3
KOJO
Two women in tight dresses are screaming at each other on the television. I have no idea what they are fighting about, but one of them just threw a drink in the other’s face and now men in black shirts are pulling them apart. I cannot stop watching.
Before Aiden, I had never watched television. My village had electricity, but only for the essentials. No screens, no need for them. The elders would have laughed at the idea of staring at a glowing box for entertainment. They told stories around the fire instead, tales about hunts and battles and lovers lost to time. Now I watch this garbage every night and my Bouda hates me for it.
Your brain is rotting, my Bouda says.I can feel it happening.
Probably. But the noise fills the room, and other people’s drama is easier than my own. The woman in the red dress is screaming something about betrayal. The woman in the blue dress is calling her a liar. Neither of them seems to realize that the man they are fighting over is not worth the energy.
Humans are strange, my Bouda observes.They fight over mates who do not deserve them. They scream and cry andthrow drinks. We would simply kill the rival and be done with it.
That is why we do not live among humans.
That is why humans fear us.
Aiden sits at the desk by the window, laptop open, typing. He stops to scroll through photos, scribbles in his notebook, types some more. Looking for his next story. Another shifter species to document.
“I’m gonna miss you, man.”
I turn my head on the pillow. He is not looking at me, still staring at his screen, but I hear the sadness in his voice. Aiden does not say things like that often. He is a journalist, trained to observe and report, not to feel. But we have been together long enough that the mask slips sometimes.
“You will find another story.”
“That’s not what I mean.” He closes the laptop and swivels to face me. “We’ve been running together longer than most of my relationships. Longer than both my marriages, actually.”
He has been married twice?my Bouda asks.How did we not know this?
We did not ask. Humans have complicated mating rituals that I do not understand and do not want to understand.
“My Bouda is ready to start over,” I say. “Wintermoon has open land. Other shifters. We want to find our fated mate, settle down. Die happy with her, if Mother Fate allows.”
Aiden frowns. “If she allows? What does that mean?”
“Mother Fate has not been merciful to the Bouda.” I sit up against the headboard. “My Matriarch is gone. My village is ash. My sister escaped, but I do not know if she survived. I know nothing. I have known nothing since the attack.”
“Kojo.” Aiden leans forward. “That’s not your goddess punishing you. It’s men being stupid. The fucked up patriarchy where humans with money and guns take whatever they want.”
He curses too much, my Bouda says.I like it.
“My people died because we stayed,” I say. “The Matriarch refused to leave.”
“You told me she was stubborn about that.” Aiden runs a hand over his face. “Maybe the attack was a push. Maybe fate was trying to get your people to safety and she just wouldn’t go.”
“My people are dead.”
“I think you’re wrong.” He holds my gaze. “I’ve been doing this work a long time — documenting shifters, tracking migrations, following survivors. Your people are hard to kill. Your sister made it out, and others did too. You just haven’t found them yet.”
I stare at the ceiling. There is a water stain above the bed that looks like nothing at all — just damage, time and neglect and a building that nobody cares enough to fix.
“If others survived,” I say, “why have I not found them?”
“Because you’ve been running. And so have they.” Aiden shrugs. “Maybe Wintermoon is where you’ll reconnect. It’s supposed to be a haven, right? If other Bouda made it out, that’s where they’d go.”
He makes a point, my Bouda admits.We saw Zaki escape. We do not know what happened after.
I do not answer. The possibility hurts more than the certainty.
