Pet

by Akwaeke Emezi

  Hibiscus was still on the floor, his upper body held up by the wall Pet had hurled him into, his front teeth silked red with a bubbled film of blood. He was grimacing in pain, his hand clamped to his side. Redemption had stood up behind Jam, staring at his uncle, his hands balled into bloodless fists.

  “Let Pet do his job, Jam,” he said.

  She turned her head slightly and hissed at him. “Shut up! You’re not helping!”

  “He hurt Moss! Why are you defending him?”

  “I can’t argue with both of you at the same time,” Jam said through clenched teeth. “Pet, don’t kill him. Please.”

  “You, Jam, begging for the life of a monster, pleading a plea to the hunter.” Pet shook its head, and its horns swiveled dark and red. “I was called, and I came. You were called, and you answered. He was hunted, and now he is found. It is well. It is right. It is my right.”

  “Do it,” Redemption whispered, and Jam could hear the tears of rage in his voice. She ignored him. It was Pet she was trying to reach now, Pet with all its menace unfurled, all its great horror released into the air. Hibiscus was staring at it, afraid but proud and silent. He had been a soldier, Jam remembered. He knew he was looking down a corridor painted in his death colors.

  “I know it is your right,” Jam said. “I know I can’t stop you if you don’t want to stop. But the town will learn nothing this way, the families will learn nothing. They’ll keep pretending all the monsters are gone; they won’t remember to look for them. They might not believe us.”

  Pet flexed her mother’s fingers, and its gold claws grew in length, the edge on them blinding. “There can be more monsters,” it said. “We will return and hunt them down, one by one, as we have done since time was born.”

  “But people will get hurt in the meantime! Don’t you get it?” Jam’s voice was thick with frustration. “You have to give us a chance, Pet; you have to give Lucille a chance to change.”

  Pet whipped its head around and snarled, an ugly sound, rotten with contempt. “Humans do not change!” it spat. “Look at your precious Lucille, supposed to be purged, supposed to be safe.” It flicked a goldfeathered arm in Hibiscus’s direction. “Look at this man, this angel of yours. Your angels are monsters, your world is corrupt, and you want a chance? You want me to spare him as an example, as a lesson for the people who forgot how to see, who were careless, and now there is a child who has been hurt and I am come with justice and you want me to stay my judgment in the name of a chance? I shall not, I shall not, little girl. I will cleanse, and when another like him comes, another of me shall come as well, and we will cleanse again.”

  “Killing doesn’t help anything, Pet.” She was trying to keep her voice level, but she was shaking so hard. “It doesn’t help.”

  Pet’s empty face stayed on her for long seconds. “It is justice,” it finally said. “When that child asks, what happened to the man who did this to me, there will be a righteous answer, and it will have been carried out by my righteous hand, and he will at least know that he had justice. He had justice, and the due was done.”

  “You’re so limited,” Jam hissed.

  Pet made a surprised sound. “I am limited?”

  Redemption and Hibiscus were staring at each other in a separate silence. All the air was harsh and electric.

  Jam switched to their silent words. You’re only thinking about this one, this child, this monster, she said. What about the other children? What about the things we could do to weed out harm before it’s done to them? If Hibiscus lives, if the people hear him say what he did, they’ll believe him way before they’ll believe me or Redemption. They’ll know that they need to look out, to be vigilant. They’ll change—they’ll watch out for red flags, and it’ll be easier to protect those who need protecting.

  Pet lifted its chin, about to respond, but Jam put a hand up. I’m not done, she said. I know you don’t believe they’ll change, but you’re wrong. Lucille was made because people changed, because they did something and they wanted to protect others. But you don’t want to give us that chance! You don’t want to give us a chance to prevent the monsters; you want to wait until the monsters are full-grown and rampaging, so you and the rest of your kind can swoop in and hunt them and save the day. Except that people, kids, are going to get hurt your way. But you don’t care, right? As long as you have something to hunt. You don’t care if people get hurt. I think that makes you more of the monster.

