Chapter 41 Kali
KALI
Forest dew soaking my pants cast shivers to race up my spine.
Winter was soon to begin. Though true cold, like the sparkling-in-the-sun white dotting the hills and mountains in the pictures I’d seen in the black market books, was not a constant here.
Seldomly, we’d get an inch of snow. The tiny ice crystals would instantly melt away, coating the streets in a porridge of mud, but watching the large snowflakes twirl in a flurry through the window in my apartment at Ilasall had been the rare moments of peace I could find in the confines of the city.
But things had changed. A single thought about the seven letters forming the name of the trap I’d spent my entire life in up until I ended up here awakened my nausea.
Sitting cross-legged in the clearing in the woods near our compound, I fixed my jacket and flicked dirt off my sweatpants. I should’ve worn jeans. Or that pair of leather pants Jayla kept trying to talk me into buying.
“How are you doing?” I asked Malaya, gazing at the night sky full of stars, some brighter than others, yet all shimmering peacefully together. As if the gods had sensed her need for support and paused their war, ignoring me and flickering in a pattern that lured Malaya’s smile out.
And they were as uncommon as snow in winter. For the last two months, she’d kept herself aside from everyone. She’d mentioned she enjoyed cooking, so we got her a job in our common kitchen, and she spent most of her time there, alone, for hours after closing.
It cracked my stone-cased heart.
So when I’d found myself in her safe place in search of dinner for tonight and caught her hovering by the window and observing people swarming the street outside like bees, I had to do something.
“I’m okay.” Malaya tucked her straight blonde hair behind her ear. “Thank you for bringing me here. I can see why you like it so much.”
“I guessed you would.” I nudged her. “But to be honest, I brought you here for two reasons.”
“Two? You said you just wanted to show me the clearing.” She hurriedly scooched a foot away from me, her eyes widening. “Are you planning to do something to me?”
“No, no! I’m not going to do anything to you.
” Alarm bells ringing in my head halted my need to physically soothe her.
What the hell had her assigned partner in Ilasall done to her besides starvation?
I stuck my hands under my thighs to ease the itch and mentally cringed at the sensation of wet mud coating my skin in a slimy layer.
“I didn’t mean to scare you. I simply meant I wanted to ask you a question. That’s the second reason.”
Quiet, she plucked a grass blade and tied it into a knot, pointedly avoiding looking up at me.
“You know, you remind me of someone who was very close to me. Someone I suspect I might have loved. I see parts of her in you.” I attempted to mimic her movements and ripped the grass blade to shreds in the process.
Gentleness was not something I excelled at.
“You have that same kindness. Like you couldn’t hurt a fly, even if it bit you in the ass. ”
“I’d like to see such a fly.” She laughed softly, and the sound of it smoothed the cuts her fear of my intentions had left beneath my rib cage.
“Malaya, I have to ask.” Damp grass tickled my palm as it hovered above the blades. A sudden whim, and I could crush them down to nothing. They wouldn’t even detect it coming. “What’s wrong? It feels like we’re losing you.”
She fiddled with the sleeve of her dark blue coat, her fluttering lashes practically transparent.
“What is it?” I searched her heart-shaped face, so young and innocent. Yet so haunted. “You know I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. Including me.”
“I don’t want the baby,” she admitted so quietly I almost missed it.
“That’s it?” Stupid laughter threatened to burst out of me.
“We’re not Ilasall, Malaya. We don’t operate based on their laws and rules.
” I reached out and, with her permission, rubbed her hands between mine to warm them up, hoping it would also smooth out the wrinkles incredulity had drawn on her forehead.
“You’re not the first and not the last to not want to raise a child. Whether from Ilasall or not.”
“You don’t think it’s wrong? That I’m a bad person?”
“Not the slightest bit. You’re human. Come here.”
Right as she welcomed my embrace, our legs slipped on the wet ground, and we fell onto our sides. Dew and dirt drenched our clothes and hair as mud slithered under our nails.
“I swear I didn’t do it on purpose.” I wiped a happy tear as we cleaned ourselves up as best we could and pretended grime didn’t paint us in streaks.
“But you don’t have to keep the baby. We have schools, not like in the city, but proper ones, you know that.
Many children grow up there. If that’s not enough, you can move to Damia’s or Conall’s compounds to be farther away.
You don’t have to live here. Jayla came here from Damia’s place and you can do it too.
