13
(ODESZA, WYNNE, Mansionair- Line of Sight)
Desmond
Ringing. Constant ringing like extreme tinnitus, except it wasn’t the result of bad hearing. It was the collection of every little sound within God knows how far. All of them overlapping and amplifying in my ears was nothing short of piercing. And sure, those screeching bugs made me think my brain was going to explode, but Adam’s insistence on leading us through the woods made me want my brain to explode. Following the cliff’s edge wasn’t that hard, but Adam kept somehow getting lost, needing help reorienting himself at every turn. It was a miracle how unfathomably bad his sense of direction was. After long enough, though, I just walked out in front of all of us and they followed me while I followed the scent of roses and pine trees. It was odd, but the awful sulfur smell wasn’t left behind on Vetia’s trail, it was just from being near her that I noticed it.
We silently tracked until the road became visible. Our worse-for-wear band broke through the treeline and caught sight of Tells inspecting flowers outside some random person’s house. What was strange, though, was how tiny the houses of this town were.
Tells quickly reached us and slid under Adam’s arm to help him walk. “Does it still hurt?” She aggressively pressed her finger against Adam’s scarred stomach.
Adam yelped in shock as his body lurched, which would have sent him on his face if Tells wasn’t holding him up. “YEEOOWCH! Yeah it hurts! It just got healed, what were you expecting?!”
“Just checking.” Tells smirked and leaned her bloody half into him for support, rubbing even more grime on him.
That was something I hadn’t really noticed until I realized we were walking into a town. All of their clothes were torn to shit and bloody beyond comparison after the bugs. They looked like shit. I didn’t. I looked great, only having some dried blood on my knees and hands from scooping Adam’s entrails back into his body.
“What’s the sitrep?” I asked Tells.
She looked up in thought for a second. “We’ve gotta go hunt a thing called a scouriad fireblood.”
“Bless you,” Brenden said.
“Yeah, I dunno, I guess their bones can fix people, so we gotta get some. And there’s a guy who can help.”
Exasperation drenched Brenden’s face. “Really went all out on the research with that one.”
Tells elaborated, filling us in on the details of her conversation with an old lady. Well, elaborated was a way of putting it. We basically had to interrogate it out of her because she would answer every question vaguely and without any useful details.
Brenden plopped down on a bench in the grassy hilltop field in the center of the village. The bench was tiny and the almost fluorescent green grass shimmered a warm pink in the sunlight. Seeing it closer, the grass was green on the outside, but frayed close to the top and opened up, revealing a warm pink inside. The contrast from dark forest to bright field was a bit jarring, almost like this was a sacred spot. However, the tiny people were walking around up here, so we took that as a sign that it was a public space.
“I know we wanna help her,” Brenden started, “but how are we supposed to help her when we’re like this? Adam can barely move, we can’t fight, and Vetia’s the only reason we’re still alive.”
“Speak for yourself,” I said. “I can fight just fine.”
“You and that quiver of duds?”
Why’d he have to be such a cock about it?
“Guys,” Adam groaned and sat down in the grass. “Not now. Brenden’s got a point though. We won’t be able to go out today if we wanna actually be successful.”
“Yeah, that’s what I just said.” Brenden slumped back on the bench as I sat next to him and spread out. “He’s- or she’s doing okay, though?”
Tells shrugged. “Alive.”
Brenden casually thought out loud. “I gotta say, it ain’t easy getting used to thinking of you guys as chicks. Like I’ve still got you in my head as the old yous.”
“Preach,” I seconded.
Tells’ upturned, tired eyes casually scanned her own body. “I don’t think this would’ve been my first choice either, but it’s what God gave me so I can learn to love it.”
Adam the argumentative atheist raised an eyebrow at her. “You think God gave us these bodies?”
Tells sat down next to me, sighing to prepare herself for Adam’s usual cynicism. “Alright, Adam, then who made you the Jolly Green Giant?”
“Nobody. It was probably just random. But doesn’t resurrection in a completely different world prove the Bible wrong?”
Tells sighed. “No.”
