by Alex Hayes
After circling around her a few times, I capture her waist and sweep her along beside me. She lets out an unsteady breath, but allows herself to be led and soon relaxes against my hip.
“Ready for a spin?” I ask.
“I’m…not sure.” Her voice quivers.
“We’ll go slow.” That’s always the best way. Slowly.
I pull her close and spin. The ends of her hair fly out and her head tips back as she lets out a dizzy laugh.
When her feet start to slip, I tug her closer. Holding her feels nice, warm and right. She recovers and I guide her further across the icescape.
When I feel her dragging on my arm, I slow. “Getting tired?”
She brushes a curl of hair from her cheek. “A bit. But I love the freedom of movement.”
“You’re a natural.”
Rebecca took skating lessons as a kid but was never as confident as Cadi is already.
Wait. Why am I comparing Cadi to my ex-girlfriend?
I look into her wind-flushed face and realize it’s because she fits. I feel content, relaxed and myself around her.
If we’d met before this whole green thing happened, I’d never have given her the time of day. Wouldn’t have noticed her. Period. She was different, so far away from anything I thought I wanted.
I glance over her shoulder and realize we’ve reached the middle of the lake. The moon remains unfettered by cloud. The chill in the air has receded to a crispness that feels fresh rather than frigid.
And I’m happy because she doesn’t care that I have scales and cranial ridges. She accepts me exactly as I am. She makes me feel like I’m not a monster.
While Rebecca looks perfect in every way, Cadi’s different. What makes her perfect is what’s going on inside.
Drawing her closer, I say in a soft, soft voice, “You know, I was wrong about you.”
Her eyes flash up. “In…what way?”
I reach out and swipe an errant wisp of hair away from her face. “When I said you weren’t my type.”
Her lips part, asking to be kissed.
God, was it me who thought she wasn’t beautiful?
Bathed by the moon, locked in this moment, I swear she’s a goddess born into milky flesh.
My arms tighten around her until our skate tips touch.
A flood of music spills into my mind. All the things I want to say packed into a sweet refrain, into three simple words.
They tremble on my lips, only to be cut off by a loud Crack!
Cadi’s hands grip my arms so tight I feel her nails biting through three layers. Our eyes connect.
“Jesus!” I manage. “We’re going under.”
Her head barely shakes. “Not you.”
She lets me go, then pushes her palms in my direction. A force hits me like a tsunami, hurling me across the ice. I slide to a halt yards from the bank and struggle up just in time to see Cadi disappear under the ice.
I’m on my feet. Skating. Yelling. “Cadi!”
But even in a state of shock, I’m not stupid. My skates tear at the lake surface as I brake to a stop. Ahead, ice floats in giant chunks.
I have to do something. I can’t stand here and let her die. I can’t lose her.
My mind clears, crisp as a deep-red rose petal swirling in the bottom of a water glass. I visualize the petal in my palm. I push a tone from the depth of my being, a deep hum that resonates through the air.
I imagine a vortex rising under her. Gentle as a mother cradling a child, the spiral lifts my rose petal.
Water and ice spew from the hole with the violence of a volcanic eruption. A whirlpool rises like a serpent’s head above the ice, arches over the frozen lake and gently deposits Cadi’s curled form onto the snowy bank.
I drop focus on my water beast and the lake serpent’s head collapses into a deluge that pounds the ice beneath. In seconds, I’m at Cadi’s side. I thump her back with the heel of my hand to knock the water from her lungs, like I’d seen a scoutmaster do once during a canoe trip. She heaves and drags in a breath. She’s soaked, half-frozen and barely conscious — but alive.
I have to get her out of this cold.
Feet shoved back into my boots, I grab my skates and her shoes, then scoop Cadi into my arms.
For the first time ever, I’m thankful for my reptilian form because it’s stronger and faster than the human one, and I run, all the way back to the Thorny Rose.
