Bonds Broken & Silent

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  His fingers didn’t cooperate. They didn’t curl the way they should have, and his palm slid down the car’s door, Gavin’s body along with his hand.

  His head hit the pavement. His brain wobbled but he blinked, his eyes filled with the grit kicked up by his fall. His one remaining working sense just got blasted by sand and now he was blind, too. Blind, deaf, unable to smell or taste anything other than the chemical burning in his mouth and chest. Nothing moved past the restrictions the acid had slapped onto his tongue—no scents, no flavors.

  The dogs closed ranks around him, and for a moment all Gavin saw was German shepherd butt. Dying resurfaced as a real weight, as if the crazy man had bent over him and ripped off his face. Crazy had breathed out death, but Gavin couldn’t smell anymore.

  Except the air filled with car exhaust, and moving tires vibrated asphalt.

  Headlights poured between the cars. He raised his head off the grit. Had the crazy man come back? Was Gavin about to get dragged away, as well?

  The strain on his neck ratcheted and he let out what must have been a loud “gack.” The change in the pulls and pushes of his throat muscles hurt like hell.

  A car door opened. Long, graceful legs appeared. A lovely, tapered hand grasped the handle of the front door on the side of the car facing Gavin, and one of the dogs jumped in. The animal circled once and dropped his butt to the seat.

  The fingers opened the back door. The other dog sniffed Gavin’s face again before sitting next to his side. He didn’t jump in the way his companion had. He stayed with Gavin.

  The long legs approached. Beautiful legs clad in denim and ending in graceful feet tucked into black boots that looked as if they could kick the shit out of that crazy man who took Rysa. Legs that looked strong and confident.

  Gavin blinked again. The graceful fingers touched his face, then his throat. Next to him, the dog’s head moved as if he barked. The fingers fell away from his forehead.

  A face as lovely as the hands appeared. Warm amber eyes glimmering with intelligence seemed to take in Gavin’s every minute movement. Large black curls fell loose from her ponytail and framed her cheeks and jaw. The woman’s perfect, straight nose sniffed as if she understood the world through scent, the way he’d expect the two dogs to behave.

  She turned her head slightly, looking down and away.

  She held a cell phone to her ear. “Found him,” moved across her lips.

  “My… friend…” Maybe he made a sound. Maybe he didn’t. He pointed as best he could at the gate, where the crazy man dragged Rysa. Hopefully, the woman would understand.

  Tension moved across her high cheekbones and her brow scrunched together. She glanced over her shoulder before returning her hand to Gavin’s neck and shoulders.

  But she pulled back. Her gorgeous amber eyes rounded and her mouth dropped open. Her lips moved, but not for him. “Activating,” she mouthed into her phone.

  What did “activating” mean?

  Her head snapped around and she looked toward the gate. The hand holding the phone dropped away from her ear, toward her side, but her fingers fumbled. The phone landed on Gavin’s belly.

  Its speaker vibrated enough he felt it through the fabric of his shirt. Whoever she talked to must be yelling.

  He couldn’t breathe. The dog who stayed licked his cheek again and Gavin knew he made wicked ratcheting noises. But the angel who’d found him gasped, her mouth open, and she fell backward next to Gavin. She blinked, her eyes wide, and grasped her own throat.

  Her lips drew back. She stared at the gate. Gavin picked out only one word from her moving lips: Fate.

  “I…” His hand danced along her forearm by itself. “… can’t… breathe….” He hoped he did more than whisper.

  The woman’s attention snapped back to Gavin, but she continued to blink. Sorry, she signed. Help you.

  Chapter Three

  We go, the amber-eyed angel signed as she squatted next to Gavin.

  When the phone slid off his belly, she swiped it off the pavement and held it to her ear again, but he couldn’t make out her mouth. She glanced in the direction the crazy man had dragged Rysa.

  “But…” Gavin couldn’t run away like a scared child.

  The woman’s lips pinched together and her gaze darted back to the gate. She tilted her head to hold the phone against her shoulder.

