Chapter Nine
Kadelyn
I brought Zawara back, feeling superior, feeling a part of something big. A believer in the cause. I thought my newfound outlook would be visible to everyone, that my return to camp would spark some sort of celebration like it had for all the other women.
As per usual, I was wrong.
“You should have asked,” said Tessoul, the Rowan camp’s creator. He had a pretty little pregnant wife somewhere, a brave, brilliant, brainy woman who conquered racism and found herself a Vithohn to love and worship her.
He was covered in medals on his gunmetal bulletproof vest. His face was long and scaled with a glowing green hue that radiated from the marks that ran across his skin like tattoos.
“I thought the point was to bring Vithohn back?” I argued. “Make our camp stronger. Rah-rah-rah and all that?”
I sat in a council room, a rectangular table with human and Vithohn couples seated, the higher-ups who knew this game in and out. They knew how to run from the Vithohn bases, knew how to protect us, knew all about the Voth and the fight to reclaim the Earth. They were our founders, and so I knew I had to show respect, but all I really wanted to do was stomp my foot like a child and demand they let my boyfriend in.
Petulant, I know.
“Of course we want to expand the army, but you go missing and then come back with two Vithohn?” Tessoul said, twisting the nose rings that crossed the bridge of his nose.
“I didn’t go missing; I was with them,” I offered.
Tessoul looked to Jareth, a Yaclion who accompanied him like a chatty, jabbering puppy. He was a different alien species, but close with our leader, and so he stayed.
“I guess that’s the part that makes us… curious,” Tessoul said, searching for the right words before shrugging helplessly at Jareth.
Jareth’s oversized, bobbly eyes blinked off time from one another, and he tapped his long index fingers together before hopping down off his seat. The Yaclion were notoriously small, reaching my knee in height.
“That is to say, we would like to know how Axen came to be a part of your associates and whether or not you slept with him?” he jabbered, almost sounding as uninterested as me.
With Jareth, he always sounded like he was ready to get onto the next project, like he was just talking to you to get you out of the way. He didn’t do it in a cruel way, just distracted.
“What?” I repeated with some laughter.
Nevir sat in the conference room at the head of the table. He had his hands set on the edge of the table like he was ready to volt up at any moment. His eyes were carefully watching me.
“No, of course not,” I waved them off. “Axen was already triggered by someone else. It was just… the other one. If you must know.”
Tessoul sighed and scratched his chin.
“What’s the deal?” I scoffed. “We just had a fight here yesterday, didn’t we? Isn’t that reason enough to trust them? They helped us!”
“Our people have gone missing,” another Vithohn, Risela, said. He had black skin and white markings. He was someone who would have been immensely attractive if he looked just a little bit younger—or friendlier. “Does that mean nothing to you?”
“Well guess what? I brought some more people in,” I scoffed, rolling my eyes. “Win some, lose some.”
“Kidd!” Sereya, a female camp leader, shouted across the table, incensed.
“Well, what?” I smacked my hand against the table. “Of course I care, but this is bullshit! Why am I the only one asking permission here? Lynne Brown didn’t have to ask. She just banged one and brought him home, and you all threw her a flipping party!”
“Yes, but you’re the only one who’s brought back two, one with a missing spire as well. So very interesting. His broken horns as well, a cause for concern or a cause for study. Have you asked about the horns?” Jareth mumbled, more to himself than to me.
“Listen to me, Kidd,” Sereya said, moving her graying black hair out of her eyes and giving me the meanest gaze I had ever seen. “There are plenty of Vithohn out there. But humans? This is it. What is left of us, as far as we know, is at this camp. They get Rowan, they get us all. We are it.”
The human/Vithohn movement had been going strong for years now. They were convinced that they’d gathered the rest of the humans, save for a few pockets potentially hidden underground like we were.
She was right. I knew that. She didn’t have to lecture me like some five-year-old.
“Yeah, and I wasn’t the one who took them!” I snapped.
“Enough,” Tessoul said, stretching his hand out and causing everyone to take a cool breath. He exhaled into the table and then watched as Jareth walked out the immense double doors, letting them close behind him.
If he wondered where he was going, his expression didn’t portray it. Instead, the green Vithohn looked over at Nevir and said, “What’s your take?”
Nevir looked up at me for one of the first times during my stay in the lecture hall. He cocked his head to the side and brushed a hand through his red mane.
“I think Kidd’s right,” he said, pushing his chair back and standing. I smiled, butterflies swarming through me and I thought he might walk over to me, but he headed for the window instead. “It’s the humans’ job to make sure we’re not batshit crazy, right? That we come to our senses. Kidd did that. In fact, she brought us two.”
Tessoul knew him well. He narrowed his eyes and said, “But?”
“But something doesn’t feel right. These two show up, and suddenly there’s a raid on the camp?”
Tessoul nodded. “Right.”
“Can we afford to turn them away?” Nevir said, darting deep green eyes at me. “No. Not considering how they saved our asses.”
“But be cautious,” Tessoul warned, looking over at me. “It didn’t escape either of our notice that, while helpful in the battle, the Kilari didn’t attack Zawara.”
I scoffed, suddenly feeling breathless. “So?”
“So, it’s something to be cautious of,” Tessoul said as though it were the equivalent of saying, ‘That’s that!’ or ‘Conversation over.’
I nodded, irritated, and stood from the desk. I wanted to say: could it be they didn’t attack him because he was beating the shit out of him?
