Damarion
The noon retrieval was a success. With the Frozen down a team, I wasn’t surprised. Pivane appeared almost disappointed. We retrieved two bantlings today and killed two Frozen; my stock was up.
“What grieves thee?” I asked, and the whole circle turned.
“I worry Keir will be upset she did not acquire the bantling,” Pivane replied. “She was so anxious to be out there.”
“If that is true, she will return and Nemesio will take her place.”
Nemesio’s head shot up. Her eyes pleaded with me to not put her out there. She preferred to care for the bantlings.
“If I may be so bold. Why?” Pivane asked.
“We don’t have time for whining. If she cannot handle that the team won but she didn’t score the final goal, then she doesn’t need to be part of the team.”
“Yah…”
My hand shot up silencing him.
“We need to focus harder on the Frozen. We need to find their compound. I know they are earthbound as we are. They cannot live far. This coven will change. Pivane, you shall be in charge of training of the Deumos. You know this town as well as I. We both have lived among the normals. The Deumos will no longer only be used solely for retrievals and mothering. From now on we’re all to be on recon. Please explain the ways of the world now to them. I don’t have the time nor the patience for their low learning curve.”
“How do you propose we do this?”
“Follow their trail. Their stench has to cover the streets. Start at the local markets and follow them. They must need provisions.”
“I’ve never sensed them when I have shopped.”
My hand flew with a strong desire to kill, but I held back. Instead, Pivane’s nose burst forth like a faucet being tapped. Red liquid spurted out of him without regard for the carpet. Truly, I should have continued to pummel him until the last gurgling, blood-filled gasp of air escaped his lungs, but Zuma was right. I could kill a Deumos without risk of punishment, but this slime-infested mud sucker could not be killed by my hand.
“That better not stain,” I said as I rose to my feet and let my foot catch in his gut. “Reminding me of your failures is not how you can win my favor. I understand you’ve failed to detect the creatures living in this town. The fact they were probably one aisle over from you is not my concern right now. I am sending a woman with you, since you are currently less than one. Prove to me you have a pair and I will consider reviewing your current lack of performance.”
There was no reason to hint he may get a chance at a Deumos’ body. That would be showing my hand too soon.
“Zuma, attend to this creature,” I ordered.
“I don’t need her.” Pivane cut his eyes at me.
“It seems as if you do,” I growled then knelt down by his body and sniffed the air. The toxin still thick in my blood blocked my ability to smell, but I wasn’t going to let him know. “The smell of failure wreaks from your flesh.”
* * * *
Kiriana
My leg’s gonna be stiff for a week. No shit, Sherlock. My heart’s gonna be broken forever. Why don’t you add that little nugget, Einstein? I tore through my closet hoping there was something, anything that could make him change his mind.
Right. I walked out in a goddamn bra and got nothing. The first guy I actually had feelings for didn’t feel anything for me. Karma’s a bitch! How many guys latched on to me and I tossed ’em away like Kleenex, because I thought maybe the next one would actually get me going. Nope. Never happened. And now that it had, I couldn’t do anything to keep him.
I put on a silk cami and a peasant skirt that fanned out when I twirled. Its relaxed style made it a favorite of mine for walks on the beach. The light cotton dried quickly and the pull tie made it easy to pull off if I wanted to go into the water.
Walking back out into the living room, I had a sinking feeling he really was gone. On my counter were the food containers from the bar, the jeans nicely folded, and the helmet I had used. The stupid girl part of me was saying, he left the helmet so when he comes back, you’ll be able to hop on and ride away. The other half of me smacked me back to reality. He left it because he didn’t want to carry it on his bike. I grabbed the food and helmet and copped a squat in my living room. I found a horrible VH1 reality show to watch and gorged myself on the leftovers. My stomach was bloated. To add to my pathetic, sappy girl behavior I put the helmet on my head.
I listened for breathing, maybe a cough, anything to let me know he was still there and I could talk to him. It was a stupid wish, but I made it anyway.
I played with the helmet’s tinted visor a few times. I flipped it up. Click. Flipped it down. Click. The neck cushion on the helmet was comfortable. I tried to raise my head, but the weight of it all was too much for me. I kept trying because I thought it might be a great neck exercise. I used my remote to hit mute on the TV. What they were saying didn’t matter because the way the people were talking required subtitles.
“Nye. If you can still hear me. Thanks for everything. I’ll always be here for you. You still haven’t told me your story.”