  Safe, she signed, before reaching for his shoulders to haul him to his feet.

  “No!” How the hell could Rysa be safe? Gavin slapped at the woman’s hands when she tried to help him stand.

  “You need help!” She leaned back onto her heels. You, she signed, but her hands dropped away. “You’re allergic to…”

  She said something else, but he missed reading her lips correctly because of the shadows when she shifted slightly to listen to her phone. And because she wasn’t making sense.

  I don’t know how to sign, she signed.

  “What?” Gavin stared at her lips. Did she say allergic? He was allergic to the chemicals?

  His next breath scraped along the inside of his throat as if he’d sucked in the grit on the pavement.

  He’d been breathing. It hurt, but he got in air. But this was different.

  His next breath did the same scraping, sand-in-his-throat ripping at his windpipe.

  Gavin’s fingers wrapped around his neck. He didn’t remember telling his hands to move, or his back and abdomen to make him sit up, or his knees to push him to kneeling. But he teetered now, up on his knees, and swayed when his next attempt to inhale made the same, exact ripping as the first. Except this time, nothing got through.

  And the burning moved into his lungs.

  The woman cupped his elbow, her face wide with panic. She yelled something into her phone that looked to Gavin like “…won’t work!”

  She shouted something else but slammed the phone into her pocket and leaned toward him, her mouth opening as if she wanted a good, tongue-groping kiss. Her lips parted. Her eyes narrowed. Her hands wrapped around Gavin’s cheeks and suddenly, the beautiful woman who sort of signed locked her mouth over his.

  And exhaled with enough intensity to inflate a huge balloon.

  Air got through. Not a lot, but some. Gavin did his best to draw it in, to force it through the hot constriction between her lips and his lungs.

  She pulled back enough to inhale before her mouth came down over his mouth and nose, and another breath forced its way into his throat.

  The next time she pulled back, he saw her eyes. Something about her face looked different. She looked sad, as if she wanted to say I’m sorry.

  The third exhale into his lungs felt different.

  The burning didn’t go away. Or the grittiness. Or the constriction. Not immediately. But something new wormed in on the back of her resistive breaths. Something that felt as weird and as crazy as the violent chemical stench that had come off the crazy man.

  Gavin’s brain heard a command riding on the back of her breath, as if her lungs made words and her air spoke. The command charged down the nerves of his nasal cavity directly into the lower parts of his brain.

  His temporal and parietal lobes responded first. His sense of time, of moment, changed. She breathed out a fourth time, but his brain ceased counting, yet it didn’t. An older, deeper version of counting took over. Somewhere in his head, his mind seized hold of iterations and repetitions. Of understanding that what she did was important not because he knew it was important, but because an animal part of his brain locked onto her actions as a new consistent behavior in his environment.

  The command moved inward again, both up and down. His vision changed, shifting into real-time, as if up until this moment he’d spent his entire life seeing a slightly time-delayed view of the world. As if the human parts of his brain held back his vision and annotated it with words and meaning and consciousness before letting him see what was in front of him.

  But not anymore. Colors suddenly saturated. The browns and golds of her eyes gleam
ed. The red undertones of her cheeks showed her blood flow and her attention. The woman’s shape became intensely female—and desirable. Vibrations carried not only auditory information but a strong sense of physical location.

  Surprise grunted from his still-constricted throat. The newly-empowered deep parts of his mind responded to the constriction the same way they’d been responding since he felt the first burning itch: Panic screamed outward from the base of his brain. But this time, his rational mind wasn’t there to knock it down.

  A shrill, terror-filled scream whistled out of his mouth. His arms whipped. He jumped up, landing on his feet, but stayed in a crouch.

  The female’s mouth moved. Her body showed fear. Anger. Speed. Gavin inhaled again and hopped forward.

  A growl. A canine circled between him and the female. Gavin whistle-howled and slammed his knuckles against the ground.

