a problem. Do not prove them right again.” 

His jaw clenched. “I was not attempting to start a riot. I was teaching them to think.” 

“Well, the people with rifles call that radicalizing minors,” she said. “So we are on low volume today.” 

His gaze flicked to the door, to the classroom beyond. It was the first time she had seen him look small, not in height, but actually small. “You honestly think I am going to leap to my death off your desk for the sake of slope intercept form?” he asked. 

“I think you believe your mouth is a public service,” she said. “Which is arguably more dangerous.” 

Something that might almost have been a smile tugged at his lips. “Fine,” he said. “I will behave. In your math class, Miss Harris.” 

He did not say her first name. He said Miss like he was testing it, like he was trying on the version of her that the SEA agents and her other teachers had used. The one that sat right on the edge of adulthood. 

“Good,” she said. “Then let us go pretend today is normal.” 

She stepped inside. 

Math had its own smell, different from English. Less paper, more marker, warm dust from the vents, the lemony sharpness of the hand sanitizer pump on the front table that Mr. Greene treated like a religious object. The room hummed with low conversation as kids got settled. 

Then Dayton crossed the center of the door, and the volume dipped, like someone had reached for the dimmer switch on the noise. 

Talking did not stop, it just dropped to an urgent undertone. 

“Yo, that’s her.” 

“That’s Rhys, that’s totally him,” someone hissed. 

“He is so small, what the heck. He looked bigger in class.” 

“Look at his collar, look at his collar, that is not a temp one either.” 

“Shark Harris is actually terrifying now.” 

“She was terrifying before.” 

“She brought him to math?” 

“Nah, that’s actually kinda savage.” 

“Don’t mess with her, man. She’ll file a report and you’ll end up with a collar.” 

“Shark Harris got a Little now,” someone said, half awed, half scared. 

The words slid along Dayton’s spine. 

At the front, Mr. Greene stopped writing mid-number and turned. 

The sentences flew in small bursts around the room, off to the side of Dayton’s awareness. Her focus fixed on three points: her desk, Hayden’s face, and the front of the room where Mr. Greene had frozen mid squiggle on a graph. 

He turned. 

He was not old, but in this moment he looked like he had aged twenty years in the span of one class period. There were faint lines carved into the skin beside his mouth that Dayton had never noticed before. His eyes flicked from her face to her hand, and then down to the glint of metal at her palm. 

He read the tag. She could see it happen, the tiny flicker as his eyes caught the engraved letters. Ezra J. Rhys, Harris, D 

He swallowed once. His marker squeaked against the board as his grip on it tightened. 

“Ah,” he said, his voice landing carefully on the space between friendly and formal. “Miss Harris.” 

The Miss hit differently now. He had called her that before, sometimes, joking, when she answered too fast. This was not a joke. This was the word adults used when SEA officers were standing in the hall and the government had your Little colleague tagged under a case number. 

In her hand, Rhys went very still. 

He heard it. She felt him hear it. 

“Good of you to rejoin us,” Mr. Greene said. His mouth twitched like he was aiming for a smile and had not quite found one. “I assume everything is, ah… settled.” 

“SEA told me to return to class,” Dayton said. There was no other way to dress that up. “They want him with me.” 

Mr. Greene’s gaze dipped once more to the tiny figure in her palm, to the charms and the tag, then jerked back up like it burned to look too long. “All right,” he said. “We will, ah, accommodate that. Grab your seat, Miss Harris. We are just starting notes on linear functions.” 

She made her way to her usual desk, third row near the window. The room shifted around her, a quiet ripple. Kids slid chairs an inch. Backpacks were pulled in closer. The path widened without anyone seeming to consciously decide to move. 

Hayden was in her usual place, across from Dayton. Her desk was already turned at an angle that made it easy to talk across the aisle. She had a mechanical pencil tucked behind one ear and her math book open to the right page. Her eyes were locked on Dayton’s hand like the rest of the room did t exist. 

