Page 21 of Klaus

8

Ainsley

Iwas becoming accustomed to living in my room, or so I told myself.

The presence of a television was helpful, though I’d never watched much of it in my previous life.

My previous life. That was how it seemed. Every passing day put me further away from that time. I had taken everything for granted—my dragon, my security, the happiness I had managed to create for myself. The happiness of knowing who I was and knowing my place in the clan.

What was happening to me? I’d lost my dragon and my nerve at the same time. Perhaps the dragon was my nerve, my courage, my strength. Perhaps I was nothing without her.

I’d taken up quite a bit of binge-watching as a result.

My body cried out for activity. I had once spent hours at a time flying, swimming, running. I used to hunt in the old days, before there was such a thing as radio or any other entertainment. I’d spent most of my life outside; Alan and our parents had teased, claiming I’d forgotten that we were supposed to live in the caves and not outdoors.

There was a fine line to walk. I couldn’t spend all of my waking hours behind a closed door. It was too far out of character. If I wasn’t careful to show my face a few times a day and make idle conversation as I normally would have, I’d attract attention.

The amount of thought which went into my deception was exhausting.

At least Klaus had taken the hint and left me alone. He wasn’t bad, necessarily. Under different circumstances, we might have been friends.

I shook my head, gripping my hairbrush tight enough to hurt, staring into the bathroom mirror as I fixed my hair.

“Enough of that,” I whispered with another shake before resuming my brushing.

I had enough friends, and enough problems. I didn’t need to add more. Thinking of him as a potential friend would only lead to trouble, no matter how decent he seemed.

He’d kept his word, at least, and hadn’t bothered me again after our last encounter. He struck me as the sort who’d regard his word as his bond. A gentleman of the old guard. I couldn’t help wondering how old he really was, how much of the world he’d seen. I most certainly had it all over him when it came to age, but he hadn’t been forced into seclusion the way I had.

Was that why he interested me? It had to be. He had a wider understanding of the world. He’d seen things in person that I’d only seen on a screen. He’d touched them. There were so many questions he might be able to answer. Stories he might be able to tell. I had the feeling we could spend hours talking and never get tired of the other’s company.

“Stop it,” I whispered to myself, slamming the brush against the vanity in frustration. How was it that I kept returning to images of the two of us spending time together? I didn’t want to spend time with him. All he did was annoy me. The one time I’d tried to be friendly, back on the jet, I’d regretted it later.

My hair was a mass of unruliness which seemed even more determined to stick out in all directions than ever before. I didn’t know why I’d wasted the time in trying to tame it, perhaps because I had nothing better to do? If I were by nature a disorderly person, someone who hoarded treasures or refused to pick up after herself, I might have been able to keep myself occupied by cleaning. I needed to put something in order. I needed to feel useful.

As it was, I took pride in keeping clean quarters and had always been somewhat of a minimalist. The way I saw it, time would pass and whatever was in fashion at any given time would someday fall out of fashion, so why make myself a slave to it? Leslie and Isla and some of the other women disagreed with me and had even gotten caught up in popular culture around the time the term had been coined, starting with bringing magazines back from the city all the way to following their favorite stars on social media in modern times.

I began to wonder if they didn’t have the right idea, as I was running out of things to do with myself.

The one thing I wanted more than anything else was my freedom. The freedom to explore the woods without fear. When my dragon was inside me, ready to spring forth at a moment’s notice, I’d been unstoppable. Let any creature, large or small, try to test me and I’d show them how very grave their mistake had been.

I’d never existed without that other presence in the back of my mind, always ready to protect us both. I didn’t know how to navigate life without her.

My hands shook as I dressed, I did what I could to ignore the tremor, reminding myself there was nothing to fear. We were safe again; we were free from any threat, perceived or otherwise. I didn’t need to shift. There was nothing to protect myself from.

Even so, I closed my eyes and listened for any slight whisper. Anything. Just a single shred of hope. Only silence greeted me, as it had for weeks.

I blinked back tears of frustration, certain I was in control of my emotions before emerging from my room. I would need to show my face for a while before going out to take a walk.

Leslie spotted me first. “Where have you been?” Always the sisterly type and more than a little bossy, swinging her hair over one shoulder and fixing me with a shrewd gaze. She missed nothing.

I’d have to be careful.

“I don’t know—around,” I shrugged. “I was going to ask you the same thing. I hadn’t seen you today.”

“We were on a supply run,” she explained. I barely held back a sigh of relief. My gamble had paid off. She couldn’t prove I hadn’t been looking for her.

“See anything interesting?” I asked with a smile, walking with her to the kitchen where several of the others were unloading boxes of food. The smell of raw meat used to excite me—or, rather, my dragon. It was with a hollow sense of certainty that I realized the scent did nothing for me anymore.

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