Page 75 of Odder Still
“I thought my lack of response should have been clear enough.” Their voice sounds rough, their words twisted with something between bitterness and humor. “So, why the fuck are you in my office, nephew?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
For Every Ecosystem, a Genocide
Fear festers
until all I have in me is a curse.
All I am is a thirst,
sweltering.
Gods be damned.
For the consequences of our own actions.
THE TENSION BUILDING INSIDE me contracts like a snapping viper. It sends my parasite into a defensive growl. I press my palm to Tavish’s back for my own support as much as his.
Greer O’Cain leans over their deck, cigar between their first and second finger, and flicks on a small lamp. It illuminates their shadowy corner, revealing the bespectacled selkie to have more freckles than clear skin and just as many wrinkles, their frizzy, grey hair drawn back in a series of elaborate braids. A whiskey cup with an inch of amber liquid sits beneath their other hand. They twist it, running the bottom edge against the black wood.
They are everything Lachlan isn’t—stout and solid and resolute—but there’s a mechanical aspect to them that the siblings share, something about the manner in which they move and the way their lips quirk. My heart doesn’t hammer in their presence, but I think, perhaps, it should. The same way it should have with Lachlan, even from his very first awkward fumble.
“I wasn’t sure whether to believe it when my head of house said they’d spotted you wandering through the estate. But here you are.” Greer props up one foot, then the other, their dirt-caked boots conflicting with the pristine state of the office. “Give me a reason not to call the BA. Or, better yet, your mother.”
I want to launch over their desk and give them the very best reason of all, but as I shift, Tavish’s hand slips over mine.
Though he holds his voice steady, I feel the tension in his shoulders, the way his breath trembles ever so slightly as he draws it in, and how he takes too long to release it. “There’s something wrong with the ignit cycle. It’s present in the mutants Raghnaid is trying so hard to hide, and the latching of an aurora to a human. I’ve even experienced an ignit failing at random—a situation too atrocious to contemplate if it starts happening to our ignation. My mother has been doing nothing to stop it, so I have no choice but to deal with it myself.”
Greer’s eyes narrow, their cigar dangling from perfectly manicured nails. “You? With these two shadows you pulled out of the lower? You’re a murder suspect to the assembly, an opportunity to the other company leaderships, and the head of your own family is furious with you. How do you plan to make any real change, boy?”
Tavish straightens his shoulders, his jaw so stiff it almost trembles. His voice comes out soft despite the diamond edge, as if he’s testing each word with care. “My mother has a lab in her tower, a private one never approved by the assembly. There’s an old regulation on clandestine research I uncovered last year while digging through clinical study permits in my mother’s office. If I confront her about it—”
“Confront her?” In the wall tank, a small shark skitters away from a larger one, fleeing out of its path. Greer watches it, their expression darkening. “Blackmail her, you mean? And how long do you think that would grant you any control? As long as it takes to call your bluff? Render your regulation invalid? Put a blade through your chest?”
Tavish’s lips part, but he takes too long to form his thoughts, and Greer presses on.
“You could have brought the aurora’s host to me when you fled your estates, but you knew there was nowhere in the upper that you would truly be safe from your mother. You knew that in the end, she always wins. It’s the same reason I’ve never agreed to your meetings, because when your mother finds out, the backlash will be unprecedented. You may wrestle a win here and there, but you don’t have enough power to stand against her, not for a proper war.” They draw their boots off the desk, pressing both palms to it instead, fingers lifted to hold their cigar away from the wood. “You have a bright mind and a good heart, but you don’t have the kind of strength it takes to eliminate someone you know to be a poison. Or, maybe you’re like me. Maybe the stability you have now is worth more than the risk of standing up to her once and for all.”
Tavish’s nostrils flare in disgust. His fingers find his empty brooch, bloodied calluses around far too many of his nails. “You’re selfish.”
“I like to think of it as entitled.” It’s the emotionless statement of a person who looked in the mirror ages ago and decided everything they hated in it wasn’t worth the effort of changing. “I am the result of my upbringing—we all are—beneath the shadow of Findlay Inc. We have just barely enough, always.”
Tavish scoffs, but his voice shakes again as he repeats, “Just barely enough?”
“No one studies the ecosystem or runs a charity hospital from a jail cell. Or a lower district.” Greer continues to watch him, unblinking. “I would be a hypocrite to blame you for doing the same, cowing under your mother the way we all do, dancing around her instead of stepping up to her. It’s pathetic, really. We’re pathetic, you included.”
Tavish throttles the top of his cane. I can see the determination slipping away from him, all of his worries closing in. I want so desperately to give him my strength, to convince him that he is already enough just as he is. But as I try to brush my fingers against his arm, he moves away, sinking deeper into himself. His retreat hurts, forming a lump in my throat that only my parasite’s rumbling can clear.
Greer taps their cigar against their ashtray and sighs. “But I’d also be a fool not to tell her you were in my house.” As they speak, they lean back, shifting toward the shadow of a phone box on the wall behind them.
I don’t know who flares first: me or my parasite. But neither of us accept this. The one thing that slows our outrage is the understanding that, while Greer can do nothing to us here, alone, that once we’re gone, they could tell anyone. They could stop us from reaching the Trench without ever leaving this house.
‘Plan to make any real change,’my parasite tosses the phrase with determination.
Even if we have to tie Greer up or drag them with us or bury a knife in their chest?
‘This’ll all be worth it.’
