Nyx (Mate’s Mark #3)

Chapter 1 Nyx

Nyx

The world is silent, and I am weightless.

Soft ripples of sunlight dance and shimmer from above, the rays reaching through the water to caress my face.

Tiny bubbles cascade around me and float towards the sky, bobbing lazily upward as an exhale pushes from my lips.

Their shadows disrupt the stream of sunshine, but most of them never break the surface.

Most of them never escape.

The burgeoning happiness in my chest stalls in my throat, lodging itself in my windpipe until I choke on its memory.

It would steal my breath if I wasn’t already holding it, but the lack of oxygen doesn’t bother me.

Rough hands and metal collars have stolen my ability to breathe for so long, my body is numb to the instinct that begs me to give it precious fuel.

You are free, I remind myself.

You escaped.

Free.

Free.

My lungs ache with the need to take in fresh air, but I’m not ready to give up the tranquility of this place. Down here, everything is quiet.

The voices.

The memories.

The world.

Thick clusters of bubbles cling to my skin, and the sun beats harder, coaxing me to leave this watery grave. But leaving means thinking. It means breathing, hearing, and seeing. Feeling.

I just want a moment where I don’t feel anything at all.

I feel too much in this place. Sorrow and confusion, mostly, but there’s relief hiding between them. A deep yearning for connection that I don’t know how to fulfill, and phantom memories of happier times that I can’t bring to light.

I don’t know what to do with any of it.

Ljómur was hell on Earth, but at least I could be empty. Could live in this hollow chest and thrive inside the desolation of a mind wiped clean. Let gravity hold this husk of a body to the ground while life passed around me.

It’s wrong to miss it, but I do.

No one cared when I detached… when I retreated into this void, and my existence was erased from this world. I was forgotten so thoroughly that I questioned whether I had ever truly been there.

Maybe I disappeared altogether.

Maybe I could disappear now.

It would be easier.

There, it went unnoticed when I got lost in the recesses of my mind. I could escape to this snowy white, staticky void without the questions. Without the incessant attempts to cheer me up, or the efforts to make me engage, or the never-ending, soothing whispers that ask if I’m alright.

I’m not alright. Of course I’m not. The world has moved on, has changed, and I no longer fit in this life.

Sometimes I can pretend.

Sometimes it almost feels real.

But I don’t know how to belong.

The only world I understand is cold floors and threadbare blankets. Barred doors and hunger and pain. Apologies for everything I’m doing wrong that never seem to reach the ears of the hands that bind me. Silent tears and I’m sorry and wishing for the darkness to carry me away from it all.

A warbled sound leaves my mouth, taking with it the last of my oxygen. My cries are lost to the water’s embrace, and my tears are mere drops within this larger, ever-moving pool. They’re unsubstantial, as has always been my fate.

The edges of the world soften as ringing fills my ears, but still, I hold on. I float.

Exist.

It’s all I’ve ever known how to do.

Muffled sounds find me through the water, and a deep voice calls out in the distance.

My time in this sanctuary is over, whether I’m ready to face the world or not.

Pain stabs through my chest, and my lungs lurch behind my ribcage as my body pleads for air.

I take one last glance around my silent tomb before I heed its demand.

Reflections dance across the storm of my hair. A tadpole zips between the floating strands, wiggling its tail as if it’s matching their movement. The voice yells again, closer now, and the tiny creature darts away to hide from the intrusion.

My time hiding is done, though.

I release my grip on the log that anchors me here. A single kick of my feet propels me upward, and I drift towards that ring of light. The once glass-smooth surface turns turbulent as I float higher, and as I break through, the world finds me in a rush of lights and sounds.

The sun that was a faint lamp underneath the water now beats on my skin, blazing hot and blinding.

Leaves rustle from the wind, but it might as well be claws against my eardrums. I glance over my shoulder as feet crunch against the fallen twigs and underbrush, still treading water in the lily pad ring of my hair.

“There you are,” Ronan says as he emerges from the trees. “I was looking everywhere for you. Did you forget about our lesson?” I shake my head, scrunching my nose at the droplets that tickle my face. Sympathy burns off his expression as he crosses his arms and nods. “Do you not feel like it today?”

“No, I just—”

“In English, Nyx,” he scolds in the firm tone he uses when he teaches me. I glare at him, but he only snorts a laugh and crouches near the water’s edge, his voice infinitely softer. “You’re the one who told me to make sure you stick with it, even when you don’t want to.”

“I said, yes. Did not mean. That was when I was not…” I glance around us, trying to remember the word. “Busy.”

His lips twitch. “Busy doing what? Pretending to be a frog?”

Water sloshes as I lift a hand out to point at him. “You are the whole ass.”

“You mean an asshole?” he corrects with a smirk.

“No. The whole thing. Ass. Whole ass, Ronan.”

He tosses his head back in a loud laugh, and I begrudgingly let the sound lift my spirits by a fraction. “Who knew there was an entire giant ball of sass in there?” Ronan says with a chuckle, and I swim towards the shore.

“No sass,” I say as I wring out my hair. “Just frog.”

He grins again, but his smile fades as he watches me. “Do you need to skip our lesson today? Would you be happier if you stayed in the water?”

Yes.

Yes, it would make me happier to float in the depths and hide. Lock myself away in this isolation and sentence myself to a life of solitude. Anchor myself to that log and refuse to move.

Disappear.

But the world continues to spin as I stand still.

I have to make an effort to catch up, even if it’s tiptoed steps and stumbling strides.

Water sluices down my chest as my feet find the sandy, pebbled soil near the shore.

“No, I come. My skin is…” I scrunch my nose again and display the pads of my fingers to him.

“Wrinkly.”

“Reen-clee?” I try, then scoff and shake my head. “No sense.”