Dayton set her backpack down by the side of her chair and sat. The desk that had always felt roomy suddenly seemed absurdly small with a person standing on it in miniature. 

She set her notebook on the right and cleared a space on the left, brushing away eraser crumbs with the side of her hand. It felt almost ceremonial, like clearing a little stage. 

“All right,” she whispered. “Landing zone.” 

She tilted her palm and held it just above the wood. For half a second he hesitated, staring at the expanse of laminated fake oak like it was a cliff. 

Then he stepped off. 

From his scale, the desk was a wide plane, faint ridges of the fake grain running like micro highways under his feet. The hinge of the under desk flap rose behind him like some industrial archway. Her pencil case, zipped and bulging, was the size of a loveseat. He took it all in with one slow turn, collar charms chiming in small, uncertain notes. 

“Welcome to third row,” she murmured. “Best view in the house.” 

His mouth twitched. “Debatable,” he said. 

He walked to the front corner of the desk nearest her, each step adding another tiny jingle. Soccer ball, dance shoe, D. If anyone else in the room had a Little with charms like that, Dayton did not know about it. Most kids went with bells, standard issue, easy auditory tracking. Dayton had picked hers with too much time in the charm tray, thinking about what would look good. Also what she thought looked cute. 

She could feel the ownership steeped in that now. Her sport. Her dance. Her letter. 

Behind her, whispering picked up again. 
 
“He’s right there, oh my God.” 

“Do you think she makes him do her homework now?” 

“Bro, she doesn’t need that. She’s already smarter than half the teachers.” 

“Yeah, she’s like… apex predator tier at this point.” 

“He is sitting on her desk, no way.” 

“She really just has him out like it is a phone or something.” 

“That is not a phone, that’s her English teacher.” 

“Yeah, well, mess with the shark, you get collared.” 

“New school rule. Do not get on Harris’s bad side.” 
 
“That’s always been a rule dude.” 

Heat climbed the back of her neck. She tried to focus on her notebook instead of the way the entire room kept orbiting her. 

She wrote the date in the top right corner, the numbers looping across the paper in quick, practiced strokes. From her desk, it was just handwriting. From his vantage point, she could see, out of the corner of her eye, how big it was. Each number the height of his chest. 

Hayden leaned forward, notebook forgotten. “Okay,” she whispered, voice cutting through the low hiss of the room. “What happened when you and Nicole left? What did they say? We all got dumped in study hall with some random sub and like, zero explanation. No updates. Kinsley is blowing up my phone.” 

“I am pretty sure Kinsley is always blowing up your phone,” Dayton said quietly. 

Hayden pointed at her with her pencil. “Deflection is not going to work. Spill.” 

At the front, Mr. Greene turned back toward the board and started writing again. His voice rose over the low murmur. “All right, everyone, eyes up. We are moving into slope intercept form. This will be on the quiz, so you want to be awake for this.” 

Dayton let the marker squeak cover her answer. 

“They had my mom and Ms. Patel in there,” she said, keeping her eyes technically forward while her voice stayed low. “SEA liaison, guidance counselor. They went through the findings. Pulled camera footage, checked emails, district policies. Called it ‘a pattern of noncompliance with federal Little regulations.’” 

Hayden’s eyebrows jumped. “Ouch.” 

“Yeah,” Dayton said. “They voided his contract. Officially. Then they approved my guardian petition and faxed the transfer packet over. Made us sign a million things. Me, my mom, Nicole as witness. They are putting us on ‘elevated monitoring’ because of his history, whatever that means.” 

“Weekly reports?” Hayden guessed. 

“Yeah” Dayton confirmed. “Feeding, housing, behavior, any… antigovernment messaging.” She grimaced at the phrase. “They are going to audit them.” 

Hayden let out a low whistle. “That is intense.” 

“Welcome to guardianship in the age of Smallara,” Dayton said. 

There was a tiny snort of air from her desk. “Do not use the word ‘age’ like this is a historical era for you to write a research paper on,” Mr. Rhys said. “We are living in it.” 