My heart pounds. I drop skates and boots onto the passageway floor and carry Cadi to the basement. Her lips are blue and her face so white it’s translucent. I pull off her skates and tear away layer after layer of sopping clothing, all the way down to her underwear.
The rest of her is ghost-white and so cold she isn’t even shivering.
Unable to make myself remove that final layer, I gather her into my arms and carry her to the bed.
By now, I’m burning up under my own layers, but that’s exactly what she needs. I tuck her under sheet and blankets, then strip down to my boxers and slide my scaly green body beside her.
Holding her is like hugging an ice sculpture. I start to shiver before she does. Finally, the quakes rack her slender frame. I pull her closer and wrap my limbs around her like a living blanket.
28
Cadi
Nap time. The warm musky scent of skin. I snuggle closer into Dre’s body, imagining us as kittens curled into a furry ball. Only we’re not furry. At all. Our skin is smooth with silken scales.
Heat grazes my forehead. “Cadi?”
I thrust my face deeper into the hollow of a shoulder. Warmth slides down my arm, across my back and settles into the curve of my waist. My crystal vibrates, sending soft pulses down my torso, sensitizing my entire body. Readying it for…
My eyes fly open.
A lamp back lights a figure up close. Head, neck and shoulders, all smooth, hairless.
“Idris?” I shift, uncertain. Should I pull away or stay cocooned in this nest of warmth?
“You’re okay.” His voice resonates with reassurance. I absorb its calm.
It’s possible I’m dead, of course.
“You’re fine.” His voice is husky. “Alive.”
Words struggle at the base of my throat and escape my mouth as a croak. “You saved me.”
His lips shift against my temple. “Then I guess I returned the favor.”
Joy spreads outward from my chest, creeping like glittery fingers, until its silver threads envelop my whole body. A slow smile pushes past my bone-deep weariness. “Then we’re even.”
“And equal,” he concurs.
Fingertips glide along my jaw, sending electric tingles down my throat, into my abdomen and below. A soft gasp escapes me. I shouldn’t be feeling these things. Should I?
“Idris?”
“Mmm?” His inquiry sweeps across my skin like a caress.
I nip my lower lip between my teeth. “Do we…have any clothes on?”
“Yeah.” He chuckles and his chin grazes my forehead. “But that could be rectified.”
I stiffen.
“Or not,” he adds, all humor gone.
Swallowing, I whisper, “Do you…want to kiss me?”
An arm tightens around my waist as his lips answer, brushing the question back against mine.
Is this really happening?
It doesn’t matter, because everything about this feels right. My lips push back. Tentative, then eager.
God, he’s heaven.
His lips stray across my jaw and down my neck. Fingers slide across flesh, exploring, encouraging, inflaming every place they touch. Then his mouth is back on mine. Deep kissing. Making me forget everything but the wild beauty building between us, reflecting, magnifying.
I want him in ways I don’t even understand. More than sex. My cheeks flush at the intimacy of that three letter word.
His mouth separates from mine. “You’re so beautiful, Cadi.” The mix of tenderness and heat in his eyes convinces me he’s right. I am beautiful.
Green fingertips ride across my shoulder blade, down to the cleft between my breasts, circle the diamond shape that marks the melding location of my crystal, and then they pause, his eyes focused on my skin.
Idris jolts, his whole body jumping backward as if I’d burned him.
I scramble onto my elbows. “What’s wrong?”
He’s off the bed, moving so fast I struggle to take in the solid musculature of his shoulders and back, the curves in his chest and the intricate markings across his torso.
“It’s nothing,” he says, but every swivel and switch in his movements tell me the opposite.
I leap from the bed, then gasp and grab the comforter to cover my nakedness.
Idris is already jeans and T-shirt clad, and pulling his gray hoodie over his head.
“Idris, please.”
“I’m sorry, Cadi. It’s not you, I promise. I-I just need a couple of minutes to…think. I-I’ll be back. Don’t go anywhere. I promise, I’ll be right back. Just…give me a few minutes.”
