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He hits the ground and slides on his belly the last few feet, submitting to the larger male.
“You’ve stolen his dignity,” I grouse.
“It’s the way of the world. One of us has to be the dominant. I vote for me.”
After a moment of belly rubbing and “Good boys,” the two of them have established their pecking order and Tater seems happy to have another packmate.
“You gonna invite me inside? Show me your home away from home?”
“It’s kind of smelly in there. I think the only way you’ll remain my friend is if we hang out on the porch.”
It’s only now that I react to what’s in his hand. I took off in such a hurry yesterday morning, I chose books over my guitar.
“Thanks. You brought my guitar.”
“I thought you might want my company, but I knew you’d want this.”
“I thought you would all be thrilled that I took my stinky self and my terrible guitar-playing to the other side of the property.”
“We love to give you shit about your playing, Sylas, but we’re all proud of you.”
What? This is news to me. He’s not kidding when he says they give me a hard time. It’s constant, even when I go to my room to play.
“We’re splicers, man. We’re not going to sing ‘Kumbaya’ and tell you how pretty your music is. We’d lose our man-cards over that.”
I don’t interrupt to tell him that we’re not exactly men and will never have man-cards to lose.
“When you’re not around, we talk about how proud we are of you. Your guitar playing is amazing.”
The Army was nice enough to equip the little porch with two oversized wooden rocking chairs, which are several feet apart. We’re not so far away from each other that I can’t reach over and punch his arm.
“I thought I was terrible,” I admit, not mentioning that I go to my room and strum as softly as possible so they don’t give me shit about it.
He shifts back in his chair and looks genuinely surprised.
“I thought you knew we were joking, Sylas. Is there one other guy in the barracks who can play any instrument half as well as you? Isn’t it obvious that you’re…” he pauses as though saying these next few words are going to cost him, “really good?”
“No. Not obvious.” Although I had to drag it out of him, I Iet his praise wash over me. I’ve only been good at a few things in my life: running long distances with a heavy pack and sniper-level skills with a rifle. To have a civilian skill, something that wasn’t forced on me by evil scientists, well, that feels amazing.
“You know that Army shrink who Zooms with us once a month, which by the way is today? He’s always urging us to express our feelings. I thought it was a pile of crap, but maybe… maybe we should try harder.” Grizz looks thoughtful. “It sucks that you’ve been laboring under the illusion that we didn’t like your playing—”
“It wasn’t such a leap of reason to think that,” I interrupt. “You all told me it sounded, and I quote, like a musical crime scene.”
“Well, c’mon, that’s the splicer way.” Grizz rubs his shaggy chin with his palm and says, “But I think the way we were pitted against each other since birth and encouraged to tear each other down needs to stop. The next time we have a barracks-wide meeting, I’m going to bring this up.”
“I’d like that. We’re a family.”
“Dysfunctional family,” Grizz pipes up.
“We’re a big, ugly, loud, farting, smelly family, but we could be nicer to each other.”
Perhaps in a normal family, there might be a hug at this point, but hey, we’re still splicers, bred to be supersoldiers. This was as close to a Hallmark moment as two splicers can get.
Chapter Twenty-One
Cally
I’m hiding in the bathroom, still as a statue, when I hear the front door open and close. I would have hidden in the shower, except the door is see-through, so there’s no point in doing that. If Sylas’s friend bursts through the door to take a whiz, I’ll be busted and God knows what will happen when I’m outed.
