by Pixie Unger
He sighed and shook his head. “I want you. You will be angry when you see Mac.”
That made me sit up in alarm. “What did you do to Mac?” I demanded.
“Nothing.”
----
Mac had been in a fight. One of his cheeks was swollen, pushing his eye partly shut and his knuckles were bloody. Some of his neck piercings had been ripped out.
“What the fuck happened to you?!”
They all looked at me, including Mac with his slightly-glassy eyes. Romeo pushed a plate of fruit at me. I ignored him. Tybalt picked up a carrot and painted my lips with it before I snatched it out of his hand. “What happened?” I repeated.
“You smell hurt. He smells like you,” Iago explained. “That is offensive to us.”
“You did this?” I was aghast.
“No,” he denied. “This was before I got back. Erika saw and made them stop. She stood over him and made them stop. Then she brought him to hers.”
I wondered why she didn’t come find me. Then I wondered how much worse it had looked before they cleaned him up. I would ask her when I said thank you for saving him.
“How is this going to work, if they’re going to try to kill anyone I have sex with?”
“No anyone,” Mac slurred. “Me because I was looking for toys.”
I frowned in confusion. He seemed disinclined to explain further, so I turned to look at Iago, who shrugged. “He had bad things when they found him.”
“What kind of bad things?” I asked slowly, remembering an earlier discussion.
“Things that pinch or hurt or buzz,” Romeo explained.
Pinch or hurt wasn’t helpful, but buzz might be something I understood. “Do you know what a vibrator is?” I hazarded.
Mac, laughed, then groaned and clutched at his side. The others looked at the floor, ceiling or out the window. “Nice vibrator. Found a swing for Erika too,” he mumbled. Then he growled softly.
“Broke now,” Tybalt translated.
I sighed. “Are you going to be okay, Mac?” I asked.
He growled again and grinned.
“Eat now.” I wasn’t sure if Tybalt was translating for Mac or speaking for himself.
I looked at the carrot I was holding and bit off a chunk. As I chewed thoughtfully, I asked. “How do I tell everyone that if I want one of you dead, I’ll do it myself?”
Mac snickered. The others just looked thoughtful.
“She said,” he was still slurring like he was drunk. “Said you’d—” he fell back into an orcish growl. I had no idea what he said, but the others looked queasy, and he ended with a cough that didn’t sound good.
“Shit.”
They all looked expectantly at me. I shook my head. “I hate to say this, but I think it’s time to see if the medic will trade a hand job for patching you up.” There was collectively no understanding of what I had just said. I gritted my teeth. “He needs medical help and I have no way to pay for it. I also have limited skills I can trade. So, as much as I hate to do it—”
Iago figured it out first. “No.”
“He needs help,” I insisted.
Iago nodded. “Yes. I pay.”
That caused a certain amount of grumbling, and Mac being offended. Then Iago growled an explanation, and suddenly they were all appalled.
“They broke your face!” I protested. “And I know you haven’t seen your neck, but we need to do something about that!”
Mac was clenching his fists now. “Don’t need a medic. I am a medic.”
“You have open wounds and not so much as a bandaid to cover them!” I argued. “You need something! What if those get infected? Plus, what if that happens again?”
“Won’t,” he said firmly, and the others nodded in agreement.
“How can you be sure?”
Mac snickered then coughed, then groaned. “Erika kicked them to get to me. She was very angry. Said you would rip off their balls if you found out.”
I looked at the ragged wound on his neck where the piercings had been. “I would certainly try,” I growled. Then it hit me. “Is she okay?”
“She is mad,” Iago explained. “Lucky broke his hand.”
“Shit.” My brain fixated on that for a moment, the reality of how bad that could be sinking in as I stared at Mac’s still wet and sticky-looking knuckles. “I still want someone to patch those up,” I insisted. “How do we make that happen?”
