by J D Morganne
“I know how to put on”— Jaxon read the bottle— “Creamy Ike’s?”
“Good stuff. Wouldn’t wanna wake up and find freckle one-thousand-one, is all I’m saying.” Though she was sure a thousand more freckles had emerged since he’d been there.
Jaxon peered at her with silent disgust, enough to make her laugh.
She wanted to swim.
“Don’t forget to take your gloves off.” She was about to pull her shirt off, but Nano jumped in front of her holding up a towel. “Stop.” She shoved him, took her shirt off and threw it at him. Aria had spent weeks crocheting their bathing suits. Beck was going to show it off. It was cream-colored and simple, something she was sure Jaxon would appreciate.
“Forgive my sister’s slutty tendencies.” Nano was still too loud.
“Yes, griivneey eme, for wearing a normal two-piece bathing suit. Have mercy, Faithful Mother Earth.”
“It’s underwear.”
“You wear your stupidity like a watch.” The human robot was too immersed in rubbing sunscreen between his toes to look at her. Ignoring them all, she went to the edge of the cliff and marveled at Knowledge’s beauty.
Four regions. Three Doors. Knowledge had access to all three, yet they were isolated, underappreciated, forgotten, wasted. Maybe that was for the best. Knowledge had kept to its roots, showcasing a myriad of colors, amazing architectural structures created by the land. Beck wondered if the other Doors possessed that kind of beauty.
She sat down and let her feet dangle. Before she knew it, Nano was howling and dragging Aria toward the edge. Beck ducked as he jumped over her, over the cliff, still reaching for Aria. She was right behind him. Their screams drifted into distant echoes and then nothing as they hit the water.
“That’s terrifying.” Jaxon, still wearing his t-shirt and shorts, sat cross-legged behind Beck.
“What is?”
“High, isn’t it?”
“About thirty-five-feet. Not that high.”
“How’re they gonna get back up?”
Beck pointed at various holes, leading into dark caves, past where the sand kissed the river. “They’ll go through the tunnels. We won’t see them again ‘til tonight.”
Jaxon nodded and slouched forward. He held his arms behind him like he was alone in the middle of a dark room and waiting for his chance to sneak out the back. He glanced at Beck’s bathing suit, but said nothing about the lioness tattoo she’d covered her ribcage with when she was seventeen.
She turned away to hide all the scenarios playing on her face. Who could he be? He was strong. Sturdy. He could use a break from Aria’s oatmeal, but Nano’s training would put him back into shape. Hiring guards for Beck and lighting lanterns at night told her he was bored at the house. He needed something to do.
“You miss being a soldier?” Beck stood up and stretched her arms like tree branches.
It took Jaxon a few timorous tries before he managed to glance in her direction. His face was hot pink when he finally met her gaze. “Hm?”
Beck touched her toes. “You miss the duties, I mean?”
He dropped his eyelids and his head, considering. Then he decided he did.
“You always wanted to be a soldier?”
He shook his head. “Aren’t many options in Obedience. It was Crimson or construction like my dad, and I wasn’t interested in building.”
“Your dad likes building?” Beck’s favorite pastime, though she didn’t get many opportunities these days. “He and your mama on solid ground?” She meant it to be a joke, but he didn’t laugh.
“What?”
“Nothin’, handsome. It’s dope your dad builds stuff.”
Jaxon’s face stilled as the clarity washed over him. “He doesn’t get his hands dirty. You wouldn’t want him anyway. He’s not an easy person.”
“Well, easy is boring.” Beck couldn’t believe how much he was saying to her. She hadn’t even had to get him drunk. “I like to build too.”
“I know,” Jaxon said. He crawled to be closer, though he didn’t attempt to look over the edge. “All those drawings in your den. You built your house, didn’t you?”
Rebuilt, Beck thought. “Not by myself.” The first war had destroyed her house—her ma’s house. She had rebuilt it with Aria’s and Nano’s help.
“And the chateau?”
Builders had constructed the chateau for her father’s luxurious, foreign taste. She had lived in it for months before the urge to fling herself off the tallest mountain crossed her mind. “Not my work.”
