Epilogue
EPILOGUE
T he concrete floor under my ass had long ago become uncomfortable. The walls were much the same, but I gave up on my days alone being restful.
Or was it weeks? It all slipped through my fingers like dry sand, and the few rocks in there that were something a little more to hold onto were getting harder and harder to catch. Maybe there were jewels that could be found, though? Or scuttling crabs looking for their home.
I’d never been a crab before. Non-mammal minds were confusingly simple, the different appendages an adjustment, but if I were a crab, I’d be a king crab. Then I would take the name to heart and lord over all of my subjects. Be the queen king crab, ruler of the beach and command my lesser crabs to do my bidding. Like terrorize littering beach goers and kids that like to piss in the water.
Could crabs swarm over people? Like in that mummy movie with the scarab beetles. Now, that would be pretty interesting. Flesh eating, hive-minded. Pretty sure that was fictional, but maybe Yoyo would know for sure?—
Yoyo. My brain got stuttered up again. Water filled my eyes, and I put my fingers up to them, collecting the drops. I popped them into my mouth, sucking on the salty wetness. Everything was dry here, but I was used to it.
Uncomfortable. I could deal with discomfort. S’not so bad when you accept that it’s come to you, and that it’s there to teach you something. What was I here to learn?
I reached into my pocket, but there was no fabric. Oh, yeah. No clothes. That was okay, too, though. Running my hands against this body helped. No candy, but it let me remember. How did I get here again?
Elephants have good memories. “Did you know that?” I used my fingernail to scrape against the concrete floor. Using a bit of energy and feeling it zap against my heart, I made it a claw so that I can gouge into floor. Bad, bad, bad, I grinned. Grin so wide that it hurt my cheeks. Elephants have good memories, and I liked being big.
Big or tiny, medium was more boring.
Yoyo had been so small when I broke him. Snapping his legs was fun, the crack like breaking sticks. “Crack, crack, crack.” I took my claw and pricked my thumb. The blood tasted kinda sweet, though it was mine, and I sucked my thumb like how Yoyo used to when he was a baby.
I didn’t really mean to fuck up his eyes, but he was always looking like that, so I’d started wailing on his head. He was a shifter, he could take it. Small.
That pup was small, and I’d known she was hiding that baby, but there was no fucking way I was running myself, a pup, and a baby through the trees. Fuck what Catalina ordered me to do. Wasn’t even sure she knew what she wanted to do with the kids. Bargaining chips or just more collateral because she was pissed? Whatever. If it came to the second, I would’ve done it quick. Snuck her some flan and watched a movie or some shit and waited until she was asleep, maybe. I wasn’t opposed to killing a child, but I also knew there were fates worse than death.
The sound of footsteps was different than those of the soldiers. My ears perked up, and I scooted over to cover the writing I’d made in the floor. I smiled again. “Bad, bad, bad, bad.”
The metal door opened with a creak, and I blinked against the flooding light. I felt my eyes shift to a form that could more easily take in the bright—there, yeah, that was better.
I hugged my knees to my chest and crossed my ankles, rocking to feel the rough lines I’d gouged in the concrete against my skin.
But he was here, and my chin raised to follow his slow advance toward me. He was the king crab, and when he crouched in front of me, his scent was like spicy, hot rain. I let it fill my lungs and my belly that’d long ago stopped cramping.
“Xo.” His hair was like rippley, shiny chocolate, while mine and Yoyo’s was like coal.
“Papai.” I grinned and showed him every one of my teeth. His eyes were the same color as his hair, and his stare on me felt nice. Like the sun, and I was a flower. If only I could be a pretty flower. Plants were too different, but that seemed like the easiest thing. To just take what was given by the earth and let it control my fate. I’d like to die that way. Under the sun until it burned me right up.
Pai didn’t say anything, but that was okay. It was hard sometimes to keep track when I was like this, alone with everything, and I didn’t have my?—
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a Jolly Rancher, the blue kind. He put it in the palm of his hand and extended it out, but I wasn’t so far gone that I forgot how to really be good. I knew how to be good.
“Pode comer.”
I kept myself from snatching and took the piece of sugar gently. When I popped it in my mouth, I kept the wrapper clenched in my fist since there wasn’t a trashcan in the empty room. Just me and Pai.
I hummed through the sour taste. It wasn’t as good as a blue sucker, but it was okay. I clacked the hard candy against my teeth and moved it around my tongue. I ran my eyes over the room again, took in the soldiers that hung back near the door and in the hallway. But I’d never fought back, so it really wasn’t necessary. I knew that I’d done wrong when I let the little girl slip through my fingers. Or when I felt at peace with Río’s claws in my skin, making me bleed.
“You know the rules, Xo. And still, you decide to break my fucking heart.”
“Desculpe. Eu posso matar ele para você.” Crack .
But Pai shook his head and started to unbutton his shirt. He wasn’t wearing a tie, which meant he was done working for the day. How many days had it been? There weren’t any windows in here, so tracking the sun was impossible. I hadn’t had a meal or water in so long, so there were no mealtimes to gauge the passage of the hours. The world could cease to exist outside of these walls and this hallway, and I’d never know unless he told me.
Pai was good like that. Telling me. Cata would probably just let me rot. Yoyo would?—
No, he was gone now. Escapou.
“N?o. Você vai fazer outra coisa para mim.”
He was wearing a black t-shirt underneath, and I sighed as he put his nice one over me like a blanket. “Qualquer coisa, Papai.”
“Good. It’s very important. But you’re going to have to live somewhere else for a while. With someone else.”
The candy was getting smaller as I sucked it down, but Pai knew. He reached in his pocket again and pulled out a cherry one this time. My second favorite. He gave me permission, and I took that one, too. “Okay.” I was used to traveling, going on assignments. But this one sounded a little different. “What will I have to do?”
He smirked, now petting my head in the way that I loved. His fingers in my hair made me purr. “To be good. To still work for me.”
“Okay,” I grinned. I knew how to do that. “Do I get my sword back?”
“Of course. You’ll need it. Now, come along.” Instead of helping me stand, Pai took me into his arms. He was tall, and this form was not, so I fit easily into his chest while my legs dangled in the air. He kept the shirt around me, but his body was more than warm enough. He walked me into the light, and the soldiers parted in a coordinated wave. But they were nothing, and we were everything. “Let’s get you ready for your wedding.”