Five to Love Him (Phoenix Immortal: Hive #1)

16. HIVE

sixteen

L eo had left with one while allowing us to stay behind and clean up. He’d told us to pull the door shut behind us, which was not at all safe. We considered what was the best course of action while we took Leo’s hand and put the floor cushions away.

We had to go to work soon, that was true, and we would go with two. That left two to wait at the house, something Leo hadn’t forbidden, but at the same time, being above ground with Leo next to us and only one close to him filled us with icy dread. We were small, and we had our gleaming one now to care for and protect. We hoped it would never happen, but the human who had used us, the thought of him showing up scared us to the bone.

While washing a few dishes in the sink with trembling hands, we made the decision to follow with two, but at a distance. We stalled, stopped before heading to the relative safety of the subway with Leo. We knew Hawthorne had at least some surveillance there, even if it wasn’t the real safety of the underground.

We left the house with two, making sure we had a hoodie up and sunglasses on while we continued to straighten Leo’s home and put the leftover snacks away. We hadn’t gotten to cook for him, so we washed the veggies and put them in the fridge, leaving it ready to use, maybe for a late-night snack or for breakfast.

Leo soon noticed that guarding him with one was difficult for us, and he allowed us two. We had just gotten on the next subway after his with two, following as close as we could. We’d catch up to him at St. Auguste, and we’d either wait at the cafeteria with one or head back to the underground from St. Auguste. After all, it seemed wise to grab some clothes for later.

We did feel guilty about those intentions, especially during the talk we had with Leo on the subway. But we couldn’t fathom leaving him alone, not after today. And Leo was our gleaming one, accepting more and more, interested in us more and more. We hoped he would allow us that closeness.

When the subway arrived, we walked at a leisurely pace, talking to Leo about cake. He told us that his grandmother had always baked one for him for his birthday, and we asked when that was.

“It’s January first actually. The most inconvenient birthday ever.”

Leo smiled shyly, looked almost embarrassed. We tugged him closer.

“No, it’s perfect. We like the idea of the whole world having a party just for you.”

That had him frowning, which we thought was adorable.

January first was going to be difficult for surprise parties, but then again, perhaps he’d want to spend it just with us. We could celebrate with him and have him open presents while fireworks went off above us. It was a good fantasy, one that we would be able to hopefully make a reality in a few months.

The second subway arrived, and we exited, hurried to catch up with Leo and us.

“When’s your birthday?” Leo asked us.

We were happy about his interest and decided to take another look around that storage room and the printouts we had seen on the worktable at his house. When we got his permission to help with his grandma’s business, we wanted to be prepared.

“It’s May twenty-fifth. It’s a summer birthday almost while yours is winter and fireworks.”

He frowned once more, grew self-conscious again. It made him look undeniably cute, and by this point, we knew that look on him would always melt our heart.

We expected a lot more questions from Leo as we walked into the hidden courtyard of St. Auguste, maybe about our family. None came, and we headed into the foyer from where we had watched him walk away from us only last night. Today, we walked next to Leo in silence, his hand in ours. Things had changed in such a short time.

Leo had gotten a distant look on his face, distant enough to worry us, and we went back to the living room, looked at the framed photograph on the bookshelf. Of course he would be reluctant to ask us about our family, having none of his own left.

We decided to not push conversation on him as we walked through the cool hallways of St. Auguste. It was a safe space, and that human could never hurt Leo here.

We forced that thought out of our mind and focused on the comforting and quiet semi-darkness around us—quiet until two young werewolves very nearly ran into Leo in their shifted form while they were chasing one another in adolescent play.

We grabbed Leo around the middle and slung him over our shoulder to get him out of the way of teenage claws and fangs, acting while he still stood frozen. One of the wolflings glanced back at us, but if there was a sense of guilt on that canine face, we couldn’t make it out.

Once the wolf was back to being focused on behaving like they probably shouldn’t, Leo screamed, “What—whaaat!” before falling silent and tensing. He struggled in our hold, his hands bracing against our back.

“It’s fine, we have you.” We carefully set him down, and he stumbled backwards, off balance but reaching for us to steady himself.

We took his hand and wrapped an arm around his middle while running through the St. Auguste foyer as fast as we could to get to him.

“How did you do that?” Leo asked, his eyes wide.

“What do you mean?”

He pointed the way the werewolves had run with a shaky finger. “There were—I mean, they just came out of nowhere, right? They should have clashed into us. You just…you just picked me up like I’m some rubber doll and jumped out of the way.”

We shrugged. Leo turned to look in the direction we were coming from at a run, saying, “Oh. Two more of you?”

We stopped dead from the run, realizing our mistake.

“Uh, we didn’t mean to upset you. We were just already on the way, back to the underground.” We gathered around Leo, touching his shoulders and rubbing against the tenseness in them. “We’ll stay with you with two. Unless you’d want all of us to stay?”

Leo rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. “I mean—”

“What’s happening here?”

The new voice was booming and synchronous but sounding like a multiple. We tightened our circle around Leo and faced the chimera who was stomping toward us. They wore two ties, and the non-human head was sniffing the air.

