Chapter 24
Adam
Jaime smiles widely as he lounges in the hot pool.
He’s been smiling a lot since we joined our bodies, but some of those smiles were strained, as if he were in pain.
Remembering what he said about hot water helping, I brought him to the pools, and when he didn’t complain, only smiled at me gratefully, I knew I did the right thing.
It’s a good feeling to know I did something right for my mate. For a moment, it lets me forget the terrible memory that keeps replaying in my mind, the one where the fog makes me hurt the other creature. My brother.
Leaning out of the pool, Jaime smooths a patch of sand, running his finger through it.
“So, I’ve been thinking. If my brother or anyone else comes looking for me, they’ll be searching around that crashed ship.
They won’t come here. If we want a chance to get out of here, we need to return there.
Do you think that panther thing will still be waiting there for us? Is there another way around?”
Not understanding his words, I look at the symbols he marks in the sand.
Jaime points at a few circles. “Yes, look. We’re here.
That’s the pools. Here’s the cave, and here’s the lake near the cliff, okay?
So, I assume the panther can’t climb that cliff, so we’re safe up here, but if we stay here, we might miss our ride home.
Out of here, Adam. Back up there.” He jabs his finger up toward the stars.
His words finally register in my mind. Jaime wants to leave. He wants to leave the mountain, the forest, and go back to the stars, to the flying caves. Ships. That’s the word for them. Spaceships. He wants to leave in a spaceship.
“We can both leave, Adam. Your memory might return completely if you go back to where you came from. Or not. I don’t mind either version of you.
But the fact is, I can’t stay here. I can’t, Adam.
I’ll lose feeling in my hands and arms and everything and then I’ll die.
It might take a few weeks or a few months, but I will die and then you’ll be alone again. You don’t want to be alone, do you?”
Alone. The word echoes in my mind around the few remaining patches of fog. “Alone.”
Jaime reaches for my hand, squeezing it tightly. “Yes. I imagine you must have been alone here for a long, long time. I won’t leave you, Adam, not until you ask me to. We will get out of this place together.”
Jaime wants to leave, and I need to help him. This place isn’t good for him. It’s too dangerous, too rough, everything is trying to kill him. Even the sky. His skin gets hurt even when there’s no sharp light, just from being outside during the day. He needs to go back and I need to stay.
For the first time in a long time, the fog swells, sending a sharp wave of anger through me at the thought of being away from Jaime, but the rational part of my mind, the one buried under that fog for Ancestors know how long, knows I cannot go.
I already hurt one brother. My brother. Blood on my claws.
Blood on his face. What if I hurt Jaime’s brother too? What if I hurt Jaime?
Never.
I wish I could be certain of it, but I’m not.
The fog is gone for now, but what if it returns?
It wasn’t even supposed to leave in the first place.
Wasn’t that what I was arguing about with my brother?
That the fog would only get worse and there was no cure for it.
I wanted to die, I remember that. To end my life.
I’m dangerous, and I belong here, to this dangerous place, not with Jaime. It hurts, but I know it’s right.
“Spaceship,” I say. That’s what Jaime needs.
“Yes! Oh my god, it’s still so strange to hear you actually speak.
” Jaime chuckles. “Good strange, though, not bad strange. I love it. I lo—” He stops himself mid-word, then, with a sound low in his throat, returns to his sand drawing.
“Look at this. It’s not a great map, but I think it shouldn’t be hard to understand.
So, here’s the cliff. See? That’s the panther waiting under it.
And the river goes somewhere through…here? ”
His finger traces a line. I smooth it back out, making a similar line in a different place. He’s right. It’s not difficult to understand once my mind translates his scribbles to places I’ve seen.
“That’s the river? That far away? So, we went through here…?”
I make another line to show him where we passed through the forest, all the way to the odd oval with six lines coming from its bottom and several triangles sticking to its side.
It’s next to the symbol he said was the cliff, but—oh.
This new part of my mind that turns scribbles into real images is interesting. I point at the drawing. “Venomfang.”
“Venom-what? Wait, is that your name for that panther thing? That’s cool. Okay. Venomfang. Are there more venomfangs?”
I indicate the area by the river that is their territory. “More venomfangs.”
“Well, crap. My ship is upstream from where you found me, so if that was here,” he jabs a finger into the sand, “then it will be somewhere…” His finger trails up my river mark, straight into the venomfang territory. “There,” Jaime finishes uncertainly. “That’s not good, right?”
“Not good.” It’s very much not good, but if Jaime needs to go there to go home, I will help him get there. Without the fog clouding my mind, I’m smarter than the venomfangs. I’ll figure something out. “Jaime spaceship,” I say with determination.
“No, Adam. Jaime and Adam will go to the spaceship. My brother will come, and he will take us both off this planet. Moon. Whatever. Understand?”
I understand he wants to bring me along with him when he leaves and it summons that fluttery feeling in my stomach, but I can’t go with him.
I will take him to his broken spaceship and make sure he finds his brother.
Then I’ll go back to my den, and the fog will probably return so the den won’t look as depressing anymore.
I’ll hunt and kill and collect odd things like the clatterbeaks do, and in time, the fog will make me forget about Jaime.
The thought makes me want to curl up and weep, but it’s the right decision.
I’m sure of it. I can’t be around other creatures. Blood on my claws. Never again.
I will not tell this to Jaime. He would get angry, and even my fog-affected mind knew that we don’t like it when Jaime is angry. My smarter mind realizes that even better. “Yes. Adam and Jaime go to spaceship.”
I know my other word now. My name. That other creature in my memories, my brother, called me Rizven.
Those older creatures did too, as did many others.
Rizven is my name, but it doesn’t feel right.
I like Jaime’s name for me better. I like being his Adam.
Rizven hurt people and ran away to end his life.
Adam saved and protected Jaime. I like Adam better.
“Great.” Jaime’s smile is wide. “Ideally, we’ll find a communication device there. Then we can return to a safe place and we’ll call Steven when he arrives. He will come,” Jaime whispers, his voice a little wobbly. “He will. He always does.”
“Yes.” If Jaime’s brother is like my brother, he will come.
I remember him now. His name eludes me, but I remember us being together.
Helping each other, always, until I hurt him.
Maybe he’s dead. Maybe he just hates me.
Either way, he doesn’t want to see me. No one wants to see me.
I need to stay on this planet with the other monsters, right where I belong.