“Some of us more literally,” Hayden muttered. 

He looked at her, surprised. His eyes softened a fraction. “You all right?” he asked, a little stiff, like the concern had been dragged out of him without permission. 

Hayden shrugged one shoulder. “You got humiliated in front of everybody,” she said frankly. “That sucked. Also you used your teacher voice on us to push stuff that was illegal, so this also sucks. It is a very complicated emotional landscape.” 

He stared at her. Dayton watched the corner of his mouth tug again, unsure if it was allowed to become a smile. 

“Miss Harris,” Mr. Greene called from the front, snapping Dayton back to the board. “Since you are clearly still capable of speech, why do you not remind us. What is the general form of a linear equation in slope intercept.” 

There was the Miss again. Clean, sharp, grown up. 

“Y equals m x plus b,” Dayton said, voice steady. 

“Correct,” he said. “See, nothing about federal enforcement stops algebra.” 

A few kids laughed. It was more nerves than amusement. 

She felt, more than saw, Rhys’s quiet exhale. “At least someone has retained basic structure,” he murmured. “I am relieved my work was not entirely wasted.” 

“Relax,” she whispered back. “I knew that before you ever taught me.” 

He made a sound that might have been indignation if it had not been so small. 

Mr. Greene started in on examples, drawing axes and lines, plotting intercepts. Dayton copied the graphs into her notebook. Her hands had almost stopped shaking. Every time her pencil stuttered, she felt the tiny tap of Rhys’s hand near a stray minus sign or a coefficient that had wandered. 

“Your slope is wrong there,” he said once, indicating the rise over run with a fingertip. “You went three over four, not three over two.” 

She corrected it with a quick scratch. “Is this tutoring or harassment,” she whispered. 

“Consider it quality control,” he said. 

On her other side, Hayden inched her desk closer and slid her worksheet into the space between them. 

“I am absolutely exploiting this situation,” Hayden said quietly. “Okay, so question three. We plug in the point and use the slope they gave us, right.” 

Dayton nodded. “Yeah. You use point slope first, then solve for b.” 

“You might also consider simplifying the expression before distributing,” Rhys added. 

Hayden blinked at him. “I cannot tell if that is helpful or condescending,” she whispered. 

“With him, it is usually both,” Dayton said. 

Their pencils scribbled in quick rhythms that blended with the scratch of the rest of the class. The room, strangely, began to feel like a room again.  

Of course, it never totally went back. 

Girls at the far side of the room kept glancing over, pretending to check the clock and missing it by a mile. A boy in the second row kept craning around his friend’s head every time Mr. Greene turned to the board. Even Greene himself could not quite stop his eyes from flicking toward Dayton’s desk between problems, like he was subconsciously checking that the Little was still where she had left him. 

He did not comment. He did not have to. The attention sat on her skin like static. 
 
“Your sevens still look like question marks,” Rhys  said quietly, pointing. 

She glanced down, snorted once, and corrected it with an extra stroke. “Of all the things for you to say right now,” she muttered. 

“I have a professional obligation,” he said. “I can’t let you go out into the world writing ambiguous numerals.” 

“SEA is gonna audit my guardian logs,” she said. “Not my penmanship.” 

“Both are important.” 

“Mr. Rhys,” she warned. 

He held up his hands. The charms at his throat chimed with the movement. “I am sitting. I am quiet. I am being helpful.” 

“Tiny helpful,” she said. “You’re being tiny helpful.” 

“Humor is a sign of stress,” he said. “You’re deflecting.” 

“And you’re lecturing,” she said. “Again.” 

He closed his mouth, almost on principle. 

At the next table over, a boy named Liam was not subtle about sneaking glances over. Every time Mr. Greene turned to the board, Liam’s eyes darted to Dayton’s desk, then away again when she glanced up. 

“Is he… on?” Liam whispered at one point, half leaning forward. “Like, can he talk?” 

Dayton flicked her eyes back at him. “He can hear you.” 

