Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Without Cole in the cabin, it seemed empty, even though the building was only small.
After spending the night alone, he was half-tempted to leave the next day and spend the rest of the week in the abandoned mine.
At least then he wouldn’t feel so alone.
But he couldn’t face climbing down the mine, especially since he wouldn’t be able to fly out.
That was his biggest problem—being unable to fly. He couldn’t walk all the way to Yellowstone, and he needed to get there in time for the solstice celebration. That was where he made most of his money for the year.
But he couldn’t pass for human, which meant hitchhiking was out. As was any other means of human transport; he couldn’t steal a car because he didn’t know how to drive.
Which didn’t leave him a whole lot of options.
The most obvious one was asking Cole to drive him.
He’d already checked the distance, and it wasn’t that far to drive, a week, maybe ten days if they dithered.
Of course, asking Cole to drive him meant telling him about the solstice celebration.
And while Cole had already guessed that there were other monsters, knowing about them and seeing them gathered en masse were two very different things.
He could already imagine Boone’s disapproving glare.
He’d disapprove of this entire adventure—as if getting shot was something Akai had planned. Besides, it was too late to do anything now, as Cole already knew about monsters, and he had taken it quite well.
That didn’t mean he’d be chill about the solstice celebration.
Nor did it mean he’d be granted a token to enter.
They weren’t mates. They weren’t anything.
And he couldn’t imagine that the others would be thrilled if he brought a human who’d shot him.
It would kind of put a dampener on things.
Cole wouldn’t want to drive all that way and then turn around and go home either.
His doubts were why he hadn’t messaged anyone yet. He didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t get him into trouble or make them all hate Cole. The fact that Cole’s cousins had killed his sister didn’t tip the scales in his favor any.
By day three, he was tired of his own company.
He’d played solitaire both with the pebble game and the deck of cards he’d found in the cabin too many times, completed the one thousand-piece puzzle, eaten all the oats and honey, and he was bored.
Bored enough that he had jumped off the deck, hoping to glide over the shrubs and land neatly.
He did not.
He had barely stepped foot off the deck before his damaged wing refused to cooperate, and he had tumbled messily into the shrubs and grasses and had spent an inordinate amount of time lying on his back, staring up at the sky as the sun moved overhead, regretting his life choices while feeling grateful that a branch hadn’t skewered something essential.
It was only when a couple of ravens peered down at him, checking to see if it was safe to peck out his eyes, that he got up.
The stitches in his wing ached; it took a fair amount of twisting and turning in the bathroom, because the mirror was so tiny and he was so big, before he got a decent picture to see if he’d made the injury worse.
What had been healing had ripped open, and there was fresh blood.
He grumbled several curses about stupid Cole’s stitches, bad luck, and fate before cursing his own impatience. It would never heal if he kept testing it. Maybe he didn’t have to mention Cole; he could just ask about wing healing times on the message board.
No, if he did that, his parents or uncle might see, and that would be a disaster. They might rush up here, and the last thing he wanted was his family in the cabin when Cole returned on the weekend.
If he returned on the weekend.
Now he’d found what position he needed to get into to photograph his wing in the mirror—one foot on the toilet seat, his good wing stretched into the shower for balance, and his good arm overhead holding the phone—he’d check daily.
That way, he could make sure it wasn’t infected and that it was continuing to heal.
Cole had left the first aid kit and explained the antiseptic spray and cream to him before he pointed out that he could read human letters.
He grabbed the spray, knowing that it was going to sting like being shot, and maneuvered into the weird position so he could direct the spray into the right spot. He also changed the bandage on his arm—which was not, in fact, a scratch the way Cole claimed.
He leaned against the wall, so he didn’t faint. There was an entire chunk of skin missing!
Tending his wounds wasted a little bit of time, but there was still too long until nightfall. He went through the contents of the kitchen again, wing and arm smarting from the antiseptic, and washed down a couple of painkillers with a mouthful of whiskey.
