Movement No. 14
Tempest
About a week ago, Yasmeena finally agreed to start practicing full-out.
No more conditioning or long bouts of stretching, we’re to perform as if we were in front of an audience.
With our debut performance coming up in a few weeks, we seriously have to start nailing our routines, or this campaign they’re turning our lives into is going to fall apart right before the audience’s eyes.
“I’m going to hold onto the bar with my right hand, but you’re going to bend back and grab my left leg,” Yasmeena explains as we get into our next pose.
At times, I wish I could see us in a mirror as we perform. My strength combined with her beauty, I think we’re quite the pair, especially once we’re fully dolled up in our costumes and makeup.
“Good,” she says, and I try not to find comfort in her words.
It’s hard, but I have to keep reminding myself that it’s better for everyone if I don’t develop relationships with these people.
I’ve already let Taryn slip through the cracks, and I can feel Yasmeena reaching out, trying to kindle some sort of friendship, but I can’t let it happen.
I need her and everyone else here to hate me, otherwise the end will just be a thousand times worse than it’s already going to be.
I cannot afford to let Yasmeena any closer than she already is.
Especially not after how she reacted to that bite. Or how I did.
We move into a pose where I’m borderline sitting on the trapeze and Yasmeena uses me as though I’m a second apparatus. My feet are tucked beneath her shoulders as she pushes herself forward and up into another pose.
The warm feeling of her body against mine feels like electric currents shooting all throughout my veins, and I let that feeling fuel me as we shift into our next position.
The sound of footsteps comes from below, and I look down to see Khalid staring up at us. “You two seem to be doing quite well.”
“Thank you,” Yasmeena says as we get down from the trapeze. Khalid sounds genuine, but there’s also a broken quality to his voice.
Is he in here to watch us, or does he have some other motive? I don’t know Khalid very well, but from what I have seen of him, he’s very confident. There’s something solemn about the way he looks today, withdrawn even.
“What’s wrong?” Yasmeena asks, her face crinkling with concern. Clearly I’m not the only one wondering why he’s in here.
“Reina just broke some news to me,” he starts, and she gestures for him to get to the point. “You two should sit down.”
He looks upset, tears line his eyes, but it’s clear he’s more worried about Yasmeena than himself or me, and I respect it. She’s his family—his pack.
We take a seat on a nearby bench and he runs his hands through his hair, his jewelry clanking against more jewelry.
“There was a murder.”
“Another one?” she gasps, and every hair on my body, every tuft of fur raises in high alert.
“Roxanne was killed by a lupion,” he starts, and I watch in awe as the tears line Yasmeena’s golden eyes before they quickly vanish
“Tell me everything,” she says, her voice devoid of all emotion, and it fascinates me. Was this level of compartmentalization something she learned from trauma, or from her job? I wish to have this level of emotional control, but it also scares me.
It scares me, because I was hoping that when I take out Draven, they’d all be too emotional to continue fighting, and my pack might be able to safely retreat. I imagine Gemma will be rendered useless, but the rest of his people might not be as helpless as I originally thought.
Shit.
“She was weaponless, and bystanders stated there were no injuries or even a scratch seen on the wolf that did this,” he explains. “It was near The Cathedral, last night.”
Yasmeena's eyes widen as if she’s seen a ghost. “Okay, thank you for telling me.”
He kisses her forehead, giving her hand a squeeze, and then lets go.
“How is Kayoda?”
He shakes his head. “Not great, sweetie. He was working a shift at the hospital when she was rushed in, but it was too late. She’d lost too much blood.”
We’re all silent for a beat, just processing the gravity of the situation, and I have to push away the guilt that’s seeping into the pits of my soul. I don’t want to be thinking of executing another person they love while they’re sitting here, basking in grief, but I feel torn up inside.
I have a duty to my pack and to my Alpha, but I have a heart, too. I feel nauseated, like I might just be a terrible person. Maybe I am.
