Dayton: The Junior Guardian Chronicles: Episode 69

“Let’s check out the snackage situation downstairs,” Dayton said as she lowered her hand for Ezra to climb onto.  
 
“You shouldn’t be eating snacks this late,” Ezra said from Dayton’s desk. 
Dayton made a little scoff. “Okay, Dad.” She rolled her eyes and wiggled her fingers. “C’mon. Hand.” 
 
Dayton laughed under her breath, like Ezra honestly thought he still got to veto snacks in her own house. 

 
He climbed onto her palm anyway, reluctant and careful. 

Dayton’s eyes flicked down. 

“You should probably get used to this,” she said, tilting her hand just enough to make the point. “This is basically your Uber now.” 
 
Ezra didn’t look up right away. He just adjusted his stance on her palm, slow and deliberate, like he could make dignity out of posture. 

“I’m aware,” he said finally, voice dry. “You don’t have to announce it like you invented walking. 

Dayton rolled her eyes so hard it was almost athletic. “Okay, wow, sorry. Next time I’ll send a syllabus.” 

She grinned down at him, already standing and shifting her grip to keep him steady. “Uber rules: no backseat driving.” 
 
Dayton stepped out of her room with Ezra in hand. The hallway outside felt colder, quieter, the house settling into its nighttime bones. Her steps were soft on the runner, the light from the stairwell throwing long shadows down the corridor. 

As she walked, she lifted her hand higher and higher, like she was adjusting a camera angle. 

Ezra watched the ceiling drift closer. His stomach did that small, stupid flip of scale and height, his balance tightening without permission. 

“Dayton,” he started, and it came out sharper than he meant, “what are you—” 

Then her fingers pinched gently around his ribs and he was gone from her palm. 

For half a heartbeat there was nothing under his feet. Air. The little sick swoop of weightlessness. 

And then he landed on fabric. 

Her shoulder. 

The seam of her hoodie rose like a ridge beneath him. He grabbed automatically, hands finding the thick drawstring and the edge of the collar like they were handholds on a cliff. Dayton didn’t even wobble. She just kept walking like she’d done this a hundred times. 

Ezra froze, breath shallow, every instinct screaming that this was not a place designed for him. 

“You could’ve,” he said, voice clipped, “mentioned that.” 

Dayton’s head turned just enough that her cheek and ear filled his whole world. He could hear her breathing, the quiet little sound of it, and the faint rustle of hair near his face. Her warmth rose off her skin through the hoodie fabric, steady and unavoidable. 

“I did,” Dayton said lightly. “I upgraded your ride. You’re welcome.” 

“This is not an upgrade,” Ezra muttered, shifting his feet. The shoulder moved under him with her stride, a slow rolling motion he had to match. Dayton, annoyingly, adjusted her posture like she could feel exactly how to keep him stable. 

He swallowed. From here, the hallway stretched out in a long, slanted view. The stairs ahead looked steeper. Bigger. More real. 

“You understand,” Ezra said, carefully, like he was building a sentence he could survive, “that if I fall from here, I’m not… bouncing.” 

Dayton’s voice stayed breezy, but it wasn’t careless. “You’re not falling. I’ve got you.” 

“That’s not the same thing as me having me,” Ezra said. 

Dayton gave a small shrug on purpose, just enough to make him clutch tighter. 

He shot her a look, offended. She smiled like she hadn’t done anything. 

“Okay,” she said. “No shrugging. Relax.” 

Ezra didn’t relax. He adjusted his grip instead, fingers tight around her hoodie string, his shoulder blades rigid as he rode the subtle sway of her walk. 

“It’s… efficient,” he admitted reluctantly, like the word physically hurt. 

“I know,” Dayton said, smug in the way only a thirteen-year-old could be. “Hands-free. Plus you can see where we’re going. It’s basically first class.” 

Ezra stared ahead, jaw tight, the house enormous around them, and hated that a part of him did register the truth: it was steadier than her palm. Warmer. Less exposed to sudden tilts. 

Which made it worse. 

Because it felt almost normal. 

And he could feel himself adapting to it in real time, his body learning the rhythm of her gait like it was a lesson he hadn’t chosen. 

His voice came out low. “Don’t make a habit of surprising me.” 

Dayton’s laugh was soft. “Then stop acting surprised.”  
 
