41. The Nasty, Nasty Lion
Chapter forty-one
The Nasty, Nasty Lion
Kazimir
Lunita’s voice brimmed with fear and despair. “But. . .”
She snapped her view to the little girl. “Now. . . he is here?”
The little girl gave her a sad smile and nodded.
“But. . .” Lunita looked back at me. “Why would the witch do that?”
“It was not intentional.” I took a step forward.
“No. Stay there.” Lunita backed up. “Why did I glow?”
“I hoped you would know—”
“Wake up.” She pointed at me. “W-wake up. This can’t be good.”
I kept my voice steady. “I want to meet M before I go, and I also want to look around.”
“No.” Lunita edged back and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “What do you mean? You are not supposed to be here. Everyone knows that.”
“Yet, I am here. Perhaps, we should take advantage of—”
“You are a crazy person.” Then, she looked behind me and spotted Pavel. “No. The dead man with the long hair is here too.”
Pavel gave her an awkward wave. “I told him that we should leave.”
Lunita turned to the little girl. “Is this real?”
The little girl bobbed her head. “They showed up in the basement.”
Lunita returned to shaking her head. “Go back, mean ole lion. Go protect Max—”
“First, Maxwell will wake up—”
“He is dying—”
“He is healing—”
“You got him shot. . .” Her bottom lip quivered.
My heart ached. “I may have.”
“One for one.” Her bottom lip quivered. “If Max dies, Valentina dies.”
I sneered. “You touch my sister and I will be back on this roof, snapping your neck.”
She widened her eyes. “I-I can’t die here—”
“Did you know you could glow here?”
“N-no.”
“Then, perhaps you can die here.”
Lunita gasped.
A cruel smile spread across my face. “Be careful anytime you mention my sister.”
Pavel cleared his throat.
Lunita and I turned his way.
“Alright.” Pavel shrugged. “You have exchanged pleasantries with Lunita. Now, let us meet M and then leave.”
I put my view back on Lunita. “Maxwell will wake up.”
She hugged herself. “And if he doesn’t, then I will kill Valentina.”
My brows furrowed and my eyes narrowed as I stared at Lunita with a fierce intensity. “Threaten my sister again, and I will wake up and kill Boris.”
She pursed her lips.
“Maxwell will be fine. There is no need to kill anyone over him—”
“I would feel better—”
“Feel better killing someone else.”
“Like who?”
“I can bring you men one day later in the week to kill. Deal?”
Pavel cleared his throat again.
I didn’t turn back to him. “Just like in Italy. Men who deserve to be tortured.”
Lunita considered that for a few seconds and then leaned her head all the way down to her shoulder. “I can cut off their dicks?”
The little girl gasped and covered the lion’s ears.
I let out a long breath. “Yes. You can cut them off.”
“I can touch their dicks before I cut them off too?”
I clenched my fists at my sides. “No.”
With her head still on her shoulder, she pouted. “Mean ole lion.”
“About that. . .nickname.” I sneered some more. “Stop calling me that.”
Her head popped back into position. “Why?”
“It is wrong and demeaning.”
She curved her lips into this odd, crooked smile. Her teeth were slightly exposed. “You don’t like it?”
My voice held an edge. “I hate it.”
“Good.” She crossed her arms over her chest, a smug smile playing on her lips. “Then it stays.”
Pavel let out a harsh, loud cough, grabbing our attention. “I believe we are supposed to be looking for clues.”
Irritated, I returned to Lunita. “I want to help my mouse find the original.”
“We don’t know where she is. Everyone knows that.”
“But, I can help—”
“Dumb mean ole lion.”
The line of my jaw twitched.
“You know nothing about this.” She blinked several times. “Nothing at all.”
I pointed to the city around us. “What do you see?”
She looked that way and cocked her head all the way to the side. “Black clouds and sand.”
“I see Harlem, Moscow, Prague, and even Paris.”
She snapped her view to me. “Liar.”
“And I hear the cities. Music. Talking. Cars moving around—”
“No. No.” Lunita widened her eyes and stared at me, unblinking. “The witch did that.”
“She did not.”
Lunita held her hands out to the side. “How are you here?”
“We think it may be the breastmilk that brought me here.”
She quirked her brows. “But. . .you went into Emilio’s bottles and drank from them?”
So, you didn’t see our sex on the TV. Interesting.
“Since Emily and I have been in New Orleans.” I shrugged. “Sometimes. . .during our intimate moments, I would drink the milk from her breasts.”
Lunita studied me for a moment, her expression unreadable. Then, without warning, she burst into laughter and doubled over. “Nasty, nasty lion!”