“Yeah? How?”
“You’d know if you took the time to read it.”
He scoffed and shook his head.
“You know,” I added, “it wouldn’t make a lot of sense for a completely different world to have humans unless there was some sort of creator or mechanics to the universe.”
Adam looked at us like we were stupid. “Or human-shaped creatures are just evolutionarily common because of similar biological adaptations.”
“Adam,” I put my hand on his shoulder and gestured out toward the town and lake before us. “Look around. Look at where we are. Think about the giant bugs we fought and tell me you reject even the possibility of a higher power after being reincarnated like this.”
“We don’t know everything about consciousness, Desmond. Just like dark matter, astronomical gravity, string theory. There’s an explanation for everything, we just haven’t found it yet.”
I groaned and gave up trying to have the conversation with him.
Tells looked up at Adam. “You talk a lot of shit about religion for a guy named fuckin’ Adam.”
Brenden raised his head from pondering and blankly looked out over the lake. “What if they have a different religion here?”
Adam rolled his eyes, sighed, and laid back in the grass.
Tells shrugged at Brenden. “I’m sure they do.”
“There’s probably a bunch of pagan religions here,” Adam observed, tonally slighting Tells, “it’s pretty medieval. I doubt they’ve advanced science enough to explain all the natural phenomena.”
Tells glared up at him so I cut her off before she could start. “Alright, I’m making the executive decision to cut this conversation short. We gotta find some food and a place to stay for the night.”
I forced everyone to reluctantly rise. We searched around the town and asked some of the residents if there were any places to stay. These people spoke our language brokenly, but eventually we found out that there were no inns. We settled for an empty stable stall next to the entrance of the village, where the crop fields ended and the forest began. We asked the stable owner for permission, then set up sleeping mats and blankets. I was just glad to have a roof over my head.
The stable owner was an old guy wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat who had a pleasant disposition, but a rudely direct way of speaking. He pointed us toward a spot down the road where we could clean off in a river downstream from the lake. We followed the path down, passing the drinking water collection spot, then the laundry spot until the path and the river split, women and children keeping right, and men crossing to the left branch further in the woods.
Smooth stones sat like benches along the side of the river where the men sat to clean and chat. The strangest thing about the area was just how lively it was. More like a social gathering space than a bathing space. We couldn’t understand them, but it was oddly comforting the way they would nod to greet us and offer us jars of minty paste then mime for us to use it like soap. They were friendly, but they certainly kept their distance. The watchman, posted next to a large horn, never took his eyes off of us.
All of the little orange, four-eyed earless people had thick beards and upper body hair, but none of them had hair on top of their heads. And it wasn’t that they didn’t have ears, just that their ears were more of divots on the sides of their heads with a small ear hole in the center. And they kept their hats close by, frequently glancing into the sky with an odd paranoia.
We met Tells back at the fork and she looked haunted.
“They kept trying to talk to me, but only one of them spoke the same language as us. And they have so many nipples. Eight. Like a cat.”
“Eight boobs?” I asked.
“No, just a hairy front lump with eight nipples.”
“Damn. Well, you’ll get used to it.” I patted Tells on the back and started walking.
Behind me, she whispered to herself, “Will I?”
The sky was a deep red by the time we made it back to town. Brenden and Adam sat down on their mats and groaned in pain. Even if they weren’t showing signs of being in pain, they certainly made it clear they were aching badly.
“Well shit,” I said as I turned my head from one end of the sky to the other, marveling at the gorgeous warm yellow to red to deep purple. The sky was so much more vibrant than the sky on Earth was, unless it was my new eyes seeing everything so much more vividly. The hazy ripples in the air were new to me, but the way they gently blended the colors of the cloudless sky was mesmerizing.
“I’m gonna go explore.” I walked off toward the town with my head up, unable to pull my eyes from the watercolor-esque skyscape until the sound of shifting gravel caught my ears.
Most fields were full of short yellow shrubs pluming into luscious indigo flowers that farmers were digging up to reveal intricate root systems. They would pull up the white watermelon-sized roots with branches that led to smaller bulbs, revealing twenty to thirty foot-long root systems with the edible bulbs all down the mess of branches.
