Chapter 19 The City Underground
NINETEEN
THE CITY UNDERGROUND
Sabrina
I keep Weston’s flashlight pointed at the ground as I walk. Cold from being wet, I hold my other arm to my body, trying to suppress my shivers.
Weston and Mickie didn’t deserve to die, nor did Darolus deserve to be stabbed. Feeling guilty for it all, I try to block out the harrowing emotion and focus on what’s in front of me instead. Darolus isn’t dead yet, and I’m going to do my damnedest to make sure he’s okay and that doesn’t happen.
He’s a survivor, like me. Survivors survive. That’s what we do. I just have to keep my head on straight and help him as best as I can.
I was telling the truth when I said I would die for him. There’s never been anyone I’d stand in front of and take a bullet for until him. Never. Never because I’ve never met anyone who cared enough about me to do the same.
I need him to live because I have some explaining to do. Pushing my wet hair back from my face, I rub my palms hard across my eyes, biting back a string of curses when I realize I smudged my makeup.
Following the females deep beneath the city, I soon discover how vast and interconnected everything is.
Similar to the original tunnel Darolus discovered me in, tracks lie across the ground of these ones, sometimes forking into different directions.
They seem to continue on forever until I’m completely lost. The females are silent as they haul Darolus’s body in the front, the end of his tail dragging behind, while I trail after them.
Besides the female who returned for me, a speckled yellow and black one, none of them glance back at me to see if I’m following.
The yellow and black speckled female sometimes grabs something from inside a pouch at her side and throws it into the air behind me. Smelling something pungent and bitter each time she does, I release a litany of sneezes that gets me hissed at.
Eventually, we make it to a large space that’s lit up by several long plastic tubular lights with a blue glow.
The sharp smells of soil and water hit my nose as I’m led to a mostly-empty room on the right side of the main one.
Besides cement walls surrounding me, the darkness makes it hard to interpret many details, but I see moss and lichen growing in several sections.
There are a few crates, rickety tables, and hides down here as well.
A naga retrieves one of the blue lights and brings it into the smaller room, brightening it up. Turning away from the larger space where I’m searching for more nagas, I focus my attention on those in the smaller room with me.
They lay Darolus flat, and as I move into the room, two more nagas appear from behind me to hiss loudly and glare at us. Now five in total surround me, their tails taking up the entire floor. If they decide to attack me… I’m vastly outnumbered.
Heading to Darolus’s side anyway and kneeling, I gaze up at the nearest female. “Now what?” I ask, my voice soft. “You dragged him down here, now what?”
“He called you hissss,” the original female, an entirely black and grey one with black hair and eyes, speaks up. “Are you?”
Am I? Glancing down at his body, I’m reminded of all the times he has called me mine. “Yes. Yes, I’m his.”
All the females start hissing and I hesitate, wondering if my answer is wrong.
One of them leans over Darolus and in a sweeping, dramatic arch—sniffs his body. “I can smell her on him.”
Another comes to my side and does the same to me. “But he is faint on her.”
“I’m wet,” I add.
They hiss at me again.
One of the new ones, another speckled black and yellow one, bares her fangs at the original three. “You should have not brought them here. You have endangered ussss, Melsya. You are recklesssss.”
“Darolus has been guarding us for countless seasons and the strange female human has begged for his life,” the one who must be named Melsya says.
“We found them outside, by the doors to the offering site. We must address this. It’s like I have said, unusual things are happening above. We need to know more.”
I look sharply at her. “He’s been guarding you guys and you outright stab him?”
Her eyes flick to me and I notice the long gray waves of her hair braided down her back. “He attacked ussss first. We will always do what we must to defend ourselves.”
“He was trying to save me! You attacked me and my crewmates first!” I argue.
“You were unknown intruders, beings we did not recognize. I reacted as I must.”
“You could’ve tried talking first!” I accuse.
“Diplomacy is better than death.” I should know, I’ve been on a lot of missions for Weston in the guise of diplomacy.
Several of them hiss and growl at me. I hiss and growl at them back and realization dawns.
“It was you that day in the tunnels, wasn’t it? ”
“So it is you? The same human.” One of the original three, the one who’s been silent until now leans in to peer at me with her two friends. Their keen eyes take me in and I try not to curl my arms further over my middle. “I thought it might be. Strange female.”
I reach up with a cold shiver and rub the back of my head. “That hurt, you know.”
“You should be lucky we left you alive,” she growls.
Darolus groans and we all turn back to him.
Leaning toward him and the wound at his front, I place my hands over him, wanting to touch him, comfort him, but hesitating. “Help him! Please!” I turn to the female closest to me. “I’ve been with him for weeks and he’s never once hurt me. You can trust him still if you trusted him before. Please.”
Something sharp stabs into my neck and I jerk away from Darolus’s body, twisting to see the end of a metal spear aimed at me. Meeting Melsya’s eyes, I frown at her as she scowls down at me.
