I nod and turn away, leaving her briefly to refill her water in the creek. Once the canteen is full, I put it aside on the dry ground to rinse the dirt and blood off me. In the process, the palm of my hand skates over my bulge and a low hiss slides out of my throat.
She is hurt—tired. I should not want her so badly in such a state. I should focus all of my attention on her recovery.
When I return, she has pulled off her boots and socks and is in the process of massaging her feet. Handing her the full canteen, she thanks me and pours a little over them, rinsing them off.
Curious, I watch as she takes several shallow sips next. Gaze moving between me and her pack, she sets down her water to dig within it until she locates what she is looking for and takes outa brush. I watch her begin to jerkily run the brush through her long hair. She watches me back. Watches me watch her.
I force my eyes away when the pressure within me builds into something harder to dismiss.
“Are you okay?” she asks as I coil my tail around her and lower my upper half closer to the ground.
“You are here and ssssafe.”
“That’s not what I asked…” She scrutinizes me as she runs her comb through her hair, elongating the strands as the waves are pulled taut and the knots are worked out. “You’ve been… I don’t know. Quiet.”
“I have had a lot on my mind.”
She frowns and shifts her legs to criss-cross in front of her. My eyes dip to her crux before I quickly look away.
“If it’s me breaking off from the group’s formation, I didn’t mean to. One moment I was talking to Benjamin… the nexthewas there,” she starts to say?—
“That issss not it. I also should have been paying more attention and had you up with me in the front.”
Olivia needed my help but so did Julia. I knew putting my strongest at the back of the formation would make us all safer but in this case the strongest was also the most endangered. I could have put one of the males.
“No, Krellix. I should’ve been paying more attention.” Her shoulders slump as she struggles through a tangle. “I should’ve told Benjamin to keep walking.”
“It does not matter anymore. You are safe and that is all I care about.”
“So then… what’s on your… mind?” She glances around and up at the canopy, to the bushes above us. “Because I know you well enough by now to know when you’re acting strangely.”
I frown at her as I try to come up with the words to explain. “Sada,” I eventually say, giving in.
“Is it because of his brother?”
I nod and press my tail closer around her.
“I thought it might have something to do with that… You’re still thinking about your family.”
Wishing she were less astute, I admire her softly beautiful features, her partially-brushed, thick dark hair. I fist my hands rather than succumb to the urge to touch it. “What do you mean?”
She gives up with a curse and places her brush back into her pack, afterwards pulling out a ration of jerky and tearing open its cloth packaging. “Daisy told me some things about your clan… I… I don’t want to pry though.”
“Daisy?”
She shrugs. “I think she might know because of Zaku, since you guys talk. I figured after Sada mentioned searching for his brother, it might have triggered something for you…”
She knows.
She knows I lost my clan. She, unlike most others, knows I believe them dead.Only Zaku knows that—and perhaps Zhallaix, Vagan, and Vruskha. But I told no one directly except for Zaku. I never expected such information would make its way to Julia before I told her.
But it makes sense. Daisy and Julia were almost always together with the children these past months. Of course they would talk.
But talk about me?
Eyeing Julia sharply, I wonder how often I might have been on her mind.
Because she has often been on mine.
