Cassie screamed as K’kaen threw her over his shoulder.
“Taking you back to the clinic. Eleri’s going to want to bandage your knees.”
She beat at his shoulders with her fists as he carried her out of the dock house and into the sun. K’kaen ignored her, barely responding to her attempts at violence as he carried her throughtown. Eventually, she ran out of steam and went limp as he carried her back through the doors of the clinic. S’samph was waiting when they arrived. His frill pressed flat against his neck.
“Where was she?”
“Dock house.”
“Lock it up.” S’samph’s tail lashed as K’kaen placed Cassie on the ground, where she sat fuming.
“I want to go back there! I’m not finished!” Cassie’s voice came out clear even while tears and snot rippled down her face. She tried to wipe everything away with her sleeve while keeping hold of the handful of shards.
“Check out her knees.” K’kaen gestured before Cassie could tuck them out of sight. S’samph’s frill lifted, but he said nothing. He crouched in front of her, his amber eyes locking on hers.
“I do not have your mate’s patience or tact, so I will say this plainly. You are officially my responsibility. I have filled in IA paperwork. It was extensive. I disliked the process immensely. This being said, I have zero tolerance for your attempts at death or harm. Find something else to do with yourself, or K’kaen and I will continue to drag you from place to place until you make better choices.”
“Fuck you.” She clenched the shards in her fist so hard her hand started bleeding.
“You are a disaster.” S’samph gripped her hand and extracted the shards while she flailed against him.
“They’re mine.” Tears rolled. The gray fog hazed around her vision.
“Stop.” He continued removing shards from her palm.
“She’s grieving, S’samph. It’s enough. I’ll keep an eye on her while she’s here.” Eleri came over with bandages and ointment and a side eye for her mate. Cassie submitted to the process of having her knees and hand treated while everything went grayaround her. She somehow made her way back next to the tank. Someone had placed a blanket around her.
Aglao had tried to lay out the parameters for Cassie. An electrical surge device wasn’t the same as the pure lightning found on Teös to supercharge crystal genesis. The piece of Örim’s chest node was sizeable, but more seed crystal would have been better. The damage he had sustained was significant and traumatic. And he'd done it saving her life. Cassie stared at her hands, at her arms, and then finally at the branching crystals spreading from the central core. He wasn’t a person. Not like this. He might never be a person again.
“I should have gone with Yina.” Her eyes blurred with tears as she pressed more fingerprints into the glass. “You would be alive. You would be teaching, and maybe you would find what you were looking for and go back to Teös. I would be alone, but you would be alive.” She had been greedy. She had wanted more than she deserved. He should have just let her die. She thought about it all the time, whether she would see him again if she died. Cassie didn’t know what happened after people died. But at least it would be quiet. At least she could stop replaying the moment of his death again and again behind her eyelids.
But she had promised she would stay. She had promised him, and that promise was the only thing keeping her from doing something irreversible. It kept her pressed against the tank, hoping for a miracle she didn’t believe in.
CHAPTER 50
Cassie
“Eleri and S’samph are growing an egg. I just found out yesterday.” Cassie sat against the tank talking to something that looked like a cactus. “Canary was a latil’e-human hybrid. I didn’t know her very well though.”
Örim’s energy core still pulsed a steady rhythm at the center of the forming body structure. She knew it wasn’t really him. Aglao said it was possible he reformed physically, but nothing else. Cassie wasn’t sure what she would do if she was forced to look at him and he wasn’t even there.
It had been almost two weeks since S’samph had assumed responsibility for her. He had taken the door to the room off its hinges after she kept locking it. Eleri brought up a tray with some food twice a day. K’kaen sat with her and told her stories about his home planet.
The thud of footsteps drew her attention away from the tank.
“You are still alive. Did you eat?”
Cassie glared at S’samph who ignored her and glanced at her mostly full plate of food for his answer.
“Let me see your arms.”
Her face burned at the indignity of it all as she held out her forearms for inspection. S’samph’s frill lifted. “It is time for your daily physical activity to improve human stress hormone levels.”
“No.” Cassie finally spoke after days of stubborn silence.
“I didn’t ask.”
“I don’t want to go outside. It’s pouring rain.”
