by Amanda Milo
I jump when I feel the brush wiggle.
Because Zadeon just wrapped his fingers around it.
“Let me?” He croons the words, and whenever he does this with his voice, I could melt.
I nod. I tug off my hairband and snap it over my wrist.
And slowly, and very carefully, he brushes my hair.
He motions for my wrist when he’s finished.
“Springy band,” he orders.
Then he freezes.
“What?” I ask.
I use the reflection to look at him now. And so I see his lips pull up in wonder, his mouth slightly open as he marvels, “This is the second time I’ve made you laugh.”
◆◆◆
ZADEON
“What station are you going to start with?” she asks, and I see that she is pulling three water canisters out of her pack.
She brought those for me.
I want to pet her.
Indecision has me hesitating, questioning my instincts versus the advice I’ve received. I set it aside for now. “Do you like to run?”
She eyes me warily out of the corner of her eye. “Depends on what’s chasing me.”
Surprised at this answer, I consider this. “I can.”
She shakes her head rapidly, exaggeratingly wide. “I’d give up and die.”
I scoff. Then I show her the tail quill that I used to tease her foot.
I wiggle it as menacingly as I can. “No. You’ll run.”
I think it must look silly, but to my surprise she draws herself to her full tiny stature and tosses her pack back down with an air of challenge. “I promise you. Chase me and-”
I decide I can take this as a command.
I rush for her.
Her eyes widen and for one click I think I’ve taken this too far.
Then she whirls with a panicked yip.
And I. Can’t. Stop.
I chase her.
I don’t let myself get close enough to catch her - just close enough to send her body into complete loss of mental faculty.
She’s running, her scent is strongly marked with sweat and it smells good.
A small whiff of anxiety flares but it isn’t fear yet - I will continue to monitor though.
I’m surprised I can keep my head at all.
She weaves between the punching bags and dashes to the boxing ring where she slips effortlessly under a rope - and slides out through the other side just as I’m pulling myself onto the platform.
She could run right out of the room.
She could order me to cease at any time.
But she doesn’t.
So we continue to play this game until all I want in the world is for her to submit.
It feels good to run.
It feels great to hunt.
My body tells me when I finally capture her, there will be the sweetest of rewards.
My sense informs me my body is rotationdreaming.
Then she collapses.
“Callie! Are you alright?”
Sprawled across a mat, she snorts. “No! I’m dying, Z.”
Her limbs twitch in a weak seizure.
She looks up, and her eyes are so playful they dance.
If I didn’t already love her. This look right here would have my hearts.
“That bad?” I ask, sinking to my heels beside her.
She groans and drops her sticky cheek to the spongy surface under her. “So bad.”
“I could carry you to our room.”
She sighs gratefully. “That’d be wonderful.”
“But I won’t.”
She whimpers. “That was mean, Z.”
I like that she calls me Z.
I love that she calls me Z.
But of everything I love about her in this moment - she just played with me, and I love that the most.
◆◆◆
CALLIE
I pick myself off the floor and stumble to our bathroom for a quick shower, Zadeon trailing into our room behind me. All relaxed now that he got whatever that was out of his system.
What a goofball.
And I'm surprised to find... I feel better too. Lighter.
After I’m clean, I sit on the closed toilet seat.
I’ve started this little routine.
I pull the towel up against my belly…
And scratch the ever living shit out of my skin.
It’s not a compulsion. I don’t have a problem. It’s the fact that these bites are taking forever to heal over.
As in, they don’t seem to be healing over much at all.
And they itch like crazy.
Frustrated, I set in on my thighs, careful to skirt the wounds themselves and only go for the slightly inflamed areas around them.
I try not to moan in relief. I don’t remember much about chicken pox, but I’m pretty sure if it was this bad then it’s a miracle that my mom didn’t tape oven mitts on my hands because I have almost no self control over this.
I’m always really careful to scratch around the wounds, not over them - except this time?
I slip.
My nails catch one of the scabs. Just an edge - but it’s enough that the skin rips and blood begins to well up, and roll out.
“Crap,” I mutter, and reach for toilet paper to dab it up.
Bathroom privacy is not something these guys understand, or so I’ve heard. I’ve never had an issue.
Until Zadeon bangs open the bathroom door, pinging the lock clear across the room.
I scream - he roars, he charges in.
“What is the matter with you?” I screech, trying to tug down my towel.
Before he can see.
But it’s too late. He’s frozen in place.
And… he looks wrecked. “I could have helped you.”
No one can help me.
The thought is so quiet in its subversiveness, I’m startled I noticed it at all.
I know it’s not true - I know that.
Why have I been listening to it?
I shake myself and tug my towel down as far as it will go without revealing my chest. It’s not a wide towel. “I get that this looks bad-”
“Looks bad? Bad?”
