“Ssssabrina, what is wrong?” I ask, finding her silence more worrisome than her fleeing from me.
She looks back at me. “Nothing. I was just thinking about my answer. I… I don’t know what I was going to say.”
“You do not know?”
“I think… maybe it’s because I’m afraid.”
Afraid.
The moment the word leaves her mouth, I stiffen, my thoughts reeling, having never wanted to hear those words from her mouth. Others have been afraid of me my entire existence, since I fell to the floor and crawled out from underground with the rest of them. The only differences between me and them, besides my scales and coloring, was my size and lack of clan. No others of my kind came out from under the ground, and when I later went back in search of them, I found only the rotting corpses of the hundreds of nagas who did not make it.
When she opens her lips to say something more, I hiss deeply to stop her.
“Darolus?”
“If you fear me so much, why save me? Why stay?”
“Because that’s what you would do for me and… because that’s what I wanted to do. I’m not afraid of you, Darolus, I’m afraid of not knowing what’s going to happen, of wondering if I’m going to spend the rest of my life underground.”
“I see. If I had not come back when I did…”
Her face falls at my words.
She does not want to be with me. I see that now. She was only pretending until she had the opportunity or courage to make her escape. If I had let her, she would have gone long ago.
Unable to hear any more, I hiss again when she tries to speak. “Leave, female. If that is what you wish, I will not stop you.”
“Darolus…”
Grimacing through the pain, I rise to my full height, shifting onto my weight and away from the wall to hover over her. “Leave!”
Sabrina shuffles and straightens, rising to her feet and backing away to the door. When she tries to speak yet again, I snap at her, slamming my tail against the ground. She stumbles out of the room and out of my sight.
Settling back down on the ground, I clench my hands into fists and listen to her footsteps retreat, stopping myself from going after her.
TWENTY-TWO
FORKS, PATHS, AND THE LIGHT
Sabrina
I flee into the tunnels,backtracking as far as I remember, only to make a wrong turn and get caught at a dead end. Realizing after a few minutes that no one’s coming after me, I slow down and wipe angrily at the tears forming in my eyes. I keep going, even when I get quickly overcome with exhaustion until I reach the stairs leading to the double doors at the end.
Pushing at them with both hands, they swing open and I stumble through, briefly curling up on the ground to catch my breath. In the damp darkness, I hear the sound of critters fleeing from me outside my ring of light.
Darolus isn’t going to forgive me, nor should he. I betrayed him, and even if I didn’t come right out and tell him that, he would’ve realized it eventually.
But by betraying him… I wasn’t betraying myself.
The smell of Weston’s and Mickie’s corpses fill my nose and it wrinkles, reminding me of their bodies nearby.Rising to my feet, I head over to them and grab their few belongings to take back with me above. Afterward, I grab two of the alien guns and head for the only other opening in and out of this cellar room, a crumbling hole in the wall.
Hesitating, I turn back and walk to a different crate, grasping one of the silver daggers on it. Sleek and solid in my grip, I can sense the deadliness of the weapon. Deciding I might need it in the days to come despite its bloody history, I sheath it in my belt.
Climbing through the debris and toward the light, I turn my flashlight off when I reach the top and step up into a partially collapsed building. Once again dropping to my knees, I sit there for a few minutes gazing into the large swatches of sunlight coming through the windows and roof, having been subjected to near total darkness for days now. My eyes water profusely as they adjust, and it’s almost painful blinking out the tears that form.
Rubbing the water out of my eyes, I glance behind me at the hole I crawled out of, hating the way Darolus and I left things. Over the next few minutes, I debate whether I should’ve kept my mouth shut until he was a little better.
Slowly getting to my feet, I grab my stuff and make my way out of the building. Climbing through a window, I step out onto the street and look around. Buildings rise up on either side, some taller than others, some made out of stone, others bricks, and more still, metal. Rubble and debris, as well as the shells of old vehicles line the partially open pathway of the streets before and between them.