Shifting gravel? A scent like pine. Bootsteps. Breathing, a woman’s breath, coming from ear level only a few feet behind me. I won’t turn around, just walk along, calculating, readying myself. She’s to my right, so I’ll have to do an offhand haymaker. Heh. I can pull this off.
Suddenly, I whipped around with my fist aimed directly for her crotch, but she was quick. She spun away from my punch and whirled around with a wide and weak jab of her own, but still incredibly fast. My legs weren’t in a position to spin out of the way, so I hopped over her fist, pushed off of it with my hand and vaulted her punch. We both stumbled back to walking like nothing happened.
I shook my head. “Tch. I’m gonna get you. Just you fuckin’ wait dude.”
“Doubt it. Smaller target. And I’m faster than you now.”
“Big dick means bigger target. Even when I’m winning, I’m losing.”
“Okay, I’ll pity you. We can add my chest to target selection.”
“Target? I’ve seen steeper hills on the great plains.”
“Yeah, I realized that in the river. Flat is still better than whatever the people in this town got though.”
“I can definitely see some muscle though.”
“Don’t stare at my ass.”
“I’m talking about your arms and chest.”
“I don’t belie-”
“Your ass is nice though.”
She sighed. “This is why you can’t keep a girlfriend.”
That one cut deep. “What, because I objectify women or some bullshit like Cathy always used to say? I’ll have you know my last girlfriend was super into being objectified.”
“Yeah, last girlfriend. You treat them like you treat us. That ain’t romantic at all, chief.”
“You say that like you’ve got any room to talk, Captain Braincel.”
“Coaches don’t play.”
“Who in the hell are you coaching?”
“Rowan.”
“Uh-huh, how?”
“He set up a double date back on campus.”
“No bullshit, you went on a date?”
“Mhm.”
“AND?”
“And?”
“Coaching? Results? What the fuck happened with it? You never said anything about it. Not even Rowan did.”
She took a long pause, staring at the ground. “I got stood up.”
“You guys got stood up on a double date? That’s fuckin’ rough.”
“No… just me.”
“Ah fuck, you third wheeled, didn’t you?”
Silence. Her melancholy eyes traced the treeline. “I left.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“But you coached him?”
“I ‘helped’ him send a few texts.”
“Is that the only ‘date’ you’ve been on?”
“Technically never even had that one.”
“Jesus Christ man, we gotta get you laid.”
“Not til marriage.”
“You gotta adapt to the times, Tells. These hoes don’t wait til marriage no more.”
“I ain’t lookin’ for a hoe.”
“Brother, you ain’t lookin’ period.”
“Shut your mouth before I kiss you.”
“See? You got unbridled game with the boys but fold like a broken lawn chair at the mere mention of a woman.”
“I’ve become what I fear most.”
I chuckled and walked on. Classic Tells deflection. “Don’t sweat it. You got a brand new ocean with plenty of eight-nipped hairy hobbit hotties swimmin’ around. Unless you switched sides for that-”
She punched my stomach, knocking the wind out of me and walked off. After a moment heaving, I caught up and cackled lightly, patting her shoulder.
I’ll let her figure it out on her own.
We strolled up the hill in the center of town, where the grass was like stepping into a cloud of shimmering pink and green strands glowing from the radiant sunset. The sky above us was perfectly divided: Golden yellow to the right and indigo to the left, with a melody of colors in between. Far in the distance, shadows dotted just above the horizon. Drifting islands in the sky speckled a ring around the planet, disappearing behind the trees on either side like a shallow arch. A large moon with watercolor teal and navy blue swirling on its surface emerged above the treeline, with a tiny orange cratered moon already high above us. The dark trees split the sky from the warmly lit cliffs and the water, which reflected everything above it. Glittery rainbows refracting off of the thin fog drifted down from the pitch-black forest. Stars peeked out from the darkness to our left in an expansive line across the sky. A distant, bright hazy galaxy, tilted like a disc and dotted by colorful stars slowly revealed itself through the fading light. That galaxy alone lit the world around us in a constant twilight.
