Recruit and kidnap are interchangeable words, I guess.
I snap myself out of thinking about my former captors when I hear Kitaico yawn.
“Didn’t sleep well?” I ask as if he can understand me. He looks at me and smiles before promptly yawning again.
Appraising the cave we’re in, I come to a realization. While it’s not cramped by any means…it’s not some expansive place. The glow of the worms on the ceiling illuminates every corner.
There’s one bed.
Of course, he didn’t sleep well. I slept in the only bed, and he likely stayed up and kept watch. I’m a fucking awful guest.
He needs some sleep too. Could I convince him to take a nap? I rise from the bed and slip beside him as he works.
“You sleep now,” I tell him slowly, pointing to the bed and taking the cord from his hands. “I’ll do this. It doesn’t look too hard.” I point to the fish, which he begrudgingly hands over.
He twitches slightly and his skin ripples in waves of colors as our fingertips touch.
“You don’t have to—” he starts.
“Bed. Now,” I say, pointing more dramatically this time.
“Well, if you insist, I could use some rest…” He finishes his statement with another big yawn.
He sits on the edge of the bed with heavy lids and watches me work.
“You’re pretty good at that, you know?” He cocks a brow. “Don’t tell me I managed to save a huntress?”
I smirk and wave for him to lie back. A huntress? The thought makes me laugh. I don’t know how to tell him I’m a city-loving tattoo artist. Cities and tattoos probably aren’t even a thing on this planet.
He plops onto his bed with a thud, and I swear I can hear him snoring shortly after that.
After my dramatic rescue, throwing some of these weird little fish up to dry is the least I can do.
When I get about seven fish threaded on the line, I attempt to rip the cord to hang it up…but Kitaico made it look deceptively easy! No matter how hard I tug, I can’t get the line to snap like he did.
He must have had some knife or blade I didn’t know about.
I sneak over to the bed to see if he had set something down. I kneel beside him and check to see if he’s still sleeping.
His breath is even, and his eyes are shut. I don’t want to disturb the obviously tired alien, so I continue to snoop. When I stand, I catch the blue glint of something in his hand.
The silly guy must have been so tired he didn’t give it to me. I kneel on the bed and reach my fingers carefully over him to his far hand. I can’t make out the knife well. This half of the bed is shadowed in the darkness of the nook.
With my forefinger and thumb, I gently pinch the blade out of his hand.
The second my skin makes contact with what I assume was a knife, the hard nub opens like a petal. Before I can draw my hand back, it snaps shut over the meat of my palm, and pain courses through me.
Kitaico jerks and his hand grabs my wrist as he sits up like a bolt.
“Leeenuh, what are you doing?” He mutters, confused, before his hand tightens—his body goes ramrod straight as he flops back.
At this point, I realize it’s not a blade…it’s a barb and part of his body.
Stinging discomfort shoots up my arm as Kitaico writhes beside me. His face twisted in some rapture.
“Kitaico, what’s happening?” I yell, trying to tug my hand free.
His longer two head tentacles wrap around me, pulling my body flat against his. The air leaves my chest with the force of the movement. We’re face to face, our skin pressed up against each other, and his body is feverishly hot.