I can’t tell if his translator is having issues or if he’s taking issue with my adjective of choice. Slowly, I continue to state my case. “Yes, it looks bad - but it’s not what you think.” The scratches will stay raised. All of them stay raised. I don’t know why this is but around my upper thighs and my lower stomach I get itchy like I’ve got fleas and mange and scabies all rolled into one.
Not that I’ve had those, exactly.
But I’ve heard.
They’ll be mostly faded by tomorrow until I repeat this but for now… yeah, okay, it looks really bad.
Yes, I should go to the monitoring team. And have all those hobs stand around me, over me - lifting up my paper thin gown, staring at me, touching me-
I hear the screech of tires in my head, signaling a halt to my thoughts. That’s a big, fat Fuck No.
And Zadeon seems to be stuck in a Fuck No loop of his own - he looks like he didn’t hear a word I said.
He stares without comprehension. “The lines look very fresh.”
“They… are.”
His eyes go sharp, and his gaze slowly moves over one leg’s decoration to the other, no doubt taking note of every raised welt.
What is it going to take for him to believe me? I was only scratching.
“You’ve started self mutilating.”
I rear back like he slapped me. “No! I wasn’t! It’s not like that.”
His eyes are cold. Tortured. “You are hurting yourself.”
I feel the shame squirm in my chest before it radiates outward, making me want to curl up into a ball and die. I wasn’t.
Was I?
No! They’re alien snake bites for cripes’ sake! It’s not in my head - the itch is out of this world BAD!
“I smelled blood. I come in to find that you are attacki
ng yourself…” he looks like he doesn't know what to do with that.
“I wasn’t attacking myself-” I start.
Zadeon fills my vision, crowding me backward. He violently gores the air with a claw - pointing it directly at the welts on my leg.
I cringe. He might as well have stabbed me.
I’m more than a little shocked to realize just how much I have been taking Zadeon’s acceptance of me for granted. His tender actions, words, his careful handling of everything from my very person down to my emotions and feelings… The fact that he’s actually angry at me right now - that he’s so disappointed with me - it hurts.
I have to try to explain. I need him to understand - he means something to me and his opinion of me means something to me.
And I didn’t really know to the extent until just now.
I try to put it into words. “I’m guessing you’ve heard it helps some people when they feel… wrong. I’ve heard it too - but that’s not what I was doing! I wasn’t really going to make myself bleed on purpose. I just snagged a scab, I swear!”
I’ve never seen his eyes like this. He’s never looked at me like this. “You mean plucking. Hobs do this…” His eyes narrow even further. “Hobs do this when they are moved to bachelor rookeries. The highest in the pecking order harass the lowest-”
Ouch.
“-until they pluck their mane fur out. Their own mane fur.”
He glances pointedly under my arms and then to the bottom edge of my very-barely-concealing-'I wanted to be a washcloth'-towel.
“Hold on right there,” I raise my palms in surrender. “THAT'S from shaving, not plucking. I’m getting that you have a different sort of experience with your people, and we clearly need to establish some trust with each other because you have to believe me. I am telling you: I’m not ‘self mutilating’.”
“Your people don’t do this?”
I hesitate. “Okay, they do but-”
His eyes are so narrowed I can’t even see anything but black.
“-all I’m saying is that I am not mutilating-”
Now Zadeon holds up a palm.
I don’t feel that I’m getting anywhere anyway so I motion that he can have the floor.
Healthy communication? Meet us.
We’ve got this.
I release a breath.
“Answer me this single question; have you given power to thoughts of what it would be like to end your life?”
What a strange way to word that question. ‘Given power’?
Zadeon’s suddenly looming over me and I recognize in an instant that I deliberated too long in answering. “Wait, no! Not really!”
Is that true?
Zadeon is strangling his tail and if he didn’t look so absolutely murderous I would point out that, technically? He is self harming right now.
But I’m not stupid. “Okay, I may have entertained the thought but not with real intention and that’s not what this is!” I feel something hit my arm - it’s a tear drop. I’m crying and I didn’t even realize it. “Z…”
I cast my eyes down and rack my brain; what do I have to do to make him believe me? What can I do? I’ll do it. I just need to know-
Zadeon makes a frustrated noise so loud and so scary I clap my hands over my ears.
My towel comes loose from under my armpit, and drops.
I scramble to catch it.
But not before they are exposed.
Every. Last. Puncture.
I scream when his hands suddenly slap around my upper arms. “I could have healed these for you! And now you are disfiguring yourself!” he shouts.
In my face.
Allll his teeth bared, he closes his eyes and turns his face away from me - but he doesn’t release my arms.
My entire body jerks like I got snapped with the end of a whip when his focus is suddenly back on me.
His eyes are so crazed it’s difficult to meet them.
“Tell me which ones to kill, and I will make their death agonizing-”
Now I’m meeting his eyes. What! “You can’t kill anybody!”
His lower jaw juts out as he threatens, “I will see them gone from harming you. They are causing you such distress that you attack yourself!”
