Chapter 11 #4
“After the hospital,” Dace murmured quietly, “my family had written me off, no one wanted to hire me, not anywhere I could make a living by myself. My uncle didn’t want me staying with him and my aunt, afraid I was too unstable.
” Fiddling with her fingers, she admitted, “I finally got a job but it was a bad situation. I quit but ended up living in my car. Things got really bad. I- I had nowhere else to go.”
“What untable? Why unkrel think Candy-ass untable?” Berkr leaned in to sniff her, then let out a short sneeze.
“I might have panicked and ran to the police about George,” Dace blurted with a wince.
“What the ‘lice have to do with unkrel think Candy-ass untable?” Berkr’s eyes narrowed as she began to fidget.
“The police thought I was crazy and I ended up being admitted to a mental institution.” Clearing her throat, she said simply, “They thought my brain was broken to the point I needed help from, uh, healers. Special help in a special place they don’t let you leave from until they think you’re all better. ”
A loud chuff left the large Lo denaii. “Urff healers kidnap. Say Lo denaii bad for kidnap females but urfed healers take and keep too.”
“What do you do with beings you think need help?” Dace asked. She looked like she already knew the answer. She was trying to make a point.
Berkr muttered something under his breath in growl-speak and let out a chuff that told me he wasn’t interested in answering her question.
“Instead of shunning them or killing them, humans have facilities and doctors to try and help people that they think need help,” Dace said softly.
“Think Candy-ass head broked, untable, put in place and no let leave,” Berkr muttered with an unimpressed scoff.
“Could you imagine if they’d believed me?
” Dace gave Berkr a long, measuring look.
Shaking her head, she met my gaze. “I was a bad person. I did bad things. I helped bad people. I was institutionalized for believing in giant fur people that move between worlds through a portal I stumbled across in the forest, purely by accident while looking for the dead body of my lover’s fiancée.
I’m complicit. I admit that. I was back in the human realm for years and years.
I had lots of time to think about what I did, and I’m so sorry I can’t even say.
I know nothing I do will fix this. Mina will probably hate me forever, her friends too, and I accept that.
But I’m never going to stop trying. I’m never going to give up.
I’m never going to be the pitiful thing I was before.
I’m never going to give up on thinking there’s someone out there for me. ”
“Candy-ass no find mate in village,” Berkr grunted out hotly. “No one want bad female for mate.”
Eyes narrowing, lips pursing, Dace muttered, “Then maybe I’ll find another village and look for him there, like how Gopher’s sisters came here.”
Berkr’s lips parted as he stared down at Dace, dumbstruck by her words.
“More or less, there you have it, now you know it all,” Dace muttered.
Her gaze met mine and she smiled sadly. “I was an awful, no good, horrible human being. Being my friend will just get you shunned along with me. Berkr’s right.
You really don’t want to be friends with me.
It wouldn’t be fair to you. It might have been a long time ago and I’m not that person anymore but it wasn’t that long ago for them, and even if it was, you never really forget how a person does you, you know?
You never forget how they made you feel.
They need to be angry with me and I understand that now.
You need a chance to make a start here. You won’t have that with me getting in the way, putting a being off for being around me.
I’m bad for you. You need to avoid me if you can. ”
“Dace?” I called after her when she would have turned to retake her things from Berkr.
Dace stopped and glanced over her shoulder at me.
“Don’t tell me what to do.” Gripping my bag of wet items, one side of my mouth quirked up into a smirk.
Dace stared at me as if she’d misheard me. She blinked, stared, blinked, stared some more. Understanding now what motivated Cy to sideswipe me with his nonsense, if only to amuse himself with my reaction, I just grinned.
Berkr scowled my way, like he too was trying to understand.
Motioning with my bag, I dipped my head in a nod at Dace. “I’m going to go hang these on chairs, like you suggested.” Jerking my chin at her laundry, I met her gaze. “Maybe you’ll change your mind and come find me for those sandwiches you mentioned.”
“Weird like Jojoknee,” I thought I heard Berkr mutter, but I was already walking away.
I was a bit away from the pair when I heard Dace squeak something out at Berkr and Berkr growlingly answer back. About halfway back to Bia’s, I realized I’d forgotten my lump of soap.
Walking all the way back to the exact spot, retracing my steps, I was beginning to wonder if the search for my soap was futile when I heard a soft snarl followed by a shocked gasp.
Recognizing Dace as the gasper, I hurried over to the hut I thought I heard it near.