I should have felt some form of embarrassment. Instead, I was happy I could make Lunita laugh.
“So nasty. You drank the milk. Ewww. Nasty. Nasty.” She chuckled. “Then maybe, you might like my finger in your booty?”
The little girl gasped again and placed her hands back over her the stuffed lion’s ears.
I frowned. “Do I look like a man that would like a finger in my ass?”
She bobbed her head. “Yes. You would roar if I did it.”
“I would not.”
Pavel walked up to me and whispered, “Enough of this. We need to meet M and leave before it gets too late. Remember why we are here, Kazimir.”
Lunita turned to Pavel. “Your hair is long now.”
Pavel gave her a nervous glance.
She pointed to his head. “The mean ole lion cut it off before.”
I grimaced. “No more with that nickname.”
Lunita laughed. “The nasty lion cut your hair.”
“Nasty lion, well. . .” I shrugged. “I will take that.”
She laughed again.
I smiled. “I like when you are happy.”
She went silent.
“I did not like seeing you on the ground. . .crying. . .”
She lowered her voice to a whisper. “But. . .at least I listened.”
I tilted my head to the side. “You listened?”
“She told me to stay.” Lunita touched her chest. “So, I stayed.”
“My mouse?”
Lunita bobbed her head. “So now you can leave New Orleans. No more witch. Everything is fine.”
“Emily wants true healing.”
“We cannot heal. She saw when she was here.” Lunita let out an exasperated breath. “She wants to be the only person, and she isn’t even one of the earlier alters.”
“Emily wants to feel whole.” I tried to keep my voice as gentle as possible. “She wants to have control.”
The little girl spoke, “She is the Boss. She has control.”
Lunita rolled her eyes. “She wants all the control.”
“She wants you to stop coming out to kill people.”
Lunita fisted one hand and raised it in the air. “I come out for justice.”
What?
I blinked. “You create chaos.”
She lowered that fist. “I help. I kept us alive, just as much as she has.”
“You have.”
She swallowed.
“Thank you.”
Lunita put her gaze on the flowers.
“If not for my Lunita. . .I would have never met my mouse.”
She pouted. “I am not yours.”
I smirked. “You know you are.”
Lunita looked up and scowled. “You are a dumb, nasty lion.”
But, you did not call me mean ole lion. I will take that as a win.
“I am not yours,” she said again, but there was no conviction behind her words.
My heart warmed. “Lunita. Lunita.”
She blushed and looked away.
Pavel coughed again. “We need to focus, Kazimir.”
I sighed, realizing again how dire the situation was. “Alright, Lunita. Come with us to see M.”
A somber expression covered her face. “Why?”
“I like having you near me.”
“You just don’t want me to sneak out.”
That too.
I placed my hands in my pockets. “Come with us, Lunita.”
“We are who we are.” Lunita huffed. “ She has to understand that. You have to understand that.”
“And what if there is a solution?”
“Then, she will go, and I will go, and even. . .” Lunita pointed to the little girl. “She will go too.”
Sadness decorated the little girl’s face. “I don’t want to go.”
“We will all go.” Lunita began to twist the front of her dress with her hands. “There is no us , if there is healing.”
“I do not believe that.” I took one step forward. “I think that you will all still be there, but life may be different.”
“How?”
“I do not know.”
“Then, don’t change things.”
“Change is the law of life.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“It is an inevitable force. There is always change, Lunita.”
She went back to hugging herself. “I don’t like this. Her coming here. You coming here. That witch needs to die.”
“We are scared of fear because it is darkness.” I pulled my hands out of my pockets. “It is. . .the unknown. Even I am afraid of the unknown.”
“You should wake up, nasty lion.”
“After I meet M.”
“M is crazy. He is the scarecrow with all those pieces of cut paper in his head, but no logical thought to his mind.”
Confusion filled me. “The what?”
“The scarecrow. He won’t have anything new to say that she hasn’t already told you.”
“Perhaps, I can find out something more.”
Lunita shook her head. “Dumb.”
“You all are stuck in this building and cannot even see the beautiful view out here.” I gestured to all of the sparkling buildings around us. “I think that this place and that darkness that only you see. . .it was just supposed to be temporary to protect you.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know that my mouse wants healing, and you would just rather remain shackled to the past, to old wounds, to this roof.”
Lunita inched back as if I had tried to slap her.
I remained where I was, so I wouldn’t make her nervous anymore. “Come with us, Lunita. Help me get some new answers.”
