Chapter 33
33
Kai
The light switched on, and Ripper spun to face the bipeds. Half-crouched, he stared at them wide-eyed, a wriggling cockroach hanging from his mouth.
Miya shrieked and whirled from the scene, leaving Kai to contend with the vermin. He didn’t have to. The moment he took a step, Ripper slurped up the bug.
“I think it’s dead,” Caelan offered sympathetically as she unhooked her elbow from Kai’s.
Miya poked her head out from behind Kai’s shoulder, and the feral munchkin gave a weighty swallow, then gagged. Fortunately, nothing came back up.
“Gross.” Miya scowled as Kai removed his jacket and tossed it onto the wall hook.
“At least he’s doing his job.” He kicked off his boots and made for the kitchen.
“Is that why you agreed to bring him back?” Caelan crossed her arms over her chest disapprovingly.
Kai shrugged as he grabbed the jars of peanut butter and Marshmallow Fluff, then snatched the bread loaf from atop the microwave. “It may have crossed my mind.”
He glimpsed a smile caress Miya’s mouth. Her eyes sparked with knowing as she glanced his way, though she didn’t dare say what he knew she was thinking.
You’re sweet.
He hated being called sweet. It refuted his entire self-concept—the devil-may-care persona that followed him from one reckless stunt to another. Yet he wanted Miya to see him as more than an abrasive bastard with a history of delinquency. And she did.
Caelan snuffed out her complaints as soon as Kai began to assemble her fluffernutters. When he finished, she nabbed the plate from the counter and plopped down on the couch. Miya padded off to the bathroom to shower, leaving Kai alone with the teen.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asked as she bit through her meal faster than the cockroach had slipped into Ripper’s mouth.
This time, she wasn’t so quick to confirm, her eyes fixed on the plate. “I don’t know what it means to be okay.”
The admission came out tentative, as though the words could cut. And they did. Kai felt them slice through his chest and seize the tender parts of him that’d yet to heal. How long had he spent wondering what it meant to be okay ?
“It’s relative, I guess.” He reluctantly joined her on the couch, the cushions dipping with his weight.
She tracked his movements as she adjusted her grip on the sandwich. “Relative to what?”
“How fucked up you’ve been in recent memory.”
She stopped chewing, her eyes swinging back to the plate. “I feel less messed up than I did a few hours ago.”
Kai plunked his head back, his eyes drifting shut. “That’s a start.”
He felt wrung out, his limbs like old rubber. Although transitions were always excruciating, he could tolerate the pain when it was a choice. But having every bone in his body broken against his will left him with a little bit less of himself every time. He was depleted, and he lacked the tools to replenish what he’d lost.
Caelan shifted beside him, curling her legs under her. “What happened to you and that other lady back at the bar?”
Eyes snapping open, Kai stared at a cobweb stuck to the ceiling. “We’re wolves.”
“Like, werewolves?” He heard her heart hammer harder in her chest, excitement lacing her voice.
“No.” He sat up with a tired groan. “Werewolves are humans cursed to turn on a full moon. Ama and I…we’re different. Like living folklore.”
Caelan wrinkled her nose. “Folklore?”
“You know, stories to make sense of the world.” He fumbled, wishing Miya was there to clarify. “Stories people spin about themselves until some of it becomes true.”
“Do you and Ama come from the same story?” Caelan asked, oddly accepting of his bumbling.
Kai shook his head. “I don’t know why she’s a wolf.”
Caelan reached for Miya’s throw, shoved in the corner of the couch, and spread it over her legs. “So, what’s your story?”
Kai narrowed his eyes, weighing if he had the bandwidth for a history lesson, but when he saw her expectant stare and remembered what she’d been through, he folded. “My parents were like me,” he began, palming the back of his neck as he settled into the cushions. “I don’t remember much about them—they died when I was ten—but some shit just stays with you, burrows in your bones, then leaps out when you least expect it.” An acrid taste filled his mouth as his last nightmare came back to him—the sight of his parents’ bodies cold on the ground. “They weren’t the only reason I ended up like this.”
“I’m sorry about your parents,” she interjected. “I don’t remember mine either—I mean, the ones before…”
“I know,” he said quietly, ignoring her condolences. “But the people who give you a second chance are just as important.”
She nodded, squirming under the blanket. “What’s the other reason you’re a wolf?”
The corner of Kai’s mouth tugged up. That story was more complicated. “Do you think gods are real?”
Caelan pursed her lips, humming. “Not God-with-a-capital-G, but when people believe strongly enough, it’s like you said. Sometimes, it becomes real.”
“Gods, living spirits, boogeymen.” Kai flopped his arms, annoyed at the endless verbiage that existed to describe otherworldly nonsense. “Call it whatever you want. Either way, one of those ethereal assholes is my past life.”