“Kickass,” I muttered in awe.
“Yuh,” Tells agreed.
We stood there, gazing up at the scene. Speechless at the sprawling universe before us.
This is the world we’re in? Shit, I could get used to this.
As night took hold, the scene slowly turned into a starscape reflected by the lake below. Suddenly, chirping started all around us, and little fluorescent glowing bugs quietly buzzed up from their holes in the ground, dotting the air around us in an array of purples and blues.
I felt a tap on my shoulder and Tells pointed past me, to my right. We walked to the far side of town, opposite of the cliff we came down, where irrigation canals connected to a river that flowed into the main lake. Closely packed rows of maroon lilypad-like plants grew into tall, wispy glowing pink grain crops with round marble-sized beads emerging from the top of the stems. They calmly swayed with the gentle ripples, lighting up the water a soft pink.
Every dirt road was lined with irrigation canals or metal buckets where the water couldn’t reach. The bioluminescent pink stems dotted the edges of the road like gentle guides in the night, meeting at the hill in the center.
We found ourselves at the bottom of the hill again. Tells yawned, our long walk taking a toll on both our energy levels. “Wanna head back?”
“You can. I’m gonna stay out a bit longer.”
“Cool. Yell if you get killed.”
“Word.”
Tells’ footsteps disappeared in the distance as I drifted through the town aimlessly. I didn’t want to try sleeping. Having such strong senses and lying alone at night was a recipe for misery. I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts, and yet there I was, alone.
Looking around, the village would seem silent. But I heard all the tiny exchanges, the stubbed toes, the snores of slumber. An argument broke out between an older couple and then swiftly quieted as their voices grew loud enough for the neighbors to hear. In another house, a baby stirred, waking several more like an eruption of wails. A door creaked open and an exasperated young mother began a soft lullaby that slowly hushed the little ones. In another house, a man drank and wept from a window overlooking the lake. But ever so gradually, the village silenced into a dull hum. Constant, continuous sleeping breaths drifted peacefully in the late-summer breeze across the roads, fields, and lake until they petered out to nothingness.
My footsteps crunched against the dirt, pulling me back to reality and reminding me of when I’d sneak out at night back home. Back when I still lived with him. The silence reminded me of when it would break. When the door would shoot open and there would be a thump on the sofa or an enraged scream of my name. Sleeping reminded me of him, of the fear of being woken up to getting hit with a fist or a bottle.
Why would I ever want to go back to a world like that when there’s a place like this?
And then I remembered her. The woman I had been forcing out of my memory as soon as I got here. The reminder that I would never be good enough for anyone and the mistake I would never get the chance to atone for.
I shook my head and looked around for something to distract me. Then, as I wandered, a whisper caught my ear. A whisper in a building, just too quiet for me to hear clearly. I followed the dull breaths until I ended up in front of some random building. Coming from inside, from somewhere behind the building, was Vetia’s voice.
I casually glanced around to make sure nobody was watching me, and then snuck toward the back of the building. I was about twenty feet from the open window listening in. Weak whimpers and worried whispers escaped her lips. I glanced through, locking onto her red eyes glowing from the moonlight that was illuminating her sunken face. She was a mess, just not bloody anymore. Streams of tears had dried down the sides of her head, and her debilitated gaze blankly stared a thousand yards through the ceiling. Her cheeks were sunken and her forehead had a large bruise on the right side.
“I won’t hurt anyone. I’m still human. I can take it. I can control it.” She repeated this over in near-silence, falling into gibberish and then back into her mantra. Her eyes drifted to me and her voice went silent. Then, she fought to smile at me through the excruciating pain. Her voice croaked in a way that I normally wouldn’t have been able to hear. “Don’t worry Dee, I won’t kill you. You guys don’t taste good, anyway.” She chuckled until a quiet, high-pitched cry broke through and she went back to repeating her mantra.