Jaxon cocked his head in the way he did when he was trying to figure something out. “Why don’t you live there?”
Beck shrugged too hard. “Too much space.”
He laughed like the calm water below. “But your house is big,” he said, leaning forward to look over. “It’s pretty down there.”
Beck tore her gaze from him to see for herself. Sunlight formed dazzling stars on the lake’s surface, bluer than the sky.
“Everywhere here is beautiful. And smells like vanilla.”
Beck propped her cheek on her hand. Knowledge would amaze him anywhere he went. “You haven’t seen the Koloberry yet.”
“No. What is that?”
“The most beautiful thing you’ll ever see. The source of life itself.” She took her time explaining theories about the Koloberry she didn’t have the balls to confirm. It connected the four major elements in ways she didn’t understand yet. The fruit it bore—the koloberry—was the real treasure. Aria infused its leaves in water to mend heavy coughs and sore throats, constipation, heartburn and more. She fused its juicy insides to make moisturizing cream for Jaxon’s burns. Yet, too much use was deadly. Even poisonous. It was a weapon— Beck’s weapon, that she would keep locked away long as she was alive. She didn’t trust Jaxon to keep the only secret that kept Jerus secure, especially without knowing if it was the reason Cayman wanted him there. She changed the subject fast. “Tell me about Naomi.”
Jaxon’s jaw hardened, but he didn’t speak.
“Tell me about’er,” Beck tried again. “You liked her, didn’t you?”
“She was my only friend.”
Beck lay back and rested her arms behind her head. “She was more than that, wasn’t she?” She laughed at his rapid blinking, his uncertainty. He radiated a strange fear through his vibrations. It pulsed through the ground, onto her palm, stronger than his heartbeat. “Don’t be scared.” She sat up on her elbows.
He looked at her as if to say he wasn’t scared. “She was my friend,” he said again.
“You were more than that to her.”
The grass dwindled the closer they sat to the cliff. Jaxon brushed his fingers over the few pieces that were there. “What was I?” he asked, his face red as the sugar candies Aria boiled.
“More.” Beck only knew what Jaxon had told her about Naomi. From the sounds of it, he was emotionally clueless and she was in love. All that stuff about tripping because she was hungry and dizzy. He’d had to catch her and thought they’d both be in trouble. All that stuff about going to his apartment when she knew the risks. Not to mention the infamous kiss.
“You think I’m childish, don’t you?” Jaxon said after a while. He shifted so he couldn’t make the mistake of looking at Beck, as she stood up.
She had on a bathing suit and he wouldn’t so much as “accidentally” sneeze in her direction. No, she thought he was reticent and needed a course on how to interact. “I don’t see you as a child, no.”
Another spell of deep-thinking struck Jaxon. “That wasn’t what I asked.”
Beck jumped in front of him. He snapped out of it when she snatched his arms and tried to pull him up. “Jump with me.”
He yanked his arms out of her grasp. “I can’t.”
“Scareda heights?”
“No. Me with large bodies of water is a failed algorithm. Couldn’t pay me.”
“But this water wants to caress you and whisper sweet things in your ea
r.”
He chuckled, but didn’t budge. “Sweet things aren’t going to magically give me the ability to swim.”
That wasn’t what Cayman had divulged. “Kick your arms and legs,” Beck said, shrugging her shoulder. “A dog could do it.” She wanted some proof. Some semblance that he was as strong as Cayman had led on. “Why’d you become a soldier? Don’t tell me. To help people?”
Jaxon nodded, not saying a word.
“You’re so predictable. Prim and predictable.”
“Some people can’t speak for themselves. And I’m not prim.”
“Oh, you’re gonna have to prove that.” She needed only to get him to the tunnels. That would tell her how he reacted to technology, which would tell her how dangerous he was. A negative reaction meant he would have to leave. She couldn’t have a Cayman shadow in Jerus.
She stood at the edge and overlooked the swooning waves below, the sinuous river paving through the mountains. After a few minutes, Jaxon joined her.
“Don’t order my Lions around anymore,” she said. “Don’t like people standin’ over my shoulder.”
“Why?”