Poking my head around the corner cautiously, my eyes widened as I spied Dace’s things strewn all over the ground.
Berkr had Dace pinned up against a hut. Feet dangling in his grasp, his face so close their noses were nearly touching, Berkr muttered something so low it was impossible for me to make out, to which Dace boldly bit out, “I’m not afraid of you-”
Berkr closed the distance between them, his lips molding to Dace’s.
Dace’s hands went from digging into his forearms to hold him off, to burying in his fur, sliding higher, to tug him closer. Berkr growled as she tilted her head and deepened their kiss.
Poking my head right back the way it had popped out, I made myself scarce.
I thought Kehl and I were caught in funky circumstances? How was that one going to work?
Thinking over Berkr’s words, some things were starting to make a little more sense to me.
By the time I’d finished hanging my laundry up, I was so hungry my hands were shaky.
Unsure where to go, wondering if I was even welcome to seek out Dorothy still if my welcome hinged upon who I knew, who I was in with, and who that person I was in with was on the outs with, it was all starting to feel very complicated.
Dace wasn’t kidding. She had done awful things. She had been an awful person. I didn’t see that person she used to be now in her actions, her words. Could she be fooling me? She could but why go through all of that effort to put me off, to tell me she’s not worth hanging around with?
When she said she wasn’t that person anymore, I believed her.
Stepping out of my designated hut, I stood in the doorway, one foot out, one foot in, and hesitated.
“Ey!”
With a groan, I gave the approaching lummox lumbering my way a droll stare. “Suzanne,” I huffed out primly, like I had a stick up my butt. I did where he was concerned. He ruined my life!
Frowning at the yellow lump in his hands, a nugget of deliciousness in the raw, I rushed up on him and snatched it right from his hands before he could spit out whatever nonsense he was about to throw at me.
Shaking the potato in his face, I snapped, “Where’s the rest of it?”
Vurhg stared down at me for so long I wondered if he’d fallen into Sleep Mode.
Snapping my fingers in his face, I growled. “It’s mine. All of it. You stole it from me. Where is it? I want all of it. Do you hear me?”
Vurhg’s mouth opened, then closed, and his lips sort of flopped about in a quiet splutter. That seemed to be the norm for the shit popping out of my mouth but my filter had left the building the second this shit went to the crapper. “But Vurhg needs tayed turds,” he finally blurted.
“Like hell you do,” I barked. Fingers curling towards my palm, I made an impatient noise in my throat. “I have no food, I’m starving. Give me what’s mine.”
“Vurhg has food, Purr-roo hungry,” he rumbled out quietly.
“Good. Where is it? Where’s your hut?” My gaze darted around curiously.
Eyeing me, he hesitated, then lifted his hand and pointed.
“Over there? Good. Let’s go.” Lifting the potato, I stifled a laugh when his first reaction was a flinch like he thought I meant to beat him with it, then motioned for him to lead the way.
“Vurhg give Purr-roo food, Vurhg can keep tayed turds?” he asked.
“No. Those taters are mine. You owe me for stealing from me, kidnapping me, and bashing my head in.” I almost smashed into his back, he stopped so fast.
Beasts striding past glanced our way but otherwise minded their own business. Good. This was absolutely none of their business.
“Vurhg needs tayed turds,” the beast insisted.
When he turned around, I grabbed him by his mashed in, horribly crooked nose.
Suzy’s yowl drew a few onlookers but the glare I shot their way sent them scurrying along.
“I don’t think you understand. I’m about this close to losing my shit, and the only cure for that is those magical lumps covered in dirt you call tayed turds.
If I don’t get them, I won’t be responsible for what I do to you.
Do you understand me, fuzzy lumpkins? I’m this close to losing my shit! ”
Sadly, I meant it, every god be damned word.
“Vurhg hut there,” Vurhg garbled out as his hands waved around on either side of us and I played a very painful game of gotcha nose.
“Is it locked?” My head tilted and I put just enough pressure on his nose he growled and winced.
“No locked,” he confirmed.
“Good. Are all of my things in there?” I bit out.
“All there but one. Vurhg try. Think smell funny. No know why want. Taste bad. Vurhg no like those tayed turds.”
Jerking his nose hard until I heard that telltale pop, I released his nose, studied my work, and gave him a very patronizing pat to the shoulder as he howled, dropped to his knees, and clutched his face.
“You’re welcome!” I called out as I rushed past him.
We’d gathered a crowd. I didn’t care.