Lilly
Lilly didn’t speak.
“She shouldn’t be the one to tell you, though,” he continued, trying to hold himself together. “I should. Since I’m the one who did it.”
“I’ll leave you two,” Sandy said awkwardly, rising.
Lilly grasped her arm, wishing her friend could stay, but knowing it would be best. This had to be handled between the two of them, not anyone else.
“What did you do?” she asked in the silence that followed.
To her astonishment Torran fell to his knees, holding his head in his hands. “I’m so sorry,” he said, repeating the line over and over again.
Lilly went toward him but he moved away from her. “You don’t want to touch me.”
She stopped, holding her distance, fairly certain that she knew what had happened.
“I tried, Lilly. I tried to stop them. I tried to do whatever I could to keep them from taking more video, but they just shot at me and started filming me with their phones. I had to make a decision, because otherwise they were going to split up. I…I had to protect us. It wasn’t just about me, you have to understand that. It was about the others. If I were the only one, I would have let them go and dealt with the consequences. But I couldn’t risk the rest of my kind. We’re few enough in numbers already and…” He trailed off.
Lilly sat back into her chair. “Damien is dead, then?”
Torran nodded, visibly pulling himself together. He stood, unwilling to sit in the only other chair, since it was so close to her. She wished he didn’t feel so uncomfortable near her, but she understood his sentiment. He looked horrible, and she couldn’t imagine the guilt racking him just now.
It was odd, since she didn’t feel the same way. For the most part she wasn’t even that sad. Part of her missed Damien, sure, but it was more like wistful regret about the man he’d used to be. Certainly not the man he’d become. She didn’t miss that at all. In fact she felt safer now that she knew her child would be able to be born in peace.
One question did remained though. “You didn’t…um. You know. Like...”
“Like what?”
“Eat them?” she asked, wincing at the indelicateness of her question.
Torran’s head snapped up, disgust on his face. “What? No. Never. I’m not a cannibal. I used my dragon powers.”
She nodded. “What about the, uh, bodies, then?”
“No bodies. Just a big round spot eaten out of the road.”
Lilly jerked backward. “I thought you said you didn’t eat them?”
“Not that sort of eaten. I’m an emerald dragon, and our power is a highly corrosive form of gas. I…I used that. You don’t need to know more, Lilly. Please, I’m already disgusted with myself. You don’t need to subject yourself to that.”
She agreed and let it drop, focusing instead on Torran. He seemed…damaged. Whatever he’d gone through out there had left him completely unlike the confident, strong-willed person she’d known.
“Torran,” she said softly.
He jerked at hearing his name, refusing to meet her gaze.
“I thought dragons were mighty killers, fearsome in battle. I honestly didn’t think that this would bother you so much.”
This time he did look at her, and she was stunned by the self-loathing she saw.
“There’s a difference between being a warrior and killing another in battle. I have done that before, and I have no doubt I will do it again, probably sooner than I wish.” He shook his head. “It is how I kill that matters. What happened out there?” he waved his hand vaguely in the direction he’d gone. “That wasn’t battle, Lilly. It was slaughter. Humans stood no chance against me and my power. They could not fight back at all. That is hard to stomach.”
He looked away again.
“You didn’t have a choice,” she said softly. “You had to protect the secret of your race. You gave them chances to stop. You said so yourself. They made that choice. You didn’t make it for them.”
“It was a waste of life. I am sickened by what I’ve done. I hate myself for it.” He swallowed, the sound so audible she could hear it. “I know you do too.”
Lilly bit her lip. Did she hate him?
“I’m sad,” she said at last. “And disappointed.”
Torran’s head drooped.
“I’m disappointed that it came to this,” she continued, her voice growing stronger as she found the words she wanted to speak, and the confidence that what she felt was okay to feel, that it didn’t make her a lesser person. “I’m disappointed that Damien felt the need to expose you. I’m disappointed,” her voice grew hard, “that they tried to harm you.”
By now he was openly staring at her, his jaw unclamped, lips parted.
“I’m disappointed that they couldn’t see the good in you. And most of all I’m disappointed that they tried to kill me and my child. That is what I’m disappointed about. I’m sad that they forced you into action. I’m sad that you didn’t have a choice. I’m sad that you’re blaming yourself for their own stupidity.”
“Lilly…”
She shook her head, eyes blazing. “I’m sad that the man I once knew died. But he didn’t die at your hands,” she snarled, holding a finger up to silence Torran’s protests. “He died months ago when he decided that he controlled me, that he was superior to me, and that I was no longer a person to him. That is when he died.” She fixed her stare on Torran and advanced on him. “Those people you killed were scum. They deserved it.”
Torran didn’t speak in the silence that followed.
“That is how I feel.”
Then she kissed him.