She approached the stairs and, without thinking too hard about it, made the tiny adjustments that mattered. She hadn’t practiced shoulder riding like this since Thomas. Her hands stayed half-raised, ready to catch, but she kept the rest of her body loose. No sudden jerks. No show off moves. 

She took the steps at her normal pace, quick and confident, only now she was calibrating for someone who weighed practically nothing. 

She knew she wasn’t Sara Reeves-level smooth, but she was better than most. Nicole barely ever let Kinsley ride shoulder, and Dayton still thought that was kind of cowardly. 

As she went down, her hair shifted and framed Ezra, the warm curtain of it brushing his side. When she glanced up at him, she saw his grip loosen just a little. His posture eased, almost against his will. 

For the first time since she’d taken him, he wasn’t looking up at a towering world from her palm. He was… closer to eye level. Close enough that the house didn’t feel like a planet. 

And Dayton noticed, because she was watching for every change. 

She could tell he hated how much easier it was to breathe up here. 

From the living room came the soft blare of her mom’s TV, laugh track and commercials bleeding into the hallway like background radiation. Dayton turned the corner toward the kitchen and Ezra’s head moved constantly, darting, tracking, trying to take in everything from this new height. Shoulder-level was quickly becoming the view he’d have to learn whether he wanted to or not. 

Dayton walked into the kitchen like it was any other night. Her phone chirped in her pocket. She pulled it out and saw a meme from Hayden. 

Dayton snorted, thumbs flying as she typed a reply. 

She didn’t bother angling the screen away from him. She didn’t even think about it. In class, she would’ve hidden it out of reflex, like students did around teachers. Here, that reflex was gone. 

Ezra noticed the absence like a missing tooth. 

Dayton opened the pantry and stepped closer, rummaging through boxes and bags. From Ezra’s shoulder, the shelves looked absurd, a wall of everyday objects scaled into monuments: cereal boxes like billboards, chip bags like crinkly tarps, the glossy plastic of snack packaging catching the overhead light. 

Dayton didn’t find what she wanted. She shut the pantry and went to the fridge instead. 

Cold air spilled out. She reached in, plucked a few grapes from the bowl, and popped them into her mouth. 

Ezra could hear her chewing. Not because she was being gross, not because she had bad manners. Just because he was close enough that normal sounds became… loud. 

She grabbed a piece of cheese, tore off a few chunks of summer sausage, then opened a bottle of water and took two quick drinks before setting it back in the fridge, slightly apart from the others like she’d marked it as hers. 

Then she closed the door and turned away, already moving. 

Ezra stayed perched on her shoulder, helplessly in the front row for the whole teenage snack ritual, as if this was simply another part of his new job to witness every moment of Dayton’s life.  
 
 

“Okay,” Dayton said, pivoting back toward the pantry. “Now we just grab those Cheez-Its we saw.” 

She stepped inside, grabbed the big box, and shook a few into her palm. Five or six. Maybe more. She popped them into her mouth one by one like it was nothing. 

She glanced up at him, smug. “See? Hands-free snacking. This is why shoulder-riding is elite.” 

“I’m thrilled,” Ezra said dryly, “that my demotion has improved your snack efficiency.” 
 
“I got you s’mores pellets upstairs,” Dayton said, super casual, like she was announcing she bought lip gloss. “And oh my god, Kinsley was so jealous. We were at the store and she literally made Nicole get her a whole box because Nicole wouldn’t do it at first. Like, it was a whole thing.” 

She popped another Cheez-It, chewing like a commentator. 

“So yeah,” she added, tilting her head a little like she was letting him in on a secret, “just saying… you kinda lucked out. S’mores pellets on day one. Some guardians make you earn that.” 

Ezra adjusted his footing on her shoulder, eyes forward like he refused to be cast as a gossip accessory. 

“How reassuring,” he said. “I’m glad my… welfare is being measured in s’mores pellets and sibling jealousy.” 

Silence hung for a second, quieter. 

“And for the record, Dayton ‘lucked out’ is an interesting way to describe becoming someone’s property.” 
 
 

“Well, you were already somebody’s property,” Dayton said, like she was reminding him of a rule everyone knew. “Before me, you belonged to the district, so don’t act like I personally invented this.” 

She popped another Cheez-It. “I just… acquired you. Like when schools sell off old desks they don’t want anymore.” 

