His question is enough to take my breath away, but even if it weren’t, the intensity burning through his pupils evacuates the last drop of oxygen from every cell in my body. “I don’t know what to believe.”
“Never, you are so godsdamn real to me, and I’m going to need you stop feeling sorry for yourself, lift your own fucking chin and tell me who you really are. And believe it dammit!”
I tremble. He wants to know who I am?
I’m life and death.
I’m a storm. A disaster. A nightmare.
I’m vengeance and riot and wrath… I’m pain.
I’m everything I never knew I wanted to be.
“I’m a demigod!” I scream.
He smiles. “Fuck yeah you are. And what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to split every last one of their balls in half!”
“Close enough.” He kisses the tip of my ear. “Now!”
I finally turn to face the Vaile.
Hundreds more join in prompting the others, already on the third round of the chant. “And how do we do it?”
“Maintain the Separation!”
“What will you give?”
“A friend, a life, a generation!”
The Vaile charge toward me, the giant circle shrinking.
Slipping from Eli’s grasp, I throw my ring down and rip off another. And another, tossing them to the ground like the pieces of my heart I gave away so easily as a child, squandered.
I’m too fired up to stop, even when the rings turn into massive puddles of molten metal. Silver and black and blue and gray. Not nearly far enough away from my bare toes. The icy layer of hailstones hisses into steam. Kaleida and Milo jump behind Eli and me as another ring hits the ground and liquifies. The puddles spread, circling the four of us like a moat and creeping outward. We huddle in the remaining four-foot wide circle, far from the gift-wielding hands of the Vaile.
A disaster. A nightmare.
They can’t stop their attack in time, can’t skid to a halt. Their eyes erupt with terror at the realization. They trample through the puddles, only making it two steps before their feet melt off, then their ankles and calves. They get shorter and shorter, bodies writhing in a hypnotic dance all around us, their screams and cries for help like a death song as they disappear.
Vengeance and riot and wrath.
The woman leading the chant looks straight at me, determined brown eyes now racked with torment, smoldering with fear.“A friend, a life, a generation!”she grinds out in her final moments.
Pain.
The stench of melted flesh rises from the puddles. Not even a jumpsuit button is left intact in the immaculate colored blobs. But I can’t find it in me to care. My heart is cold.
The Vaile that escaped the puddles shuffle backward with petrified steps, arms out to keep their balance as they push against the crowd behind them.
I rid my fingers of every imaginary ring, throwing them farther out this time, expanding the metallic circle around us. Splashes of blue and black. Of silver and purple. Only Milo’s ring with the red fabric wrapped around it remains. Because it’s real. One thing is real. My hands feel naked. My body is incomplete, my heart sprawled out over the forest floor.
How am I doing this? I finally look at the others, at Eli’s delight, visible in his dancing eyes. At Milo’s shock and pride, the way he puffs out his chest next to Eli. And Kaleida. The horror she holds in her stare. I can’t see the memories of her dying family and friends, can’t hear the way they screamed as she ran for her life, but I know my imagination is not far off with death around every corner.
When I run out of rings, the ground is a pool of molten metal. But the awful crowd remains. Yelling. Threatening. Searching for a way to me.
A man with a thick neck and eyes much too close together pushes to the front of the line and readies his hands. Not even a matter shifter could touch molten metal, right?