There was a brief huddle, then Tybalt and Romeo stood on either side of Mac and heaved him to his feet. Between the two of them, they managed to get Mac up and move him toward the door. It was weird as we were walking back to the school. Orcs stood aside for us. The medic still rolled his eyes when we got to the medbay. He spent the whole time he was working on Mac grilling the boys about what happened.
I just hovered and worried.
“We are still learning,” the medic said placatingly. It took me a moment to realize he is talking to me. “They thought they were helping you.”
I frowned. “They are. Mac is a good guy.”
He shook his head. “The orcs who tried to kill him—”
“What? They tried to kill him?” I felt sick.
“—they thought they were helping. Your friend taught them better,” he explained.
“Is Lucky okay?” I asked softly.
The medic nodded. “I fixed his hand.”
I needed to know. “What happened to the guys who did this?”
He shrugged. “They are hiding in case you want to hurt them.”
Did I want to hurt them? Well, yes, but that wasn’t the same as actually doing it. Was it? Maybe it was. It wouldn’t be the first time I had injured orcs, but somehow I hadn’t been able to keep them as enemies when I was living with the guys.
----
Mac was home, patched up, and drugged to the gills. He was currently snoring softly in his bed. I was sitting on the couch staring at nothing. It was one thing to have been told that the orcs are self-policing for abuse, it was another thing to see extrajudicial punishments in action. I was angry, but at the same time, it was hard not to blame myself for that.
I blinked and realized it had gotten dark outside and I still hadn’t eaten supper. I was too tired and too hungry to be rational about this, but at the same time I wasn’t feeling like eating or sleeping.
I looked over to see the other three watching me and looking grim. “How do I make sure—,” I stopped abruptly as my train of thought jumped the track and headed off in a different direction. “Is there a way to make sure none of you are attacked again?”
Romeo and Tybalt looked at Iago, who was still watching me. “You are upset. Erika is upset. That will help. No one wants to upset you.”
“The idea that random gangs of orcs are out there attacking people doesn’t make me feel safe. I feel like that should be obvious, but I want to say it anyway.” I stopped talking to rake my fingers through my hair. “I hate this.”
None of them said anything.
“You should go to bed,” I suggested. “I’m going to just sit here and worry.”
They went into a huddle and quietly growled at each other. Romeo left first. Iago and Tybalt had a longer conversation. I looked over to see that Iago was the one who left. Tybalt moved like a predator as he stalked towards me while watching my face intently. I found myself leaning away from him.
“What are you doing?” I snapped.
“I want to come sit,” he explained.
Frowning, I asked, “So why are you staring at me like that?”
He froze, but was still staring. “To see if you are angry?”
“You’re staring at me in an intimidating way to see if I’m angry, or to see if you can make me angry?”
He blinked and just looked confused now.
I sighed and tried to relax. “What do you want, Tybalt?”
“I want to sit with you,” he said it warily, as though he was expecting a trap.
“Okay, but if that’s what you want, then just
say, ‘Mina? Can I come sit with you?’, don’t get all creepy on me. I’m too tired and anxious to be fucking around with that bullshit.”
That did not seem to clear up his confusion. I watched his lips move and realized he was parsing my sentence together. I was about to try to explain that with smaller words when he figured it out enough to ask, “Mina? Can I take you to lay in bed now?”
“The last guy I had sex with was nearly killed,” I pointed out.
He just shrugged. “Didn’t say sex. You lay down, maybe you sleep. I guard.”
Iago had been big into the idea of guarding. I was starting to understand why now. Would Iago even sleep if Tybalt was in charge of guarding? Did Iago ever sleep? I could see where I might be one big, walking, talking problem for the guy.
I realized my mind had wandered again and that Tybalt was still watching me. That was worse when I was hungry.
“I should eat something,” I muttered under my breath.
“Yes,” Tybalt rumbled.
“That reminds me— don’t try to put food in my mouth. It’s rude.”