Ronan makes an exasperated noise as I step out of the water, and I tilt my head at him in question. “We’ve talked about modesty, Nyx,” he scolds as he pointedly looks away, and thick, uncomfortable shame compresses my chest. “You shouldn’t walk around without clothes unless you’re at home.”

Home.

The forest is my home, or the closest I have to one, though I don’t argue that point.

Crystal droplets from the creek roll down my skin as my eyes drop to my naked body. Fat and muscle are slow to build, and prominent ribs line my torso—shadowed peaks and valleys that are too stubborn to fill. My knees and elbows are thicker than my arms and legs, and my hands and feet look too big.

Still, subtle changes are coming to my body as weight finds its way onto my frame, even if it isn’t as fast as Ronan prefers.

He complains when I don’t eat his meat. He says I need it, but I don’t.

It doesn’t feel right to consume the only creatures in this place who have never hurt me, though I’d never judge the others for feeding themselves.

Starvation is a special sort of pain.

I tear my eyes from my nakedness to Ronan’s back facing me, his arms crossed as he waits.

Worrying about something as trivial as skin seems so silly.

Modesty wasn’t an option in Ljómur. When you wore holes in your clothes, or they were too filthy to wear anymore, you did without until someone thought to bring you more.

Bathing and relieving yourself, eating and sleeping were done under the watchful eyes of others.

I existed only to be observed. Even when the medics didn’t pull me for more tests, or the scientists didn’t need me for another experiment, my life was spent in an eight-by-six cell. No solid door to hide behind. No privacy.

A toy in a glass display.

My body has never been my own, merely a tool for others to wield as they see fit. It’s foreign to give it a second thought, or that someone might view it as more than a thing.

Sun-warmed fabric heats my hand as I grab my shorts off a nearby rock. “You came to my bath,” I argue as I slide them over my legs. “You are the pervert.”

Another shocked, barking laugh leaves him as he glances back at me to see my lower half covered. “Who taught you that word?” he demands.

I shrug as I pull on my shirt, unwilling to give up my source.

“It has to be Cameron or Elas,” he says, hiking his brow and waiting expectantly.

“You want me to speech English, yes?” I argue. “This means all the words.”

“Speak English,” he corrects, and I narrow my eyes again. “Yes, I want you to speak English because it will help you learn, but I also want to know who’s teaching you the colorful language.”

My brows pinch in the middle of my forehead. “Colorful? You teach me the colors.”

He makes that same frustrated scoff as he shakes his head. “No, the bad words.”

“Words are bad?”

“Yes, some are bad, like pervert. They’re rude, and saved for adult conversations.”

“I am not a child,” I argue as a rush of frustration mounts inside me. “You treat me that way. Always.” A familiar expression crosses his face—the soft one that tells me whatever he says next will be gentle because he’s afraid I’ll break.

Doesn’t he know I’m already broken?

A full month has passed since Elas and August returned from Ljómur, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to listen to their story.

As they drove off, I was so sure I had sealed their fate.

Encouraged them to go where no one should ever step foot, and to risk their lives inside the place that stole everything from me.

I was so terrified that I fled into the forest. For two days, I hid in the shadows, tucked away where I didn’t have to face what I’d done. Berries grew on a bush nearby, but eventually, they weren’t enough. The cramps in my stomach got worse until I could no longer ignore them.

A lifetime of hunger means I don’t always notice its insistent anger. When we first arrived, days would pass without me eating anything, simply because I forgot it was an option. The others stay on top of it and make sure I’m looking after myself, overbearing as they might be sometimes.

They care.

I know they care.

I just don’t know how to handle their concern.

Memories of family and laughter, of being loved, are so very far away.

They’re random flashes of light and color, muted feelings that have mostly been lost to time.

I often wonder if I’m the only one of my kind on this side of the veil.

We were peaceful and stayed out of the politics and military happenings. No one else would’ve crossed.

Would opening the rifts and going home do anything to fill this emptiness inside me? Find my people, return to my roots?

Or is that, too, something time has erased?

“Nyx?” Ronan asks with more force, and I wonder how many times he’s said my name.

“We can work in the outside today?” The idea of being trapped within closed walls is suddenly too much to handle. Too familiar.

“Yeah, we can do that,” he says quietly. “Is there anywhere specific you want to sit?”

My gaze drifts through the maze of trunks towards the grassy knoll beyond the garden. When this village was built, the trees were cleared for the solar panels, and the sun shines happily into the clearing. We work there often, and as I gesture in that direction, Ronan nods his understanding.

He doesn’t understand why I choose that spot, though.

Water trickles along my forearm as I wring my hair out once more.

My fingers rake through the dripping strands, and I wince at the stinging resistance of knots that never seem to go away.

I give up and tuck it behind my ears as I glance down at my damp clothes.

Most of what I wear belonged to Cameron or came from the salvageable items we found inside the village, but all of it is too big.

My eyes move to Ronan, standing with his arms crossed in his white t-shirt and dark blue shorts. Muscles strain against the fabric, strong and battle-tested and healthy.

Not frail, like mine, drowning behind clothes meant for someone else.

“Are you ready?” he asks, and I lick my lips, glancing again through the trees. I nod, and we walk along the short path. The grass is comforting against my feet until the others come into view. Everyone else is wearing shoes, where I prefer to go without.

It’s one more way we are different.

One more way I am strange.

“Nyx?” Ronan asks when I change directions, choosing to walk the longer path through the forest instead of passing through the village. The shade cloaks me amidst the green as an urgent need to become invisible grips me.

Once again, I want to become nothing.

“Better way,” I murmur, and after a moment’s hesitation, he follows in silence. I trudge through the underbrush, fighting this undying urge to disappear.