  The female moved fast. Her arm encircled his neck and she twisted around to his back. A hand pressed him forward, toward the open rear door of the car. He whistle-howled again, his fear screaming cage! But a canine knocked into his legs and he lost his balance. The female forced him forward.

  His face smashed into the seat. Quickly, she crawled up his back and onto his hips. Gavin flailed again but she allowed him to roll over.

  She straddled his groin and grabbed his neck.

  More blistering terror roared up from his deepest parts. Animal terror, fed by his animal sub-brain, determined to protect the animal parts of his body and soul.

  He grabbed her forearms and yanked.

  She didn’t let go. Her hands heated, but she burned in a different way than the grit in his throat. She warmed. She fixed.

  Gavin relaxed. Each inhale went deeper. Felt cooler. Cleaner. He released her arms and stared at her breasts.

  He smelled the sweet, gentle scent of female. He saw her strong but curved shape. Felt the twists and pulls of her muscles and the silkiness of her skin press into his flesh. But he couldn’t hear her.

  Gavin sat up. Her hands dropped away from his throat and slid very quickly between their chests. She pushed.

  Gavin hooted.

  Her face contorted. She laughed.

  Why did the female laugh? Gavin wanted to touch the female.

  Enthralled out your animal, she signed. She scooted off his legs and out the door of the car. Worked too well.

  Pretty, he signed. Pretty female.

  She laughed again and slapped the side of her leg. The four-legged dog-beast in the front poked his head over the seat back. The other dog-beast hopped onto the seat next to Gavin.

  They would not allow him to touch the pretty female. Gavin growled.

  The female frowned. Both dogs soundlessly barked.

  Gavin was to keep quiet.

  The female closed the door and walked to the front of the car and entered the driver’s seat. The dogs continued to stare at Gavin, both making annoyed-dog expressions.

  The female spoke with her hands. Do not pee on my seats.

  Best not to mark territory while the dogs glowered. The one next to him sniffed Gavin’s face and scratched his dog-claws over the tight weave of the seat’s surface. Vibrations flowed up Gavin’s leg.

  The car started. Gavin bounced against the seat back. They drove out of the lot’s entrance and the car turned onto the road leading into campus, not toward the Fairgrounds parking lots. The place his other female went.

  A bad man took her. Gavin bounced and slapped the back of the new female’s car seat. He hooted and called because she needed to understand. But she turned the car—and Gavin—away anyway.

  Gavin pressed his face against the glass of the back window. He knew where the female sent the burning that had been in his throat. The fire she chased off with her good warmth.

  Down the hill, on the other side of the trees, smoke curled into the night air. Ugly yellow-orange light flickered like a monster devouring everything in its path.

  His other female wouldn’t be coming back. How could she? The world burned.

  Chapter Four

  Breathing happened through closed-off nostrils. Gavin’s face pressed into scratchy, tightly-woven fabric and his inhales suctioned at his skull as if he drew out the finite air in a plastic bag. Each of his exhales rumbled past his lips and vibrated through his cheeks and neck.

  He snored.

  Consciousness punched him more in the gut than in the head. His arms were under him—he pinned himself down with his own body weight. Numbness crept from both of his biceps into his shoulders.

  He lay face-planted against blue and green plaid heavy-duty fabric.

  He should not, under any circumstances, be passed out on his belly like some dumbass drunk. Especially not on the shit-tastic, beer- and butt-smelling nylon couch in the commons area of the house where he lived.

  He’d been in the café in the basement of the Continuing Education Building. Arguing with Rysa about her homework and her meds. He’d been trying to get her to calm down, but she’d had a headache. He’d never seen her fidget so much in the entire three years they’d been friends.

  Gavin wiggled his arms slowly, starting with his fingers and his wrists, trying to get some blood flow back and some feeling other than the achy buzz pounding out from his elbows. Goddamn it, he needed to sit up because if he didn’t, there’d be more bad situations. Bad moments. More terror and chasing.