Just tell me. Day or night, I don’t care.
Barge into my room and say you want to leave. I’ll take you myself.”
“I’m not going into your room. I really don’t want to see Zion or Gedeon naked.” Giggling, she picked the crusting dirt off her coat. “They’re scary enough as they are.”
My own laughter ebbed. “I can understand that. The naked part. But you shouldn’t feel nervous around them.”
“It’s just…you’re so like them.”
“Arrogant? Crazy?”
“Strong.”
If only she knew the truth. The pretty, the ugly, the damned, and none of the holy.
She cupped her swelling belly and whispered, “Aren’t you afraid of them hurting you?”
“Hurting me?”
“I was walking to the kitchen for a snack last night and heard your voice through the closed door. And then a dull thud, like someone hitting a table.” Her whisper dropped to such a low level I could barely hear it. “I know how it goes. It hurts.”
A knife sliced at my ribs. My heart shriveled like a withered maple leaf. Sand manifesting out of her conclusion dried out my eyes.
A green band had used to hang on her wrist—a property tag. And nobody in the city cared what the owners did to their…things.
No words could erase her past. So I barked at my instincts to shove it, and chose the route of acknowledgment, the safest option I could come up with.
“I understand what you mean, Malaya. I won’t say it doesn’t stir up my hatred toward Ilasall and all it stands for, or that I don’t want to hug you—I won’t, not unless you’re okay with it—and hide you under my bed where no one can reach you and you’re protected, but I will say this.
I may have worn a black band in the city, but your experiences are not yours alone.
You are not alone. Ask Eislyn. There’s a reason she’s into medicine.
“But to ease your fear, they weren’t doing anything I didn’t like.
Yes, they are rough, but I like it. And no, it’s not because it’s familiar to me.
It’s because I trust them. I know they will stop if I ask, and I know they will make sure I’m good.
They take care of me. And someone hitting the table thing?
That was Gedeon. He does it right before he loses control and, well, I won’t embarrass you with more information. ”
Her cheeks pinkened, and she pulled her wool coat tighter around her chest, her voice a tiny bit louder. “They’re really good to you? You actually like them?”
“They… They make me smile.” I leaned on my elbows and observed the stars lose the rhythm of their glimmers.
“I like how they make me feel and how it feels to be around them. I mean, Gedeon is a possessive and controlling bastard and Zion is as insane as they get, but I don’t know…
Somehow, it works.” A star caught my attention, its glints as faint and murky as whatever it was that determined how you felt.
“It’s hard to describe. It’s like you’re falling, but you know they’re there to catch you. ”
Yes, they were both a bit mad, but I was far from sane myself. I’d been uprooted from my life and hurled into another because of the two men whose words scrambled my mind, mouths marked me in bruises, and touches sent my senses haywire.
It resembled a giant puzzle. Like the pieces I had were right, but I couldn’t see the whole picture because I didn’t know where to put them. How to connect them.
“I get that.” She wiggled her feet hidden in the warmest boots I could find for her. “Not knowing things. It sucks.”
“It does.”
Minutes passed as we gaped at the sky. I thanked the gods for mesmerizing her enough to forget everything for the time being.
Seventeen and pregnant, assigned at the auction to a partner who controlled her food intake, and rescued from him by a pure accident of me meeting her in the bakery and then that grocery store.
It truly sucked.
“I’ll come back for you in half an hour,” I said as I got up, then made my way to the tree line. She needed some time alone.
I’d invited her to join us at the girls’ night we had after we’d bugged Ava enough to agree to host it despite her victory against us during the knife-throwing lesson. Malaya’s decline had been like a kick to my gut. It would’ve done her good.
We’d spent the night devouring a giant tub of chocolate ice cream Ava had produced from somewhere and sharing gossip.
Our stomachs had bloated, and we’d lain spread over each other on Ava’s bed and the floor, teasing Jayla about seeing her on her knees in the hall the night of my tattoo.
She’d hidden her blush under a blanket as Ava didn’t hold back, much to Jayla’s chagrin. And our joy.
I ducked under a low branch as I strolled deeper into the forest. I’d never spent a night with friends before. It was the best.
“Not going to punch me this time?”
Startled, I stumbled.
“I would not be opposed to another fight knowing how the last one ended,” Gedeon drawled, leaning against a maple tree, arms folded across his chest.
“Not worth it. Wasn’t as good as you think.”