Pounding on the stairs. The back door slams. He’s gone.
My insides shrivel into a shaky sob. I wade through a heap of abandoned clothes and retrieve dry ones from my backpack.
Repeating what he said, It’s not you, does nothing to help.
Who else’s fault could it be?
Everything was so perfect. What broke?
Part of me wants to rush after him, demand answers, but I force myself to give him space.
I dress, then wither onto the sectional and drop my face into my hands.
What did I do wrong?
A whoosh of cool air flashes down the basement steps and curls around me. Did the door blow open? With a shiver, I drag myself off the couch and trudge upstairs.
The back door stands ajar. Idris left in such a hurry, the latch must not have caught. As I close the door, a voice comes from behind me. “Hi there, young lady.”
I swing around and see only shadows.
“My name’s John. I’m looking for my friend, Dre. Don’t suppose you…” The darkest shadow moves and grows larger. “Well, well.” The tone of the voice changes to menacing. “Maybe you’re the one I’m looking for, after all.”
The shape rises and expands, like a winged predator, violet eyes gleaming through the darkened room. I back away as something metallic appears from the shadows.
A weapon?
With a scream, I wrench the back door handle. An electrical whirl climaxes behind me before I can get the door half open. A flash of blue engulfs the room as a pulse of energy slams into my back, freezing every atom in my body.
Then I fall into a void.
29
Idris
I’m a prick for leaving, but I couldn’t stay in front of her a second longer.
My body shakes as I dart out the back door and up the embankment into the trees. I want to run. Escape.
But I can’t run away from what I’ve become, and the streets are no place for me in daylight.
I can’t even imagine disappearing into my music. This is too raw. So I plod through the snow until I reach a small clearing, and pace, like a caged panther, until a gray circle has been pounded into the white ground.
The change in her skin faded, I tell myself. When I lifted my hand, the grayish-green disappeared again. That cannot be the effect of an infection or whatever the fuck is wrong with me. But I can’t risk her getting whatever this is. I won’t sentence her to a life like mine, living as an outcast.
I look at my hands. I hate them. I rub them up and down my jeans with violent swipes, wanting to strip the color out of them. Just make the green go away.
I’ve lost everything. I don’t want to extinguish the one glimmer of light I’ve found in this crappy dark world I’m living.
God, what do I say to her? How do I explain?
I push my palms into my eyes. Can’t someone, please, make this nightmare go away?
A high-pitched scream breaks my despondency, coming from the direction of the Thorny Rose.
“Cadi!” I bolt through the trees toward the nightclub. Hitting the edge of the parking lot, I fly down the snowbank and slide over frozen asphalt. I skid to a halt, push the back door open and peer into the dimness.
My heart falters as a figure moves backward, dragging Cadi by the arms toward the front door. The person’s head lifts and he meets my gaze.
The drunk guy. John Sellers.
But his expression is unfamiliar and so are his violet eyes.
The sneer on John’s face is wiped away by a dopey grin as he drops Cadi’s arms and steps around her. “Hello, Dre.”
Who? Right. The fake name I gave him.
He points this gray blaster-gun thing right at me.
A yell charges from my throat and the mirrored glass across the front of the nightclub explodes.
John spins in surprise. I grab my discarded skates and fling them like a ball and chain across his legs. He loses balance, and the gun goes flying as he lands in a sprawl.
I’m on the weapon in seconds. Some crazy new tech. How did John get his hands on it? I look the weapon over. No idea how it works, but somehow my fingers find a trigger by the time John’s standing.
“That wasn’t very nice, Dre.” His voice is monotone.
Sorry, John. I aim and press the trigger.
A whirling sound rises from the bloated beast of a weapon and then it discharges, sending a web of blue light across the room. What kind of technology is this? The blast strikes the violet-eyed John in the chest. He freezes and topples, and I hope to god I’ve only stunned him.
