“I got stung once. They have a barb in their tail. I was sick for about a month. It felt like my bones were on fire.”
He swallows hard. “Right. Thanks.”
Jarek elbows me. “Look at you being so helpful and saving lives.”
I smile despite myself.
And Jarek makes a cooing noise. “I would be a fool just to see that incredible smile.”
“Quiet!” Mordecai growls.
Legion slides into a small building a few hundred feet further on. It’s a dark little house with dark bricks that have crumbled on the left side, but I can still see the remnants of a footpath. It looks like nothing special.
“This was someone’s home. They lived here happily With their family, and then the Ravage happened, and the world became this. I wonder what they were thinking when it happened?” I murmur absently.
“They were probably just scared,” Jarek says.
“Their world was ending; I imagine they were a lot more than just scared,” I muse.
Legion comes out leading a small omega. She’s got dark hair that’s straight and falls to her shoulders and beautiful dark skin. She’s delicate and graceful, with big brown eyes, and when she sees Mordecai, she throws herself at him.
There are different ways to end worlds. Sometimes a single moment destroys the fantasy we’ve been creating and wrapping around ourselves.
“I am so happy to find you safe,” Mordecai says, and it’s softer and in a voice he’s never used around me.
She presses her lips against his. I turn away, trying to smother the irrational rage that is trying to prompt me to tear her throat out.
Jarek reaches for my hand, but I sidestep and turn my head, looking down the street. I have no reason to be jealous; he’s not mine. My attention dissolves and reforms as I peer into the shadows. What is that? Something there…something moves.
It’s big enough to dislodge a fountain of dust.
I take a step back, watching intently, scanning and looking for something that shouldn’t belong. My chest tightens as the tension in the air grows. They haven’t noticed yet, but I lived in the wild for years. I know how to read the environment, and I know how to trust my instincts.
“Kaida,” Mordecai says my name hesitantly. “It’s not what it looks like.”
I bare my teeth. “Keres. My name is Keres.” I pause, slowly making out the massive shape of a four-legged creature in the interior of the collapsed house.
“Keres,” Mordecai says, reaching out.
I slap his arm away, taking one more look at the terrified omega.
Fine. I spring forward, running at a sprint. Like I expected, as soon as I get close, it explodes out of the house, chasing me.
“KAIDA!” Jarek shouts, but I ignore him.
Running as fast as I can, I leave the others behind, where they are safe.
I’m not a damn hero; I just don’t want to see their faces anymore.
Chapter 16
Deaf ears and a stolen voice
I escape from the creature fairly easily. I don’t know what it was, but I do know it wasn’t the wolf. It was something else that lived here, something wild. Something that had hooves instead of paws and sharp teeth that tears at flesh.
I’ve stumbled into an area of the city that has a rectangle area of green in the middle, where there are no buildings. It’s wild and overgrown, but I climb up into the trees to hide and watch.
Hours pass as I wait for the creature to show itself. It’s a game of who will move first. At last, it gets up from where it was sitting in plain sight, its skin rippling until it returns to a blue roan colour and trots off, letting out an enraged scream that turns the city silent.