“Two wolf pups were playing chase and nearly ran into Leo,” we said.

“Leopold?” the human head asked.

Leo cleared his throat and broke through our circle. We let him, of course, but remained close, steadying him with a hand on the small of his back.

“Instructor Arick. Hi, erm…” He gestured at us. “This is my hive. They’re nice.”

The human head lifted a brow and the chimeric one wrinkled his nose. “I’m sure they are, Leopold. I have never met a hive who wasn’t.”

“Uh.”

“He’s still in shock, Instructor Arick. Maybe it’s best if he sits down?”

The instructor waved his briefcase. “Class is about to start. There are chairs in the classroom. You go ahead, Leopold. I’ll let Principal Farrow know he has delinquents on the loose, again. Glad you two are okay.”

“Yeah. Thanks. Just kids, right?” Leo followed that up with a little anxious chuckle.

“Sure, sure,” the human head said while the chimeric one mumbled, “Need a whipping.”

He pulled out his phone and stepped a few feet away. We focused our attention on Leo.

“Do you want to stay here? Or we can take you home. Our place isn’t far, and you can rest there.”

Leo took a deep breath and shook his head. “Nah, just…I don’t know. You just picked me up like that.” He snapped his fingers.

“Well, we are a little stronger than is normal for a human,” we said. “And it was you. They would’ve run right into you.”

He adjusted his bag. “You’re super strong. Five times as strong as a human?”

“Oh. We’re not sure our strength has anything to do with our size, luckily.” We looked over our shoulder at Leo’s instructor. “I hope he doesn’t think we’re tiny with just three here. You called us your hive, and we want you to be able to be proud of us when you do that.”

Back at the house, we checked one last time that everything was in order. From what we’d seen of the business, we were sure we could revive it even if we’d have to learn everything about soap and candle making. And we needed to know what the business expenses were and how it was doing financially to be very certain, but we were optimistic. And we wanted Leo to be able to hold on to this legacy, no matter what.

Then we got ready to head to the Dazzle and start our shift there. We’d have liked to stay, but then again, the Dazzle was closer to St. Auguste than Leo’s house was, which meant that even behind the bar, we would be closer to Leo. With that in mind, being early for our shift would be fine.

“Hey, listen,” Leo said, commanding all our attention as he took our hand and started heading toward his classroom. “And I apologize, but I’m not sure how else to phrase this. In this case, size doesn’t matter to me.” His face was turning a charming shade of darkest pink, but he was not alone. We could feel the color rise to our cheeks as well.

“In what case does size matter to you?” we asked before we could think it through. “By which we mean—sorry, Leo. We don’t mean to be forward like that.”

He looked away from us, a shy smile on his lips. “No, that’s okay. It’s not like I would really know about what you’re asking, but, uhm. We can explore. Not now. But we can explore. Doing more than just kissing. Can I just ask—I really have to know. Can I ask you something, and can you promise you’ll answer truthfully?”

“We promise.” We said that from all our mouths, even if Leo could only hear it from three.

“Okay then. About ten years ago, did you fish a kid from a frozen lake? I mean, you are many, and you have superstrength, which is cool by the way. Cooler if you let me know you’ll be picking me up next time around.”

“We didn’t save anyone from a lake, ever. Why are you asking? And we can’t really ask for your permission to pick you up if you’re in danger, but in all other instances, we promise that we will.”

“Right. Cool. This is the classroom, and the thing about the lake is, that was me. I fell into a lake. Someone saved me. Thought it might have been you somehow, because weird coincidences exist, right?”

Our mouths fell open, and on the stairs to the subway from Leo’s house, we stumbled and almost fell.

“You drowned?”

“I didn’t. I’m here, undrowned. Was just weird.”

“May we hug you right now?”

Leo looked over our shoulder. “One hive hug, but just because Instructor Arick is still on the phone.”

We closed our arms around him. We would have never known if he had… We would never have known him or that we had missed the chance to meet our gleaming one.

We said, “If we had met you then, we would have stayed by your side and protected you.” We would have never met that human, we would have never been locked away, apart from ourself. We would have never been hurt. We would have been there for Leo during the rawest of his grief, everything to give and no darkness in our past. “We’re so sorry.”

“What for? I’m here. You’re getting weirdly emotional about this, hive. I’m really okay. Barely swallowed any water at all, and they gave me a blanket after.”

We sniffled as we waited for the subway and wiped our face to find that we’d been crying. At least we were doing that where Leo couldn’t see it. He was comforting us now when we should be taking care of him.

We pulled out of the hive hug as the subway arrived and we got on. “We’ll get you something to drink and a snack. Let’s go ahead.”

Leo was confused, we could see that, but then we split up, going to the cafeteria with one and flanking him with two.

“You’re not going to wait outside, are you?” he asked even as we headed into the classroom.

There, Tate was waving at Leo. Sitting next to Tate, though with a gloomier expression, was the oceanic, Ezra, a stoic look on his face and two hands wrapped protectively around a plastic container in front of him as if he were guarding it.

“Of course we’ll be with you,” we said. Secretly, we meant more than just this class. We meant forever. And one day, we would tell Leo, and if we were lucky, he’d welcome our words.