Chapter 42 I See You
I See You
Salem
I’m shocked at how well Firecracker is doing after spending several hours training with our de facto commander.
She’s walking okay, doesn’t seem to lack a will to live, and isn’t wheezing.
When Jasper let Slash run us through paces in the past, that is not the condition we came back in and none of us was in as much danger as my roomie is.
However, I suppose even the icy big dude could get beguiled by the alternating fiery spark and soft vulnerability of our Kit Kat..
My lips curve up as she braces herself for the chaos that is currently our dorm room.
I know she’d rather have time to decompress and prepare to be around so many wild personalities in a small space, but I said Jasper needs help.
Like the staunch soldier Kat is, she’s stomping toward the door with her spine straightened and what can’t be more than a whisper of a plan to pull him out of the failure funk.
It’s admirable, if not a bit na?ve, and I’m very interested to see exactly what she does to get his attention.
“Little demon, perhaps you should—”
“Nope.”
Slash blinks then looks over at me, his blue eyes wide with obvious concern for the small demon striding into my room like a mouse headed for…
well, a dragon. Apt description, I guess.
I chuckle as we follow her in, then lean in to whisper, “Everyone has to learn to stand on their own two feet, right, General?”
His eyes narrow. “Do not call me by my father’s moniker—I have not earned it in any conceivable fashion.”
Oops. That wasn’t supposed to hit a sore spot, but it did because of the Major, I’d bet.
“Sorry, man. Didn’t mean it that way.” I give him a sorrowful expression, and the shark huffs as he makes a beeline for his favorite seat near the prince. Slash is making certain he’s within snatching distance on purpose, I fear, in case the grumpy shadow dragon loses his temper with KK.
“Salem, where the hell are the damn—” Jasper looks up at the newcomers blearily, jerking his chin with a grunt at Slash.
His second eyes him carefully as he sits down, and I imagine that’s how his animal looks when it’s tracking prey.
He’s sizing the prince up even more now that he realizes how blitzed the guy’s gotten since we got back. “Oh, finally!”
Kat arches a brow at the hazy dragon demon and shrugs as she drops her bag next to her chair. “You asked Slash to train me and that’s what we did. We took it seriously, Jasper. Isn’t that a good thing?”
Hmm. A little snark, but she’s feeling him out like someone who is well-versed with testing a drunkard for meanness before they move into range.
“I don’t like that,” Oriel mutters as he comes up to me. “Not one bit. Slash is giving Jas the stink-eye, and KK is watching him like a gazelle on the Serengeti.”
“Ah, but he’s not a gazelle,” I reply with a small grin. “We know he’s the hunter deep down, and I feel he’s been in this situation before—successfully, if this strategy tells us anything.”
X comes out of the kitchen, their hair braided and comfortable, not in gross clothing but in perfect order as they stop to comment.
“Kit Kat knows what he’s doing without a doubt.
Look at the body language, boys. Coiled but firm, calculating risk…
I daresay our fishy brother has taught him something during this session. ”
Suddenly, Kit whirls to face us, her expression irritated. “This is not a Nat Geo special. Stop acting like weird meanie girls gossiping in the background. He might not be sober enough to get it, but I can certainly hear you.”
I smile, batting my lashes at her playfully. “But KK, I’m enjoying your Steve Irwin-like approach to our hell-flavored version of an angry croc. It’s very amusing.”
Dottie scampers off her shoulder, across the floor and onto the counter to face the three of us. The small animal makes an impossibly disappointed face—for an animal, I mean—and shakes her tiny fist at us as she makes chittery sounds.
Shit, we made her mad—my bad.
“Hey, hey!” I say to the tiny rodent as I hold my hands. “We were just playing, Dottie. No need to fuss. How about I get you some yummy treats from the cabinet?”
Oriel snorts, elbowing X as he mutters, “Even the pet has him whipped. It’s hysterical.”
“Don’t piss Dottie off,” Kat hisses at us as she shakes a finger in our direction. “I’m going to go change so I don’t smell like… hellspring water or whatever. She doesn’t like it, and I don’t want that to be a problem. Limit how much more booze he drinks while I do that and consider my options.”
“Or you could just let him marinate,” Anton says mildly. “He is making a very illogical choice, and he wasn’t even the one who got his ass beat for hours. That was us, and while we look better now than we did before…”
X leans in to kiss his cheek and pat his shoulder. “Yes, he’s being quite self-centered and self-pitying, but that’s not something we’re going to handle tonight. It seems Kit Kat is up at bat this time.”
I frown, caught between wanting to see her try and knowing that we usually fail at culling Jasper’s self-pitying shit, and we’ve known him forever. I don’t want KK to internalize that and fuck up her own progress.
Plus, I think Slash might actually kill him if she does.
“Okay, I’m back—what the fuck are you guys doing?”
My eyes stay on the floor because I’m not saying this was my idea, but it wasn’t not my idea.
Hopefully, she doesn’t figure it out—or someone doesn’t rat me out.
But I really think that if we’re going to make all this shit work and get through this fucking nightmare as a caliphate, we need to figure out the rest of our shit.
Zav looks up from where he’s been fiddling with the huge TV on the wall, pushing his glasses up as his tails swish. “I put together some movies. It’s been a bad day and… well, I think we deserve to wind down and destress. You know… together.”
Nice one, brave little fox.
Oriel waves at Kat as she slowly walks out of her room towards us, the change in her scent from hellspring swimmer to spritzed with spicy bathroom stuff obvious. “I have something for you, too.”
