Page 40 of Starve
Cairo bares his fangs, his grin surprised and sharp. It’s the first real, surprised smile I’ve seen from him, and his mouth justkeeps openinguntil I swear he’s dislocated his damn jaw to show off all those shiny, terrifying teeth.
A shiver goes down my spine, and his eyes glitter. His tongue licks over one canine, then the other, and it takes a moment for me to realize he’s showing me it’s longer than a human’s tongue, just as his jaw somehow opens further than a normal human’s ever should.
And then there are histeeth.His canines have to be twice as long as mine, while his other teeth are a little slanted, so every single one could do me harm. When he finally closes his mouth properly, he leans close to me again, caging me in over the counter.
“Let me hurt you, little bird,” Cairo purrs, sounding more like a cat than a person. There’s a strange, terrifying light in his eyes, making them look like emeralds instead of just plain green. “I could make you want it and keep your mind off of anything else.”
But I slowly shake my head, maintaining eye contact like I can’t look away, more like I’m looking around than actually disagreeing.
The feeling in my stomach is mostly fear. At least eighty percent is terror at the idea of him doing something terrible to me. But the other twenty percent is, embarrassingly, anticipation. Secret, subtledesireto know what it is he’d do for me to want him to hurt me.
My fingers flex against his, and he steps closer, leaning down to growl against my hair. “Sit there and stop trying to hurt yourself,” Cairo tells me. “Or I’ll be meaner, since that’s what it seems like you need.”
“Says who?” I breathe, trying for confidence and missing spectacularly as evidenced by Cairo’s withering glance.
“Do you need to clean your wounds again?” I ask as my confusion settles somewhere alongside the fear. There’s a touch of worry for him as well, no matter how much I try to hide it, and as soon as he turns, I’m back to scraping my nails along my scar. Though I switch to pinching it between my forefinger and thumb a moment later, wincing at the sharp sting of that particular abuse.
“Little bird…”His tone is something I haven’t quite heard before, almost like the way he says things in voices that aren’t his. Yet somehow, the sound is all Cairo, though it’s part husky purr that shouldn’t be possible from a human throat. “You’re just determined to push me, aren’t you? Fine. I’ll give you what you need to make your scent go back to normal.”
“How do you know what I need?” I snap nervously, watching him tug off his shirt. Immediately I’m caught by the way his chest looks. It’s healed, or nearly so. As if the wounds there are weeks old instead of just a day or two. “Fuck, Cairo. How did you?—”
But he’s on me before I can finish, eyes flashing to reflect the illumination from the nightlight by the mirror.
“I don’t know exactly what you need,” he admits, not seeming put out by it in the least. “But I’m willing to experiment. You’re shaking, Fern.” When I only look at him, he picks up my hand in one of his, showing me the slight, persistent tremble in my fingers. “You stink like fear and anxiety. And…” but he trails off, then shakes his head like he’s dismissing the thought.
“What happened today before you found me? Before you walked around in those woods and didn’t realize you were being followed by not one, buttwoof us?”
“Nothing,” I lie, not wanting to tell him about my day. Suddenly, I’m afraid of showing him weakness, and unsure of where I stand in this situation. I don’t even know if he’s being honest about not killing me, not eating me, or not feeding me to his friends. My muscles tense, thighs pressed tight, and my fingers twist in his hand, though he’s got a death grip on the fingers I’ve been pressing to my scar, just shy of being actually painful.
“Little liar.” Cairo clicks his tongue in disappointment. “You’re so disobedient, and I can smell a lie on you a mile away. I don’t like it when you smell of fear unless I’m the sole reason for it.” Again he gives me that wolfish grin, and leans in against me. “You wanted to try me, didn’t you?” he breathes, lapping at the skin of my jaw like it’s candy. The idea of tasting good to him sends a shudder down my spine, and I flex my hands against him in an attempt to push him away.
“You wanted to bully me into answering your questions about me. Aboutus.”When I feel the graze of his teeth, I nearly shriek. But only a soft whimper leaves me, and his grin is so wide I can sense it on my skin. “But now you’re here. Trapped against your mirror and still dissociating from whatever got you so shaken up today. My poor little bird,” he coos. “Your heart is pounding hard enough that if you were a rabbit, it might burst. Do you want to fly away, hmm? Instead of being here with me?”
It’s the most he’s ever said to me, but he seems to get bolder every time he licks my skin or after any noise I give him.
“I just need to ground myself,” I breathe. “Just let me?—”
“No, sweetheart, I’ve let you do enough tonight. I’ve spent the last six months in a fucking asylum. You think I don’t know what dissociation looks like?” His voice twists on the word asylum,letting me know exactly how he feels about it. “Clothes off. Shower.”
“With you?”
He rolls his eyes at me balefully, showing me his teeth as he does. “What’s wrong, little bird? Scared of me seeing all of you? Scared I won’t be able to control myself?”
“You weren’t this talkative at Bluebone.” I know he’s right, that a shower will make me feel at least a little like a person again. But he’s also right that I’m not sure I should be alone in the shower with him.
Cairo doesn’t respond to my words. He just stands up, giving me a slightly softer expression. “Promise me you won’t drown,” he sighs. “Or fall and hit your head. That would be such a waste, Fern.”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
That doesn’t seem to reassure him much. He snorts, but turns and opens the door of the bathroom, hesitating.
Like he’s waiting for me to say something.
And I can feel the words on my tongue. Right there, asking him to stay rather than leave. I have to remind myself that he’s amonsterand, quite literally in every way, a killer.
He eats people.
He ate Esther.