Her eyes widened. “Whoa, like, reincarnation?”
“Yeah, I hate it.”
“Who was he?” she pressed.
Kai sighed, gesturing vaguely. “Some god of destruction named Sendoa. Had a control freak for a brother who fancied himself the literal fucking creator. Anyway, Sendoa liked prowling the woods as a wolf to scare the shit out of people. Got a real hard-on for the Dreamwalker after she pissed off the brother with a God-complex?—”
“Hold up,” Caelan interrupted. “The Dreamwalker…as in your girlfriend?”
“The original Dreamwalker was a different person,” Kai explained. “Miya and I—we’re reincarnations of those spirits or gods or whatever.”
“Okay.” Caelan raised a hand to hit pause as she parsed his tale. “You and Miya are the reincarnations of ancient spirits. She’s the Dreamwalker, and you’re this god of destruction who liked running around as a wolf.”
“Sure.”
She peered up at him. “What happened?”
“Long story short, things got bloody, and we died. Sendoa was in a wolf’s body when it happened, and the Dreamwalker made a pact that they’d find each other in every lifetime until their business was settled.” His mouth slashed into a smile. “She got her way.”
“And…are you still trying to pay those debts?”
Kai shook his head, the memory of his haunting a permanent stain. Sendoa’s malevolent sibling had remained life after life, until it was Kai’s turn to contend with their legacy. Since his teens, he’d had a voice in his head, mocking and belittling him. Auditory hallucinations from PTSD , the shrink had said. Kai hated the word hallucination , like the experience of it wasn’t real. But it was.
It took fifteen years for him to accept that it didn’t matter whether the ghosts came from his head or his past; the ghoulish fuckery was a perfect symptom of Kai’s personal and generational trauma. “Sendoa’s brother— my brother…he’s gone for good.”
Caelan smiled timidly, her knees drawing to her chest under the throw. “So, you’re with her by choice.”
Kai sucked in a sharp breath. He still remembered making that decision. There’d been nothing binding them—no obligation left to keep him by Miya’s side. She’d released him, but instead of claiming his freedom, he stayed. He’d cast off the thing he valued most for something he knew was better: companionship. It’d been a missing piece in his life for far too long.
“Yeah, I am.”
Caelan tilted her head, curiosity sketching her face. “Do you love her?”
The water in the bathroom shut off as Miya finished her shower. Kai thought of the night she fell asleep in his arms, vacant of the reassurance. Terror curdled in his chest at the thought of speaking those four letters aloud, but when posed as a question, he found himself able to sieve through the turmoil and arrive at an answer. He met Caelan’s probing gaze, the ache behind his ribs worse than the leshy’s compulsion. “In every way I know how.”
His qualification creased the teen’s brow. How do you love? her eyes seemed to ask, and Kai was grateful when she didn’t utter the question. In truth, he had no damn clue.
“So,” he changed the topic, “you don’t know what’s calling you?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“But you’re sure that if you find it—whatever it is—something bad will happen?”
Caelan plucked Ripper from the floor as he meandered by, scavenging for more cockroaches. She set him in her lap, and Kai was amazed when the feral thing didn’t try to claw her eyes out. “It sounds crazy, but it’s like being compelled to push a button you know will launch a missile. You don’t want to do it, but you can’t help it. You’ve been brainwashed.”
“Any idea who brainwashed you?” Kai asked with a balmy smile.
Another shake of the head, and Ripper flopped on his side and began to purr.
“Well, whatever. We’ll figure it out.” Kai stretched as Miya reappeared, her hair damp and her day clothes traded out for pajamas. It was close to two in the morning.
They exchanged awkward goodnights, and Caelan retreated to the bedroom after brushing her teeth. The cat followed her in, apparently having chosen his person. She seemed more at ease now, and Kai hoped it would buy them a few hours of rest before she busted out of their apartment to chase after some phantom call.
“She trusts you,” Miya said with a gleeful smile.
Kai grumbled as he rubbed his eyes. “We’re both wounded animals. Like calls to like.”
“Give yourself more credit,” she chided gently. “You saved her from horrible circumstances, and whether you realize it or not, you’re the person she’s looking to for some kind of direction.”
“Saving her was an accident,” said Kai. “If I hadn’t been there, you and Ama would’ve gotten her out.”
Miya rolled her eyes and gave his arm a light shove. “Just accept the compliment, you dick.”
He smirked at her. “I’d rather you compliment my actual dick.”
Miya swatted at his crotch, and he seized her hand and dragged her down with a chuckle. She collapsed onto his lap, and after he wormed out of his day clothes and into sweats, they nestled under the throw in a heap of tangled limbs, exhaustion overtaking them.
If the leshy showed his bark-covered face to change Kai into a wolf in his own home, he’d tear the craggy fuck a new asshole with his teeth.