Page 66 of Bizarre Bonds
I can’t close that up as effectively as I could the shadowkind creature’s injuries, but I can freeze the surface into a scab-like material that’ll stave off more bleeding and numb the poor animal’s pain.
As soon as I’ve finished, the cat wriggles out of my arms. The shadowkind creature immediately bumps heads with it and rubs their sides together.
“So you’re best buddies, huh?” I say, bemused. I guess there isn’t anything so odd about that if their natures are similar despite their differing origins.
The cat makes a throaty sound that the shadowkind creature echoes. They bound off down the alley with more vigor than I’d have expected after their recent trauma.
What if they re-open their wounds? I trail behind them with an uneasy sense of urgency.
They only travel a couple of blocks before leaping from a dumpster to a window ledge and then onward to a fire escape. I meld into the shadows again to follow them up to the third floor.
There, they both scratch on a windowpane. After a moment, an elderly human man slides the window open.
He clucks his tongue at the two creatures affectionately, obviously unaware that one of them isn’t actually a cat. “Hungry again, are you? I spoil you two. Hold on.”
He putters off and returns with two dishes full of canned tuna. Both cats chirp in approval and dig in without hesitation.
Clearly this ritual has been going on for a long time. And the man indulges them, to no benefit I can see to himself.
As he offers one cat and then the other creature a gentle stroke of the back, his gaze travels toward the site of the recent destruction. A frown darkens his face.
I don’t need Peri’s powers to know that he’s worried.
Why wouldn’t he be? The shadowkind being who’s tearing up his city doesn’t care who she hurts. She didn’t even care that she nearly killed two creatures who were simply roaming throughthe city trying to survive, blameless in anything she could be angry about.
She wants to destroy everything.
I linger in the shadows, sitting with that knowledge. Letting it percolate through every particle of my being.
I can’t say that Viscera is any less evil than the humans I’ve raged against in the past. She’sworsethan plenty of them. Certainly much more of a menace than this old man who enjoys offering food to stray cats and shadowkind.
Even I’ve hurt people who didn’t deserve it, haven’t I? I’ve been a jerk to most of the other shadowkind at the school. Peri sure as hell never did anything to deserve all the cutting remarks I’ve shot her way.
How is being angry an excuse if you savage so many beings other than the rightful targets?
If I’ve been this furious at humans for the acts only a few of them carried out… Wouldn’t they be just as understandably enraged at shadowkind over the pain this one rogue is causing?
I ball tighter in my patch of darkness, stewing in those thoughts.
What am I supposed to do? I can’t stop being pissed off over what happened. Maybe I can’t be anything except a jerk.
Peri doesn’t believe that, though.
At the memory of all the sympathetic words and gestures of trust she’s offered me, my emotions tangle even more. But the image of her bright smile and the rainbow of colors that can gleam in her vibrant hair sends a reassuring warmth through the worst of my turmoil.
For moments here and there when I’ve been around her, I haven’t felt like such a jerk after all. I’ve felt like I really was part of a team.
I shoved her away, again and again. But she’s always been there. Always been ready for me to get my head out of my ass.
She could blast my essence to bits if she really wanted to, but she’d rather hold out her hand to take mine, no matter how much I scoff and sneer.
This glowing spot in the middle of me was one more gift, one more sign of the faith she has that I’m more than the asshole I’ve acted like.
I’ve never thanked her for that faith. It’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me, and I’ve acted like it was an insult.
And she’s so strong she’s taken all my bitterness and still been able to speak in my favor just an hour ago. She never lets anything shake her generosity for long.
Why the fuck have I been fighting so hard against her? Because I didn’t want to admit how much I’ve screwed up, as if I can pretend it didn’t happen?