Dayton glanced up at him, smug. “So yeah. Now you’re my property. Huge W for you, honestly.” 

Then she added, softer but still bratty, “And no, you don’t have to thank me. I know we didn’t exactly get along. You were kind of a jerk.” 

Her shoulders lifted in a tiny shrug under him. “But I’m not, like, a grudge person. Unless it’s deserved. So… whatever. Water under the bridge. Isn’t that what your old-timey generation says?” 
 
Dayton took the stairs at her normal pace, quick and light, and Ezra had to match his balance to the rise and fall of her shoulder like he was learning a new kind of walking. 

He kept one hand hooked in her hoodie seam, the other braced against the warm curve near her neck, and spoke without looking up at her face. 

“Your generation really does think slang makes something true,” he said, voice low and dry. “Calling it a ‘W’ doesn’t make it one.” 

Dayton kept climbing, unbothered. 

“And ‘water under the bridge’ is what people say when both sides agreed to move on,” he added. “Not when one side… acquired the other.” 

He swallowed, jaw tight as the landing came into view. 

“Mercy doesn’t count,” Ezra said quietly, “when the person giving it owns the person receiving it.” 

Dayton’s foot hit the landing. She didn’t stop walking, but her head tipped a little like she was side-eyeing him without actually turning. 

“Okay,” she said, voice light, almost amused. “Then what is it called, Professor?” Making the last word a bit extra purpose. 

“If it’s not mercy, and it’s not a ‘W,’ and it’s not ‘water under the bridge’…” She lifted her hand like she was counting points. “What do you want me to call it. Because I’m not calling it ‘Dayton’s Evil Villain Era.’ That’s Hayden’s brand.” 

He steadied himself on her shoulder as she reached the top step. 

“Call it what it is,” he said quietly. “Ownership.” 

A few seconds passed between them before Ezra continued 

“If you want something prettier for it, you can call it guardianship.” His mouth tightened. “But don’t pretend the word changes the power.” 

He glanced up at her, eyes sharp. 

“And if you’re asking what you’re doing right now?” he added. “You’re calling it mercy so you don’t have to feel what it costs.” 

Dayton paused at the top step, just long enough that Ezra felt it in his balance. 

“And what does it cost?” she asked, voice lighter than the question deserved. Like she was asking about shipping fees. 

Ezra didn’t answer right away. He adjusted his footing on the seam of her hoodie, eyes flicking over the hallway, the closed doors, the strip of light under her mom’s room. He kept his voice low. 

“It costs me being able to say no,” he said finally. 

Another movement. A tiny metallic tick. 

“It costs privacy. It costs dignity, in ways you don’t notice because you’re not the one shrinking yourself into corners.” His jaw tightened. “It costs time. My career. My name.” 

He swallowed, and the collar shifted. 

“And it costs you,” Ezra added, quieter, “the part of you that still knows I’m not a desk you ‘acquired.’ The part that has to work harder every day to forget that.” 

He glanced up at her, just once. 

“That’s why calling it mercy is convenient.” 

Dayton’s mouth twisted like she’d been holding that thought in her pocket all day. 

“Okay, but you’re not gonna sit there and act like you had some noble, independent plan,” she said, keeping her steps steady. “Your great idea was literally… ‘let the district take me.’” 

Ezra’s shoulders tightened. 

Dayton kept going anyway, words coming faster now because she was on a roll. “Like, congrats, you chose a government corporation to ‘care’ for you. You basically signed up to be free labor in exchange for room and board and then acted shocked when it was… exactly that.” 

She glanced sideways at him, eyebrows up. “You could’ve asked family. A friend. Someone you actually trust. You could’ve even asked a student you didn’t hate.” Her tone sharpened on that last part. “Instead you picked the district because you didn’t want to owe anyone and you thought you’d outsmart the system.” 

Her shoulders lifted in a small shrug under him. “And you didn’t. You got screwed.” 

Ezra inhaled like he was about to correct her phrasing. 

Dayton cut in, still bratty, but not wrong. “And don’t do the ‘if you didn’t claim me, I’d be fine’ thing. If we pretend I never said anything, someone else would have. Someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, or someone who actually would treat you like a desk they acquired.” 

She looked forward again, voice going casual like she’d just ended the argument with a period. “At least I’m honest about what this is.” 

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