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I point back the way we came, mimicking the gestures she made when she convinced me to come with her, but she shakes her head—a gesture that, coupled with the downturn of her mouth and the bunching of her eyebrows, I take to meanno.She points and then brings her fingers to my face, pinching them close together. I do not understand and grunt my disproval, but when she attempts to scramble out of my arms, still soaked in dramini insides, I hold her tighter to me and plow forward.
She directs me where she likes and I do not know whether to feel proud, honored, or annoyed that she has such confidence to direct me like a wind sail on a rope. No, not confidence in herself. Confidence inme,that I will follow. Has she broken me already? But even I know the answer to that. She broke me the moment I saw her running across the Barrens like she’d lost her mind.
And then her watch speaks, and she releases a squeal of delight. She wriggles and when that only serves to make me clutch her tighter to my body, she huffs, says something in that strange, high-pitched garble she speaks, and then places each of her hands on either side of my face. She forces me to look at her.
Her eyes are brilliant. Brown and green. One color that is everywhere and a second color that only exists in Paradise. She has small dots of darker brown sprinkled across her nose and cheeks. Her hair is the brown of the mountain cliffs and the red of twilight, so vibrant and pretty. She is covered in dramini gunk and dust, filth unbecoming of this small token of perfection. But she is smiling at me, and the guilt I ought to feel for the bedraggled way my mate appears is nothing against that.
And then she tips my face down with her hands. My gaze, curious, lowers to the sandy ground and snags on the darker smear just peeking up through the upper crust of the earth. I realize instantly what should have occurred to me the moment she gestured for me to come with her away from my tribe. She is attempting to return to hers.
I frown and snarl, “You are mine.” But she is speaking rapidly now and with so much excitement, I can’t rip it from her…just as I can’t rip her from whatever strange life she led before and lock her into mine. Instead, if I truly care for this creature—and I do—I must…let her go.
I set her down, the feeling of my chest tearing apart worse than any time I’ve lost scales in battles with frex-frex or dramini or whatever other violent delights the Barrens throw at us. Like the time we confronted a new tribe, the Pikosa. They had no Mpo, but they had size and numbers, and I lost two scales to their warlord that took several painful months to grow back. Compared to this, that was nothing. Nothing at all.
I take a step back, away from her, and then another. She has turned her back on me already, fussing as she is with the lid to the strange tunnel she crawled out of. It’s ajar, and she’s attempting to lift it. I may not intend to tear her away from it, but I am not such a masochist that I offer to help her. Instead, I attempt to memorize her scent. A strange mix of flowers, the few that I’ve ever smelled, and salt. A sweetness with enough bite to undercut it.
She is nirvana. Paradise cannot compare to what she offers. And I hesitate. I have bred her many times. It is possible that she carries my kit. And yet that doesn’t seem to matter to her. She’s trying to leave me. As she gets the lid of her tunnel open and releases a wild whoop, I disintegrate like a blade of grass in a sandstorm. A tower of sand in the wind. And she is the desert flower that continues to bloom through all of it.
I take another step back as she lifts a leg over the edge of the tunnel, prepared to disappear forever, but before she lowers herself inside of the space entirely, she looks up, gaze finding mine. I wait in hate and horror for her give some foreign salutation of departure before leaving me for good, but instead she frowns.
Her head tips to the side, as if confused, and she steps out of the tunnel back onto the desert floor. A harsh breeze slams a wall of sand against her and I growl, pointing towards the tunnel. She needs to return to it before the sandstorm tears through her. She lifts her arm to brace against the assault and I quickly place my body between her and the approaching storm.
She blinks up at me, rubbing sand from her eyes. Her hair is a swirl of knots around her face. I might have laughed at the wild sight of her had I the heart. But my heart is gone already, lost with her in her cave. But then she surprises me when she grabs my wrist and pulls me toward that eerie tunnel entrance. I make the gesture for no with my three fingers downturned. I cannot abandon my tribe. I remain firm and do not let her pull me now.