How in the fuck does she know I’m outside? How does she know what we taste like?! I’d remember if I got head from her… oh wait, I think I see what’s up. I know she’s having worries about killing, but is it stronger now? Has the damage caused it to worsen? It hurts to see her like this, but I can’t do anything about it. Nah, I can get those bones. Those fireblood bones or whatever. That’s gonna work, right?
The noises of the forest, of the lake, of the town crept into my ears. Her whispers paraded alongside them in a maddening frenzy of chaos that pierced my ears. Everything was around me, from every direction at every moment. Leaves rustling and ripping to the left, creaks to my right, frantic laments from ahead, groaning wind behind me. Noises from everywhere invaded my ears, dizzying my strained vision. I jumped frantically at every snap and tap. The lights glared, burning my eyes and painfully jolting through my head. Adrenaline shot through me. I was surrounded and alone, unable to find respite in the symphony of chaos around me.
My legs picked up, running off in whatever direction wasn’t blocked. I covered my ears and ran until I was at the lakeside, stumbling through the sand. I was out on the beach at night, but the raging noises wouldn’t stop. They wouldn’t stop unless I did something, but I didn’t know how to stop sound from getting through my hands and into my ears. I glanced down at the water and sucked in as much air as I could.
Cold. Freezing cold. But solace. Muffling everything in earshot until all I heard was the gentle hum of water in my ears. I closed my eyes and breathed out, then yanked my head out of the water, laying back in the sand.
I heaved and gasped. The cold water and the lack of air shocked me damn near to passing out, but it took the focus off of my hearing. I slouched down, wiping my face and flicking water out of my ears.
The excessive sound, the painful noises were always there. Distracting myself and removing focus from them helped temporarily, but they were getting harder to ignore. I needed something to relax me, to help me sleep without hearing all of creation around me at all times. We didn’t have liquor. We didn’t have anything to smoke. We didn’t have any money. We didn’t have anything. I couldn’t even plug my ears with wax.
I sat there on the beach, covering my ears and closing my eyes, trying not to breathe in through my nose and smell.
How am I supposed to keep myself from sensing?
After resetting from the nightmare sounds to the usual assault of noise, I meandered my way back to the stables with my hands over my ears and collapsed from the sheer exhaustion of being up for two days straight. Sure, finally getting rest was nice, but only sleeping when my body gave out was no way to live. I’d lose my mind.
* * * * *
Pain swelled in my chest as something blocked air from entering my mouth and nose. I thrashed awake, yanking a bundle of clothes from around my head and gasping for air as the sun began lighting up the distant sky.
In my hand was a shirt tied to pants, wrapped like a blindfold. Foggy memories of waking up in a daze in the night came to me. In searching for something to ease the noise, I tied them over my ears and eyes. And with my luck, they slipped down at some point and started suffocating me.
“Can I just get a break for one night?” I whispered to my exhausted self as I steadied my breathing.
My tired eyes glanced down at the three laying in the stall near me. Brenden was curled up as small as he could get under a blanket in the corner of the stall. Tells had sprawled out on her back, half off her mat next to a puddle of her own drool. And Adam was on his front in nothing but his underwear, sleeping on top of his arm with his dirty foot resting on Tells’ stomach. I was stuck between Brenden and Tells all night, and I realized I had been spooning Brenden in his little corner, something I would take to the grave with me.
The morning chill was starting to fade when I stepped out of the stall and stretched. The sun was gently peeking over the treeline and the village was already well alive. The little orange people were out working in the fields, filling baskets with harvested crops and making cheerful conversation. The old stablehand smiled at me, so I waved back, still dazed and not really sure what was going on.
A low-pitched murr caught my attention. The stablehand was leading the sound’s culprit out of the stall. It was a large, six legged creature with long mud-brown fur. Its head similar to a squirrel’s, except with a long jaw and two rows of flat teeth. It flapped its elephant-like ears and long, furry tail as the old man hopped on its saddle and sauntered into the field.