He looked at me like I was missing the point, but he nodded.
“Just tell me, I’m just too tired to try to figure out what you aren’t saying.”
“You don’t eat. You don’t take care of yourself. I want you to eat and be safe. I want to take care of you. I want to give you things.”
He had said that before. Tybalt wanted me to like his gifts the best, and he had a point, I hadn’t eaten enough or slept enough today. “Okay,” I conceded. “Take me to bed.”
He offered me his hand, and when I took it, he pulled me upright and stepped in close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off of him. I hadn’t realized that I’d been sitting still long enough to get cold. When I took a step, the world swam around me. Tybalt easily caught me. He held my arms for a moment to see if I would find my feet before he mumbled, “I help?”
“I don’t want to be carried,” I snapped, then felt stupid since there was a good chance I was going to end up on the floor at this rate.
Tybalt just nodded. He pulled my arm vaguely around his shoulder and wrapped his arm around my waist. Then he walked down the hallway, not exactly carrying me, but taking most of my weight and holding me upright.
Yeah, okay, he was effectively carrying me, but he was being nice about it.
He got me settled on my bed, then stood up. “I get food, you eat?”
“I just need some juice or something,” I mumbled.
He nodded. “I get.”
He left, and when he came back, he handed me a mug of soup. I frowned.
“Chicken juice?” he suggested innocently. That made me laugh. “Good for humans who are sick,” he suggested.
“I’m not sick,” I protested.
“Good,” he said placatingly, with a heavily implied, “now eat your damn soup.”
I chuckled again and ate the damn soup. “You’re right,” I admitted. “I do need to take better care of myself.”
Tybalt nodded solemnly. “I want to help. I say it wrong though.”
“Say what wrong?” I wondered.
“You missed Iago. I missed you. I said but not understood. I want gifts for you, but can’t,” he paused to growl to himself, he shook his head. “Want better for you.” Tybalt’s frustrated growl ended with a soft noise of defeat.
I sighed and passed him the empty mug. “I want us to be safe. Better for me would be predictable. I want to know that we will be safe, that no one will hurt us. I want to know that we will be okay.”
“You will be okay,” he assured me.
“What about you? And the guys? And Erika and her guys? What about the rest of the humans?”
It was too dark for me to clearly see his face anymore. It took him a long time to answer me. “Need to talk to everyone. Plan. Tomorrow, okay?”
I nodded, then realized he probably couldn’t see me either. “Okay.”
I wiggled out of my clothes and under the covers. Tybalt stood up and left with the soup mug.
He didn’t come back.
I waited for what felt like a very long time. Eventually, I fell asleep wondering if that was because he didn’t want to be there, or if it was because I hadn’t told him to stay, or if sleeping over was just too much of a risk after what happened to Mac.
----
I was staring at my book, my pencil crayon poised to write. The problem was that I had been sitting like that for most of the morning.
I looked over at where Mac was sleeping. The medic had come over in the morning to change his bandage and reapply his drug patch. He seemed to find this whole thing hugely entertaining. I was less impressed.
“Wrong book.” Tybalt’s voice was flat from where he was leaning against the door frame. “I will look for a better one.”
“There’s nothing wrong with this book. I’m afraid of telling the story wrong. How I understood what was happening when it was happening, isn’t how I understand it now. What if I get it wrong when I’m writing it?”
He shrugged. “We won’t read. We won’t know. You have to, hmm, let yourself tell how you, um, understand.”
I looked at the book, again. He was right. I took a deep breath and wrote:
My name is Wilhemina Jensen. As far as I know, I am the last living member of my family.
Except that wasn’t exactly true, was it? I had no idea what happened to my brothers, or the family I had made as the world fell apart, but Erika was just up the street and the guys were kind of my family now.
I crossed out the second sentence and frowned at the book.
“I’m already deleting half of what I write, Tybalt,” I admitted. “That isn’t a good sign.”