“Be a Lion.” Her request hadn’t stricken fear like she had hoped. He seemed to toy with the idea, flicking up one eyebrow. Then, the other.
“What, so I can stand over your shoulder?”
“You did it in Obedience.”
“I was a babysitter.” He cleared the chagrin from his tone. “And it wasn’t to the queen.”
“I’m not a queen. It’ll be fun. You’ll get your own trunk in the Den. You’ll get to be a soldier again.”
He opened his mouth but said nothing.
“You’re always free to go, too. You know that.” Beck bounced from her tiptoes to her heels. She tried to think of a hundred other things that would convince him. After a while, she saw that she didn’t need to.
“I guess I could do that. Be a… Lion.”
Beck clasped her hands together. “Yippa. You’ll be the funniest-lookin’ Lion in the Den. Quick question: How likely are you to study before an exam?”
He was about to answer her—and it would’ve been a candid answer— but she didn’t give him the chance. She rammed her shoulder into his chest, and he stumbled before flying over the edge. Beck caught her balance before she could slip over with him.
19
“He’s out of control!” Adam clasped Jaxon’s wrist and tugged his arm behind him, pinning the furious child to him. “Yumi, move.”
In a rage, Jaxon jolted forward, clawing for Yumi’s arm with his free hand. He found skin, then blood—clumps of it piling beneath his fingernails. His mother’s piercing screams penetrated his heart, broke it right into pieces, but he didn’t understand why. Because she was a monster! She was the worst person in the world.
“Don’t hurt him, Adam,” Mayumi screamed, caressing her arm where Jaxon had broken skin.
Too late. Adam had already hurt Jaxon. She had too. Didn’t they know that? Couldn’t they see it when he woke up in the morning? When he stood staring in the mirror for hours on end? When he refused to eat his breakfast? Didn’t they know what they were doing to him?
Jaxon had to get out of there. He had to find a way to get away from them.
Adam pinned Jaxon’s other arm and was holding him so tight he was bound to leave bruises. Pressure built around Jaxon’s sternum, where Adam caped his arm over his chest. He was ten of him, handling Jaxon like he was a grown man. But neither of them had bothered trying to speak. Neither of them had asked the simple question he’d waited to hear: What’s wrong? Jaxon had a full list of wrongs, and if they had bothered to listen, he would’ve named each one. But no, he had to act like this, like a toddler who couldn’t get his way.
“Mayumi,” Adam said, the shock in his voice pellucid to even Jaxon’s young understanding. “This… kid… is out of control.” His breathing was ragged, but controlled. His heart raced against the back of Jaxon’s head.
“Please,” Mayumi said, contrition in her pleading hands, on her face, in her voice. “Please, Adam.”
“Then get him under control.”
She couldn’t control Jaxon. Nothing in this place would ever control him. He wouldn’t let it. “Let. Me. Gooo!” They should. When he could use his manipulation at will, he wouldn’t be afraid to burn them to crispy blocks. Or this house. Or all of Naruchi. He would burn everything to the ground.
“Jacky, baby.” Mayumi grabbed his coloring book from the kitchen table and attempted to hand it to him, but he kicked it out of her hand. It slammed to the floor as Jaxon’s foot hit the shelf, knocking down every one of her five snow globes. They shattered and glass and water went scattering across the floor.
“I’m going to kill him,” Adam seethed. He squeezed Jaxon tighter, lifted him as if to slam him down, but Mayumi threw her hands up.
“No!” she begged. “Please. Jacky, baby, listen to your mother!”
Why did she keep calling him Jacky? His name wasn’t Jacky and he wasn’t a baby. He was old enough to know right from wrong. Just like she was. He was old enough to know he didn’t want to be stuck in this place forever. He didn’t want this to be his home. Why were they forcing this life on him? How could anyone live like this? How?
“Let him go,” Mayumi said, finally.
Adam’s hold grew tighter before he released Jaxon.
Jaxon kept his sights set on Mayumi. He dodged for her again, knowing this time he would reach her. This time he would show them both that they couldn’t force him to be someone he wasn’t. He was a kid, yes, but he was also a person. With aspirations, with feelings, with hope. His mother couldn’t force him to suppress all the things that made him him. She couldn’t force him to forget.
