AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“We are going to have to learn a lot about the worlds we visit,” I say. “I’ve had some experience in illicit bases. I used to work undercover.”
“And you are very good at it.”
It’s not a compliment, just a simple, damning statement of fact. I am good at being a liar. I am good at fooling everyone around me into thinking I am one thing when in truth I am another. I am dangerous in quite a different way than Kail is dangerous, but I am still dangerous. Treacherous might be a better word.
I feel all Kail’s judgement as I berate myself inwardly for who I am and what I have chosen to do. I used to feel proud of how good I am at slipping into someone else’s skin, at becoming someone else entirely. Now I feel like that same ability is a barrier to inhabiting my own skin, or having anybody I care about actually know me.
“Basically, we keep to ourselves as much as possible. That’s how pretty much everybody operates. We do what we have to do, try not to be seen together, and we disguise ourselves. I’ll cut and dye my hair. Probably red or something brash. It’s fashionable now, and I won’t stand out. Also, time to hit the cake and gain some pounds to change the shape of my face up a bit.”
“How can I be disguised?”
“Extra teeth, body paint. Blue instead of green. Maybe some tattoos also brushed on. Change of clothing. Armor instead of a suit. Contacts to change the eye color…” I trail off as he looks at me with what I can only describe as growing horror. “Or none of those things.”
Kail
I knew she had lied to me. I knew she had deceived me. I knew we were both playing a game of sorts, one born of loyalty to our respective species. But I had no idea just how very competent she really is. They sent a specialist to bring me in. Someone they must have trained and trusted for years, and she turned on them for me.
“You hate me, don’t you,” she says, her shoulders stooping, her head lowering. “I understand that, and I respect it. I don’t deserve anything.”
There is a brief moment in which I consider this might be a manipulation, but her actions speak louder than her words. She has given up everything to save me twice. There is no way she is going to ever be welcomed back into human society now. Humans are highly communicative creatures. The warrant for her execution has been through all their many unseen channels. She is a marked and wanted woman.
I cross the floor, impressed with how steady and solid it feels given there is nothing but the vastness of an eternal void below it. My stomach clenches at that realization, and I resolve immediately to never think of that again.
“Tarni,” I say. “Is that your name?”
“Yes,” she says.
I go down on one knee. She has always been shorter than me, and when trying to hide from me, she makes herself even smaller.
“Tarni,” I growl softly. “I came to stop them from hurting you. I had every intention of taking you back to the forest and making you mine forever. My love for you is greater than my hatred for your kind. You have shown me your devotion, and your strength. And even if none of that were true, we are on the run, my little animal. And self-pity will get us both killed.”
She lifts her head and looks at me with an expression that melts between multiple feelings all at once. “You’re right,” she says. “I need to get a grip.”
“And I love you.”
“And you love me… but, why?” She looks very much puzzled.
“We forged a bond in the wild. That was not a lie or a deception. You saved my life. That was not a matter of pretend. That cat was real, and it was not on your payroll. Your suffering before, that was not a lie. You were able to lure me into carrying out my own plan because you were all the things I thought you were. You were weak, you were sick, you were hurt. You were abandoned to the wild.”
“I don’t think I will ever forgive myself for what I did to you, and what my people did to yours.” Her eyes well with regret and shame. “It should not have taken a hundred days in the wild to teach me that your species has just as much value as mine. I should have known that as a simple and obvious truth.”
I have an idea. It was an idea I intended to execute regardless, because she is not completely wrong. She has done wrong, and she does need to pay for that wrongdoing. Not for me, but for herself.
“I can take some of your guilt away.”
“How?”
“Let me punish you. Let me bring you pain, and after the pain, let yourself experience forgiveness.”
She swallows. “Pain?”
“Yes. It’s what you need. You are harder on yourself than even I am. You need no judge to sentence you. You have already sentenced yourself. If they had opened your cell, and not I, you probably would have taken yourself to their gallows and strung yourself up in your eagerness to repent. You are infected by guilt, Tarni, and I will not allow it.”
Tarni
I argued my way into this position, and now I regret it. I know when Kail says there will be pain, it will truly hurt. And with the depth of the guilt I feel, it will have to hurt for quite a long time.
I swallow. “Uhm. I don’t know…”