“There are none.” To my surprise, she turned her gaze onto the cityscape. Her lips parted slightly and suddenly there was a silence that made me shift uncomfortably. “You. . .”
I eyed her. “Yes?”
She whispered, “You really see all those cities out there? Right now?”
“Yes.” I gestured to Pavel. “He sees it too.”
Pavel sighed. “I do.”
Lunita blinked at us. “Are there demons there too?”
“Demons?” I shook my head. “No. I do not see demons.”
Lunita processed this for a moment before looking down at her bare feet. “Do you think I will see it all one day?”
“Yes.”
She put her view back on me. “Don’t let her get rid of me.”
“I will not let that happen. . .”
If I can.
She sighed. “I love her. Tell her that.”
“I will tell my mouse. However. . .” My heart ached. “I think that she is slowly learning to love you too all by herself.”
Lunita widened those eyes. “She is?”
“I believe so.”
Pavel jumped into the conversation. “We should go.”
Lunita gave him an odd look. “Maybe, he is the tin man, since the little girl never wants me to call her the tin man.”
Pavel widened his eyes. “I have no idea what you are saying.”
I gritted my teeth. “Lunita?”
She remained motionless, lost in thought, her eyes fixated on something only she could see.
What if she says no? Would she let me go down to M, and then sneak out?
Enough happened with my entering Emily’s mind. I didn’t need her waking up and killing people.
Come on, Lunita.
A minute stretched out, heavy and unbroken, before she finally stirred. “Justice and honor.”
What does she mean?
With a decisive turn, she pivoted on her bare heels and began walking in this awkward-zig-zag way as if she were navigating through an invisible maze.
My smile widened. “You are coming with us?”
“Yes.” Slowly, she made her way forward. Despite the awkwardness of her gait, there was a purpose to her actions, a silent resolve that spoke louder than words.
I directed my view to the little girl. “Are you coming?”
“Yes.” Smiling, she slowly rose from the ground, picked up her stuffed lion, and brushed dirt off his mane.
The sight pulled at something deep within me.
Lunita passed me, and I headed off too, taking in the garden. It was truly a surreal beauty—a marvel to behold. Flowers bloomed in defiance of the darkness, their colors muted but their essence stronger, more resilient in the night.
I kept my pace with her. “Did you plant all of these flowers, Lunita?”
“Nope.” A mischievous glint hit her eyes, “They just started growing after I met my flower man.”
I scowled.
And in that moment, a strange turmoil began to churn within my body. I could not help but feel a sting of jealousy at the mention of the gardener, a man who had, in such a short span, left a profound mark on Lunita’s consciousness and grew fucking. . .flowers on her roof.
I wish I could kill him again.
It was a ridiculous notion, one that should not have affected me so, yet it did.
Deeply.
On one side, there was a part of me that rejoiced in Lunita’s happiness, in the fact that she could find beauty and joy in this otherwise bleak world, especially through the flowers that bloomed so vividly on her roof.
Yet, on the other side, there lurked a darker, more possessive part of me that despised the thought of any other man having such an impact on my mouse’s alter. I wanted to be the only one who influenced her world, who brought her alters moments of happiness and beauty.
The idea that someone else could step in, even for a moment, and leave such an indelible imprint on this world was something I found hard to swallow.
Lunita reached the fire escape. Her hand hesitated for a moment before gripping the cold metal. “Before we go, nasty lion, you need to know the rules with M.”
Top of Form
“What rules?”
“Number one, never bring up Felicity.”
The little girl got next to Pavel. “Never do that.”
I quirked my brows. “And who is Felicity?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Lunita climbed onto the fire escape. “Don’t say that name, and if he says the name then pretend you didn’t hear the name.”
“But what if that name is important to—”
“It is not important, nasty lion.”
“Why not?”
“Because Felicity is the past, and the past can’t be changed.” Lunita began to climb down the fire escape. “It’s a wound that won’t heal, a ghost that won’t rest.”
Then, she pointed at Pavel. “Kind of like him.”
“Hold on.” Pavel frowned. “I am a ghost that can rest. I just choose to haunt Kazimir.”
Lunita’s voice was hard but her eyes betrayed a deep-rooted pain. “Do not bring up Felicity.”
That has to be a clue.
“Alright,” I followed after her. “What is the other rule?”
“If M passes out or falls down, don’t run and pick him up. That’s just what he does.”
The little girl nodded. “Yep.”
“If you are holding M and he wakes up, then he will scream and pass out again and it will take forever for him to wake back up.”
We descended the fire escape, and the city around us, a bizarre blend of the familiar and the foreign, seemed to watch with a thousand silent eyes.
What will happen with M?