Kesari

 

“You’ll get it one of these times,” Roy said, leaning over me and flashing that damn smile.

I was laid out, flat on my back in the basement, a position I was getting far too familiar with.

With a sigh, I took Roy’s hand as he offered it and easily pulled me to my feet. For over a week now, every day since he’d fully recovered, I’d been trying to learn a blocking move.

Yet every time, without fail, I’d messed it up and landed on my ass.

Roy was unconcerned. If anything, I think he found it secretly funny but was hiding that fact to spare my feelings. Not that he needed to. It was a simple block and I kept overcomplicating it.

As though reading my mind, he said, “I know I’ve said this before, but you’re trying too hard. Once you learn how to breathe through it and relax a little, I know you’ll get it.” Roy’s smile softened. “Although I know that can be hard for you, Ms. Perfectionist.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, accepting the water bottle he handed me, I reflected how time did strange things to people. Revealed and stripped them bare.

And sometimes not for the best.

But with Roy, I now found myself unable to recall the way I used to see him. When I thought he was a cold and unfeeling guy – a quintessential jackass. Someone who’d forgotten how to smile.

Now he was Roy. Tall, golden, and blue-eyed, like a Viking prince. Sometimes with the manners and brusqueness to match, other times with a smile that seemed meant only for me.

Someone who hated getting less than nine hours of sleep. Someone whose hair stuck up in the back in the morning and always wore thick socks around the house. Someone who got grumpy when he skipped a meal but was always patient about waiting to try a new recipe. Someone who had a keen eye and ear for detail, remembering the random things I asked or said.

A man whose forearm tattoos I now had memorized. On the right, a stylized dragon wrapped in a scroll of runes and on the left, a twisting, Celtic tree of life.

I glanced at him, both feeling like I was seeing him for the first time and that he was becoming more familiar to me than my own face.

Scruffy as usual in the morning and if you got close enough, you could see faint gold freckles across his cheek and nose, along with the faint scar by his right eye.

It was like someone had handed me a pair of Roy glasses that brought him into sharp and clear focus. Ultra HD. I didn’t know how I ever thought he was expressionless. Sure, he could be guarded and good at hiding what he was thinking, but when he relaxed, his emotions were all there.

And even when he wasn’t, I was almost always right now anyway.

Then those piercing blue eyes met mine. And for the span of a moment, I was reeling inside.

Not again!

But then Roy was telling me it was cool-down time and to stop daydreaming.

In the last two weeks since Roy had been poisoned, everything had been friendly and calm between us. He was back to full strength and we were working harder than ever, both at the Cantina and training. Everything was normal. Well, normal-ish.

Since then, as strange as it sounds, I was proud to say I’d gotten Roy shamelessly addicted to Scandal. Sometimes he’d try to weasel future plot details out of me, but I did not allow that. On most nights we managed to squeeze out a chunk of our evening to watch it together.

Other times we were up late, working in silence together at the table and I’d catch myself smiling. Or he’d tell me more details about his life and I’d be hungry for more, but nervous to press. He’d ask me to tell him about Paris or Berlin, laugh at stories about my family, and then smile.

And he’d been teasing me a lot. Joking.

Goddamn centipede-gate would not die.

There were these and other small shifts. Ones that seemed to at times relax the air between us. But at other times, supercharge it until I was sure it would explode.

Or I would.

There were moments, scattered throughout the day sporadically when I’d be seized with nerves or inexplicable shyness around Roy. I’d get tongue-tied or pink-cheeked or both. Roy didn’t seem to notice it, but it was impossible to ignore the trigger.

That spark of tension between us.

I’d no idea what to make of it – it was like the small shock you got on a dry day when you got a zap. The little shocks when there was a movement of electrons in a charged environment, moving between attracting opposites. Always there, but not always present in the right conditions.

It was driving me insane and I found myself on edge, poised for it and not sure why.

Was I waiting for it? Avoiding it? And what the hell was causing it?

Either way, it was the same every time. It would send a jolt through me, triggering every nerve and cell in my body. A catch in my chest and jitters in my hands. I’d be hypersensitive to touch and movement after, jumping at every little thing.

And I’d find myself curling in on myself, afraid to speak and finding a lonely corner to work in. Which, of course, was not productive at all.

“Come on, we’re going to be late. Again.” Roy’s hand gently pushed on my upper back, his fingers landing on the base of my neck and I broke out in goosebumps. “You know, Kes, I was never late until I met you. What a terrible influence you are.”

“Glad to be expanding your horizons in so many ways,” I said, walking upstairs and conscious of his presence right behind me. Why is this happening? I screamed in my head.

“Go take the first shower,” Roy ordered. “And try not to take a century, Doc.”

We could shower together to save time if you’re so worried.

The words danced through my head, pushing on my clamped lips and I silently marched to the bathroom. Once inside, with the door firmly shut, I looked at myself in the mirror and silently willed myself to get a damn grip.

This is not happening, I told myself sternly.

But as I went to turn on the shower, I noticed the tremor in my hand and a helpless feeling coursed through me. What if it is?

What if it’s too late?

 

We were analyzing the mixtures that had been locked in a tall closet in the back of the second-biggest lab. Most of them, however, had degraded or coalesced beyond recognition.

I’d been at the same one for one entire day and now it was nearing the end of a second. I was about to lose my mind. No matter how badly degraded, I should be able to get something from it. I was never stumped.

Part of me knew I should walk away, but I couldn’t. Not until this was solved.