Long wispy gray hair flutters over her face, and as I flash my light at her, the brightness of her yellow speckles makes me wish I knew more about her kind and what they’ve been through to react the way they do and choose to live deep underground rather than above.
Unlike them, I could never willingly do it.
Her dark eyes glare back at me and I squint.
“Are you two mated?” she asks, her voice sharp with a rasp.
“We’ve had sex,” I admit.
She looks me up and down. “You are small for a male of his strength and size. Are you not hurt? You said he has not hurt you.”
“I’m fine. Just cold, wet, and now shoeless. What does this have to do with saving him?” I argue, frustrated watching the blood continually gush from his wound.
She nods down at him. “If he is mated with you then he is safe to ussss. It is important. Answer me.”
“He’s mated to me,” I announce quickly, uncaring if it’s true or not. “Now help him!”
The females glance at each other until the black and gray one and the second speckled yellow one decides to leave. The others follow a moment later, leaving me alone with Melsya and Darolus.
“What’s going on?” I ask, refacing her. “Why is everyone leaving?”
Melsya lowers her spear. “They have things to discuss. As for you, human,” she says as she tilts her head, “we have yet to figure out what to do with you.”
I straighten. “Forget me, you can squash me like a bug! For fuck’s sake, just help him! I’ve answered your questions, and if you want me to answer more, save him!”
I’m scared he’s going to die and I’ll never get to speak to him again. I’m afraid of never hearing his hissing again, or feeling his warm body around mine while sleeping in his nest. The female nagas are not reacting fast enough.
I lean down and press my brow to his, begging, “Please. Please don’t die.”
Hearing Melsya leave the room behind me, I almost surge back to my feet to scream when the black female returns, holding a long strip of bloody meat.
She flicks her gaze from me to Darolus and stops at his other side, holding the meat above him.
“If you want him to survive, you do as I ssssay,” she hisses. “Open his mouth with your fingers.”
I quickly listen and pry his lips apart. Bringing the meat to his mouth, she squeezes the blood out of it to drip between his lips. As the liquid pools in his mouth, I try not to gag.
Darolus slowly swallows it down, and my stomach curls.
Melsya returns with a long hide-like strip of cloth next and a bundle of plastic under her arm.
Over the next few hours, I remain by Darolus’s side, holding his hand.
I lean my body against his to share in his warmth while offering what little I have of my own.
The female nagas come in and out, and as they go about feeding him and staunching his wound, another brings in a large bucket of water that I use to clean his skin and scales with some extra cloth given to me.
Time passes and I fall in and out of sleep, dozing off as the hours stretch. Speaking to Darolus in whispers when no one else is around, I tell him that it’s all going to be okay.
The hours bleed together until it feels like days. One minute becomes another, and eventually I’m forced out of the room to relieve myself and search for food. When I’m offered beetles, I eat them. Even when I have to kill them first.
The female nagas watch me. Whatever I’m doing, one of them is always watching me.
Darolus rouses more as the hours pass, and though I tell him to take it easy, I’m shocked by how quickly his wound heals with continued blood.
I further lose track of time, only aware that it’s passing by the lights dying around me and the nagas leaving to take them somewhere else to recharge.
Stuck in the dark with just my flashlight and Melsya, who has chosen to remain behind to guard me, I beam my light across the floor between us as she offers me something more to eat.
“No thank you,” I groan.
She hisses and slurps down the strip of meat herself. “Meat helps us. You should eat more.”
I shake my head at her and turn away.
In the time since I’ve been here, the females have all but left me alone after our initial confrontation, choosing to keep their distance from Darolus and I as much as possible despite watching us the whole time.
But when Melsya starts to leave the room, I stop her. “Darolus told me what happened to you—why you guys left…”
She looks back at me, the lines in her face creasing, giving away her age. “Then you know we did the right thing.” Thumping the end of her tail on the floor, she sends dust motes scattering into the air.
“But you know and seem to trust Darolus, why is that? It’s not like he was mated before.” She coils her tail under her. Unlike Darolus, though much like the other females, Melsya has a long, thinner tail. “If it’s so dangerous, why make an exception for him?”
“You should ask him.”
“I will.” I straighten. “He told me he left the forest… that it’s filled with his enemies…”
She peers at me, her expression blank. “The males are not our enemies. Our bodies are what have betrayed us, human. Though Darolusss still might have enemies of his own, we do not see him or any other that way. Not anymore.”
“Then why stab him?” I whisper. “It wasn’t like your bodies were betraying you then.”
“It is not so easy. We have lived a long time in near complete isolation. We do that because the alternative would be to risk our lives and the lives of those around us.”
“Is it… his pheromones?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
“His smell?” I say instead—if she’s confused by my wording. Though it has been easy to communicate with Darolus and the females so far, I have realized there are many words they don’t know.
She waves her hand with a hiss. “His smell means nothing now that we know it is designed for you and not one of us. You are the one at risk now.” Without saying anything more, she ducks out of the room, leaving Darolus and me temporarily alone.
I get up and go after her, taking my flashlight with me.