I breathed in the crisp morning air which was going to quickly heat up with the sunrise. I watched as the fields literally opened up, the grass quietly opening up from its usual spike shape, bending apart to reveal the bright pink interior to the sky.
The sun finally peaked out, so I decided to wake the gang up.
“Yo. Brenden, Tells, Adam. Wakey wakey. It’s cripple visiting hours.”
Tells slowly rolled her eyes open and shifted, wiping her mouth and glaring down at Adam’s foot before throwing it off and sitting up. Adam shifted, but didn’t seem to wake up. Brenden’s heart rate increased and his breathing changed, but he didn’t move, so he was definitely awake, just ignoring me.
Tells squinted up at me as she stood. “You look like shit.”
“Thanks, I woke up like this.” I bounced my eyebrows at her and turned to Brenden. “I know you’re awake. I can hear your heartbeat.”
Brenden exhaustedly flicked his eyes to me and sighed, slowly uncurling and stretching.
Tells tapped Adam’s foot with her boot. He groaned and shifted slightly. She shot me a look and then locked eyes with his asscheek. “I think he’s stuck in the stable. How about we slap that dump truck into reverse?” She planted her feet on the ground, winding up her hand for a powerful hit. In a flash with a crack like a whip, she put her entire body into the swing and brutally slapped Adam’s ass.
Adam screamed out, “Son of a bitch!” He writhed, grabbing his butt, rolling over onto his back and frowning at Tells.
Her hand recoiled as she gritted her teeth, clenching her stinging red palm and smugly grinning at Adam.
Brenden stumbled next to me, cracking his neck and groaning. “Get up you fat lard.”
Adam laid still, still showing no effort to get up. “Can a guy get some sleep after getting half his body ripped out?”
I sighed. “You had all night to sleep.”
“I barely slept, man. I’m in a horse stall in the fucking dirt and you expect me to sleep well?”
I rolled my eyes and imitated a baby crying. “Waaah, waaah! My tummy hurts because some mosquitos snipped me and now I can’t get up to see my friend that fixed me who’s in the hospital with shattered arms and in constant pain because I had to sleep on the ground for one night! Waaaah, waaah!”
“You didn’t even get touched! I don’t wanna hear shit from you.” Adam grumpily moaned, still not moving.
“Tells,” I pointed to Adam, “obliterate this man’s cock and balls.”
Tells stepped forward, planting her feet for yet another lethal slap. Before she could properly wind up, Adam jumped up like a scared kitten, guarding his crotch with both of his hands.
“Tells, when you die I’m gonna put Told on your tombstone.” Adam grumpily hobbled past her. She stayed silent, showing off the same smug look as before.
I sighed. “Wow, what a zinger.”
Adam side-eyed me. “What was that, piss boy?”
My shoulders sagged a little. “A rude awakening for a rude awakening. We’re even now.”
Brenden groaned from outside the stall. “Damn, that’s crazy, I’m going to check on our friend now.” He started walking.
Adam put his pants on and caught up behind us as we all ducked into the door of the clinic. He was an awkward fit, basically squeezing on his knees through the door, but he made it.
Some little guy at the front table squeaked at us. “Do not break anything, you’re not proper size for clinic.” He smiled politely and I nodded back, trying not to react too much to his piercingly sharp voice that made me want to rip my ears clean off.
Vetia’s tired catty eyes flicked up to us and a smile sprawled out across her face.
I sat down at the end of her cot while the others gathered around and Adam took a seat on the floor. Brenden was the first to talk.
“How’s the, ya know,” he gestured vaguely to her arms.
“Absolutely stellar. It’s a good look for me, crippled.”
“You just been sitting in bed this whole time? Can’t even get up?”
“Like, I can, but the double slings aren’t great, so when my arms hang even a little, it causes horrible pain because of the broken shards of bones all throughout my arms and shoulders. And almost all of the organs in my lower torso have electric burns, but other than that I’m feeling just peachy.” Her gaunt face forced a smile.
“Well, we’re gonna get you fixed up once we get those bones.”
Her smile faded. “Yeah, I heard about that. Which one of you signed your lives away like that?”