Take a breath, reassess, and come back clear-headed, said a voice that sounded like Roy.

But the stubborn part of me didn’t budge an inch. I’m no quitter.

Which is why I was sitting, hunched and alone, with headphones in and re-titrating a formula again. It had to be the tenth or twentieth time I’d done it, but it had to work…

It didn’t work.

Shoving the mess of papers away, I leaned on my chin and went through everything again. Maybe I was doing something wrong, making some simple mistake. Could it be the temperature? No, I’d checked that. Ugh, why can’t I figure this out?

A pressure was building behind my eyes and I knew I should get up, get some fresh air. Maybe even go home. But I seriously did not want to leave this unfinished again.

Getting up, I took my goggles off and threw them across the room.

Why can’t I figure this out? There is no reason for this to be this difficult! Not for me!

Suddenly, the air felt thick and overheated. Shrugging out of my lab coat, I went to the window and pressed my forehead to the cold glass. It was too hot in this room.

The windows were big and low to the ground. Pushing one open, I let the freezing air wash over my face and inhaled the crisp, cold scent of the mountains. It was nice out there.

On impulse, I hopped up and slid out the window. Carefully, I half-closed it behind me and began to trudge along the path someone had dug out along the perimeter after the last snow storm. The moon was high, full and lonely in the sky.

Staring at it, I wondered what it would be like to run under those trees dappled with moonlight. A reckless, pulsing need went through me to find out.

Shifting, I silently darted across the snow and rolled in it, free and wild. I usually wasn’t like this, but there was so much tension inside of me, I couldn’t think straight. With a savage burst, I darted through the woods, letting the cold seep into me and numb me from everything.

At a certain point, I stopped and glanced back. I’d made my way up the ridge that overlooked the facility below. Orange light spilled out all around it. Curling my tail around my feet, I looked up to the night sky and felt a strange, sad wish I could stay up here forever.

Minutes passed, then twenty, and thirty – and I knew I should head back, but I remained there, watching the stars and lost to everything else.

“What a pretty lynx…” came a hiss across the snow. “So far from home.”

Whirling, hair standing on end, I skidded in the snow as I tried to place the voice.

At first, I wondered if I’d imagined it.

Then a shadow detached itself from the trees and a jolt of fear went through me. I stepped back and stopped, glancing over my shoulder. Behind me was empty air.

The shadow was lumbering, movements uncertain and sporadic. I watched as its hands twitched and then my stomach clenched as I realized what I was seeing.

It was a hybrid, unable to hold its form. The Blood Bird.

“I’ve been looking for you, lynx,” it hissed and I froze. “Your blood, your blood to be spilled. You’re going to ruin everything, you know that?”

Pity warred with the fear. Shifting back, I spoke carefully and slowly, “No, I can help you.”

“It is you,” the hybrid said, its voice filled with a cruel delight. “Kesari, the good doctor.”

“Listen to me, we can heal you. We can stop this. I know you’re in pain–”

A rich chuckle met my words and the rest died on my lips. “Wanted this, like this…” It stepped from the shadows and I saw the face, the pale smudge and seeking eyes. My heart stuttered in my chest as a mouth caked with blood opened and closed. “Want to taste your sweet blood.”

It lunged and I ran, shifting and moving with speed I didn’t even know I had.

It was the training, I realized distantly. All that weight-lifting and self-defense had made me stronger and faster.

But I couldn’t focus on that with that hybrid behind me, right on my heels and gaining fast.

My lungs started to burn and my paws were aching as the thing ran after me, laughing and gurgling. I was sure that was the only reason it hadn’t caught me yet.

I saw the Cantina ahead with a leap of my heart, then almost stopped in my tracks. I’d come back the wrong way. There was a steep drop off of ten feet ahead. I’d have to jump.

I wasn’t good at jumping, never mind landing, but I ran even faster. Throwing myself off the small ridge, I flew through the air and was about to land when something slammed into me hard. I rocketed forward, landing hard, paws skidding and rolling over and over in the snow.

Panting, disoriented, I tried to get up, but a shadow was over me and I saw the flash of teeth.

The last thing I’ll ever–

A blur of gray tackled the hybrid and dragged it away from me.

A snow leopard.

Roy.

They circled and snapped as I tried to get up. The hybrid wasn’t running away. I thought it would have run away. Instead, it was still attempting to get to me and Roy was foiling it at every turn.

Or he was trying. The hybrid was fast and knocked Roy back again, then again and again. He fell heavily the third time, shaking his head as the thing bore down on him and I was there, swiping and snarling. Not even thinking.

A massive paw swatted me aside and then crushed me down. I was sinking into the snow as it pressed on my windpipe and claws raked my neck. Squirming, I tried to think, tried to fight back, but I was running out of oxygen…

Then the pressure was gone and I was gasping. I was conscious of other shifters running by and surrounding me, blocking out the light of the moon. I’d shifted back without meaning to and the snow was soaking my clothes. There was a hot, burning in my throat and every gasp hurt.

“Alvie!” came Roy’s ragged shout. “Here, over here.”

I closed my eyes, trying to grit through the pain but a tear slid out in spite of that. Then there was coolness and it receded, making it easier to think again.

“I’m going after it.” I heard Roy say. “Seng and Finni, you’re with me. Jive and Hopper, flank out with the rest. Obi, you take Fortune and Wrexler…”

No! I wanted to tell him, but by the time Alvie helped me sit up, Roy was gone.