Maybe that’s what Alphas have to be.
Khalid’s face looks somber. “I’ve got a side act performance in a couple of minutes, but I just wanted to be the one to let you know. I’m really sorry.”
She doesn’t say anything more as Khalid exits the tent, and I watch her tough demeanor—her mask, begin to falter.
“It wasn’t Pack Escalus,” I say.
She shoots me a downright deadly glare. “It was outside The Cathedral.”
“We own The Cathedral but hundreds of half-demons and lupion visit every night, many of whom aren’t Pack Escalus,” I say, defensive of my people.
“You can’t know that.” She’s hurting, I can see that, but at the end of the day I know who I must protect. “I’m sure it was your abhorrent pack.”
“We don’t bring harm to innocent bystanders unless they attack first. Could she have instigated something?”
“She would’ve never done that. She was a fucking nurse and the sweetest person I’ve maybe ever met,” Yasmeena says. “Your father literally deals drugs and magic, Tempest. I’m sorry, but they’re not exactly exceptional people.”
This is the one area of my pack I’m not well versed in. I don’t know why, it’s probably because I was supposed to be second one day, not Alpha, but my father never taught me about what we sell, or how we came to start selling it.
It’s not that I haven’t wondered, and I see both sides to it. It’s legal. Even if it’s frowned upon, why not capitalize? Someone else eventually would.
But I also hear whispers of how we acquire our atra and the other substances, and I wonder if the rumors are true. I wonder if we’re hurting people for our own gain. It’s not something I can control yet, but when I become Alpha one day, maybe things can be different.
We can choose some other means of making our income. Something more altruistic.
“Well, Pack Escalus would’ve never killed her, so I guess your culprit must be someone else.” I want to use this opportunity to mention that it was her organization that killed my cousin, but I decide to table it. These attacks are out of hurt, and there’s no need to lay out all my cards just yet.
“You could have an ounce of sympathy.”
It feels like my heart is going to split in two. Just a few short weeks ago, I held so much disdain for the felion. Not always, but it’d grown over the last few years. They’ve caused many of my species to suffer and starve.
But now I know we’ve done the same to them, and it makes me question everything.
Lupion have this innate connection to our Alphas. We seek comfort through them, we seek to protect them, and we put all of our trust in them. It’s engrained in me—not just psychologically, but biologically too, and now I feel myself fighting it.
I find myself wondering if my father has made the right choices. And I wonder about Tyrus—he was always questioning our Alpha’s decisions, always going against the grain. My father says it’s what ultimately caused his death.
Panic leaches its way into my chest, my heart racing like a pack of wolves running under twin full moons, and I start to hyperventilate. It’s all too much.
I’m starting to care too much.
“I’m sorry a felion was murdered, I really am, but it feels like you’re set to blame all your problems on me and my pack, and I won’t be a part of that,” I say, my words rushed. It hurts me, truly hurts me to not be able to say what I really feel right now, but I just can’t.
“Blame you for all my problems? You act as if I don’t have any problems. You have done nothing but treat me like a privileged bitch, completely invalidating my life experience and the way I’ve suffered—the way my species continues to suffer,” she starts, her face turning red with rage, her voice stuttering as the tears filling her eyes threaten to fall.
“She was kind, Tempest. She was a friend.”
I want to pull her close to me and give her the comfort she’s probably seeking right now.
I want to tell her I’m sorry and that I don’t want to be such an insensitive asshole, but instead I say the only words I can muster.
“Then we will continue with the plan, in her honor.” A single tear falls down her tanned cheek, and I wipe it away. “Let her death not be in vain.”
It’s been three days since Roxanne was killed. Three days since we’ve practiced. And three days since a single soul at the carnival has instigated a conversation with me.
I talked to some of the people here, asking them questions or offering help with different things, but it was clear nobody wanted to speak to me.