I took off the helmet and lay on the floor. Well, that was it. Closing my eyes, I tried to sleep, but the warm tears flowing down my cheeks disrupted me. The food baby in my gut wasn’t helping either.
I put the helmet back on and started talking.
* * * *
Nye
I drove around town and looked at the people. I cut through the campus and imagined Kiri walking from one building to the next. I then turned toward the track, parked my bike there, and tried to imagine Kiri jogging around the recycled black tire track.
I peeled out of the parking lot and took the road back to where it all started, where Kiri got hit. I must have spent hours driving around. I noticed the gas gauge was almost on E. I pulled into a gas station and as I started to fill up, I heard her.
“Nye. If you can still hear me. Thanks for everything. I’ll always be here for you. You still haven’t told me your story.”
Aw, heck. I didn’t think she’d still be able to talk to me. I sped to the compound. After parking my bike, I removed the helmet and ran up the stairs to find Zarmina. I pounded on the door and Lars answered. This time he was not adorned in pink.
“Nye, I was sleeping. Soundly. Do you know what that means?”
“I’m sorry, I just need to speak to…”
Zarmina came up the stairs.
“Nye, am I whom you wish to speak to?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, Lars,” I said holding out my hand. “I need her assistance.”
“I’m going to get some food. Mina, did you prepare anything?”
“Yes, min kärlek. It is still in the oven. I knew you’d be up soon.”
Lars kissed her cheek and walked toward the stairs.
“Zarmina, I need you to turn off the sixth helmet’s communicator. I can’t even turn it down.”
“Why?”
“Why what? It’s stuck somehow.”
“Stuck? Hmmm. I can’t think of how that could happen. But why do you want it turned off?”
“I left it at Kiri’s.”
“So.”
“She’s talking to me.”
“So.”
“It’s distracting.”
“Only because you love her and are upset you’ll never see her again.”
“Zarmina, please.”
“What? You don’t want to hear her, don’t listen.”
“What if she talks while I’m out hunting?”
“It’s your choice to listen to her. I will not cut communications with the helmet because you’re not wanting to admit that you should have asked her to stay.”
“No, I shouldn’t have. What kind of life is this?”
“I love it. But then again, I have someone to share it with.”
“You don’t have to fight.”
“Neither would she.”
I was always tired, but that was because I was out fighting. I tried to see it from Zarmina’s perspective. She lived in a beautiful home. She couldn’t go out, but she had the most beautiful garden in the world.
“You did something didn’t you?” I asked.
“Oops. She was talking again.” Zarmina said as she held her head by the helmet. “Such intimate details she is offering you. One would think she loves you, too.”
“You’re not helping.”
“It’s only seven years. And who’s to say I will be around at the next compound to remind you of what you gave up.”
“She was never mine.”
“That’s one opinion.”
Zarmina turned and bounced down the stairs to join Lars.
Kiri’s voice flowed out of the helmet and I ran to my room. I lay on my bed and listened. Kiri talked about her mom. How her mom raised her mostly on her own and finally about the sickness that overtook her mom’s body and mind.
“Do you think she’s Frozen somewhere? You never said if all suicides are asked to join. You’d think some people would get a pass. The ones who didn’t just throw away their lives. I’m sorry. I don’t know why you did it. The scars on your back would’ve been enough for me to do it.
“I was so excited when I earned a scholarship for track, but since my mother got sick I couldn’t go to Baylor so I had to work through college too,” Kiri explained. “I’d been running track since I was ten and still threw up at Nationals before my race.”
I heard her sigh and move around.
“You know this wasn’t the first time I hurt my leg. Nope, not even close. The worst was when I snapped my Achilles tendon. Sadly it was two months into my training for the Olympic trials. I was a long shot, I’d ran enough at the D-one level to know that, but still, it would have been nice to at least try.”
She became quiet for so long I thought the connection was broken until she told me about the men she’d been with. It seemed there were quite a few and the disease she got from doing that couldn’t be traced from one night. Then she surprised me. Talking about how it helped her focus on what she wanted out of life and the obstacles in her way.
“It made me realize how reckless I had been. I don’t know if you can even hear me now, but if you can, please know I’m not that person anymore. Haven’t been since I got my results. Making out that list and calling all my partners was so humbling. The worst part is I didn’t have names for all of them. Guy at Spago, Alpha Omega guy, and Blond guy with blue-tipped hair. Not easy to Google them. I guess it’s better you left. You come from a different time. A time when women like me were probably burned at the stake for being a whore.”