  Problems had shadowed him since the car accident that took his hearing. The inescapable shit storms he never had control over, but had to react to nonetheless. Small problems, like missing academic records. Big problems, like chasing and… allergies? His throat hurt.

  A groan resonated into his sinuses. He didn’t hear it. Didn’t feel his earbuds, either. Which meant they weren’t in his ears.

  They were… on the ground? Along the path to the Fairgrounds parking lots?

  What the fuck happened last night?

  His elbows cooperated enough to push him into sitting. Pink streaks of dawn filtered through the ratty, dusty curtains of the common living room area of his house. The streetlight outside winked off. No one else moved around, and no light filtered down the stairs from the rooms on the second floor.

  It probably wasn’t six a.m. yet. But why wasn’t he in his room? He touched his ear. Where were his aids?

  Dread pooled in his stomach. Then it splashed into his mouth and he let out a groan he knew sounded more like a dying turkey than a person, even if he couldn’t hear himself. He’d have to pay for the aids if he lost them. They were special new prototype tech and he’d been part of the software trials for a full year now and his audiologist told him that they cost close to one hundred thousand dollars each.

  Every day he walked around campus with more money in his ears than a year’s worth of undergrad and grad tuition combined. But it didn’t matter if he couldn’t get through the world’s shitstorms and into medical school.

  Or help his friend.

  Gavin squeezed his eyes closed. His still-numb fingers swept over the crown of his head, through the loose curls of his hair, and wrapped around his face. What happened last night? Why couldn’t he remember properly?

  His left calf smacked into something heavy when he swung his legs off the couch. His backpack leaned against his leg—and one of his titanium buds of precision programming bounced off the top of the bag and under the couch.

  His hearing aids were on his backpack? Gavin dropped off the seat and onto his hands and knees. At least the other bud rested in the fold between the main pocket and the front zipper of his bag, and hadn’t skipped away into the spider webs and grit under the couch.

  From the shadows between a particularly greasy dust bunny, a wadded-up gum wrapper, and a penny, he yanked his hearing aid out from under the couch.

  He wiped it off and checked it over before pressing it into his ear. The right side of the world blossomed and half the room suddenly took on the depth and dimensionality that only opened up for him when his brain had access to
the geometry embedded in acoustic waves.

  The little noises he made—the swishing across the carpet and the couch, his taps and bumps, his breathing—all echoed around the room. When they bounced back to him, they carried distance information. References to corners and textures. Small things.

  He’d never been conscious of it as a kid, before he lost most of his hearing. Afterward, he couldn’t be. The waves were colors his brain couldn’t “see.” But these new aids were worth the hundred grand apiece that they cost.

  He pressed the left one into his ear and the other side of the room burst into three dimensions. Gavin leaned against the couch, next to his bag, and just listened.

  He’d been correct—none of his roommates were awake. No floorboards creaked. No doors opened and closed. He was, for the moment, completely alone.

  In the common area. With his bag, which he’d left in the café. And his hearing aids, which had fallen out of his ears when Rysa slapped him.

  She’d slapped him. Across the face. Because she’d been terrified.

  Gavin yanked his bag onto his lap and unzipped the front pocket where he’d put his phone last night when he’d sat down to help Rysa with her homework.

  It burst to life when he swiped his lock code across the screen. Quickly, he worked through the apps: A voicemail from his brother. A text from that cute girl he’d chatted up in the Student Union the day before yesterday. Three from the University. But no communications from Rysa.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose and did his best to remember. Café, homework. Rysa frantic. She fled. He followed. A slap. Then a guy he didn’t recognize. A memory about smells tried to push through, but couldn’t quite work their way into the higher parts of his brain. There’d been chemicals.

  And dogs.

  A flash of a concept, of a communication, sparked in his mind’s eye before vanishing just as quickly: Don’t pee on my seats.

  It had to have been drugs. Whatever got into his system and shut down his higher cognitive functions. He’d become an… animal. That much came through. His animalistic cognitive processes were probably why he didn’t remember anything. The drug had disrupted his ability to make reasoned sense of the world.