Wrath

by Nicholas Knight

  “I’m sure you do,” he called over his shoulder, slipping out the door and around the corner.

  I hurried after him, threw the door open, and nearly ran into Isabella.

  “Whoah,” she said, eyeing the butcher knife.

  “Stop the fatso!” I slipped past her into the driveway.

  There was no sign of Dr. Warden.

  I looked to Isabella. “There’s no way that fat fuck just slipped by you here.”

  She shrugged. “Didn’t see anybody on the driveway.”

  She’d reached the door too quickly after he’d gone through for her to have missed him. Dammit. I didn’t need this shit.

  “You, uh, planning to do anything with that?” She jerked her chin at the knife.

  I flipped it over and handed it over handle first. She took it and stepped back inside to put it away. I followed her back into her kitchen and grabbed a beer out of the fridge, because damn, I needed one.

  “You really going to drink that in front of me right now?” she asked, putting the knife back in the drawer and giving me a sour look.

  Right. Fight coming up. Calorie counting had become her new least-favorite hobby. “Sorry,” I said, and genuinely meant it. Another bit of weirdness for me. Apologizing with sincerity. “I just had…well, I needed a drink.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “What happened?”

  I told her about Dr. Warden, leaving nothing out. After what we’d been through and what she’d proved willing to do for me, what was the point? Damn, it felt good to have someone to really talk to.

  When I finished she was shaking her head. “Something is seriously not right here.” She glanced at my hand. “You do get how messed up this is, yeah? Whatever this thing is, it’s not really a game.”

  “I have to play,” I replied. That was the truth. I was still obligated for several more months at least. After that though… “I don’t think I can stop,” I confessed, then really opened myself up. “And I don’t think that I want to.”

  Isabella gave me a level look.

  “I’ve never felt so powerful, Isabella,” I said. “I’ve always had to hide, to lie, and Halira, my kaiju, being her is the freest that I’ve ever felt. It’s like, everything that’s wrong with me has a place to go. Somewhere to belong. Does that make sense?”

  I hoped that I didn’t sound like a madwoman. I’d been able to make myself open up with my therapist before. This was harder. There, I’d still had some measure of control. He’d been legally obligated to keep our conversations confidential and incentivized by money to make me feel good about myself. Isabella had no such obligation.

  She let out a long sigh and leaned against the counter. “You’re going to make me break diet before my cheat day. I need a drink.”

  I made to go for the fridge to get her one, but she waved me off. “Don’t. I’m alright. You aren’t, but I am.”

  I gave her a smirk. “I left ‘alright’ behind a long time ago.”

  “No shit,” she said. “Okay, look. Do me a favor?”

  “Name it.” I was pretty sure that if she wanted me to go murder one of her professors I’d find a way to make it happen.

  “Focus on fighting the other players in the game,” she said.

  I blinked. That had not been what I’d been expecting. “Okay,” I said slowly, drawing out my words. “Why?”

  “Because I want you to focus on getting what you need, and it sounds like that’s the quickest way to making the money you need, and you’ll be subverting the game’s design. There’s something seriously fucked up about it, Lusitania. The less you do what they want, the better.”

  “They want me fighting other players,” I replied, playing devil’s advocate.

  “Meh. If they’re anything like you or Irwin, they’re all assholes.”

  I stared at her. Had she just compared me to Irwin? And called me an asshole?

  “Honey,” she said, meeting my eyes. “You got some fucking issues.”

  I laughed. I laughed so hard I doubled over with the force of it and nearly spilled my beer.

  “Fair enough,” I said when I’d gotten myself under control a moment later.

  “Anyway, these game developers sound like real assholes. There’s more to this game than we know, and they like hurting people. Case in point, what just happened with you and Irwin. That shit ain’t normal.”

  “Thank you for that again, by the way,” I said.

  I was going to say more, but she waved me off. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. It’s us against the world, right? We’ve got to protect our own.”

  Isabella was a much better person than me. Not that that was a surprise.

  I let her words sink home. Protect our own, huh? It was nice to have at least one other person besides myself in that category.

  Kaiju Wars Offline continues in Book 1 How to Train Your Kaiju

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