“It’s not my birthday, and didn’t some philosopher say ‘beware of Trojans and horses’ or something? That was in class recently, right?” Her eyes narrow as she looks from one of us to another suspiciously. “And I’m not the one who’s—”
“Ah, ah,” I interrupt as I waggle a finger at her. “Let’s not kick up bad vibes by finishing that sentence. We’re all pretty calm right now, as you notice.”
Looking around again, she takes in the dimmed lights and the incense oil Xerxes fetched from their room to help set the scene. “I suppose so. But then, I’m not sure what a demon brothel looks like, so I could be mixing it with… this.”
Slash snorts, slapping his knee as he grins. Everyone turns to stare at him except Kat, and the big guy crosses his arms over his chest. “I told you that it felt like an Arabian Nights knock-off. You laughed at me, and I feel very vindicated.”
“But comfy on your stack of cathouse pillows, I suppose?” This time, I snicker as X gets their dig in with a smug smirk.
X and Anton were adamant about setting a scene, and it was lucky that KK took a bit to get herself cleaned up so we could transform the space while she was fiddling.
It was supposed to be ready when she first walked in, but my ass was waiting for the crunkleberry delights in the hall so…
C’est la vie—we’re all good now, even if she thinks it looks like the best little whorehouse in Hell.
“This is a very nice gesture,” Kat says as she pads over to the circle of comfy blankets and pillows and things on the floor.
Her eyes skate from the stack of books by Annie to Zav finishing his TV shit and then over to my trays of yummy foods and drinks I placed just out of accident range.
“It’s like a weird-ass guy slumber party—I mean, I think.
I never went to one, so I only know from TV, but… ”
“You’ve never been to a slumber party?” Oriel’s brows shoot up, and my leg moves quickly to kick his shin before he spills the whole ‘girl’ thing like a dumbass.
That dude is not the one I expected to be bad about secrets, but by the way X is sniggering, I guess I was wrong.
“I mean, I thought guys did… something like that, too… up there?”
“Wow.” X doesn’t even have to say anything else to draw attention to how lame that sentence was. They tilt their head at the spot we left for Kat, smiling prettily. “Since O is incapable of keeping his foot out of his mouth, come sit with us and we can show you all the fun stuff.”
“What about Jasper?” Kat frowns as she looks at the grumpy prince where he’s sulking like a dark cloud on the horizon. “It seems like he needs more cheering up than I do. I’m pretty okay.”
Jasper snorts, arching a brow at her. “Shifted on your own, then?”
Slash makes a warning sound, but Kat waves her hands as she steps into the circle and walks over to our leader.
She looks down at him with her arms crossed over her chest in the baggy sweats, foot tapping.
“No. Not really. But I tried, and I made progress. That’s all I can ask of myself when I’m learning something new—at least, according to the coach you assigned to me. ”
Uh-oh.
“Mmm. I’m sure that will save your ass in the Games when you can’t do anything and we have to save you.
Or it’ll make us feel better when someone gets maimed trying to save you.
Then you’ll feel like me, and it will all make sense.
” The dragon reaches for his glass, but Kat gets in his way, and his eyes fill with irritated fire. “Move, shrimp.”
“Look, dude,” she says as she steps closer and sinks to the floor on her knees in front of him. “I know you had it fucking rough as a kid, and you don’t talk about it. Out of everyone, I really understand that—we’re not exactly the same, obviously. But I. Get. It.”
The prince gives her a dirty look, but he stays eerily quiet as Kat looks at him seriously.
“There are probably terrible things that only Slash knows, or Zav knows, or maybe even nobody knows about what your fuckface dad and his merry gang of murdering rebels did to you and whoever else they abused to get their rocks off for centuries. I’d probably want to hurl my guts up and then rage about how bad it sucked for hours if you told me. ”
All she gets is a snort, but the rest of us are watching with bated breath.
“So, no, I’m not going to play ‘my trauma is worse than yours’ with you because you got liquored up and want to make yourself a villain.
” Kat blows out a slow breath, and I worry for a moment she’s lost her thread, but then she says, “Just because people want you to be something doesn’t mean you are.
They don’t get to define us under their terms—victim, villain, prude, prince, thief, turncoat, rebel, reject, lazy, liar, soldier, spy…
It doesn’t matter, Jasper. We are who we are, not what they would have us be. ”
“What if I’m not who I would have myself be?”
I blink, eyes going wide as I look over at Slash. He doesn’t seem to know where this is going either, but he looks like he’s going to spring into motion if need be. Zav, however, has turned away from the screen, and his expression is…hopeful.
“Then stop letting other people define you and take back the reins. Otherwise, you’re making a pawn out of yourself and thanking them for the privilege.
” Kat shrugs again, and I notice her posture relaxing a little.
“Your father’s bullshit isn’t your responsibility, and you can’t let him live rent-free in your head.
That fucker can afford to pay for his own lodging. ”
That gets a snicker out of the drunken royal, and I feel myself relax a little now, too.
“And how would you suggest I do that when I am forced to watch his minions torture my caliphate—my chosen family—for amusement and yet I cannot prevent it?”
“By first admitting that your guilt isn’t the main issue here, knothead.
” Slash chuckles, and even Zav laughs softly as Jasper frowns.
“And then maybe… I don’t know. Be normal and ask someone for a hug or something.
Let someone help you process the emotion healthily instead of loading up on Johnny Black and acting like one of my fucking foster dads. Satan wept, Jasper, it’s not hard.”
“Ask for help.”
“Yes.”
“That’s what Zavvie says.”
Kat snorts. “He’s smart and has cute tails, so why he puts up with you, I don’t know.”
“Would you help someone like me?”
If you’re wondering, now the room is silent as a tomb and not one jaw isn’t on the floor, so… guess this is happening.