{Reipon}
“Do you miss the pain? Or the adrenaline from the abuse?”
Bethany blinked at Korac’s back. He was the nice Icarus who took her for walks and let her follow in silence, aside from the occasional prying question. But he never looked her in the eye for longer than a few seconds. He mostly kept to himself.
Korac added without a glance over his shoulder, “It’s all right if you do. I miss the thrill of killing a foe four times my size with a million or more years on me. Snuffing that wasted life out of existence.” His signature smirk entered his voice. “I suppose that’s why I don’t mind working for the Shadow so much. Plenty of that to go around.”
Walking along the tiered gardens, Bethany trailed her fingers across an ivy-covered balustrade. All the while admitting to herself that she missed everything and nothing about her time in Razor’s Emporium of Exotic Experiences. Her mind wanted peace, but her nerve endings wanted fire. Boiled sugar. Her skin split under the strike of a whip—Each morning, she expected it from the moment her eyes opened, and feared each night when nothing came. That her purpose wasn’t fulfilled—
“You stopped injuring yourself,” Korac observed from her arms, neck, and shoulders bared by the crop top.
Or did Bethany commit to better hiding places? After all, this ankle-length skirt hid a lot of prime real estate, and her nacre healed near anything—
“I don’t smell any blood on you, Bethany.”
Oh.
Right.
He… made her want to put the effort in. Where Kyle and Ross lingered like a constant reminder of a time long lost, Korac shone like a beacon of a time she might yet find.
Hope.
Bethany stopped and stared at the setting sun. Its twin star loomed above, waiting for its turn. She could see two moons from here, some great distance apart. The other pair of lunar crescents graced Reipon’s southern hemisphere at this hour. Four siblings separated by a vast sky so perfect a green it reminded her of Earth’s grass.
Everything here smelled alive of exotic flowers and sea foam. Xelan selected a beautiful location for his villa. Although how he ever knew he’d need this sprawling vista was beyond Bethany. Sometimes she went a week without seeing the same person twice. She relished the privacy.
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Korac leaned his elbows on the banister several steps away. Always several steps away. She never knew if it was because he wanted the space or thought she did. Either way, his calm presence was more than welcome.
Ross vibrated with expectancy, and Kyle pulsed with disappointment. Bethany broke both their hearts.
Zero.
That’s how many words she’d spoken in the last four or five years. She was 324. She was the Numbered. Razor hollowed her out and replaced her with a pain-crazed fiend. Now a story played all around Bethany of how the Pain Curator did the same to his baby brother. The man next to her.
Confident. Refined. Deadly.
Bethany wanted to be just like Korac when she grew up—
“Hi! Sagan said you were out here. The other girls are waiting for us.” Ross followed the concrete steps down the tiered vegetation, looking carefree in her cut-off shorts and burgundy top that enhanced her hazel eyes. “How is the session going—”
Korac met her at the landing and muttered so low Bethany failed to hear him. All she heard was Ross’ forlorn, “Oh,” when he’d finished. To Bethany, Ross promised, “I’ll find you before bedtime, okay?”
Bethany nodded. That was the extent of her ability to communicate, and even that took months to cultivate. She watched as Ross left, and Korac picked his way through the flower beds to the point they shared on the overlook.
“Ross worries. She doesn’t understand,” he offered this in a gentle tenor. “I know you don’t hold it against her, but I think Kyle does. There’s a tension there that you feel when you’re around them.”
Korac talked pretty, and Bethany liked to let him. She listened and appreciated that he knew without her telling. His smiles soothed her. Not because he was handsome, but because he could make them at all, given the memories she’d witnessed from him by accident. One day, Bethany could smile again too.
“Is it all right if I confess something to you that I’ve told no one?”
Bethany felt her eyes go wide as she peered at him. A secret from Korac. What could it be?
The Icarus changed out of the tux he wore earlier and into a white and black flannel shirt over a black tee and matching jeans. When he leaned further on the banister, the flannel fell a certain way, like he was sheltering himself. His voice was heavy with unease. “I’d rather not have the entire Vast Collective know my every weakness, my every trauma. But—and don’t tell anyone this. Swear it.” That pale gray stare turned sharply on her.
What else could she do? Bethany nodded.
He returned the gesture before finishing, “I hope it reaches more people like you. People that Razor hurt—that anyone hurt. I hope you take something from it, Bethany. Because you’re no longer ‘324’ anymore than I am ‘contaminant.’ Do you understand me?”
Korac’s words were sincere, but it was his eyes that moved her. Hard frost drifted in them, lost in the fierce determination set in his clenched jaw. A broken thing no longer. But it took him millions of years to find this, and an entire planet of people willing to respect him. Love him—
That’s the point he was making, wasn’t it? Even if it took a million years, Bethany already had the love of the people willing to find her.
No longer 324.
For Korac’s understanding and grace, Bethany gave her best nod.