Weapon still in hand, I run to Cadi.
I lay a hand on her neck and shift my fingers until I find a heartbeat, and let out a sigh of relief. Setting down the gun, I hook her under the arms and drag her away from John, then return for the techno weapon and give him a quick kick in the ribs.
Nothing.
I hide his blaster behind the bar, unwind the laces from my skates and stuff them in my pocket. Then I grab John Sellers by the ankles, lug him across the floor and out the back door.
30
Cadi
My jaw presses into something hard.
The last thing I remember is running for the door, desperate to escape a man who said he knew Dre.
Was I dreaming? The only times I’ve heard that name have been on the edge of a dream, accompanied by a determined grip and a fear of loss.
Who is Dre? Could he be Idris?
I wish I could see Dre in my mind’s eye, but all I remember from back then is hair on the heads of children and how I found that so strange.
Why did those kids and their hair seem alien to me?
A hand squeezes, then fades into the past.
I sit up and rub my head. The hardness beneath me is the nightclub floor. My whole body tingles, but the feeling in my fingers and toes comes back as I wiggle them.
Standing is a risky business. My muscles feel like Silly Putty. I lean on a barstool and look around. Glass litters the nightclub floor. The room is freezing and seems abnormally bright with every window across the front of the building shattered, leaving thick iron bars, the only barrier between indoors and out.
What happened? Did Idris come back? My head swings right to left. Did that man take him?
I stumble out the back door. A wide furrow in the snow leads up the snowbank and into the trees. Idris! I follow it.
Less than a hundred yards into the woods, I sense his presence and turn. Idris is a stone’s throw to my left. A cry parts my lips as I stumble through the snow and into his arms.
Gulping back tears, I sob, “I-I thought he’d taken you. This guy with glowing eyes like the o-old lady. He shot me with s-some kind of—”
“I know.” His hands are on my cheeks, brushing away tears I didn’t know had escaped. “It’s okay. His name’s John. I shot him back and hauled him through the woods to the far side of the industrial park. Left him on the other side of the tracks. He was completely out of i
t.” Idris smirks. “I tied his wrists, too. And that weapon thing he was carrying is still at the Thorny Rose. We’re safe. Take deep breaths. You’ll be okay.”
I nod and do as he says. A warm feeling of relief descends. “He said he was looking for—”
“Me, probably.” Idris nods. “I met him once before.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“What for?” His tone is incredulous.
I squeeze my eyes shut. “For freaking you out.”
“Cadi, you didn’t freak me out. I did.” He sighs and pulls away enough to look me in the face. “God, I could have kept going with you like that all day and all night, but…the color of your skin started to change where I touched you. I thought you were getting this…disease too, that I’d infected you.”
My shoulders stiffen despite my relief. “What color did my…um, skin change to?”
“Grayish green. Same as when I started to change.”
His description matches my own experience right before the crystal fused into my breastbone. Did the crystal somehow keep me from transforming the same way? I knew there was a link between Idris and me, but could we actually be the same?
And that strange man called him Dre. Idris has to be my Dre.
I pull free from his hold and take his hand. “We need to go back to the Thorny Rose. That crystal I bought from the pawnshop. I think you need it.”
“Cadi…” He resists. “What are you talking about?”
“The crystal. I need to show you that crystal.”
He scratches his head. “Okay, fine. We need to get moving, anyway. I’ve a mess to clean up before Marek gets here. He’s going to flip as it is.”
“He’s coming?”
“Yeah. Texted me while I was dealing with that guy.” Idris pauses. “Look, I know he wasn’t pleased to see you, but the Thorny Rose is his mom’s place. She doesn’t know I’m staying there, so he’s already dug a pretty deep hole helping me out. Your being around only makes that hole deeper.”
“I understand,” I say as we walk. I never meant to cause a rift between Idris and his best friend.
