10. Stage of Grief Depression
Stage of Grief: Depression
PRESENT DAY
LOCATION: SCORPION HOLE MILITARY BASE
Hours after I jumped from the helicopter, Aurora’s death played on repeat inside my head. Even worse, my mouth still tingled from where Tarantula had kissed me while we fell through the air.
He’d just walked away like it meant nothing to him. It means nothing to me too, obviously.
Spread across the low cushions that formed a small couch in the corner of the twins’ room, I rested with my head on Ella’s lap. She combed her fingers through my hair, running them soothingly across the new bandage on my forehead.
After the jump, during training, the Marshal had thrown a dozen glasses of water at me. I’d used my magic and diverted eleven of them. The twelfth had shattered against my head.
Shadows elongated in the golden sunset. Axel sharpened a shank on his bed with a pocketknife. Squire waddled across the room, his talons clacking as he peered into spaces, investigating.
For the past hour, we’d talked about the Iron Ritual, all three of us sharing theories about whose blood they’d poured into us, but we couldn’t come up with anything that made sense.
“Why did you both have to do the Iron Ritual?” I blurted. The question had been bothering me a lot lately.
Axel’s eyes went flat, no light in their depths. “Another recruit subjected Ella to his unwanted . . . amorous attention.”
She tensed beneath me, her nails digging into my scalp, and my stomach turned over.
Axel spun his pocketknife. “So I disemboweled him.”
“And I slit his throat,” Ella whispered.
They stared at me, waiting for my reaction. A dark tension filled the room—abuse and abusive consequences.
“Good,” I said. “I’m glad he suffered.” Dark satisfaction blossomed as I imagined devouring those who dared to violate others.
Satisfaction quickly bled away, curdling into shame.
Could I have disemboweled him in that moment?
My capacity for violence was conditional, but I couldn’t articulate the parameters. Not even to myself.
In my mind, I could slit a man from throat to navel as easy as a dire elk, but in reality, my blade would probably shake—my conviction wavering. Murder was easier in theory. The twins were stronger than me.
Exhaling in unison, they shared a conspiratorial look.
Ella resumed combing through my hair, and Axel bared his fangs, grinning.
The conversation turned. I showed them the scars on my back.
Ella revealed a jagged wound on her hip.
Her leg had almost ripped off on landing the first time she jumped from a helicopter.
Axel stopped sharpening his shank and pulled down the neck of his exercise shirt. Two perfectly circular white divots stood out against his tan collarbone. “Vampire bite.”
“Really?” My jaw dropped as I thought about the fairy tales Mom loved to share.
Axel’s voice dropped an octave as he leaned forward conspiratorially.
“We were just ten years old, playing in the caves beside our Commune, and a stunning woman emerged from the darkness. She grabbed my face, her white-blond hair and light gray eyes sparkling in the dark. Then . . .” He slapped the bed.
“She bit me, faster than a viper. As I lay on the ground, head spinning from blood loss, she attacked my precious Ella. We were both incapacitated for weeks and just barely survived.”
Squire squawked with terror.
“That’s how I got these.” Axel bared his fangs again.
Deeply unsettled, I wiped my clammy palms across my thighs, trying to find my voice.
“Oh please, stop lying.” Ella sighed loudly. “He filed them himself. I woke up in the cave to a dire viper slithering away and no memory of any attack.”
“Ella!” Axel shouted with betrayal. “I know what I saw.”
Ella shook her head. “He’s prone to bouts of exaggeration and overimagination.”
I laughed, weak with relief.
“No, I’m not,” Axel argued, pouting with his arms crossed. He acted petulant and childish, but the sharp glint of intelligence didn’t leave his gaze. He’s not what he seems. But neither was I.
Ella slowly braided a section of my hair, and I focused on her calming presence. We were the same, but different. Her thighs were soft beneath my cheek, and she smelled like roses mixed with everything good in the world.
“Here’s another funny story,” Ella offered. “Pa made us eat a cup of sand once. Our stomachs hurt for days. I’d never seen him so mad.”
Axel pointed at us and made a grumpy face, imitating an older man scolding children. “You listened to me, kids—that was your first error, and your second was swallowing the grit. Two snake bites and you’re dead. The desert doesn’t suffer idiots. It chews them up and spits them out.”
“Then he told us to eat another cup of sand to atone for eating the first one,” Ella said with a laugh as she brushed out another section and started braiding, lost in memory.
I lifted my head, confused. “So you ate more sand?”
Midlanders had a strange energy. They were true desert folk, molded by their empty land. We called the North barren, but the Middlelands was nothing but bizarre creatures, endless dunes, and punishing heat.
