The wait for Quinton at supper hour caused every muscle in Mischa’s body to tremble in anticipation. Was he still looking for a battery? Had he even bothered to look at all today? April pressed her palm to the hand Mischa hadn’t even realized had been visibly quivering.

“What has you so anxious?” she asked.

“Just one of those days.”

April’s eyes darted around the table until a small smile grew on her face. “Are you nervous about a certain guy coming to join us?”

“What?” Mischa frowned. While Quinton was the reason, April’s teasing tone conveyed the wrong reson. She most certainly wasn’t entertaining notions of the romantic kind for Quinton. Or she sure as hell hoped she wasn’t. It wouldn’t be fair.

“I won’t tell him. He is cute and has had his eye on for awhile. That’s why I decided to give you two a little more space yesterday.”

“No April, that’s not what it is at all. I mean, Quinton is a nice guy and easy enough on the eyes-“

“Thank you,” said the familiar face she had been anticipating up until this point.

Of course he would choose the worst possible moment to arrive. Boys...Mischa wanted to bury her face in her hands; instead she maintained her composure. “And despite those things, I only have platonic feelings for you.”

“Your loss,” Quinton said as he sat down. “What about you April? Any feelings for the Quint-mister?”

April and Mischa burst in laughter, their bodies shaking. Tears almost came to Mischa’s eyes when she realized how much her life had lacked this element of fun lately.  Quinton’s aloofness was almost endearing. The green eyed girl shook her head with a small smile.

“You don’t have to be so cruel about it,” he said, stabbing at his carrot. With a smile, Mischa stifled another laugh.

The meal passed at a glacial speed since Quinton hadn’t divulged any information she sought. His invitation to take a walk had her up faster than a flash flood. April teased her on the way out about those so called platonic feelings. Mischa’s spirits had increased to the point that she could brush it off with another laugh.

The pair walked down two set of stairs to the dorm which Quinton shared with Navjot. Neither Mischa nor Quinton trusted the cameras that decorated the hallways in the absence of art to keep their conversation confidential. A weight lifted off her chest knowing she wasn’t the only one who noticed the invisible presence. Once Quinton swung the door open, she the tension melted from her shoulders.

“So, this is my place,” he said.

His eyes shot around the room littered with dirty glasses, the occasional sweater and a few textbooks. Mischa couldn’t spot the tracker within the mess. She found it strange the layout of the apartment didn’t mimic the one she shared with her father. There was less space and a boxier feel to their common area, plus no kitchen.

“Did you find anything?” He had brought her here after all. He had no reason to do that if he just had bad news. If the tracker worked the question remained, would Vita and Gunnar still be in Albuquerque?

“I don’t have good news for you,” Quinton said with his hands in his pockets.

Mischa’s stomach clenched. Her eyes prickled with the heat of new tears she hadn’t expected. She let a solitary tear run down her cheek. So much for her pleasant mood. “Are you sure?”

“I checked our supply closets and tested a few when no one was watching, but nothing took. I brought a few here just in case we want to try them again. They’re charging in my room in case that was the issue. Only two are the right size.”

They walked into the bedroom and a power bar led to eight different batteries on chargers and four that weren’t. Mischa smiled at the sight. “Did you take everything you could find?”

Quinton shrugged and let out a guilty grin. “Pretty much.”

She wanted to jump up and hug him, but stopped herself. Her emotions bounced around like a cheerleaders at a football game today; no good could come from trusting those impulses now. “Thank you, you have no idea how much this means to me.”

“Happy to help.”

“Which are the two that fit?”

Quinton knelt down and pulled two off their chargers. He placed them in Mischa’s hands with care and a gentle smile. “Give it a shot.”

His head tilted toward his night stand where among a couple of well worn books, the tracker sat. He must have checked the devices just before supper. Her eyes grazed the well worn spines of the books before grabbing the batteries. What do you bring when you know the world could end? She raised her eyebrow at Hugo’s Les Miserables and Orwell’s 1984. That certainly painted a different picture than the flirty computer geek she had first met. Gunnar could never be found near a book or a library. Book learning had never been his strong point; she knew that after trying to keep him from failing English and pre-cal.

Focus, Mischa! Find him. 

She slipped the first battery in and waited. The power button left the machine mute and dormant. She sighed, pulled the battery out and quickly replaced it with the other. It produced the same heartbreaking result. She wanted to throw to silly thing across the room. How could it have failed? This was her one shot at finding her friends again. Now she would never know nor would she see their wonderful faces again. She’d miss Gunnar’s smile, which only seemed to come out when her eyes rested on him. How could she live without Vita’s sweet yet sometimes temperamental nature? It was always the two girls taking on the world by storm, come what may, boys, tears, poor grades. This couldn’t be the end. 

Quinton came to her side as soon as the tears began to fall with a blanket and a box of tissues. She sat down on the floor against his metal bed frame. The blanket only scratched at her dry skin and placed comfort far from her grasp.

“This isn’t a dead end. I just have to figure out where the problem is, with the battery voltage or the actual tracker,” Quinton said. He placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

Mischa wiped away a couple tears before she looked up at his big brown eyes. “Why would you do that?”

“Because this place is hard enough to live in when you want to be here. If there’s one thing you’ll need to make it through, it’s hope.”

“I- I, Quinton, you’re honestly too good to be true.” The way his eyes twinkled right now brought back flashes of past relationships like Danny. She needed to stop this before it got out of hand. “But I have to tell you, if you’re looking for any kind of romantic fling, you’re wasting your time.” She held her breath just waiting for the angry response, but it never came. He held his calm demeanour.

“That’s alright. I can tell you have unresolved issues from the disaster. Hell, I’m probably being naive thinking you’re looking for your ‘friend’. Like someone wouldn’t have swept you up already.”

“They’re two good friends of mine and they both mean a lot to me.”

Quinton nodded, almost smiling at her answer. Mischa let out a quick breath. She hadn’t outright lied. Gunnar wasn’t her boyfriend and they had never crossed the line to go beyond being friends. Fate had never been on their side between Gunnar’s mysterious life and her end of term assignments. If she saw him again, she would know if they were meant for something more. He was so easy to talk to, so removed from any drama that her and her friends went through. He had this air about him which made him seem far more knowledgeable than her peers, in different ways than she was used to.

“If you can get your hands on another tracker, I could test it and see what I can do about fixing the problem.”

“Of course.”

She went to get up, wondering if her luck could run strong two nights in a row. It was highly unlikely and her father was supposed to work late tonight. Her shoulders slumped as she realized it wouldn’t be possible.

“Do you want to stay for a bit? Navjot will be back soon and maybe we could play cards or something?” The tentative smile on his face tugged at the fact that her other option involved sitting in her apartment alone and probably bawling her eyes out.

“That sounds great.”