I had barely eaten a thing since I’d been behind these gates. Eagle always forgot to feed me, and himself too, I suspected. Then there were the occasions when he would throw me his scraps as if I were a stray cat, but other than that one time where he had shared a full animal with me, I only fed on his leftovers.
And now here he was, staring at me with those fathomless black eyes of his, glaring at me as if he were angry. But his arms were folded across his chest as if ... as if he were threatened by me? By me, who’d proven time and time again I was no match for him. And now he was asking if I was hungry?
“I’m starving,” I mumbled. “You don’t feed me enough.”
Shaking his head, he muttered something I couldn’t quite make out. I stepped closer to him, straining to hear, when his head snapped up. “Get moving,” he ground out, then turned and stormed off.
I lurched forward, stumbling quickly after him. Eventually I caught up to him and fell in step beside him. He cut his eyes in my direction, but didn’t slow his pace.
As difficult as it was, his legs being much longer than mine, I managed to keep up, while trying to stop my gaze from flitting to the looming buildings. But I couldn’t seem to help myself; my eyes were drawn to check out each dark window. Eagle had said it was safe for me now, and I desperately wanted to believe him, but I knew firsthand that not everyone here deserved my trust. Slowing my breathing, trying to calm myself, I stayed by Eagle’s side, sticking close to him like a shadow.
As the grass came to an end and the first pathway between two large buildings beckoned us into the shade, the calm I was trying to feign quickly unraveled.
The buildings were tall and imposing, towering on either side of us. Or maybe, like a high school student paying a visit to their elementary school and feeling suddenly too large, I was experiencing the same sort of disorientation. I just hadn’t been around real structures in far too long, and they felt too foreign.
Furthermore, some of them didn’t look safe, as if they would blow over if there was a bad enough storm. Others, seeming more stable, were covered in graffiti, pink and blue scribbles scrawled across the lower half of the concrete walls. It was startling to see that much vivid color, so unexpected amongst the dull browns and grays, but it was kind of pretty. Normally that would scare me, the color, but this time it didn’t.
My eyes traced over the drawings, following the patterns as I recited the names of the colors in my head. Red, blue, pink, purple, green, and yellow. Suddenly I found the smallest of smiles lifting the corners of my lips. I’d loved colors. Autumn had loved color; her room had been filled with many of them, so vibrant and bright.
A particularly intriguing mess of colors snagged my gaze, and as I turned to look closer at it, I found Eagle glancing down at me. My smile instantly fell in the face of his scowl.
Turning forward, I dropped my gaze to my feet and to Eagle’s feet beside me. Our steps were in perfect sync with each other, yet his feet were huge and mine were small. His boots were big and black and strong, but my sneakers were thin, ratty, and uncomfortable. His were sturdy while mine were weak. I wanted sturdy boots—no,Iwanted to be sturdy again, I realized as the full force of the revelation hit me.
I wanted to be sturdy again. I was sturdy outside these gates; I should be sturdy within them.
With each step we took, the distant noises grew. The faint sounds of people talking, walking, and laughing increased to a noisy clatter inside my head, a low buzzing at the base of my skull. My heart, already beating erratically, began thumping wildly inside my chest. Worse, I could now feel Eagle’s stare boring down on me. It was a recipe for a disaster, for me to lose it entirely, to scream and run, and to lash out at anyone who tried to stop me.
But I had nowhere to go and no one else to trust. Only him.
So I stayed the path, attempting to breathe through my panic, keeping in pace with Eagle, listening only to the sound of our footsteps. Because I could do this. I could do this.
And then it was there. The awareness hit me with such brutality, it made my eyes water and my body convulse.
People. So many people, and all the smells that came with them.
Food, both raw and cooked. Sweat and filth. So many smells, so many people, too many ... too many ...
I slammed to a stop as I crashed into Eagle. Startled, I jumped back a step, trembling so hard I nearly stumbled.
Frowning down at me, he grunted something incomprehensible. Then, much to my horror, he began walking again.
“W-wait.” The words left me in a terrified whisper. “Eagle.”
His name fell from my lips almost silently, but somehow he heard me. Stopping dead in his tracks, he waited a moment before turning around, as if he needed time to collect the anger that brewed inside him. Releasing a heavy breath, he turned to face me.
“What?” He frowned as he spoke, the heavy lines in his face accentuating his too-fierce features, causing him to appear even more frightening than usual. But his tone wasn’t harsh; at least, not as harsh as I knew it could be.
Realizing he wasn’t going to lash out at me, I forced myself to take a cautious step forward and reach for his hand. I needed his strength, I needed him to help me become sturdy again.
His gaze flicked down to my hand reaching for his, and I watched as his fingers twitched with irritation. Slowly, cautiously, I slid my hand into his and entwined our fingers.
He didn’t readily take hold of my hand. Instead he continued staring at me, his nostrils flaring. A muscle in his jaw began to twitch as he clenched his teeth. It was if I’d burned him or stabbed him, the way he was reacting to my hand in his. It wasn’t just discomfort I could see flitting rapidly across his strained features, it was pain.
But I wasn’t going to let go. I couldn’t let go. If he meant to lead me toward those smells and those sounds, I needed something to ground me, to keep me from losing this tenuous grasp I had on my new reality.
We were at an impasse, him and me. I couldn’t take another step without his hand in mine, and he hated my hand in his. Yet he also hated having to constantly care for me, not that he was any good at it to begin with.
He glared at me, and then flicked his gaze to our joined hands. “This isn’t gonna become a habit, is it?”