He just shrugged. “Write anyway. Make you feel better, maybe. Write everything. Feel better. If you hate book at the end, we burn it then.”
I winced. The idea of burning a book was wrong to me, but somehow attractive at the same time. I could see a certain catharsis in writing out all the things that weighed heavy on my heart and then burning it.
I thought about all of that as I watched Mac sleep. It had been a really tough couple of years. I had survived things I couldn’t have imagined. Part of me wanted to write it all down just to remember what it had been like. There were moments where I could barely remember parts of the world before.
“Mina!” Tybalt snapped. I looked up at him in surprise. They didn’t often raise their voices at me. As I blinked, I realized it wasn’t the first time he has said my name. “Go see Erika!”
That got me to stand up. “Did something happen?” I demanded. Then my brain caught up and added, “Did something else happen?”
“She is moping, too,” Iago called from the other room.
“I’m not moping!” I protested. Except that I kind of was, I admitted to myself, so I took Romeo and Tybalt and went to check on Erika, who hadn’t been over for breakfast that morning.
I let myself into her house. None of the doors locked, but most people respected a closed door these days. Me just walking in like I owned the place made Romeo uncomfortable, but he didn’t actually stop me. It didn’t occur to me until later that it must have been too much like Erika walking in on us in the shower.
Erika was definitely moping; she was curled up in a puppy pile with her three. Lucky’s hand was still bandaged. Her face was red like she had been crying. Before I would have asked if she was okay, but now that seemed like a stupid question.
“Room in bed for one more?”
Rosencrantz got up and left, and my two went with him. As I was kicking off my shoes and crawling into bed, Guilderstern joined them.
“It was really scary. They just jumped him,” she admitted quietly.
“Lucky got hurt. Did you?”
She shook her head. “They tried to keep me out of it, but I couldn’t just let them hurt Mac.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
She hugged me. We both had a little cry. Lucky watched in obvi
ous distress, but didn’t get involved.
“How’s your hand?” I asked.
He smiled shyly and shrugged. “How’s Mac?”
“I don’t know. He’s drugged. The medic cleaned up his neck, at least.”
Erika nodded. “I tried to get him to go to the medic. He said no.”
“He is medic,” Lucky rumbled.
“That’s what he kept saying,” Erika agreed.
I shook my head. “Yeah. He tried that on me, too. I put my foot down. I have no time for that crap.”
Erika laughed. Lucky looked appalled. “You … kick him?”
I blinked. “What? No! It means I insisted.”
“Huh. Erika … insisted they leave him,” Lucky tried, cautiously.
“No, baby. I kicked them,” she laughed. Lucky was clearly still confused. “I’ll explain later,” Erika added.
“I hate this,” I grumbled. “I was just starting to believe the guys when they told me they weren’t violent. Then this happened.”
“Not hurt you,” Lucky corrected, gently.
“Attacking my family is hurting me!” I growled. Lucky just looked ridiculously pleased with that. I fought the urge to slap him. “What?” I demanded.
Still grinning, he explained, “You have orc family now! Happy for them!”
I gave Erika a pointed look, but she just snuggled a little tighter against him.
“I don’t know what to do with myself today,” I admitted.
“I would say go home and make him feel better, but it doesn’t sound like he’s up to that kind of comfort.” She smirked. “And from what I hear, you might not be either.”
I snorted half a laugh. That was about as much as that joke warranted.
“Mina?” Erika asked. “If we were going to live somewhere else, where would you go?”
I had to think about that.
“That place they’re building for Miriam, you have to see it. It’s one house on a whole block. That would give lots of space to garden and keep some chickens or rabbits. If people have a little space and a little help, that would go a long way to us growing better food than whatever sludge they’re serving.”
Erike shuddered. “I don’t think I could kill a chicken, but eggs would be nice.”
I nodded. I hadn’t thought I would be able to either. I got over it, but that wasn’t the right thing to say in the moment.