  She folded her arms and stared defiantly at Pet, whose face remained still, trained on hers. Redemption broke the gaze with his uncle to look over at them.

  “Is Pet going to do something or what? ’Cos if he won’t, I will.”

  Jam didn’t look away from Pet. “You’re not going to kill your uncle, Redemption.”

  “I could!” He took a step forward, and the heavy burning of his anger brushed against Jam’s skin. “I could kill him for what he did to Moss. Or I could go to my parents and tell them the rest, the details. Once they hear those, they’d kill him too. If Pet doesn’t have the liver to do it.”

  Jam glanced over at Hibiscus. His face had softened as he heard Redemption talk about killing him.

  “My boy…” Talking made his ribs hurt, and Jam watched as he doubled over with a groan. Redemption looked unwillingly at him. “My boy,” continued Hibiscus. “I’m so sorry—”

  “Shut up.” Redemption’s voice was flint and doors and axes. “I’m not interested in any apologies. You’re just sorry you got caught. You’re not sorry for anything you did.”

  Hibiscus teared up, and Jam’s memory flipped up the image of him ringside, tears in his eyes, his hand in hers. Her skin crawled.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt Moss,” he said.

  Redemption’s rage became even more perceptible in the room; it boiled loud and furious. “Don’t you ever say his name again!” he yelled. “You don’t have a right to say it—don’t ever speak it again.”

  “I just have these feelings,” Hibiscus said, his words breaking with emotion. “I need help, my boy. I tried to fight them for so long…for so very long. But they were powerful, they took over me…” He started weeping then, and Jam stared, disgust sliding around in her stomach. She felt a breeze as Redemption strode past her, past Pet, until he was standing over his uncle. The man lifted a tearstained face to Redemption and reached out a shaky hand. “I just need some help,” he said. “I swear I didn’t mean to hurt Moss.”

  The crack of Redemption’s fist as it drove into his uncle’s face was the loudest thing Jam thought she had ever heard. Hibiscus sagged immediately, unconscious, and Redemption massaged his hand as he looked back up at Jam and Pet.

  “So,” he said, “what are we going to do with him?”

  They both stared at him, the echo of bone against bone fading from the room.

  “I need a decision,” Redemption said. “My parents will notice I’m not upstairs soon.”

  Jam looked at Pet. “Please,” she said. “There has to be another way.”

  Pet growled in its throat, an unhappy sound. “Very well, little girl,” it bit out. “You have such faith in your people, I will chance it this once.”

  Jam felt tension drop out of her bones. “You won’t kill him?” she asked.

  “He might wish I had,” Pet said grimly, “but no, I won’t kill him.”

  “So what’s going to happen to him instead, then?” Redemption asked. “He’s just going to deny everything as soon as the grown-ups ask. He’ll say Moss is making it up. And I don’t want them questioning my brother. He shouldn’t have to defend himself. He’s only seven, Jam. He shouldn’t have to.”

  “He won’t,” Pet said. It looked around the training room and jerked its head toward some of the equipment. “Bring that over here.”

  Redemption dragged the bench over and levered half of it so it was at a righ
t angle, a narrow L. Pet lifted Hibiscus easily with one hand and deposited him in the seat. “Tie him in,” it said, so they did. “Step away.”

  Jam took Redemption’s hand as they pulled back. “What’s it doing?” Redemption whispered.

  “I don’t know,” she said. Pet looked like it was concentrating. It leaned down and breathed a faint yellow smoke over Hibiscus’s face. The man choked and coughed as soon as he inhaled it, coming back to consciousness with reddened eyes.

  “What are you doing, Pet?” Jam asked. The creature paced slowly in front of Hibiscus, casting an ominous shadow over his body.

  “I am going to make sure that he tells the truth to the rest of your humans,” Pet replied.

  “Oh yeah?” Redemption scoffed. “Good luck with that.”

  Pet turned its head to him. “You should not mock, little boy. You have no idea what I am or what I can do.” It said these words calmly, without apparent malice, but there was so much danger steaming off its body that it landed in the air as a threat, and the blood left Redemption’s face.

