Chapter 30 Kali #2
“How you do this every morning, I have no clue,” Jayla cut me off.
She had to have learned a trick or two from Ava for them to appear so completely out of nowhere.
As oblivious as ever, Jayla plopped down right onto the daffodils scattered on the blanket, her complexion a far healthier shade than the paleness of yesterday. “Throwing up is exhausting.”
“You look better today.” Eislyn scanned our friend, her innate tendency to care for others rising to the surface. “And it’s not that bad as long as I steer clear of certain foods and smells.”
If appalled could be a person, Jayla would be it. “Thank you, but no. I want to live my life, not make lists of what I should avoid consuming. That’s why no dicks are allowed access to my vagina, period.”
“You don’t even like them to begin with.
” Ava lowered beside Jayla, the former’s brown hair woven in an intricate braid around her head—a crown of sorts, one she refused to take off.
“How do you think I got you? That’s my main advantage over half the population: I’m dickless.
” She unclasped the buckles on her backpack, the leather matte, the edges and corners gray instead of black, and fished out a beat-up lunch box and a water bottle.
“And you would feel even better if you ate something.”
Twisting a lock reminiscent of a fire, Jayla glared at the offered crackers and then shoved the box under my face. “Please tell me you want these so I don’t have to eat any.”
My lips curved up. “I’m with Ava on this.”
“I hate you.” Picking up the snack, Jayla scrutinized it like it had personally insulted her, but in the end, she shoved the square into her mouth.
Her forehead creased and smoothed out repeatedly while she chewed and then rushed to chug down a third of the water bottle.
“These are…more than tasteless. They’re not even salty. They’re an abomination.”
Ava planted a kiss on Jayla’s shoulder. “If you finish them, and the water too, I…” she trailed off, whispering into Jayla’s ear. The latter immediately began devouring crackers one after the other, glaring at anyone who dared to chuckle.
Finishing weaving a number-whatever wreath of daffodils, Tarri asked, “Does anybody know how Malaya is doing?” Without waiting for a reply, she crowned Jayla, wishing her a sleepless night and giggling at her glower.
“She’s great.” I rubbed a petal between my fingers until it seeped a sticky substance. “I think she might have a crush on Nara.”
I had a suspicion that Nara, Damia’s daughter, had caught Malaya’s eye months ago, during our little trip to their compound.
So when Malaya had expressed her wish to leave after she’d given birth to the child, who was to say no?
If she wanted to seek refuge at Damia’s, she was more than welcome.
Not many women wished to raise the children fathered by their assigned partners from the cities.
“She totally has.” Snickering, Amari tied a yellow flower around another, finishing off her headdress and setting it atop the pile of five completed ones. “My friend visited me recently and said he’d caught them both sneaking around and holding hands.”
“Oh, no.” Tarri’s blond hair swayed around her pointy jaw, the strands sheared right underneath it. “Zion is com—”
“Are you talking about me?” Zion piped up, striding right toward our group. “Because if you’re discussing my cock”—he patted his crotch—“then I agree, it is a thing to admire.”
Groans enshrouded our group. But the collection of mutters only caressed Zion’s ego, and he pranced the last steps to our blanket.
As he dropped down behind me, his thighs came to rest on either side of mine. Burying his nose in my hair, he deeply inhaled, and his chest rumbled with approval. The scent of the cherry shampoo probably still lingered in my strands from yesterday’s wash.
I couldn’t stop myself from grousing. “Your head is not right today.”
“It was never to begin with.” He licked the shell of my ear, from the lobe to the cartilage at the top.
I shuddered at the contact, feeling his grin widen at my reaction.
“Ooh, are those what I think they are?” Tearing himself off me, Zion lunged for the finished wreaths gracing the center of the blanket.
Before Tarri or Amari could intervene, he’d already managed to grab three. A second later, one sat on his head, the combination of twigs and flowers as wild as the man himself, another on mine. The way he stuck his tongue out while adjusting my wreath lured my smile out.
“Here.” Content with the final result, he kissed the tip of my nose. “My perfect birdie.”
I melted.
Yes, he might have been what others called deranged, a tad broken, okay, irreparably, and he kind of got off on torturing people, not adding in his fascination with blood, or how he called it, the life essence, but he was also good.
To me. And Gedeon.
The others, not so much. But who cared about them? They deserved the long-overdue punishment.
“What’s the third one for?” Ava pointed to the circle of daffodils Zion was fiddling with.
Focused on his work, he stuck extra flowers in any gaps he could find, overloading the frame in petals. Slowly, oh-so-slowly, as if he could taste each sound coming out of his mouth, he revealed, “Gedeon.”
My eyebrows furrowed. “What—”
“Watch.” He leaped to his feet and sprinted across the field, toward a familiar shape approaching our group.
Dressed in black as usual, Gedeon paused ten yards from us, his hand raised to stop Zion from coming closer. “What do you think you are doing?”
Zion prowled right up to him. “Decorating.”
“No.” Gedeon leaned back as Zion tried to crown him. “That is not a decoration. It’s a torture device.”
Zion pouted. “But it would make you so beautiful.”
Launching one attempt after another to place the wreath on Gedeon, Zion danced around him, spinning on his heels, twirling around, ducking to avoid Gedeon’s swats and cackling like a maniac.
Their choreography was a testament to grace and coordination. Years of training turned their battle into a show, not one of them backing off, yet also not ending the fight.
Offense, defense, a turn, a twist, a grunt, a laugh—a mesmerizing flow of two people who’d found each other at last but couldn’t come to terms with it. Couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t spend a moment without checking if it was true.
Gedeon backed a step, a second, a third, all the while Zion stalked him, closing the distance between them.