She groans. “Pulayez,” she says the word slowly once, and then again three more times. “Lacchus…” She says my name and the stanchion that I am weakens. She comes to me, circles both of her arms around my waist, and tries to pull.
I laugh. She is so tiny it’s like an ant trying to move a mountain. She cannot do it alone. I will need to help her, but…to choose her over my tribe? I glance at the mouth of her tunnel, the unnatural shape and eerie darkness not at all beckoning me forward. And then I glance down at her face. I comb my claws back through her hair, snagging on tangled, sand-drenched curls, and sigh. I tip my chin down and right, toward her tunnel, and she smiles, takes my hand and guides me to the darkness.
ChapterFourteen
Rhen
WHEW. I didn’t think he was going to come with me for a second. He was looking very much like he wasnotgoing to come with me, but I need to go inside the Chamber to secure it from the bridge. I also want to stock up on supplies before I leave humanity forever. Maybe, ya know, also shower.
Definitely shower.
“Pam, can you tell me how to secure the Chamber?”
“Certainly…Rhen,” she says as I stalk down a people-tube-lined tunnel. I pass by people in Bay One who boast numbers one through forty-nine—these are the elites actually meant to be here—until I finally reach the larger octagonal-shaped room where I set up my own little encampment.
Most of my stuff got trampled to pieces, but my art still shines on the walls, looking bright and colorful as it depicts the marvelous contrast between the stark desert world above our heads and the old world as I remember it. My own little patch of Portugal. I didn’t paint any faces, any likenesses of the people I remember. I fear the uncanny valley and don’t know how reliable my memory is. Places I can idealize, but I don’t want to mess up any of my people, rattle their ghosts. After all, I think I might have started to believe a little bit in ghosts. If the lobisomem is real, maybe old spirits remain, too.
There is only one person—being—I would like to paint in both his forms and luckily for me, I’ve managed to convince the model to follow.
I smile up at the monster clomping grumpily down the walkway behind me. He had to shrink back down to his regular shape in order to fit down the tube, and even then, it was a tight squeeze. He isn’t smiling at me, but glaring around at the people on the walls with an expression I can’t quite read, but that I imagine is a healthy mix of horror and more horror.
In the cafeteria, I rifle through the bedding that his tribe stomped all over, eventually finding a duffel bag in the rubble I’d been using to transport items from room to room.
“Brilliant,” I tell Pam as soon as she’s finished her explanation of the long-term hibernation procedure. “I’m going to take a shower, get a little water and food and then I’ll leave these fine folks in peace.”
“I think…that would be best…Rhen.”
I laugh loud and a little hysterically as I head behind the long counter lining one wall of the room. I start to shove dehydrated meal kits into my pack. Not a lot, just enough for…just in case. “Thanks, Pam.”
Meanwhile, I watch Lacchus step uncomfortably over the ruined mattress. His gaze is distrusting as it moves over the walls of the space, occasionally flicking to me as if making sure I’m still here. It’s kind of sweet. Who am I kidding? It’s insanely sweet. The only sweet thing a boy ever did for me in the old world was steal a condom so we could have safe sex. What a gentleman.
What’s even sweeter is the faraway look Lacchus gets in his eyes as he pores over my paintings, walking up and down the walls inspecting them. He reaches out occasionally and brushes the backs of his knuckles across them, handling them with care like they are precious to him. He touches me like that sometimes, too.
I know it’s stupid, but after I pack up a few canteens of water, I head to the far wall where I keep my paints in a cubby. I fill all of the leftover space in my bag with paints, linseed oil, turpentine, and brushes, knowing that this is the only paint I’ll likely ever have. I’ll probably be able to make some out of…something…but it’s not a guarantee. And wherever I end up, I intend to make sure the world knows I existed. The artist survived. I was here, bitches.