There was nothing in the kitchen that he wanted to eat, even though there was plenty to eat if he opened the cans. He shouldn’t open the cans, as these were Cole’s supplies and he was perfectly capable of foraging. Foraging would at least give him something to do.
He had never been so bored in his entire life, but then he had never been grounded before either. He glanced at the bandage around his arm. He could go to the mine, but climbing in and out would suck, and he wasn’t sure he was that bored.
Not yet anyway.
So the plan was to locate something for dinner and breakfast, and then message someone about his Cole dilemma. Maybe he’d lie and say Cole found him wounded in the forest and helped him. Yeah, that was good.
He ran through his list of friends and contacts and eliminated those who would advise him against staying in the cabin and waiting for Cole’s return. He knew the reasons why they’d tell him not to stay, but Cole wasn’t going to return with friends and guns.
It shortened his list of possible people to talk to considerably.
He grabbed a bag, the same one he’d used when he’d gone into the woods to gather edible plants with Cole, and this time, he set off on his own, which was infinitely less fun even though he was used to being on his own.
Somehow, after spending a few days with the human man, he was more aware than ever of how alone he was.
After all these years, he’d tricked himself into believing that he enjoyed it, though it was apparent that he did not.
He didn’t like the way Cole shone a light on the hollow places in his life.
It was much easier to ignore them when they were cloaked in shadows or hidden in the darkness.
Without the human around, it was much easier to find insects and eat them as snacks as he searched for other things.
Akai crunched through a cricket and tried to imagine Cole’s face.
He peeled back tree bark, scooping up fat larvae and swallowing them with barely a chew, they were so soft.
The good thing about foraging was that it took time to get enough to make two meals. So by the time he reached the cabin, it was dusk. He tried not to look down at the valley and wonder what Cole was doing. Because he shouldn’t care.
But he thought he might, and he wasn’t sure how or when that had happened.
Had it been while he watched Cole build the cabin? Is that the real reason why he kept returning? It wasn’t only on his flight path, but he saw something of himself in the lonely human.
And if he were honest with himself, which was sometimes more painful than being shot, that was the reason he’d stepped out of the woods on the night of the meteor shower. He hadn’t wanted to watch it alone. He wanted company and had been unable to resist.
So it was one hundred percent his fault that he’d been shot. Not that he was going to admit that to Cole. Or to anyone for that matter.
He opened the secure Monster Network and typed a private message to Lick. Akai figured he was the best bet because he knew a lot about humans.
MothAkai: I’m in a bit of a situation.
Was that too dramatic? Possibly. He deleted the message and tried it again.
MothAkai: I got seen by a human.
That was possibly under-playing it a little too much. He might as well go with his little lie.
MothAkai: Hey, I got shot in the wing. A human found me and stitched me up, but now I have two problems. I can’t fly and a human did a bit more than only see me.
He stared at the message for a couple of heartbeats.
It covered the basics of his problem. He wasn’t quite ready for the third, mostly because that meant admitting to himself that he didn’t want Cole to sleep on the sofa.
He wanted Cole beneath him, or on top. He wasn’t fussy.
But it was weird having those feelings for a human.
While he’d spent plenty of time avoiding humans and watching humans, he hadn’t spent that much time with humans.
And Cole was the only human he wanted to spend time around.
Stupid fate lines.
He pressed send and concentrated on making dinner, which was basically chopping up the greens and roots that he found and then sautéing them in some oil and salt that Cole left in the cabin.
Lick responded with short, rapid questions. He always wanted to get to the point and rarely wanted the full story.
Lick: You were shot?
Lick: Are you okay? Where are you?
They were all valid questions; however, they weren’t helpful. Clearly, he was okay because he was texting and he hadn’t put an SOS up on the message board.
MothAkai: I’m fine. Except for my wing. What am I going to do about the human? He sewed my wing up.
Lick: There’s not much you can do.
That wasn’t helpful either. But Lick was right. What could he do about the human?
Lick: Have you told anyone else?
MothAkai: No. My parents will panic after what happened to my sister. And I don’t want to get my ass kicked for revealing myself to a human.