“That’s not possible. Stones don’t fade.” Yahiro turned back to scour the ground within her vicinity. “I had it in my hand, right here! It has to be here somewhere.” She tried to convince herself but she only saw strange plants, moss, and dirt.
She was lifted off the ground and into the air, her hands still reaching out to search.
“No! Put me down!” The need to have her talisman back was almost too much, and she felt her panic swiftly returning. She fought Quist until the ground got smaller and smaller and the spot became hidden by the tops of strangled trees that were covered in veils of lime-green moss. The air whooshed out of her throat. “Quist!” She screeched, “Don’t drop me!”
“Never.”
Her fear stopped her from moving. Her heart broke as the spot where she had been looking faded into the distance. The hands holding her tightened. She never got the memo to Not Look Down, seeing as she was already doing so after being lifted into the air.
“I’m scared,” she whispered to the wind.
“Look at me.”
“I can’t.”
“Look at me!”
Yahiro clenched her eyelids shut and gulped down a deep, chilly breath. The sound of wings hammering through the air, slicing the wind in half as if in battle did little to soothe her.
I wish I never woke up this morning. Damn.She wished she had never woken up after the ship crash. If wishes were possible truths, she wished she had never woken up the day after William and his Snake destroyed her soul.
“Look at me.” The lilting words repeated far off, beyond the walls of her memories.
“Baby-doll, why hide in the dark?” he laughed, excitedly. It made her nauseous; it made her alert. Any moment he would switch on his flashlight and burn it into her eyes.
She cowered like the scum she had become. She deserved this. She had gone too deep. And when one went too far, there was no turning back. What had been another undercover job had become her entire life. A clammy hand shot out and took ahold of her hair.
It dragged her across the shit-stained cell, abrading her naked skin. Yahiro yelped and cried. Every day she thought she couldn’t be brought lower, and every day was a rude awakening.
“Yelp, piggy, yelp! I’ll give you the pigpen for another yelp!” Light flooded behind her eyelids, but she squeezed them shut. The hand in her hair pulled, yanking her head up painfully. “Open your eyes, piggy. Today you’re broken.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks. She didn’t dare refuse Snake. Her puffy lids opened and the light shot daggers into her eyes. It had only been a day since she last saw it, but spending twenty-two plus hours in the pitch still made it painful. Her hair was pulled. Snake waited, patiently, for her sight to return. He gave her time. He played with her head. Yesterday had been quicker. A month ago had left her sobbing. Three months ago, they had shared a pleasant conversation as he commended her on her witty mind.
Yahiro always got to name the new drugs. The new dregs. The erotic stank of used-up pussy. It turned some men on. Spend enough time around it, it’d begun to turn her on too.
“Cheez-its, man, Cheez-its. Can’t just eat one. Fuck, Smoothie, what’ll be the next one? Puppies?”
“Look at me, Yahiro, see what I see. It’s a sight to behold.”
She did what she was told, but not before she moved her head toward Quist’s voice.
When she opened her eyes this time, there wasn’t pain, only a golden-haired man with a face alight in rays. He was so beautiful, so handsome, this alien; it hurt her more than Snake ever had.
It was beautiful and it didn’t involve a fist. Nor the choices, or eventually, the drug-induced coma afterward.
His lips quirked down at her and she threaded her arms around his midsection. His skin was warm wherever she touched. She could find herself addicted to it, to him, if she didn’t keep the brittle walls around her heart erect.
But when the morning sunshine hit his face, caught up and absorbed, like she was by his looks, she remembered the poignant truth: she had an addictive personality.
Yahiro licked her lips. “Youarea sight.”
His wings flapped through the air behind him, and wayward feathers fell away and disintegrated into golden dust in the sun’s rays. They rained down on them and yet she couldn’t look away from his face.
She had convinced herself that she would see Snake’s fist when she opened her eyes, or worse yet, the ground coming toward her. But what she got was bright, glorious gold.
She suddenly realized they had stopped moving.
The golden daggers of his irises pierced her and his lips lifted into a smile. “Look.”
