Chapter 16
Ani
There hasn’t been a single moment since I’ve been stranded here that I’ve understood what was going on. Trying to account for time and seasons is impossible. The sun comes up after what feels like only a couple hours at night and I wake up still exhausted.
I must have rolled away from Szhe’ka because I’m laying splayed out on the bed of leaves that he made for us. Sighing, I lazily rub my eyes, scratch what must be a million bug bites on my arms judging by the itching, then yawn and turn the other way to stretch but I bump into something.
My arms haphazardly smack into what feels like a slightly wet to the touch warm bag of feathers.
I must still be sleepy because it takes far too long for me to identify my victim as Szhe’ka.
He lets out a loud squawk, enough to wake me up properly and realize what I’ve done.
I instinctively withdraw, afraid I’ll break something.
His eyes are screwed shut and his two right hands contort backward, reaching for the middle of his back, holding onto what I now realize is a wound he had been keeping hidden among the thick fall of feathers.
I wince looking at it, feeling the true weight of my actions.
He cradles his wounds, his breathing becoming more haggard and heavy.
“My regrets,” I say, a heavy shadow resting on my heart.
He raises his head, looking at me again with those sincere eyes.
It’s like he’s saying it’s okay for me to be closer to him.
Taking this as my sign, I shift until I’m seated right by him.
Slowly, he takes his hands off and reveals what I’d seen earlier.
My hands fly to my mouth, horrified at the sight of the large wound that looks like it was hacked off by a jagged chainsaw.
A moment later I figure out what I am seeing. Wings. Bile rises in my throat as I put together the clues. Awkward walking, green liquid I now realize is blood. Someone cut off his wings.
How did I miss such a thing?
The guilt surges again when I realize it’s because I’ve avoided looking at him and empathizing with him. Avoided thinking of him as anything but the lightning rod for keeping the Bitch solidly in place so I don’t lose my fucking mind.
Self-loathing bubbles up in a familiar wave as I make myself truly look at him for the first time.
He relaxes his tense muscles some more and rolls over with a slow wince of pain so I take the opportunity to properly take a look at the injury.
Before I can stop myself, I am reaching forward, ignoring the hum of his embarrassment as I gently move feathers out of the way so I can see his injuries.
Someone used what must have been the bluntest blade they could find to hack at his entire back area. Deep cuts run from his double shoulder blades to the sides of his body—presumably where they had missed his wings as they hacked them off.
The wingspan that must be required to carry a creature of his size must have been mind boggling. His wings had to have been absolutely beautiful and I retch as I think how they have now been cruelly cut to mismatched lengths, barely longer than my short human arms.
Besides the mix of horror and sadness, rage rears its head. And not the rage I associate with the Bitch. No, this rage is an inferno, yet somehow clean and bright. Like a focused beam of a laser, seeking a target to destroy.
It burned away the Bitch, and any other mask I might wear instead, in its intensity and I rode the unfamiliar wave as it rose up in me like its own new, powerful identity.
Someone was going to die for this.
“Who did this to you?” I ask, making sure to enunciate every staccato of anger in my song.
Why did I assume I was the only one they experimented on? Why did I not think he was a victim too? Am I that focused on myself? That self-centered, just as my mother proclaimed all those years ago?
This is who you really are, that ugly voice whispers to me and my heart stutters.
No. I refuse to finally have that same aching question of identity answered by something so… disgusting.
I push the ugly voice aside and look at the mangled end of a wing long enough for the beam of rage to rise in me again, sweeping away my doubt.
The sound of his heavy breathing distracts me from my thoughts.
I crane around so I can look at his face, then to the side to see that he has opened up the other wing to fully show me what they look like.
It is shorter on that side, cut up with the same instrument at the top and burned off closer to the bottom.
The wounds are dried out in most areas but not completely healed and my heart breaks.
It suddenly occurs to me that he must have been bearing the wounds when he climbed up and down that tree to get me and all I had repaid him with were harsh words and even harsher screams.
Shame warms my body like a blanket, washing away the comparably comfortable rage. I have been horrible to this wounded creature, who has done nothing but treat me well and try to help me.