Axel grinned lazily, showing off his hand-sharpened canines. “Oh, I did, but Ella didn’t. He refused to feed me for the next week . . . Not that I could eat, mind you, because of the intestinal pain. He said I was dumber than a roadrunner mating with a dire scorpion, and he was right.”
“Pa was crazy,” Ella said with fondness.
“I don’t think I would have eaten it,” I said. “Even the first time. Even if Mom had told me to.”
Axel nodded. “Pa said it made sense. Boys pretend otherwise, but we all secretly like being told what to do. Girls are far more complicated.”
Does Tarantula want me to tell him what to do? My stomach twisted, and for some reason, I couldn’t get that strange thought out of my head. Or do I want him to tell me what to do? Don’t go there, Zora.
Was it warm in here?
My mind wandered.
He would look good on his knees.
Pleading with me for mercy.
Naked.
Ella sighed loudly, lost in nostalgia, and Axel sharpened his shank while I battled deviant ruminations. Heat scorched across my chest, and a flush burned my cheeks.
Could he make me beg? Do I want to be under him or on top?
Eager to change the topic, I asked Ella what it was like being in a fighter jet and ejecting out of the cockpit. She described it as terrifying, the force of gravity pinning you back to your seat and then a horrible falling sensation as you tumbled through the air.
It sounded divine.
Someday I hope to fly.
“Here,” I said, sitting up, needing to clear my head. “Let’s change places. I’ll braid yours now.” Ella eagerly lay down and positioned her head on my lap. I sectioned off her waves and braided them tightly. “So, what do you do for fun?”
“I like to sketch,” she said. “The quiet calm of drawing for hours grounds me. What about you?”
“Snowboarding, as fast as possible down the side of a mountain.”
Ella grimaced. “I hate heights. I’ve gotten better at it, but it’s awful every time we go up in the helicopters.”
“No.” I shook my head. “It’s exhilarating. Flipping through the air . . . free.”
She looked skeptical.
Axel arched an eyebrow. “Have you heard of dune surfing? You’d probably like it, but you wouldn’t be as good as me at it, obviously.”
Ella and I rolled our eyes.
“I also prefer hooking up with people,” Axel continued. “There’s this soldier named Kane. Highly disappointing bedroom performance. Stay clear.”
I gasped. “That’s the idiot I saved from the scorpion . . . You hooked up with him?”
“It was not good.” Axel grimaced. “I cannot emphasize that enough. Whatever you’re imagining . . . worse.”
“Ew,” Ella said.
I shook my head. “I don’t want to know.”
“Now, medic Sara, on the other hand.” Axel kissed his fingers. “But I also love composing music. Thanks for asking about my hobbies, Zora. I really appreciate it.”
“No problem,” I said back sarcastically, matching his tone, still trying desperately not to think about Kane naked.
Eyes cold, smile mischievous, Axel pulled a small wooden instrument out from under his bed. He plucked a string. “It’s a fiddle. You’re welcome.”
“You’re welcome” for what?
He jumped off the bed, scissor-kicking, and landed on his knees in front of us. “Are you ready?”
“Me ready!” Squire hooted and flew over, landing on Axel’s head.
“Uh—no?” I said.
Ella shook her head. “Please, not again.”
“Too bad!” Axel shouted. “Hello, Scorpion Hole, thank you for coming out tonight!” He bobbed his head, and Squire held on to his hair for dear life. Baring his fangs, Axel sang in a deep, theatrical voice:
“Antichthon had two lands,
Oh, Westmere and Azote.
One Communes and sands,
The other castle with moat.”
“Now the chorus!” Axel put down his fiddle and rose to his feet, swaying with his head tipped back.
“Modern-medieval times, how you test us all.
Battered and battling, you break us down,
Land of the poor versus the land of the crown.
Modern-medieval times, how you watch us fall,
From the helicopter, straight to the ground.”
Axel swiped up his fiddle and strummed, head down as he angstily crooned in an even deeper baritone:
“Knights stop magic to save,
But Royals wield storms that kill.
These dark times birthed a knave.
A spidery bastard of iron will,
Oh, Tarantula, how you vex me, honey.
Sexy and cruel, you play me still.
Your smirk is richer than any money.
Your body so hard, like a pickle, dill.”
“Now you sing the chorus,” Axel drawled as he pointed at us, waiting.
Ella looked at me for help, and I shrugged. “I don’t remember,” I whispered to her. “I didn’t know there’d be a test on it.”
Axel shook his head at us with disappointment, his merry energy contrasting with the harsh look in his eyes as he sang in a low pitch:
“Modern-medieval times, how you test us all.
Battered and battling, you break us down,
Land of the poor versus the land of the crown.
Modern-medieval times, how you make us bawl.
Burning up in dragon flames, broken, we crawl.”
Axel took a deep bow and smirked. “You’re both welcome.”