  “You can’t force him to tell them the truth,” Jam said.

  Pet’s face tracked toward her, and she felt a sheen of an emotion coming off it, not quite regret but something bittersweet. “I need both of you to close your eyes and cover your faces with your hands. Look away. Make sure you do not look back.”

  “What’s going on, Pet?” Jam was alarmed now.

  “Look away, little girl.”

  Redemption turned and covered his eyes. His fascination with Pet was overshadowed easily by his fear of Pet’s power, of the death chafing just inside it. Jam was not afraid; she refused to be afraid.

  “Tell me what you’re going to do,” she said. “I won’t look away until you tell me.”

  The gold feathers started lifting off Pet’s arms, metal flowing through the air as if it was water, a massive unfurling. Jam’s eyes hurt watching it, they were so bright, and they seemed to grow in intensity as they lifted off. The skin that had been covered by the feathers was furred like the rest of Pet, slicked down and wet. Jam stared at the ripple of rising feathers coming off its arms, and all at once, all of a sudden, she saw that the feathers were wings, that Pet had been wrapped in wings, down its arms, over its shoulders, masking its face. And now it was opening its wings, and there was a great light starting to seep out from under the shield of gold feathers, and Jam knew as surely as if Pet had told her itself that it was going to show its true face to Hibiscus. She didn’t know what that would look like, what it would mean, or what it would do to Hibiscus, but somehow she knew that it was a terrible thing that was about to happen. Pet’s wings came off its shoulders and neck, and light poured down its throat, piercing in strength.

  I will be blinded, Jam thought. If I don’t look away, I will be blinded.

  Images of the angels from those old books flashed through her head, and she looked at Pet one last time, while she could, at the hands she knew so well, the torso it had comforted her against, the horns she was no longer afraid of, these new wings loud with righteousness. She reached for it in her head.

  I know what you are, she said.

  For a moment she thought she saw its mouth stretch into a smile thick with smoke, fractures of light breaking through.

  DO NOT BE AFRAID, Pet replied, and then it turned to Hibiscus and the rest of its wings snapped out into fullness.

  Jam whirled around just in time, throwing herself on the ground and covering her face, squeezing her eyes shut. The light that burst around her was so bright that it pushed through her hands and eyelids, and all she could see was a massive blankness edged in a darkness so deep it felt like she had been pulled out of her world entirely and cast somewhere else. She could hear Hibiscus screaming, his voice warped and bending as it went on and on, scraping his throat. The walls and floor of the training room were trembling; Jam could feel it bucking under her body. She curled up tighter and hoped Redemption was okay.

  Hibiscus’s screaming went on for minutes after the light faded away, and Jam could feel that Pet had left, that the air held a strong emptiness where its body had been. She didn’t move for a while, keeping her hands pressed to her face and her body against the rubber floor. Bright shapes and colors flooded behind her eyelids, ghosts of Pet’s light. Jam was afraid to open her eyes in case she couldn’t see, it had been so much; it felt like it had stabbed through everything, and Jam didn’t see how she could be the same once she stood up, if she stood up. So she lay there until gentle hands touched her shoulder.

  “Jam?” Redemption’s voice was low and worried. Hibiscus had stopped screaming. “Are you okay, Jam?”

  She slowly let her hands fall away and opened her eyes, blinking as they readjusted. Redemption was kneeling next to her, fear frantic on his face. He hugged her tightly.

  “I was so scared something happened to you,” he said, his voice muffled against her hair.

  “I’m okay,” she whispered. She sounded raspy, as if she’d been screaming with Hibiscus, who was moaning softly in his corner of the training room.

  Jam and Redemption looked at each other, both afraid to see what Pet had done. Redemption tightened his jaw.

  “Come on,” he said, standing up and holding his hand out to her. “The room isn’t built to block that level of sound, and the whole house shook. They’re going to come down.”