I haven’t even had Taryn to talk to. She went on a trip out of the area. I don’t know how or where, but Rowan mentioned it to Reina and Absinthe in front of me. It hurts that she didn’t even think to tell me at all.
Yasmeena and Khalid have been grieving, which I fully understand. Or maybe she’s mad at me, but it’s been hard and isolating. I realized just how truly alone I am.
Raph let me use his phone to call Zuri. It was nice talking to her, especially because she’s not a member of leadership.
We talked about how she misses Tyrus, and how the second of Pack Forres asked her on a date, though we both thought he was married.
I couldn’t tell her much. She doesn’t know why I’m really here, only that it’s a political marriage, so I mostly shared about our practices and watching everyone perform.
She says she’s going to try and see our debut show, and it would be nice to see her.
I hope father comes too and that they’re all proud of me.
I desperately want this to be the thing that proves my worth.
Not just to my Alpha, but to my entire pack.
I need them to see how hard I’m willing to work, and how far I’m willing to go for the betterment of my people.
Wandering sort of aimlessly around camp, I realize just how much of a maze this place truly is. I should probably make a map of camp so that Pack Escalus knows exactly where to find everyone.
Putting that thought away for later, I catch sight of Draven as he’s exiting Yasmeena’s and my tent.
“You should talk to her,” he suggests.
Yasmeena hasn’t slept in our tent these last few nights. I don’t know where she was, or why I seem to care at all. This isn’t real, and she’s not my responsibility. There are no expectations except that we’re to act in love while we’re in public, and even then, we usually fail.
We’re engaged in name and name alone, so why does my heart rate increase at the thought of seeing her again?
“Yeah, okay,” I say as I stop at the doorway and take in a deep breath.
When I enter, Yasmeena is sitting on the floor by the foot of her bed, looking sad and contemplative.
Quietly, I walk over and sit on the floor beside her, leaning against my own bed.
“Should I go?”
“You just got here,” she says, still staring at the wall.
“No.” I almost laugh. “Should I go to the funeral? Do you want me to?”
She turns her head to look at me. “You would do that?”
“Of course. Just say the word,” I say, and she gives me a small smile.
Yasmeena looks so tender in the soft, yellow light of her bedroom lamp. She’s wearing a big sweater and it hides all her muscles, just showing off the soft lines of her face and the wisps of short onyx hair.
“I don’t think it’s the best idea. I mean, it could really go either way,” she says, and it’s like a switch was flipped.
Gone is the sweet, mourning friend, replaced with the diplomat.
The Spy. I can see the gears in her head turning, it’s written all over her face.
“If the majority of the felion at the funeral saw your attendance as genuine, it could really move our campaign forward, which would help everyone in the long run.”
“But?” I ask, enjoying the way she analyzes situations like this.
“But if they’re scared of you, or if their emotions get the better of them and they blame you, it could send us seven steps backwards. The entire thing could turn into a brawl, not only hurting our cause, but also dishonoring Roxanne’s memory.”
“Well, I don’t want that. Are you going to ask Gemma and Draven what they think?”
She shakes her head. “No. I am The Spy just as much as she is, and this is my friend. My people. I’m making this call on my own.”
“Okay,” I say, feeling an odd sense of pride.
“I don’t think you should go.”
I let out a deep breath of relief. “That’s okay. I do have something for you to bring, if you think that’s okay.”
She cocks her head to the side. “What?”
Reaching into my pocket, I pull out a necklace. The green stone sparkles, the color semi-transparent.
“I had someone in my pack bring me some atra before it was mineralized, and Absinthe helped me turn it into a pendant with a chain. I figured you could place this on her. I don’t know your burial customs, but lupion usually bury their dead in silver.
Something symbolizing the person who died.
I didn’t know Roxanne, but she was a nurse, so I figured she had her own sense of magic about her, spending her life helping others,” I say, afraid I’m rambling on for too long.
“That’s really beautiful, actually,” Yasmeena replies, taking the necklace. “Thank you.”