Before he could clasp her shirt, his shoulder ignited in flames, the shock sending him to his knees. He screamed out, the flames roasting him like the black meat they served in the palace. The searing of his own flesh wiggled into his nostrils. He hit the ground, turned his head slightly and saw Adam’s fingers twisted to snap again.
“Adam, no!” Mayumi, who was normally a stickler for obeying the law, latched onto Adam’s arm and dragged him down. “Please don’t.” She kept repeating it, but Jaxon was finding it hard to focus on either one of them now.
He lay there, his disbelief preventing him from moving an inch. He hadn’t thought Adam would hurt him with his flames. Even though he’d broken the rules by holding him, he hadn’t thought his dad would break the most important law and use his fire manipulation.
Now, he knew better.
Adam appeared above him, standing brazen and perfectly unbothered. So hinged that the fury in his eyes was more terrifying than any life Jaxon would live in Naruchi. He bent low, snatched Jaxon’s burned shoulder, squeezed his jaws between his hands and yanked him close.
Jaxon couldn’t even scream, let alone breathe. All he could do was look at his father and listen to every word.
“If you ever hurt my wife again,” Adam said, “I’ll send you straight back to the hell you came from.” He slammed Jaxon’s head with force and Jaxon’s nose popped against the kitchen floor. Adam ignored the blood and Jaxon’s quiet tears and stepped over him.
“Why did you… Adam…”
“Fix him… or I will.” He stormed past her from the kitchen and out the front door.
―
Jaxon opened his eyes before his mind grasped the ominous abyss. Sour water rushed to meet him, pooling into his mouth down his throat, gelid in his chest. He gagged and coughed until his lungs ached and fought against the surface. It fought back, shoving him under and back above. He gasped, struggling to breathe the overheated air. He kicked his legs like they would disappear if he stopped, and found it kept his head above water. For a moment, he even let it slip in his mind how humiliating this was.
Five sharp, triangular stones in the distance emerged in his far peripheral vision. They poked through the water in single file and rocked like buoys on an aggravated sea. Jaxon
considered swimming to them and waiting for rescue. On second thought, why would Beck send anyone to help him when she had pushed him off the cliff? She had a poor way of testing him.
“That… feral…” Land came like a mirage in the distance, a personal manna from Kamiaka herself. Jaxon kicked his legs and pushed the water to propel forward. Mid dog-paddle, something moved in the corner of his eye. He noticed, while being well aware his mind could play tricks on him after a fall like that, only four of the stones remained. In the fifth one’s place was a trail of torrent waters razor-lining straight for him. Before then, he didn’t know water could sound solid. It sounded like a stampede, like something was whipping through wreckage beneath.
“Sh-sha”— He knew a shark when he saw one. Not any shark. A titan shark. He had a useless list of extinct animals saved in his memory. Titan sharks grew up to forty-feet long, with hard, scaly skin and sharp fins, encrusted with poppy-topaz-colored stones. Extinct since 220 ED.
Supposed to be extinct, Jaxon thought.
The other stoned fins joined in what was now a race to ingurgitate him.
He’d forgotten he wasn’t on land and tried to run. His expecting foot went through what should’ve been solid, and he fell. Murky water filled his throat. Wild coughs spilled from him, while he kicked his legs and stroked his arms.
When he made it to something grainy and wet, but solid, he stumbled and collapsed in bonfire remains. His calves burned with the urge to rest. The river now resembled a vast ocean and he was still too close to it. He snatched his foot away, though the sharks had already begun to retreat, as if he wasn’t their target after all.
He curled onto his hands and knees in coughing hysteria. His lungs and ribs ached, but nothing compared to the fear running a course in his heart. His bruises pounded beneath the heat of the beating sun. Those sharks wouldn’t have gotten much of a fight if he had a fight to give.
He lay on his back for a full twenty minutes, before he got the energy to move again. Above, he hadn’t seen or heard from Aria or Nano. He didn’t see Beck looking over to make sure he was alive. Nano—everyone— had left him there.