But I held back. This time.
In part because I was trying to be mature, but also in part because Tessoul frightened me. I sat on the curbside outside the massive brown brick building, knees up with my chin resting on them. I watched as people of importance left the building, went back to their regularly scheduled lives, and felt a small sense of defeat.
It figures, I thought, that I would finally do something right for the camp and it would just be ignored. That it would be wrong somehow.
A figure stalled next to me and I knew it was Nevir.
He sat down, and I imagined how far it must have felt to go from his height all the way down to the sidewalk.
I looked over at him, tilting my head to the side as he saddled up next to me. He didn’t meet my eyes though. He just stared down the gravelly roadway at the expanse of houses, medical, and science buildings that we’d slowly built over time.
“What?” I said flatly, fighting off the smile that usually crossed my mouth when I was near Nevir.
“I’m worried, Kidd,” he said slowly, scratching his hand up and down his bicep.
“Yeah, yeah,” I waved him off. “Join the club.”
“There’s something they’re not telling you,” he said, bumping my leg with his so that they both swung together.
“Zawara?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Tessoul and them,” he offered, cocking his head in the direction of the council hall’s front door. “Your little mate there,” he mocked, “the Kilari didn’t attack him.”
“Yeah, they said that, dumbass,” I laughed.
“They think he’s Kilari,” he offered. “A shapeshifter.”
My stomach dropped. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Nope,” he enunciated. “They wouldn’t attack their own. He led them here. All makes sense.”
I narrowed my brows. “Except for the part where he massacred them? Yeah. Perfect sense. Leading your people to a base and them killing them.”
He shrugged.
“Why would the council agree to keep him here if they really thought that?” I scoffed. “Wouldn’t they kill him? Come on. That’s stupid.”
“All excellent questions,” he said, opening his palms to me.
I looked him over, sexy and rugged, just the presence of him and his sudden attention on me making me feel a rush of emotion. “What do you think?” I asked.
“You care what I think?” he asked with a halfhearted laugh.
“I don’t care what you think,” I needled with a flirtatious smile, nudging him. “But I trust you.”
“I think he isn’t who he says he is,” he said sharply.
I froze, meeting his eyes. Nevir looked at me with a sickening seriousness, and my stomach flipped. “Yeah… and I’m supposed to believe this coming from you because…? I scoffed.
“Because I’ve only ever had your best interest at heart.”
He said the words so softly that they made me feel sick. “It’s impossible,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“And you know they’ll suspect you next, right? Worried you’ll flip.”
“And what?” I laughed bitterly. “Use my superpowers to destroy our camp? When have I ever given anyone a reason to doubt my word?”
He twitched. “When you disappeared for two fucking weeks, Kidd. How about then?” His words dripped with venom.
Most camps were tight. Fiercely loyal to one another. I’d heard rumors about camps who stuck together even during massacres. Nobody would leave. Rowan, I felt, was a wild collection of latchkey kids. Misfits working toward an outlandish goal.
How loyal was I, really?
Maybe they had every right to question me.
“He doesn’t even have a spire!” he shouted with a frustrated laugh, pulling his own over his shoulder and flicking it back and forth with irritation.
“That’s impossible. I’ve been with him. I mean, been with him!”
Nevir stood, done with me, and his spire continued to flick back and forth. “I’m done with this shit. You asked me what I thought, and I told you.”
“No,” I warned. “You got jealous and freaked out! What? You’re allowed to talk about Rachel, but I’m not allowed to talk about Zawara?”
“I didn’t think we were done yet,” he snapped, turning back around to look at me.
“What?” I breathed. I wrinkled my nose at the statement and drew my head back in surprise. “Don’t say that.”
He shrugged, infuriated.
“And what’s this ‘yet?’” I said, incredulous. “Like, ‘well it was going to end, but I wasn’t quite done screwing you yet.’ Well, no!” I shouted.
I stood up and walked up to him, pushing him backward with all my might. “In fact, you already ended it so why don’t you shove this whole pity thing right up your ass?”
“Is that right?” he said, nodding, furious.
“Yep!” I shouted.
I could see his nose go red, from anger or the cold, I wasn’t sure.
“And if I kissed you now?” he said, dared me.
“Don’t,” I warned, cold.
He crossed his arms and took a step closer to me. “But if I did, you’d turn me down? So sure that you’ve found your chosen one?”
“You did,” I spat back.
He blinked, wounded.
“I assume I won’t be given a party?” I said finally, huffing. “On the ship?”
His eyes fluttered, and he dipped his head to the side, absolutely incredulous. He pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration and then cocked his head further to try and get a look at my face. Narrowing his eyes, he said, “Are you kidding me?”
“Everybody gets one,” I insisted. “It’s what happens when a new Vithohn/Human couple is brought in. They’re given a welcome.”
“People were just taken from our camp, probably dead,” he said evenly. “And you want to… celebrate?”
“It’ll boost morale,” I argued again.
“You are the most self-centered person I’ve ever met,” he exhaled.
I swallowed hard, and we stood before each other. Ex-somethings, not quite sure where we stood anymore. He looked hurt, and it made me feel good. But, at the same time, I desired him still. Guilt whooshed through me like a strong wind, and I set my jaw, grinding my teeth unintentionally.
“Is that a no?” I asked, suddenly meek.
Nevir shook his head in disbelief and raised his brows, running both hands through his thick hair. “I’ll… see what I can arrange.”