Maggie’s arms locked. She couldn’t move them.
Veylo took the baby from her, and her legs gave from under her so that she fell onto her side, shaking, shivering, trembling.
This wasn’t like the other times.
This was so much better.
The heat in her face made it feel like the first time she’d ever used.
Her body rushed with goose bumps.
What had her child done to her? And why?
“Aww… he likes you,” Veylo said. “I suppose he’s just trying to make his mommy happy the only way he knows how.”
Tears rushed from her eyes. They were the only part of her physicality that seemed to echo the horror of the moment—the horror of knowing what these sorts of feelings could lead to.
***
Tears slid between Hayde’s temple and cheek, absorbing in the toilet paper wrapped around Hayde’s face to conceal his nostril holes. Droplets of blood trickled off the edge of some more toilet paper Kinzer had taped over where Hayde’s ear had been and collected in a crimson pool on the concrete floor.
Hayde, still bound to the pipe against the wall, stared out a window on the adjacent wall, which revealed the silhouette of a tree that shivered, presumably in a breeze. The distant look in Hayde’s eyes made him appear to be contemplating his freedom.
Kinzer had returned from a trip to a nearby supermarket, where he’d gathered supplies to stitch Hayde back up. A plastic bag dangled off his wrist. He retrieved a wad of bloody tissue paper from beside the doorway and sat down beside Hayde. He set the plastic bag and tissue beside the pool of blood where Hayde’s wounds dripped. He reached into the bag, pulled out some rope he’d grabbed from the car, and wrapped it around Hayde’s neck and head. He tied it against the pipe.
Hayde jerked about.
“Relax,” Kinzer said. “I’m just making this a little easier for both of us.”
He created sturdy knots, retrieved a blade from his pocket, and cut the excess rope. He picked the blood-soaked tissue back up and unfolded it, revealing two blobs of red, Hayde’s ear and nose. He kept them on the tissue, which he set beside him on the floor.
“I think you can imagine how much this is gonna hurt,” Kinzer said. “It’s gonna be one of those cruel moments where you’re gonna wish mortal anesthesia worked on us…” He couldn’t say that anymore. Now that he was clipped, they were effective on him. Just not other fallens. “… or your kind.”
Hayde gulped and trembled.
Kinzer pulled needles and fishing wire from the bag. He unwrapped their packaging and prepared them for his makeshift suture. It wasn’t going to be pretty, but given that immortals healed far better and faster than mortals, Hayde wouldn’t need to keep them in for more than a few weeks.
Kinzer removed the toilet paper from Hayde’s face, and taking a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a washcloth out of the bag, wiped the dry blood off from around his nostril holes.
“The scarring shouldn’t be too bad,” he said.
But he knew better. The scarring would hardly be detectable to a mortal, but an immortal, already scrutinizing a flit’s body more than they would any other immortal’s, would undoubtedly spot the imperfections. And Hayde must’ve known that.
As Kinzer finished cleaning the blood surrounding Hayde’s holes, he began cleaning the severed nose with the washcloth, acknowledging the jagged edges and tears that were going to make his reattachment even sloppier than he’d considered.
As he cleaned, Hayde continued staring at the window on the adjacent wall, the light from the streetlamp outside cutting off at his forehead. It amazed Kinzer how odd an immortal looked without a nose. It reminded him of the depictions that mortals had of alien creatures.
Seeing Hayde in this weak state, so distant from the cocky, conceited flit he’d become accustomed to dealing with, was uncomfortable. He didn’t take pleasure in stripping any creature of its pride. At the same time, it was nice to see his humbler side. He knew this flit was not only the enemy, but the creature who proudly bragged about fucking his ex-lover while they were together. He was the asshole that seemed to completely disregard him as worthy because he was a fallen. He had no empathy, no compassion. And yet, it reminded Kinzer of the way he’d once felt about mortals. It had been Janka who had convinced him that mortals were worth giving a shit about. Considering Janka’s deceit, he wondered how many of those arguments of the old days had been authentic, and how many had been staged to get his help. He wondered what Hayde had heard of Janka’s opinion of mortals. He didn’t want to ask, but a masochistic part of himself desperately wanted to know.
“Initially,” Kinzer said. “I didn’t really care about the plight of mortals, what the Almighty did or didn’t decide to do to them. Janka was the only reason I ever joined the Leader’s efforts at protecting them. Back in those days, my allegiance was more about survival. We knew the Almighty just wanted to destroy His rogue creations, and we had to show Him that we couldn’t be wiped away so easily. And we succeeded.
“Janka was the one who professed such care and hope for mortals. I didn’t like hearing about it. We fallens had to look out for ourselves, not other rejected beings. But he wouldn’t let up. He told me we had to care about them, because like ourselves, they were creations that deserved to be allowed to exist. He convinced me to spend time on Earth, to interact with the people, and in time, showed me their love, their compassion.”
Hayde scoffed. “It’s a small part of these creatures.”
“Yet sometimes I see it more here than in our kind.”
Hayde’s gaze shifted to Kinzer.