I felt an ache in my heart for her sadness. She’d been looking for someone to make a connection with and had found so many, but never really connected. How was that possible? Then I felt rage. No. Not rage. Jealousy. Jealousy was coursing through my body.
“If you were here, I wonder if you’d give me a blast of cold. If I could do that, I would. Shame makes you cold, right? I am ashamed. Of what I have done, but more because since I met you, once I was sure you weren’t gonna kill me, I thought of what it would have been like to be with just one man. You know, save my virginity as if it had meaning. Would I wonder what others felt like or would I be happy knowing I’d given the most important part of me to just you? I mean one person. I didn’t mean you…Who am I kidding? You’re not even listening. I meant you. Will I forget you? Do you have some potion or spell to make the last few days escape my memory? As much pain as I’m in right now, I don’t want it to go away. It’s the first time I’ve felt it. The pain of loss. I felt it with my mother, but it wasn’t the same. Maybe you’re right. If I could feel it once, I can feel it again, right? Or do we just get one person and you’re mine? That’d suck. Not you being my one person. Well, not if you wanted me, then that’d be cool. I’m just rambling now in hopes you’ll cough or shift in your helmet and let me know you can hear me. That you are listening. Nye, if you’re…”
A knock at my door startled me. I quickly removed the helmet and hid it on the floor besides my bed. “Yeah?” I jumped up and opened the door.
“Nye, Zarmina sent me here,” explained Lars, looking annoyed to be there.
“I’m fine. Really. I was reading and going to sleep.”
“She’s afraid of you sleeping.”
“Why?”
“We both know why.”
“You know letting Kiri go is for her benefit, not mine. Isn’t there a part of you that feels guilty for locking Zarmina into this world?”
“The second she complains about it, I will,” Lars said.
“What makes you freeze her?”
“That’s none of your damn business.”
“Neither is this.”
I started to close the door.
“Chutes and Ladders?” Lars asked as he pushed his way into the room holding a small box.
“Sleep.”
“Zarmina wants me to talk to you. I want to lay with her again. These two things should not be tied together, but they are.”
He started to set up a game on the floor.
“If I don’t sit in here for at least half an hour, you and I might get to know each other in a way you don’t want to.”
“I should have let her die on the side of the road.”
“No. That would’ve haunted you more. And I wouldn’t have had this chance to play a preschool game today. You wanna be the black kid?”
Maybe Kiri was right. Times had changed. I couldn’t imagine a game that’d have white and black kids together.
“You think I should go back for her?”
“Not for me to say,” he said as he spun the wheel. “Zarmina was stabbed when she went back for her belongings. I told her I’d buy her anything she wanted, but she had a necklace from her mother that’d been passed down for generations.”
“Why didn’t you go with her?”
“She waited as long as she could for me, but a tracker had me trapped. By the time I got there she was bleeding out. She had tried to come back to the compound, but only made it a few blocks.”
“Did you seal with her to take the pain away?”
“No, Gabriel wouldn’t let me.”
“So her scar…”
“Is on her left side. You know how horrific medicine was in the eighteen hundreds. I laid by her side for a week. That’s how she caught the cold. Maybe I helped her because the cold kept her fever down. That’s how I console myself when I look at it.”
I spun the wheel, moved my piece, and thought about the pain Zarmina had been in and she didn’t seem to see it as a bad thing.
“I’m what, about a hundred years older than you? Not that age always makes us wiser. Hell, if it wasn’t for Schmitty stayin’ out after a kill every once in a while and sharing his escapades, I’d never know about the real world. We get locked into our routine. We might as well be institutionalized. Sure, this is a great house. We get whatever we need. But we have wants, you know.”
Lars hit a chute and slid down below me.
“Life’s always gonna have ups and down, Nye. They’re easier with someone there.”
He jumped up and headed for the door.
“Aren’t we gonna finish?”
“I’m not the one you need for the ups and downs.”
Lars left. I looked at the game board and then at the clock. Almost seven. That could give me a few hours before I had to go out. Helmet in hand, I raced to the garage.
“Who is it?”
Kiri’s voice surprised me. It wasn’t as loud as before. She must have the helmet off. I heard movement and more talking, but I couldn’t make out any words. Someone was at Kiri’s apartment. Slamming down the accelerator, I was no longer driving. I had become a possessed man practically in flight.