If I stumble, he will catch me. If I bleed more, he will see. If my breath changes, he will know.
I hate all of it.
I hate that I don’t hate all of it enough.
The bandage around my forearm is too tight and not tight enough. Every pulse of my blood presses against the wrap, a hot little argument from wrist to elbow. Kavor’s knot is clean.Efficient. Annoyingly good. The kind of knot that says he has tied wounds closed before and will do it again if the world insists on opening people.
My pack is on his back, which is also a problem. A practical one, yes. My arm hurts. Balance matters. The tunnel floor is uneven, cracked with old channels and strange cut lines that hum faintly when the wrong rhythm comes close. But practical problems are still problems.
My shoulders feel naked without the weight. Wrong. Too light. As if part of my usefulness has been taken and strapped across his body.
The sample pouch rests against his chest, secured beneath one forearm. It pulses sometimes, faint blue through the wrap. Not to the wrong rhythm. Not exactly with my breath anymore, either, though I keep testing it by accident.
Breathe slow. The glow slows.
Breathe fast. The glow brightens.
But only sometimes. Enough to make me feel watched by a plant. Enough to make Kavor’s jaw tighten every time it happens.
The gray thread he pulled from my arm rests wrapped separately in his pouch. I feel it there even though I can’t see it. A little dead thing that used to be inside me. A little impossible thing that wanted the sample.
The tunnel bends west, toward old structures. Maybe under the City. Maybe not. I focus on that. It’s better than focusing on the way Kavor is matching my steps.
“Stop it,” I say.
His head turns a fraction. “Stop what?”
“That.”
“I have done nothing,” he says, tilting his head as he looks down at me.
“You are doing nothing loudly.”
He looks at the passage ahead. “I do not know what that means.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No.”
“Don’t ‘no’ me,” I say, shaking my head.
He says nothing. Infuriating male.
The tunnel narrows through a broken throat of fused stone. It’s not too narrow for me, but unpleasant for him. He should go first because he can read pressure. I should go first because I can see where a body smaller than a wall with opinions can pass without scraping every protruding edge.
He steps ahead before I decide and my temper sparks.
“Kavor,” I say, anger spiking.
“The floor drops beyond the bend.”
“I see that.”
“You cannot see the lower shelf,” he says.
“Then say that. Don’t just put yourself in front of me.”
He pauses. At least he has the sense to pause before he becomes more unbearable.