  Jam nodded and took his hand, pulling herself up. They kept holding hands as they edged slowly toward Hibiscus, dread bubbling in their chests. He was limp against the wall and floor, his head hanging down and turned to one side. Redemption nudged one of Hibiscus’s outstretched legs with his foot, and the man moaned again but didn’t move.

  “What did Pet do?” Redemption asked. “And where did he go?”

  “I don’t know.” She walked around Hibiscus’s body and crouched down beside him.

  “Be careful, Jam.”

  “Don’t worry, he can’t do anything.” Not after all that screaming, she thought. No one could do anything after screaming like that. Screaming like that meant you had been broken, completely shattered and crushed, and there was no way you were a threat after that. There was no way you were even whoever you had been before, not after that. Not after seeing Pet’s true face.

  She poked Hibiscus’s arm, and he groaned, rolling his head up and toward them. Both Jam and Redemption screamed and scrambled backward, Jam falling on her butt and still pushing back and away, away from the burned, boiling holes where Hibiscus’s eyes used to be, from the scalded tracks where the redblack ran down his cheeks into his wet and weeping mouth.

  “I’m sorry,” he babbled, “I’m so sorry, I’ll tell them everything, I swear, I’m so sorry.”

  Jam was crying, her palms hard on the floor. She could hear Redemption throwing up behind her, the convulsions of his guts and throat as they emptied him in horror.

  “I’ll tell them everything, please don’t let it come back, Jam. Jam, are you there? Redemption? I’m sorry, y’all, I’m so, so sorry.” Hibiscus broke down into open sobs, and Jam covered her mouth with a hand. They could all hear voices and doors as people came downstairs, and Jam felt the familiar vibrations of her parents’ footsteps, even through the rubber of the training room floor. They must have noticed that her bed was empty and had come looking for her.

  She wanted to move, but she couldn’t, not even to check on Redemption, not even to turn her head away from the vengeance Pet had unleashed on Hibiscus’s face. She was still there when the grown-ups came into the room, when Glass screamed and ran to her blinded husband, when Aloe cursed at the scene, his voice rough and explicit as he picked Jam up and cradled her to his chest, even as tall as she’d gotten. She saw Bitter’s face slide in front of hers and heard her mother’s voice twisted with concern, heard Beloved and Malachite and Whisper overlap each other as they rushed to Redemption, one of the
m sending another to make sure Moss didn’t enter the room. Hibiscus sobbed louder when he heard the little boy’s name.

  “What happened?” Glass asked, her voice shrill with panic. “What happened to him?”

  Aloe was already carrying Jam out of the room, and she could feel the arrow of his heart pointed toward their house, toward home. He was single-minded, cutting through the air before him.

  Bitter walked beside him, her hand on Jam’s arm, her voice low and soothing: “We be home soon, doux-doux. You eh have to worry. We be home soon.”

  Behind them Jam could hear Hibiscus’s voice, ragged and pleading, saying how he would tell them everything, everything, if they could just please make sure it didn’t come back for him.

  EPILOGUE

  Pet didn’t come back that night, or the next one, or the next.

  There was a hearing after everything, after Hibiscus’s confession was heard. Aloe and Bitter didn’t want Jam to go, but she’d been a witness, so she had to. It was hard to see everybody, to see how desperately Redemption’s parents held on to Moss, fluttering and fussing over him, none of them looking as if they’d slept in days, which they probably hadn’t. Redemption looked drawn and exhausted when he sat down next to her, and their hands found each other, no words needed. Jam’s parents sat beside her, and Redemption’s parents sat beside him, Moss squeezed in between them, their hands brushing over him repeatedly, as if they needed reminding that he was real or he needed reminding that they were sorry—for not protecting him better, for not seeing or stopping what Hibiscus had become. All the parents leaned over the children as they exchanged soft words and softer touches, hands gripping hands, palms cupping cheeks and jaws, all heavy with sorrow and regret.

  The whole of Lucille showed up for the hearing, spilling in crowds outside on the lawn when the building couldn’t accommodate them, watching the outdoor projections of the indoor proceedings. When Glass gave her testimony, it nearly drove Malachite mad.