“What if I say please?” Zion raised the wreath in hopes of setting it on Gedeon’s head. “A nice, very nice please?”
Gedeon dashed aside. “Then you will pay for it.”
Laughing, Zion chased Gedeon like a kid after a gummy worm we so rarely got to enjoy at schools in Ilasall.
The cotton-like clouds parted, and golden streaks of sunshine incinerated the heaviness ordinarily trailing Gedeon. He was failing to contain a smile.
My ribs contracted so harshly they ached. I didn’t know it was possible to feel so much, but I did.
I stuck my palms between my thighs to hide the tremors. How could having Gedeon back feel so good and so bad?
The three of us used to spend mornings together and fall asleep in cuddles each night. Giggles would burst out of me from how Gedeon would doze off and unconsciously reach for Zion. How he would pretend it was an accident, that he’d mistaken Zion for me in the dark.
It hurt to think how Gedeon had slowly opened up while Zion had been an open book from the beginning. How Gedeon had used to spin me around in every room, kiss my forehead, and push me into Zion’s arms so he could lick my nose.
How now seeing them together made my pulse roar in my veins.
Slipping on grass glittering from dew, Gedeon lurched forward—
Zion jumped on the opportunity to deposit the wreath on Gedeon’s head.
The flowers forming the circle were reminiscent of the yellow oleander I’d planned on using to poison the seven people forming Ilasall’s government.
Before Gedeon could wave off the decoration, Zion declared, “I’m calling in my favor!” He doubled over, the mirth shaking his shoulders the most addictive melody I’d ever heard.
Although Gedeon emanated one of the death glares he’d perfected a long time ago from his every pore, he didn’t try to remove the headdress adorning his tumble of dark waves. “Are you sure this is how you want to claim it?”
“Nothing could top this.” Zion nudged Gedeon’s shoulder as the two of them neared our group. “So yes, a hundred times yes.”
Jayla gave a once-over to Gedeon. “Well, don’t you look lovely?”
Sniffling and pretending to wipe his tears away, Zion collapsed on the navy blanket to my left. “He’s the prettiest.”
Gedeon rolled his eyes, and I couldn’t contain my mirth any longer. The man brooding had latched its claws in, lowering his guard enough to discover a new way to express his irritation.
It was undeniable—Gedeon was the deepest feeling man alive.
Sure, he tended to either overtly state his intentions or to conceal them from those closest to him when overcome with fear. But the probability of loss was his greatest adversary, so terrifying he would sacrifice himself to give a better chance to Zion and me.
Except he seemingly never pondered how his silence-backed actions affected us. Not so much Zion as he’d starved for Gedeon for far too long, but my trust was a fragile thing: once squashed down, it grew unwilling to spring back up like a reed plant after a storm.
“I’ll be nice to you today.” Tarri extended her slender arm toward Gedeon, her pale pink sweater falling off her bony shoulder. “I can take the wreath and give it to someone else.”
The firm set of his thick lips was the total opposite of the soft, resigned “No.”
Chuckles rounded our group, much to his chagrin.
As one could expect, Gedeon didn’t wait before changing the subject. “We’re moving up the date.”
Taking the empty water bottle from Jayla, Ava stuffed it into her backpack. “Striking Ilasall?”
As he gave a nod, the crown of flowers slipped down his forehead. Resettling the piece back into its place, the embodiment of nonchalance despite the ornament gracing him, he said, “We march two weeks from now.”
The announcement didn’t come as a surprise to anyone. It was an obvious development.
What did astonish me was the care Gedeon had demonstrated in handling the fragile vegetation not to crush a single petal. It’d caved me in, grounded me into mush.
Realization he would do anything for Zion, whatever he asked, stupid or…well, unhinged would be most likely, thawed me. Watching them both interact so freely, without hesitation, was spellbinding.
Breaking a daffodil’s stem, the snap reminiscent of a broken neck, I asked, “What about the med prep?”
“It should be doable.” Eislyn tugged her maroon sweater sleeves down, all the way to her knuckles.
Lost to the primal instinct to protect, Eli adjusted her position between his legs, drawing her close, sharing his body heat.
“The majority has finished our first aid trainings by now, and with Jayce’s help, we should finish up in a week or so,” she assured.
Her assistant had already led half of the classes by himself to help speed the process along.
According to common sense, during a war, first aid was the best you’d get.
Nobody had the time to haul you to an infirmary, or a “hospital,” as the cities called them.
You either self-patched or your buddy did it for you.
And then you carried on. Bleeding out or not, you fought.
Prayed to see the next sunrise. Hoped to feel the embrace of your partners again.
Promised whoever, whatever you believed in, anything in exchange for the survival of your loved ones.
“What about….” Zion scratched his chest, his gaze bouncing between me, Gedeon, Eli enclosing Eislyn in a cage of limbs, and Ava shoving more flavorless crackers into Jayla’s mouth despite the latter’s protests.
Out of the seven people, only five were aware of the traitor hiding in our compound.
“Ab-out wha-t?” Jayla coughed out. Crumbs rained on her yellow parka as she sought to clear her airways, the golden flakes resembling minuscule bits of bone in a pool of blood.
With the final glare at the remnant of a cracker in her palm, Jayla threw it aside, ignoring how the fragments showered the grass—like a tiny hail pattering the equally small vegetation, neither willing to yield to the other.
Picking up a crushed daffodil, Gedeon stated, “It doesn’t matter.
” He discarded the remains of the dead flower aside, calling out an eerie vision of dead bodies littering the roads in Ilasall.
“The odds are not in our favor. I doubt he is working alone. And eliminating one rodent from the nest will not change anything. All we can do is prepare for the fallout.”
Icicles replaced my joints as I stared at Gedeon.
The rat was a he.