Tells raised her hand silently.
“And you guys agreed to it?”
“Yeah,” Brenden and I said.
“We’re not just gonna leave you to stay broken like that,” Adam added. “You’re literally the one who saved our lives. We’d do it even if you hadn’t saved us.”
She bit her lip, slightly frustrated. “I appreciate it, but I’ll be fine regardless. We can leave and I’ll heal myself, y’know?”
I chuckled. “With what hands? You can’t do magic if you can’t make those design thingies.”
“Bet.”
Brenden shook his head. “Why are you against us helping you? There’s literally no other way your arms-”
She snapped, the exhaustion and strange frustration peaking. “Because you won’t have me there to make sure none of you die. None of you know how to fight monsters and shit. It’s not even remotely smart to go out and get this thing!”
“Newsflash,” I snarked. “If we don’t get a fireblood, we won’t have any money or resources. We need to catch it so we can get enough money just to live so we can leave here.”
“Or, we can wait and do it when my arms are healed.”
Tells piped up. “Mother Yeline literally said she can’t fix your arms.”
“Fine then! I don’t need arms to help! I’m more than capable with my toes! One shape with the big toe and two more with the middle!” Vetia lifted her leg and turned the back of her foot toward Tells, raising only her middle toe of the three long pointy toes on her foot. Tells looked more impressed than offended. “When you’re down bleeding out I’ll just start up a sigil and step on you! That sound good?!” She shot frustrated looks at all of us. “Do you guys not trust me or something?!”
Brenden’s face contorted in confusion and indignation. “Fuckin huh?! This isn’t about us trusting you. You’re broken. It’s your job to trust now. Have a little faith in us for once. Let us fix you!”
“I don’t need you guys to fix me! I can fix myself! I don’t need you to risk your lives when I’m sitting here doing jack shit!”
Tells stepped forward and pointed her finger on Vetia’s forehead. “No working arms, no opinion.”
Vetia angrily tried pulling her head away, but Tells kept her finger planted firm.
“Push my finger off your head and you can come.”
Vetia raised her foot weakly, but it couldn’t reach Tells’ arm before dropping as she tensed in agony.
“Then it’s settled,” Brenden said. “We’re gonna go before you get any funny ideas.” He walked out the door and Adam followed with a wave.
Tells finally took her finger off Vetia’s head and mimed dapping her up before heading out. Vetia looked at me with defiant defeat in her eyes.
I sighed and shrugged. “Your mojo’s off. What’s up?”
She looked like she wanted to kill me and spoke with palpable sarcasm. “It’s gotta be the weather. I just wanna sleep.”
“You can’t sleep?”
“You were peeping on me last night, dipshit. You saw me awake.”
“Dude, take it easy. Listen, I know you’re in a bad mood because you want to fix yourself, but-”
She whispered angrily. “I can fix myself, I just need to not be here! And I can’t walk enough to get outta here yet!”
“Woah, firecracker, take it easy. Listen, I’m not new to this whole hunting thing. I can track and kill, and I’ll make plenty sure to keep an eye on them. We talk to this guy in the cabin, he shows us what we need, then we cage and capture the fireblood thing. Easy.”
“It’s not easy, you guys don’t have a clue of what you’re walking into!”
“Look where we are.” I gestured widely. “Ain’t none of us know a goddamn thing. Here’s how it is. You saved us, so now we’re gonna save you. Hell, you didn’t even save me and I’m the one wrangling all of them to get moving so we can fix you up faster.”
She paused for a moment, shaking her head in frustration. “Can you guys just not do anything stupid?” She leaned her head back, fighting off a creaking voice and watery eyes. “I don’t wanna be stuck in this world without you guys.”
“Don’t sweat it. Might be a few days, but we’ll be back without a scratch.” I patted her knee and got up. “Oh yeah, and here’s your shit. Read the book while we’re away, why don’t ya. Get used to those magic things so you don’t fuck your arms every time.” I threw her bag into her lap and walked away. We had a lot to do, starting with finding the cabin with the weird guy.