“I’m not.”
“Let me fix the marks,” he pleads, his eyes imploring.
I shake my head. “You can’t fix them. No one can, Z.” It comes out wet and weak.
Hearing his nickname has a potent effect on him.
His grip loosens - though he doesn’t let go of me entirely.
“Then we’ll have to keep you so busy you don't have time to think on them.”
That was actually my plan. I had been working on formulating that very thing.
His eyes search both of mine.
This time. I don’t look away.
His lips peel back. “And if you need to hurt-”
That sentence is a gong strike between my ears.
“-we can make you hurt.”
My mouth falls open. “That doesn’t sound any better.”
His nostrils flare and smoke blows into my face. “It is. It is better. This way you will have control.”
Control.
I sway towards him a little.
And that’s when I see it.
His big brows pinch, and though his eyes are crazy-intense, the skin around his eyes is tight, and lined and so expressive.
He’s not angry.
Zadeon is scared. He is so, so worried right now - for me - that it sucks the fight out of me. I can’t even muster up indignation.
This allows me to deliver my next words in a mostly neutral tone. “Are you telling me a Gryfala never gets so much as a scab?”
“No.”
Oh come on.
Now those lines around his eyes show some frustration. “They'd allow their Rakhii to cleanse the wound.”
He gives me an extremely significant look.
Like this makes all the sense. I’ve seen the ‘Rakhii Field Combat Care’: hock-phtew! Infection city. Unh uh.
He looks like he’s waiting for something. Still so concerned about me. He’s so good.
Enough. This is so messed up. Enough! I can only manage to whisper what the deepest, darkest part of me keeps saying. "You deserve better than this. I'm a mess. One day you're going to get tired, and I won't blame you. I want you to know that.”
God knows everybody else is gone.
My back hits the bathroom wall. And I can’t move.
He’s shoving me in place - and he’s not letting go.
His fangs are very very white, and very very big, and very very sharp, now that I get to see them this close. "You expect me to abandon you? Wouldn't blame me for abandoning you? Callie, you don't need me. You've proven you can make a life without me. But, my little dream, there is no scenario in which I don't choose you. I will not live my life without you."
My heart goes WILD.
Oddly… it isn’t with panic.
CHAPTER 21
ZADEON
She needs an outlet. A way to burn her negative feelings and emotions away. It won’t fix - but it will help her focus.
And exhaust.
The healthy kind. Not the depressed kind that she’s been battling.
I thought I was doing the right thing for her; waiting. Being patient. Letting her lead.
She is strong. Someday she will take the lead.
But for now, I will help her.
I am perversely pleased when she displays a healthy amount of anger and hurls her boxing glove across the gym.
“Excellent distance,” I praise.
“I HATE this!”
I nod. “You do.”
“Can we quit now?”
I look her over critically. She’s tired, yes. But she’s shifting foot to foot and her outrage burns in her eyes. If this were an adversary, there would be no chance I’d turn my back on them - they’d be sure to try something. And that’s what I’m afraid of for her.
We must keep going hard until she’s so thoroughly worked over that she can’t bring those dulled claws to herself.
She says she is not doing it with the intent to harm herself.
My hearts believe her.
But the marks are there regardless.
I keep my face hard when I answer her. “No. Go pick up your glove and let’s do another round.”
“I’m not a child,” she snarls.
I give her a cold look. “Then. Cease. Acting. Like. One.”
“You ahsshole!” she screams.
I blink. This is one of the most direct stares she’s ever kept on my face. It’s adversarial, certainly, but this is a positive development-
She lunges at me.
Reflexively, I move to block her strike - but it doesn’t come.
She looks stunned. “I’m-I… sorry. I don’t know-”
But I do.
I snatch her hand and she jerks back. Or tries to.
I bring her hand to my suit, and press it right over my racing hearts. Her fingers flutter when she feels the beats.
“I can take it,” I tell her softly. “Give your anger to me.”
Now she breaks our eye contact. “No, I could never!”
I can almost see her anger sucking inward.
This won’t do.
I snarl, “Callie!”
Her head snaps up and her shocked eyes are on mine once more. I lean in and watch smoke curl into her face when I breathe, “Scream.”
“What!”
I go with what worked before. I grab for her other arm, and shove my chest into hers, forcing her backward across the ring. “Kick me. Bite it out-”
Selfish, selfish, hopeful-
“Use me. Take it out on me. I can handle it. I want it.”
The idea horrifies her. “You’re crazy!”
But I’m not. Far from it. I need her to trust me enough to let her guard down - and to trust me with her emotions.
And she needs to let them out.
“Callie,” I start to let go of one of her hands and she senses it, instantly trying to tug it back. I change my mind and bring my tail between us, and use it to grasp her chin. “I’m going to ask your forgiveness later.”
Her eyes have gone round. “For what?”
CHAPTER 22
CALLIE
Zadeon shakes me. “FIGHT!”
