Chapter 9
SEV
I do not like babies. Their necks are weak, and they excrete slime from every orifice.
I assume Levi has somehow discerned my dislike, and that is why he insists on wearing his child in a front-facing chest sling when he visits me. Or else he thinks his young will somehow stop me from attacking him. As if I couldn’t kill the leviathan without jostling the carrier.
“Did you fall?” Levi stares down at where I lie prone on my front lawn, the grass I haven’t tended this season long enough now that I should have been hidden from view. He likely sniffed me out.
Lucky him, I smell delectable.
“Of course not. Falling is unintentional. I have full control over my limbs at all times.”
“So, you’re lying outside on purpose?”
Levi’s tiny offspring lets out a high-pitched squeal and flails its arms with complete lack of coordination. How embarrassing.
“Aren’t you worried about ticks?”
“They would die the moment they bit me.”
“Bug spray in your blood?”
“Something of the sort.” I stare directly into the sun, daring the fiery orb to incinerate my retinas. As always, it fails. “Why are you—and the smaller, slightly less annoying version of you—here?”
“Are you all right?” My uninvited guest ignores my question, likely because he considers me less intimidating when I’m sprawled at his feet. “Sick or something?”
No. Not sick.
But also, I suspect, not all right.
“Have you inherited your father’s longevity?” I ask.
The original leviathan is thousands of years old, lurking in a deep, shadowy part of the ocean I last heard.
Levi brushes his fingers through the hair at his temple, where I make out a handful of silver strands. “No. I seem to be aging at a normal rate.”
I hum in my chest, a noise that means nothing. “Then you wouldn’t understand.”
“I can try. Listen at least.”
Ever since Levi Abadi was elected as the first monster council member, he’s convinced himself I’m one of his many responsibilities. Probably because he suspects I’m too dangerous if left unattended.
He would be correct.
“Does being a council member also make you a therapist?”
“Not officially.”
I sigh and decide I am bored enough to allow a glimpse into the terrible wonder that is my mental state. “When you have endless days, they, at times, can come to feel meaningless. And having no meaning can be quite heavy.”
“So, you lie down instead of finding purpose?”
“Yes, Council Member Abadi. I lie down instead of finding purpose.” Not the truth exactly. I have a purpose. Only there are days I lose hope the purpose I’ve set for myself truly exists.
Levi is quiet for a stretch as his progeny creates spit bubbles. “Sounds like depression.”
I sigh. “If only you were truly a psychiatrist, you might know.”
Levi snorts, then bounces his child until the creature giggles. I wonder if I was ever so innocent.
“I might have a purpose for you,” Levi offers.
He’s found my mate?
Unlikely, and I do what I can to keep the insidious tendrils of hope from taking root.
“There may be hunters on their way to Folk Haven.”
Damn. Despite my efforts, a root of hope managed to grasp hold. But now it is dead.
I close my eyes. “Isn’t that why you all are building your misfit army?”
The cobbled-together band of potential protectors that Owen MacNamara began gathering might be able to take down a handful of hunters.
But they would be no match for me.
Lucky for the townspeople of Folk Haven, I’ve developed the slightest soft spot for this settlement. Or at least, I see the usefulness of a place like this. Especially for attracting my ever-missing mate.
“Yes,” Levi admits, and I half forget the question I asked him, my mind a constant drift lately.
“But we both know you have some kind of magical arsenal squirreled away in your house.” He sighs, and his baby chatters nonsense.
“You can tell me you don’t care about this town, but I think some part of you does.
Or at least feels possessive of it. And I consider you our last line of defense. ”
My only response is a scoff.
Me? Defend?
“That’s it,” Levi says. “I’m going to drop Horace at home, then come back here and kick your ass.”
The threat isn’t a new one. We spar regularly because Levi believes it dulls my violent instincts.
“I don’t feel like wrestling.”
“Which means I might finally win,” he calls out, already walking away.
Once the sound of his tires disappears down my driveway, I try to slip back into my despondency. But the theory Levi presented itches at my brain.
Would I defend Folk Haven if it were under threat from hunters? Sorcerers?
It is not as though my mate lives here, so why should I?
Seems pointless to bother.