In shock, the brethren all stand suspended in silence as the h’axom spout water in the air from their trunks. Bri holds a hand over her mouth, desperately trying to hide the horrified smile on her face.
“Don’t you dare laugh,” I tell her, biting my cheek to hold in my own laughter.
The brethren drop to their knees. They plant their faces on theground and wail even louder. Next to the remaining tied-up animals, Boss is not on the ground like everyone else. He stands there staring at me.
Somehow, I don’t think the h’axom got loose on their own.
With a handful of dried grass and a deadly calm gait, Boss approaches the h’axom. His demeanor is at odds with that of the distraught brethren, who resume making those awful sounds. It doesn’t take long for the h’axom to catch the scent of their next meal, and they follow Boss out of the Wahadi and back into the shade.
“What’s his fucking problem?” Bri mutters, watching Boss as closely as I am.
“I don’t know. Whatever it is, I don’t like it.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Bri
Daisy finally decided to speed up, which has put me next to Tai. Every time he slows down or veers away, she stays right by his side. It’s not horrible being next to him. I expected him to lay into me after I pushed him into the water. He was shockingly kind and compassionate. Which I needed. I needed a friend today. I didn’t want to be worshiped. I wanted someone to simply be with me for a minute, and it was nice.
His presence distracts me from replaying what happened today over and over again, and blaming myself for everything. I’m also paranoid the brethren are looking at me differently. I’ve let them down in some massive way. Being put up on a pedestal feels awful, because at any time I could fail them and come crashing down. Tai’s never put me up there. He might annoy the shit out of me, but at least I can be myself.
“Your arm okay?” He’s been wiggling his fingers and fiddling with a tiny embedded panel on his forearm for awhile now.
“It’s okay, I think. It doesn’t agree with the sand,” he says and stops messing with the arm.
“Oh good. I mean…not good. I worried it was the water.”
“A bionic arm that can’t get wet wouldn’t be very useful,” he says and smiles over at me. A real smile, one of the rare ones.
“True.”
My mind is completely blank. It’s rare that I struggle to find something to say. I’m usually trying to stop talking. Maybe it was his kindness earlier today, or the heatstroke, but I want to keep talking, and I can’t think of anything to say.
“You know, you can ask,” Tai says, interrupting my thoughts.
“Ask what?” I’m confused. What should I be asking?
“You want to know what happened to my arm. How I got this,” he says and waves at me with his bionic arm.
“Oh, no. It’s none of my business.”
“Since when has that stopped you?” he asks rhetorically.
I look down. He must have interpreted my silence as me waiting for him to talk about his arm now that we’re, dare I say it, cool. In reality, I was trying to think of something to talk about other than the weather.
I don’t want him to feel obligated to tell me. But if he wants to tell me, I’ll listen.
“It happened right before I joined the military. I had gotten myself into some trouble. Then it all sort of blew up, literally, and I lost my arm. I was given the options of prison planet or military. They told me they would give me a bionic arm if I enlisted. ‘Prisoners don’t need two good arms, but soldiers do,’ they said.”
Who is this Tai stringing together sentences and telling me stuff about his past, like he almost wants me to know more about him?
“There’s not much of a choice there,” I tell him. I know it takes a lot for him to talk about his past. The Tai I know doesn’t easily admit his mistakes or weaknesses. This insight is a big deal.
It appears I’m not the only one who’s been thinking about thepast since we crashed here. Being away from j’Tilak and the military has disrupted his life more than I realized.
“Part of me wanted to go to the prison planet out of spite. I was angry and stupid back then.”
I can relate to that. “I didn’t take you for a bad boy,” I tell him, returning to our normal teasing.
