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“I want it.” He’s so earnest. “More than anything.”
“More than breaking the curse on you?”
He shrugs. “If I can navigate this Inter-net and be here with you, what do I care about that world out there? Everything I need is here.”
It’s more than a little short-sighted, but I still feel stupidly warm inside to hear him say shit like that. Being here in this room, just him and me, I feel the safety I did yesterday when I was in his arms.
Are you a selfish little girl, or not?
It’s selfish to keep him here all to myself when I should be focused on helping him get rid of the curse. But still, he’s so enthusiastic about learning Linex and the basics of Python that I text Sabra and ask if she can come tomorrow instead since Layden is still settling in today.
Hours later, I order take-out from my favorite burger joint and enjoy every face Layden makes as he eats a greasy burger and fries for the first time.
“What have they done to food since I’ve been away?” he asks as he devours his third burger. I made sure to order extras for him, knowing his appetite. “How did they learn to make it so much more… flavorful?” He shoves a handful of fries in his mouth.
“I don’t know. We learned how to do processed foods and add MSG to everything?” I laugh at the ecstatic expression on his face. “And how to fry things.”
He nods. “Yes, the frying. The frying is very good.”
He shoves the last of the fries in his mouth and wipes his hands on the stack of napkins at the bottom of the bag. “But we need to get back to learning.”
With the hand he just cleaned, he looks back at the tablet I let him borrow, which has a bunch of books on Python we downloaded. He taps through the pages so quickly I don’t see how he could possibly be reading them, but by the time I’m done eating, he’s finished two books.
And when he sits in front of the computer console, it’s clear he absorbed what he read about the computer language because he’s already got the basics down. We’ve only been at this for one day, and he’s ready for more advanced things that would take years for a normal person to learn.
“How are you so good at this?” I ask, awed as he builds a practice machine learning model to predict weather patterns.
He shrugs but pauses, turning to look at me. “Human math follows the same logic as angelic runes.” He lifts his hand, and shining blue-white hieroglyphs appear in the air.
I gasp. “You did that before. When I first found you.”
He laughs as he swipes the runes away. They dissipate as quickly as they appeared. “I tried. I didn’t have enough energy to make a proper rune, or I would have blasted you.”
“Blasted me?” My eyebrows lift.
“You have your defenses; I have mine.”
“Wow, you really weren’t good at accepting help, were you?”
He looks at me, those eyes of his piercing. “No one had offered me help before. So I assumed you were a threat.”
He goes back to working on the computer while I’m left staring at him. No one had ever offered him help before. For at least eight years, I had a mother. I knew what it was to be loved. To have someone pick me up and coo over me when I fell down. From everything he’s told me, he had no mother. Only a cruel father and heartless brothers.
So, how is there any kindness in his heart at all?
Sometimes, I think it’s all been beaten out of me by my life with Vlad, but meeting Layden gives me hope.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out. It’s a text from Vlad. Automatically, I get a sinking feeling in my stomach.
I turn away from Layden as I click on the text.
VLAD: Now that you’re home, I expect you to continue working. Especially since you’ve brought a guest. If you want him to stay, go make this little problem compliant.
Attached is a photo and a location.
I sigh, which makes Layden look away from the computer. “What?”
“Nothing,” I say quickly. “I just need to go out for a bit.”
