“Venom-what? Wait, is that your name for that panther thing? That’s cool. Okay. Venomfang. Are there more venomfangs?”
I indicate the area by the river that is their territory. “More venomfangs.”
“Well, crap. My ship is upstream from where you found me, so if that was here,” he jabs a finger into the sand, “then it will be somewhere…” His finger trails up my river mark, straight into the venomfang territory. “There,” Jaime finishes uncertainly. “That’s not good, right?”
“Not good.” It’s very much not good, but if Jaime needs to go there to go home, I will help him get there. Without the fog clouding my mind, I’m smarter than the venomfangs. I’ll figure something out. “Jaime spaceship,” I say with determination.
“No, Adam. Jaimeand Adamwill go to the spaceship. My brother will come, and he will take us both off this planet. Moon. Whatever. Understand?”
I understand he wants to bring me along with him when he leaves and it summons that fluttery feeling in my stomach, but I can’t go with him. I will take him to his broken spaceship and make sure he finds his brother. Then I’ll go back to my den, and the fog will probably return so the den won’t look as depressing anymore. I’ll hunt and kill and collect odd things like the clatterbeaks do, and in time, the fog will make me forget about Jaime. The thought makes me want to curl up and weep, but it’s the right decision. I’m sure of it. I can’t be around other creatures.Blood on my claws.Never again.
I will not tell this to Jaime. He would get angry, and even my fog-affected mind knew that we don’t like it when Jaime isangry. My smarter mind realizes that even better. “Yes. Adam and Jaime go to spaceship.”
I know my other word now. Myname. That other creature in my memories, my brother, called me Rizven. Those older creatures did too, as did many others. Rizven is my name, but it doesn’t feel right. I like Jaime’s name for me better. I like being his Adam. Rizven hurt people and ran away to end his life. Adam saved and protected Jaime. I like Adam better.
“Great.” Jaime’s smile is wide. “Ideally, we’ll find a communication device there. Then we can return to a safe place and we’ll call Steven when he arrives. He will come,” Jaime whispers, his voice a little wobbly. “He will. He always does.”
“Yes.” If Jaime’s brother is like my brother, he will come.
I remember him now. His name eludes me, but I remember us being together. Helping each other, always, until I hurt him. Maybe he’s dead. Maybe he just hates me. Either way, he doesn’t want to see me. No one wants to see me. I need to stay on this planet with the other monsters, right where I belong.
Chapter 25
Jaime
Adamisdifferentnow.Thoughtful, deliberate, and at times somber. Whatever he’s remembered weighs heavily on him. Yet deep inside, he’s still my Adam.
He’s sweet and attentive, anticipating my every need like before, only now he understands why I ask him to make fire or boil water. He still waits for me to ask for help instead of rushing in and doing things for me. Not because he doesn’t want to help, but because he understands how important it is for me to at least try on my own. He’s still cuddly and affectionate. His innocent, almost childlike curiosity might be gone, but the deliberate focuson my pleasure that replaced it is much better. His need for me is as insatiable as mine is for him, and most of our stops end with at least a prolonged kissing and mutual masturbation session, if not outright sex.
After determining that we’re returning to my ship, we stop by Adam’s cave one last time to pick up the holoprojector and my fossil shard, and then Adam takes us through the rock labyrinth again.
It’s an incredible place. I know there are places like this on Earth but they don’t tend to be wheelchair-accessible. With all the hospital bills, my family rarely had money to spare for trips, so I’ve never seen anything like this in person, only on television. The real thing is much better, even if the pinkish rocks are still a little odd.
My sense of direction is completely off on this moon. The green planet is almost always in the sky but rarely in the same place, and the same goes for the red sun. There’s no northern star or anything else to easily orient myself with, so most of the time I’m completely lost, relying entirely on Adam’s knowledge. This time though, I was fairly certain where the cliff was, until Adam turned and took off somewhere else.
There are rocks here just like everywhere else, but none of them look familiar, making me think that maybe my sense of direction was right for once, but Adam is choosing a different path. Maybe to confuse the venomfang? That thing can’t still be waiting for us down there, can it? Even if I killed her offspring, which I hope I didn’t, there’s no way it would have such a long attention span. Would it?
I could try asking Adam and maybe even get an answer since he’s able to talk a little now, but I'm afraid of what that answer might be, so I keep quiet and trust that Adam knows what he’s doing. He promised to get us to the spaceship, so he will.
I doze off, comfortable being carried in Adam’s many arms, my head resting against his warm chest. A soft tickle on my cheek wakes me.
“Jaime.”
I never really liked my name—who does?—but I love the sound of it coming from Adam’s mouth, especially after thinking he couldn’t speak for so long. Now he speaks more and more, not in complete sentences, but enough for me to understand his meaning. I guess it helps that he’s not actually learning new words, just remembering them. His language is a mix of hissing and click-clacking, but my nodes have no trouble interpreting it, my brain understanding his words as if he were speaking English. It’s incredible technology.
“Jaime,” Adam repeats. His fingers circle the shell of my ear before pulling on my lobe. “Jaaaimeee.”
“Ugh, fine,” I mock-grumble as I open my eyes, only to find we’re surrounded by more rocks. “What is it? Are we lost?”
Chuffing, Adam sets me down, careful not to spill the shell full of water he boiled for me before we left. He used most of the twigs and roots from his pile of knick-knacks to make that fire.
“Jaime watch and like,” Adam says.
“Uh-huh. Jaime’s a little sick of looking at rocks, mate.”
Adam twitches as I say that last word, his eyes widening. Crap. I keep forgetting that the word has a special meaning to some aliens. My brother, for example, is the fated mate of a sexy, horned secret agent chick with three breasts. They kept seeing each other in their dreams before they met. If anyone else told me that, I’d call them a liar, but Steven is not one to make stuff like this up. Out here, fated mates and soulmates are real, and I probably should stop throwing the word “mate” around like it means nothing.
“Okay,” I clear my throat, “what is it I’m supposed to be looking at?”
