18. Chapter 18
Josiah
Iwatched wordlessly as Camille ran out of the room. Tears clearly blooming in her eyes. My eyes fell on Jerrod, who was clearly oblivious as to what he should do. I chuckled at the absolute irony of this. He wasn’t going to go after her, simply because he didn’t know he should.
“What exactly is so funny?” Jade asked in confusion.
“Just how utterly clueless you all are,” I said, shaking my head.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Jerrod asked with a scowl on his face.
“You’re a fucking moron is what it means,” I responded. “You should have gone after her.”
“What would that accomplish? Nothing I say in this circumstance will fix the issue,” He explained. "I can't tell her."
“That’s not the point, but since you’re so new to humans, I’m not surprised that you’re such a worthless dumbass right now,” I said through clenched teeth. “To think, I lost her to you. What a cruel mockery this life is turning out to be.”
I spun on my heels and walked out of the room without saying anything else.
“I did what I had to, to keep her alive!” Jerrod yelled from behind me.
“Keep telling yourself that, bud. Get fucked,” I said loudly, still walking as I tossed up my middle finger behind me.
She may not have been mine anymore, but I would spend the rest of my miserable life trying to make up for all of my transgressions.
I found her, after a long search around the ship, curled up in a closet, asleep.
I laughed to myself as I gently picked her up into my arms and cradled her like a small child.
My heart ached as I looked down at her face, the soft contours made her look like an angel.
I cursed the gods for taking her away from me, as I carefully laid her down in a cot and covered her. She would get over this before long.
The rest of the voyage to Taylagonia was…
well… awkward. There was an abyss of tension between me and my brother.
There seemed to be a chasm of despair between Jerrod and Camille.
Being the petty ass that I was, I didn’t bother to help him fix things, which I quickly realized was a mistake.
The lack of interaction was wearing on both of them and Camille, being Camille, was too stubborn to fold to help herself.
When I walked into the medical room—looking for wraps to re-bandage my quickly healing hand—I found Camille sitting on the examination table shaking excessively in agony. Jade was scolding her in hushed whispers. Neither of them had noticed my silent presence.
“What the hell is going on here?” I asked, suddenly on full alert. She was clearly hurt and Jade seemed to be tending to her. “What happened?”
“It’s… It’s noth… nothing,” Camille stuttered, trying to bite through the surge of pain.
Her face was contorted and scrunched, as the waves rippled through her.
I ran over to her in utter confusion. I grabbed her hand to try to comfort her and she pulled quickly away from me.
Her face further distorting in pure anguish.
“What is even happening here?” I demanded, horror evident on my face as I watched her gripping the table, knuckles white with the pressure. “Will someone tell me what in the god’s names is happening right now?”
“It is the bond. This stubborn woman would rather suffer through this, than try to talk to your brother,” Jade ground out, as she worked skillfully mixing several liquids together.
I looked at her in unreserved mortification, as I began to put the pieces together in my head. Her breathing hitched as she bared down to ride the pain out. The look on her face was gut-wrenching.
“This is why he did it,” I said in quiet understanding.
I hadn’t experienced what the bond did in my absence. I honestly hadn’t even thought about how bad it must have been for her. I didn’t say another word as I swiftly shot back out of the room, my mind on only one thing.
Jerrod was lounging on a ledge on the opposite side of the ship, staring mindlessly out a window, looking at the vast nothingness of the space around us. His face was blank and bored.
“You really are a dumb prick,” I said from behind him.
He turned around, sorrowful eyes meeting mine. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I know there is nothing I can say to change any of this. But, for what it’s worth, I wish it hadn’t come to this.”
I grabbed his wrist and pulled with my good hand, “We don’t have time for this or for you to feel sorry for yourself.”
“What the hell are you doing?” he bristled.
“I’m fixing mistakes, you overgrown baby.”
I pulled him along, back to the medical unit and pushed him inside. Camille was breathing in short hurried breaths, trying to keep the pain at bay. The moment his hand touched her, it was like an instant relief. Her nearly panicked breaths turned slow and even.
“How could you let it get to this point? Didn’t you feel the bond burning? I know I did when we were separated, but I never imagined it was this bad for her,” I admitted. "But you knew this happened! Why the fuck weren't you paying attention?"
He ignored me and my question.
I watched him raise her face to his, “Why didn’t you come to me?”
“The better question is, why didn’t you come to me?” Camille said, her eyes were full of rage.
“I assumed you wanted space,” he said, in honest confusion.
“Well now you know what assuming does,” she said in an irritated tone. "You ass."
“Trouble in paradise,” I mumbled under my breath.
Jerrod cocked his head back toward me. “Did you have something you’d like to say, Brother?”
“Stop it! Both of you, just fucking stop! This gets us nowhere! I don’t know if you haven’t realized, but right now, our path ends before we win,” Camille scolded, rolling her eyes in irritation. “Shut the fuck up, please.”
We both stared at her with wide eyes. Apparently spending the last several days crying, in pain, and suffering, definitely didn’t help her mood.
I held my hands in the air in surrender, “Shutting the fuck up.”
“Could you please give us a moment?” Camille said quietly.
“Of course,” I said sadly. “I’m so sorry, Camille. I… didn’t know.”
I walked out feeling a cluster of conflicting emotions.
I couldn’t fault them for any of what happened, at least not knowing what I did now.
After witnessing that, I had no doubt at all that Jerrod bonding to her when he did, had more than likely saved her life.
There is no way she could have survived long enough for them to figure out a way to free me.
I couldn't believe she had endured that pain for so long.
For all we knew, there was no other way to remove a Gilarian from a host without killing them both, unless a bond was broken.
In that moment, I finally felt a small amount of peace.
And even more, I felt an endless appreciation for my brother.
I knew that choice must have weighed heavily on both of them.
For the first time since being free from Akuma, I felt an acceptance of my new circumstances, and welcomed the future in front of me.