Page 89 of We Were Eternal Once

Two—printers and businesses.

Three—safety.

Four—her.

One, two, three, four.

Perhaps I don’t need your help. I have devised this plan myself, entirely free of your influence. I can execute it myself as well.

The humans stare as I pass under the lights of the street. I don’t care, let them see me. I do not care for caution when my only goal is to return home to you and tell you of what transpired.

I pause just inside the window I crawl through on the second floor. I have not been here for days. You must be so worried. You must have looked for me in the streets. Why would you think to go below ground? Would you trace my scent through the streets, losing it to the endless tide of humans?

You must be worried.

I will set aside my anger if you do. I will lay at your feet. I will place my head in your lap as I have so many times before, and you will brush my hair with your fingers, and I will confess why I was so angry.

I will apologize. I will grovel. I will do what needs to be done.

These thoughts loosen something in my chest. There’s a weight there, heavy and heated. It’s my anger, festering, rotting me. But it is no longer for you. That anger was displaced, I realize now. Now I have somewhere useful for the anger to go, to someone who deserves it.

You never deserved it. You love me.

I take the stairs two at a time.

There are voices in the sitting room.

You laugh. I haven’t heard that laugh in so long. Who are you speaking to? Surely not a compelled servant?

I descend the stairs, quiet so as not to alert you to where I am. I am not sneaking, I just do not wish to tell you I am here yet. I want to see who you’re speaking to, who you’re sharing laughter with.

I kneel before the door to the sitting room and peer through the lock.

Your blonde hair is all I see at first, falling over the back of the chair you sit in. You are not speaking, someone else is. A woman. A human woman, I realize. Her heart flutters a nervous rhythm. Not compelled, then.

Dinner? A meal you’d brought home for when I returned?

Why weren’t you out looking for me?

The woman is French. Her accent is posh, some sort of aristocrat. Is she a victim, someone whose home you want to take for your own?

I’ve wondered how you run these schemes. I press my eye to the keyhole to see better and strain my ears to hear. I want to know how you do it, how you’ve amassed such a list of properties.

You reach out to touch the human’s hand. It’s a delicate gesture, friendly but intimate. She does not shy away. You know this woman. Have you been growing this interest for some time? Is that part of your game?

I understand this hunt, it is like what Zora and I do—did—in the streets. Sometimes it is more fun than the stealing.

“Yes, kardia mou,” you say, and my mouth goes dry.

My heart.

The weight in my chest expands, pressing against all my organs. There is no space for anything else, no space for my heart or my lungs or my intestines. I am consumed by the expansiveness of this feeling.

The pain that follows is unlike anything I’ve felt before. It hurts worse than inhaling water in that box. It hurts worse than the sun that seared my flesh.

It hurts in ways I cannot describe.

I want to scream, but that’s all I’ve done for days.