Chapter 3 #2
As he makes the bottom bed, I consider the cell.
It’s more spacious than I imagined a prison cell would be. But it has a toilet, a metal sink, and two double bunk beds.
Been a long time since I slept on a bed. Even if the mattress is thin and the blankets are coarse, it’s better than the grass and the graves and the rocks I’ve been sleeping on.
But what snags me is the window.
Long and narrow, metal bars are checkered over it to prevent escape—but I still see it.
A wisp of pallor, of freckles, of blue like cold diamonds…
It’s me.
I wander closer to my barred reflection—but I make it just two steps before I’m yanked back into a solid chest.
An oomph is pushed out of me.
Samick’s hand is flat and firm on my middle, pinning me to him.
Arching my neck, I scowl up at his icy face.
His upper lip curls. “Do not get close to the window,” he says it like it’s obvious.
And it is.
Hail could shatter that glass at any moment, and there I was, distracted by the possibility of seeing my own face for the first time in…
Too long.
How long exactly, I’m not sure.
Months, at least.
An entire winter—but longer, because we travelled north into parts of Canada that don’t thaw.
We chased the winter, then down its tail into a wet season.
My period is what throws me.
I’ve had it once since Samick basically kidnapped me. But I know I’ve been with him a lot longer than a single cycle. And before him, my period was all out of whack in the blackout.
Stress, I told myself.
But now…
Now, I wonder if it’s the effects of the darkness, like it changes the body as it changes a cactus in the desert.
Either way, if I’m right or insane, two things are true:
I’ve been with the fae too long, because I almost forgot my own face.
And this period is ending with cramps and fatigue.
Samick’s hand slips away from my midsection, fingertips grazing the material of my jacket, as though he knows what’s happening inside of me, the muscles pulverising my insides.
I turn to face him—but my gaze swerves around his solid arm to the bed.
I falter.
The bed is made, but in a way that borders on plush. Looks like a little nest of stacked pillows and layered blankets.
The blankets are rough and stiff, but I melt at the sight of them. I think of those old cartoons, when a character would smell something delightful and they would simply float through the air towards the source.
That is the urge rising in me.
I throw a moody, envious look at Samick.
Without unhooking his stare from mine, he steals my arm into his grip.
My hand dangles in his bruised one, the exhaustion sagging me.
He unfastens the rope from my raw wrist.
The knots have been less and less intricate, so it’s only a few seconds before the relief blossoms over my flesh.
I bring my hand to my chest and rub my wrist. “I need to change my pad.”
Words he’s heard too many times now.
I don’t blush anymore.
Unfazed, he loops the rope through his belt. “Later. You need to rest.”
He’s right.
I need the rest. The adrenaline burned through whatever scraps of energy I had leftover, and the fatigue is kneading into my bones and muscles now.
I drag myself to the made bed. But before I drop down onto the mattress, I kick off my boots and peel my rain jacket off.
The scrape of metal dragging over concrete cringes me.
My teeth bare against the sudden noise.
Samick shoves the second bunk over to the other side of the doorway, away from the threat of the window.
I drop onto the mattress, worming my way under the blankets, and let my head hit the stacked pillows.
And it’s exactly how I imagine it would be to drop onto a big, fluffy cloud.
A wispy sound escapes me, a breath of pure pleasure.
Samick sinks onto the mattress on the bunk across from me. His satchel drops to rest between his planted boots, and he digs through it for a beat before he chucks something at me.
It smacks me on a frosty cheek.
The sleepiness slows me down as I reach my hand out from under the blanket, back into the chilly air of the cell.
My fingertips touch a waxy paper.
I drag it onto the pillow.
I squint in the faint firelight that reaches us in the cell, wisps of flames on torches in the main corridor.
But I see it, and my mouth floods.
Food.
Well, weird alien fae food, but whatever.
It’s that preserved meat-stick thing that reminds me of salami sticks, only this tastes more like fire smoke.
I rip at the waxy wrapper before I bite a chunk right out of it. The smoky flavour erupts in my mouth.
He gives these meat-sticks to me sometimes. Three times, to be exact. And all while on my period. First time he gave one to me, he just said, “Energy.”
He says nothing now.
Samick unearths a jar from the satchel. Then, elbows on his thighs, he flicks his thumb and unscrews the lid.
He tends to his bruised, bleeding hand.
Battered by the hail.
I watch him.
Chewing on the rough meat, just two bites in and already feeling full, but not energised, I speak through a mouthful, “You knew it was coming.”
The chatter out in the corridor is muffled, like the warriors who do speak only murmur and whisper. The moans and grunts of the injured come from a few cells down.
So Samick hears my tired, low voice just fine.
His gaze lifts.
Green, as faint as iceberg lettuce. Inhumanly pale. But there’s nothing sharp in his stare. Green means he’s not feeling particularly bloodthirsty.
White is when I should worry.
He rolls the balm over his knuckles, but his eyes are on me.
I fold the remaining wax-paper over the last few bites of the meat-stick. I’ve had enough. I might be a meat eater in the apocalypse, but overindulging in it just feels icky sometimes.
“How did you know?” I ask.
Samick just stares at me from beneath his lashes, a look that I would’ve thought moody back at the start of all this, a stare that would’ve chilled me.
Now, I see it as just… him.
“I felt it advancing,” he says, then smears another blob of balm over his hand.
The bruises are fading, but the gashes and torn flesh aren’t knitting together.
“You felt it.” My echo is faint. Confused, but tired. “What does it feel like?”
He watches his thumb move back and forth over his knuckles. I almost think he won’t answer, but he does.
“An enemy in the fog.”
A…
A fucking what?
At first—in that immediate reaction that almost conjures a scoff—I think it’s a ridiculous thing to say. But then, the dark fae seem to sense things. Things I don’t. Things that even Bee can’t sense.
I’ve never given any thought to what that feels like for them, to have chills running up their spines, their stomachs turning, teeth on edge—to feel like something is off, then home in on it, decipher it, and recognise it as an enemy.
But hail is ice—and so, “Is it an enemy?”
He lifts his stare to me, but this time there’s a faint crease between his eyebrows.
Rugged up in the blankets, I say, “I know hail. I’ve never known it to do that kind of damage. But, like, you’re an ice specialist or whatever, and hail is ice, so—is it your enemy?”
The frown smoothens. “It is not your hail. It is ours.”
“But can’t you stop it?”
“No. There was too much.”
“But—”
“Stop speaking,” he says, and my face hardens. “You need rest.”
A huff grates my throat and I shift around under the blankets until my back is facing him.
I stare at the stains on the wall.
‘It is not your hail. It is ours.’
As in, it came from their world…
No.
No, it didn’t come from their world. It came from the darkness. Like the cactus. Like my period that’s gone on for a lot longer than a week.
I stew on that for the moments I’m awake, mulling over the fact that our world, our earth, our plants, our bodies, are all adapting to the blackout.
Not just adapting.
It’s all changing into a replica of their world.
And that’s fucking horrifying.