Liam went brick red and snapped his head back to his own paper. 

On the other side, Tamara, who usually barely acknowledged anyone outside of her friend group, leaned across the aisle just enough to murmur, “That’s actually kind of badass. Like, no offense.” 

Dayton shrugged, trying to keep her face neutral. “I just did what we’re supposed to.” 

“Yeah,” Tamara said. “But you actually did it.” 

She sat back, giving Dayton one of those tiny nods that meant You’re scary, but in a good way. 

“All right,” Mr. Greene said at last, clapping his hands a little. “Let us pull back together. Number seven. Miss Harris, can you walk us through how you found the slope.” 

She did. She talked about rise over run, about going down three and over two, about how the minus sign changed the direction. Her voice sounded like it always did when she answered in math. Clear. A little fast. Confident in the way you get when you are allowed to be good at something without anyone making it weird. 

The difference was the tiny person leaning his hand against her eraser for balance as she pointed to the graph, the tiny jingle at her desk when she shifted her arm, the knowledge that everyone in the room had just watched her file a report and receive a human being at the end of it. 

When the bell finally shrieked, everyone jumped. 

For half a heartbeat, Dayton thought of SEA rifles and alarms, before her brain caught up and remembered that this was just math. Just the end of a period. Just kids shoving notebooks in backpacks and scraping their chairs and talking too loud because silence made the day feel even weirder. 

“Do you think SEA is still here.” 

“My mom is going to freak out.”  

“I am so telling my dad, he hates Rhys.” 

“Shut up, he can probably hear you, dude.” 

Dayton closed her notebook, slid her pencil into the spirals, and cupped her hand around Rhys. 

“Hands,” she said quietly. 

He stepped into her palm without arguing. The charms at his collar chimed a little cluster of nervous notes as her fingers curled around him. She lifted him up to her chest. 

“You handled that well,” he said, reluctant, as she slid her notebook into her bag. 

“In math,” she said. “I know.” 

“In general,” he replied. “Here. Now. You balanced it. The law. The attention. The work.” 

He sounded annoyed at the compliment, which somehow made it feel more real. 

“Thanks,” she said. “You were tiny helpful.” 

He groaned. “This phrase is never going to die, is it.” 

“Not while I am alive,” she said. 

Hayden swung her backpack over one shoulder and joined her at the end of the row. 

“So that is the plan now,” Hayden said as they merged into the river of students heading into the hall. “You just take him everywhere. Like some kind of very opinionated calculator.” 

“He is worse at math than my calculator,” Dayton said. “And louder.” 

“He is a lot more annoyed than a calculator,” Rhys muttered. 

“Look who’s talking,” Hayden said. 

They moved into the hallway. It was not as crowded as usual. People seemed to be unconsciously leaving space around them, like an invisible bubble that said Dangerous, do not poke. 

“People are terrified of you right now, you know,” Hayden said, in that casual tone she used when she was absolutely saying something important.  

“I’ve noticed,” Dayton replied, watching the way two sixth graders plastered themselves into the lockers to let her pass. “This must be how Mallory feels.” 

“It is also respect,” Hayden said. “You did the thing everyone says they would do. You saw something wrong. You reported it. Now you are literally carrying the consequences around in your hand while going to math like it‘s normal” 

Dayton looked down at her palm. The metal collar caught the fluorescent light. The tiny soccer ball, dance shoe, and D charmed together at his throat, quietly, every time she took a step. 

“I didnt do it so people would be afraid of me,” she said. 

“I know,” Hayden replied. “That is what makes it worse. You are like a shark that doesnt know she’s a shark.” 

“Can you not.” 

“No promises,” Hayden said. “It is my coping mechanism.” 

Ahead of them, someone muttered “Shark Harris” to their friend and then shut up fast when they realized she had heard. 

Dayton held her Little a little closer, felt the small weight of him against her hand, heard the charms tap their thin, bright music, and kept walking making sure her hand protected him from the gaze of the students. 

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