He sings back, his eyes shinier than usual. “Hunters.”
His thrum continues, rising in rage before falling into despair; the single word he spoke seems to have caused more pain than my hand smacking that most sensitive of areas. I’m even more surprised that such a patient being has the ability to feel such powerful rage.
It makes him more… human. Somehow.
Far more real.
I place a hand on his midriff, unsure of how else to comfort him. He trills, folding up like a cat trying to get comfortable, but in painful fits and starts. I continue to apologize in a long, unbroken song, unsure of what else to do.
“My regrets, Szhe’ka. My regrets.”
“No regrets,” he assures me shortly, collecting himself and drawing his wings back as he tries and fails to get up, looking away from me the entire time, almost like he is shutting down the conversation.
He doesn’t want my pity.
I can understand that. I didn’t want his pity either. Pity reminds us that we’re weak and helpless. Such a bold creature isn’t helpless. He’s stronger than all the anger and suspicion I’ve thrown at him.
I want to lie to myself and say that I’m fine and the journey can continue like normal but every time I try to swallow, there’s a huge lump in my throat.
I realize I’m making it harder for him to struggle to his feet, so I step away from him and watch his large frame rise. The slant of his shoulders is deeper, not high and hopeful like it usually is and I can’t help but feel like it’s all my fault.
Of course it is.
What if he was captured and hurt on his way to come and rescue me, and that is why he is so attached? Like some sunk-cost issue where he somehow has to make the cost worth it.
Fuck.
I have always had to keep my guard up, trusting no one and depending on my instincts, which I don’t think have proven me wrong too many times before. Clearly this is one of them.
I recall when he told me I was his to watch and protect; is this why? The fact that I might be the very reason why he lost his wings?
He turns away from me and I catch the green and cobalt blue mixed into his golden-yellow skin and the way the sun dances over him.
He takes in a long breath, looking at me like reminding himself of something as his body shifts from that broken slant to… someone with purpose. It changes every slant of his features and my mouth drops open a bit and that persistent wetness between my legs turns into a throb.
This time I don’t run away from it, though it still makes me feel uncomfortable. Instead, I just keep staring.
I am jealous of how he still looks so good, standing proud in front of me somehow, looking even more majestic as if to spite the horrible acts visited on him by those monsters.
I take a long, hard look at my protector, even though he is as injured as he is, and all I see is his strength and patience.
“Should eat,” he says to me in a low song, trailing off when he notices that I am still openly staring at him.
“What happen?” he asks when I don’t move my eyes away quick enough.
I freeze, my mouth moving but no song coming out. Even if we were speaking English, or Russian, I would have no words to describe what is happening right now.
It leaves him plenty of time to dart out an arm and catch another “meal.”
I almost forgot that his idea of breakfast and mine don’t exactly coincide, especially after he tried to feed me that lizard. He can’t possibly know that humans cannot ingest food raw, especially not reptiles.
I don’t know exactly when we evolutionarily deviated from consuming reptiles, but I would prefer not to be a cavewoman on this fine morning.
Dammit, stop it, I tell my galloping mind.
He doesn’t know enough about me to know what I can or cannot eat.
It’s made worse by the fact that I haven’t told him anything about me, not even my name.
I thought I was better than my mother, who preferred only to offer her name and contact info to people she deemed worthy of it but I realize now that I am no different.
The Bitch is just a version of the Witch, and that can’t be who I decide to be.
“My name,” I croak out, the song barely recognizable.
I reach out a hand and put my palm in his much larger hands, then let them wander out of curiosity. His skin, although oddly textured, is incredibly soft to the touch, and the feathers sticking out of the patterns are soft and not as sharp as they look. The dark-blue blotches are velvety.
He extends his arms to me as if in offering and I want to wrap my hands around them but I stop myself. “My name Anichka Ivanov.”
It’s the first time in over fifteen years that I’ve heard my full name called out by anyone other than my mother. It’s Ani to those I let close to me and Annie Falls to whatever fans I ever had, in a lifetime that’s so long gone, it almost feels like a dream to have lived it.
“If short you like, Ani,” I add, shooting him a small smile.