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Henry casually tossed over a roll of clean bandages, leaving the troublesome brat to dress his own wound.
Judging by the boy's sulky expression, he probably wouldn't have accepted Henry's help anyway.
Henry also removed his formal coat and used it to wrap the black girl's body while considering what to do next.
A proper burial through official channels was out of the question.
Neither the police nor a hospital would be easy to deal with. Henry certainly didn't know any church cemetery caretakers willing to accept bribes and ask no questions about where a corpse had come from.
As for the methods used by gangs or the Continental to dispose of bodies, the goal was simply to make the corpse disappear. There was nothing respectful about it. Henry had no interest in learning more.
The reason he wanted to put in the extra effort instead of handling things carelessly was not only to give the dead a proper farewell.
It was also for the sake of the living.
The brat's feelings were only part of it.
More importantly, Henry couldn't shake the guilt weighing on his own heart, making it impossible for him to simply dispose of her and walk away.
So he asked,
"How do you usually handle this kind of thing?"
"What kind of thing?" the boy snapped back.
Ignoring the child's attitude, Henry calmly clarified,
"When someone dies, what do you usually do?"
"Leave them where they are. Or take them to Cannibal Street and sell them. The price depends on how much meat there is. If the body's dried out or already started rotting, it's worth less."
The boy glared at him.
"But I won't let you do that to Sky. You said you'd bury her."
...
Cannibal Street.
When Henry had first heard the name, he had assumed it referred to a street filled with dangerous people—the kind of place where everyone was another Hannibal Lecter.
Now it sounded as though the name was literal in more ways than one.
In any case, anyone sent there probably wouldn't receive a good ending.
Henry would have to find another solution.
Bury her in the sewers?
One of the girl's final wishes had been to leave that place.
Even though she had directed that wish toward a demon rather than him, Henry still couldn't bring himself to bury her in the very place she had wanted to escape.
He had intended to carry her carefully in his arms.
However, considering he had another passenger to deal with, Henry ended up slinging the girl's small body over one shoulder while grabbing the brat around the waist with his free arm.
The dead, naturally, had no objections.
The living one certainly did.
Realizing he had been picked up, the child immediately began struggling.
"What are you doing?! Put me down!"
"Quiet. Unless you want to bite your tongue off, keep your teeth clenched."
The moment the words left his mouth, Henry activated his super-speed and flight simultaneously.
In an instant, he shot out of New York's underground maze and streaked from the East Coast toward the West Coast.
As for the three sparrow drones that suddenly lost their target?
Henry had completely forgotten about them.
Following their operating protocols, the three spy drones immediately split up and began navigating the countless tunnels of New York's sewer system.
Their logic was simple:
When a target was lost, search outward from the last known location, gradually expanding the search radius until the target was reacquired.
Only then would the three units regroup and resume tracking.
Unfortunately, the sparrows were doomed to fail.
They could only continue wandering through New York's sewers until the Kryptonian eventually remembered they existed.
---
By the time the brat's feet touched solid ground again, he immediately doubled over and began dry-heaving.
He was in no condition to figure out where he had been taken.
If Henry had fully protected him with a Kryptonian biofield, the discomfort wouldn't have been nearly so severe.
But for a brat who constantly caused him trouble, why would Henry make things easy?
As long as the kid wasn't torn apart by the air pressure, that was good enough.
Eventually, the dizziness subsided enough for Putz to look around.
What greeted him was a beautiful hillside.
Towering green trees surrounded them.
Beyond lay an endless forest and distant mountain ranges stretching across the horizon.
"Where are we?"
"Joshua National Park in California."
Henry continued,
"This is a secluded spot I found myself. It's not a popular hiking route or sightseeing destination. Hardly anyone ever comes here.
"No one will disturb her."
While the brat had been busy vomiting, Henry had made a quick trip to the Sheep Cave Valley Laboratory and returned with two shovels.
One was tossed beside the future gravesite.
The other remained in his hands.
Using his Kryptonian powers to dig a grave like a dog pawing at dirt was an image too embarrassing for him to contemplate.
Tools would do nicely.
The black girl's body, wrapped in the coat, rested beneath a nearby tree.
Without a word, the boy endured his hunger and exhaustion, picked up the shovel—which was nearly as tall as he was—and started digging.
He didn't even question how they had somehow traveled from the East Coast to the West Coast in an instant.
Then again, perhaps a child who had never attended school seriously didn't possess that kind of geographical knowledge.
Naturally, Henry did most of the digging.
There was no way he was going to leave all the work to a child who struggled just to lift the shovel.
Before long, they had excavated a sufficiently deep grave.
When burying a body in the wilderness, depth was essential.
Not only did it help conceal the scent, but it also prevented animals from digging up and scavenging the remains.
That was why people in the West often used the phrase six feet under as a synonym for burial.
Traditionally, coffins were buried six feet below ground—a practice based on long experience rather than any special symbolic meaning.
Once the grave was ready, Henry carefully lowered the black girl into it.
His Tinkerer coat had now become her shroud.
After climbing back out of the grave, Henry was about to begin filling it in when he noticed the lonely expression on the boy's face.
"Say goodbye to your friend properly," he said.
"After you place the first shovel of dirt, I'll help finish the rest."
The child suddenly asked,
"Why are you doing all this?"
After a moment of thought, Henry answered honestly.
"Originally, I was only trying to find the person directing you from behind the scenes, so I secretly followed you.
"I didn't expect to learn about you and her. I also witnessed what happened this morning when those others bullied you.
"After you left, she didn't move for a long time, so I came out to check on her.
"The truth is, I still had a chance to save her then.
"But I chose to respect her decision.
"By the time I regretted it, it was already too late."
Most of that was the truth.
Including the choice that continued to haunt him.
What Henry omitted was Mephisto's appearance and the collection of the girl's soul.
That part was far too difficult to explain.
As for giving the coin to the boy as a keepsake...
The idea barely formed before Henry dismissed it.
First, he wasn't even certain whether the coin truly had anything to do with the girl's soul.
Second, it belonged to a demon.
Carrying such an object around was unlikely to lead to anything good.
Better not.
The boy didn't dwell on the fact that Henry might have saved her but hadn't.
Instead, he quietly asked,
"Did Sky say anything at the end?"
"She said she wanted a home.
"She wanted a father and mother.
"She wanted to eat a turkey dinner and brag to you about it.
"But she also wanted you there with her. She hoped her parents would let you stay too.
"Even at the very end, she was still thinking about you."
Henry repeated the girl's final wish.
Even if that wish had been spoken to a demon.
The words immediately made the child cry.
The tears poured out uncontrollably.
For a moment, Henry didn't know what to do.
Should he comfort him?
Or give him space to grieve?
Fortunately, the crying didn't last long.
Before long, the sobs softened into sniffles.
The brat even tried to force a smile onto his face.
Rubbing his eyes repeatedly and wiping away tears, he muttered,
"You have to smile more.
"Sky didn't like seeing people cry.
"Because whenever someone cried, she'd start crying too."
Laughing and crying at the same time, he stood there for quite a while.
Eventually, he reluctantly scooped up a shovel of dirt and scattered it over the body below.
Only then did Henry join in, returning the excavated earth to the grave.
When the grave had finally been filled, only a small mound remained above the surface.
A silent reminder of just how small the girl buried beneath it had been.
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