you're too young & eager to love

1, 223 words!

Switching up the point of view.

For some reason, I have the scene from The Brave Little Toaster where the psycho Air Conditioning Unit yells “It’s my function!” stuck in my head. It makes me laugh.

… I felt like sharing that information.

Also, I have a bit of an infatuation with Hebrew culture. I decided to reveal that in a tiny bit with these characters, just because I can. Also, the beginning is set after Austin has been rescued and they’re all waiting, recovering, and then progresses forward from there.

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The last night you spend in the tilted house, the night before the government finds you for a second time, you lay in the dark trying to think of the right thing to say. Your pack is upstairs – they’re sleeping soundlessly, bodies curled together for heat and comfort. The cellar is much cooler, but you did not seek out damp shadows and lightless corners. You had simply tracked another. It’s habit now, the way you follow Ita into the cellar, a routine bred from your need to protect. The pack is less than enthusiastic about the swan girl’s presence, and you do not trust their yellow eyes when Austin is still too weak to lead. (If you listen closely, you can make out her breathing from all the rest. It’s weak, wounded, and the sound fills you with foreboding.)

Ita sits on the lowest step, quiet. Her wings have been sheathed, her feathers replaced by the white of her skin. You can still sense her change in the thickness of the air.

“When I was little, my mother used to tell me about the lamed vovniks. The thirty-six holy people. The existence of the world depends on them.” You slant your eyes towards her, although you know you have her attention. Her fingers are very pale in the darkness, and you see her pluck at the loose threads in her skirt. “I wanted to be one of those thirty-six.”
“Why?”
You place your hands behind your head and study the ceiling. “My mother said that the Messiah would be one of the lamed vovniks. Every generation is supposed to have one person who has the potential to be the Messiah. Maybe he lives up to it, or maybe he doesn’t. Maybe the world is ready for him, or maybe it isn’t.”

The silence creeps back in. You think she is elsewhere, claiming her own thoughts, until she finally speaks in her shivering voice. “Are you saying that you want to be a savior?”

You laugh – you can’t help yourself. It is sharp, rattling against the cellar walls. “I am saying that religion is bullshit, and my mother was full of false hope.”

And yet.
And yet these are not the words you want.

-

You leave the cellar and return to Austin. The fever eats away at her. It’s so visible that you think you should be able to touch her sickness, that if you brushed your fingers across her mouth you might be able to capture it in your palm.

“You smell like a bird.”
“You’re dying.”
Austin laughs, but it’s a crackling, inconsistent sound. She reaches her hand out, her fingers dirty and her arms bruised. It hurts you to look at her, but you take her hand. “So? Better out here than in that cage.”

“Don’t.” You say, simply and urgently. On your knees you take her head in your hands. With difficulty she focuses her eyes on you, and she drags her nails down your forearms.
“I don’t take orders from you, Chason. Even on my deathbed.”
You want to howl and slaughter and rage. You despise men and their inability to accept difference, change. You think of your parents and her parents, their early deaths, and the years the two of you spent in hiding, spent collecting others of your kind, spent together. She was lovely and fierce then; you cannot recognize the woman she has become. “This is not funny.”
Austin shrugs her sharp shoulders. “I think it’s hilarious. Everything is in the end.”

-

You do not get to bury her.

The government arrives with their loading trucks, ammunition, and guns. They burn the house with her body still in it, and your pack laughs like dogs. They flash their traitorous eyes at you in the heated night, sinister and sly.

-

In the facility there is a man you have seen before only in glimpses. You know he is Harrow instantly by the way Ita clutches, unexpectedly, at your arm.
“No.” You tell her, removing her hand and shaking your head. “You are stronger than that now.”

She is collected from you and given to him. He inspects her with his eyes and then his hands, tilting her chin to the left and to the right as though he assumes you have scarred her lovely neck. When he does turn his attention to you, you keep his gaze solidly. You bite your tongue until you taste blood. The sharp tang of copper strikes the predator inside of you, and he chuckles as though he can sense your anger.

“Do you know what pain is, boy?” Harrow gathers Ita’s hair into his fist and pulls her neck back, stiff. “Are you aware of its intricacies?”
“You cannot hurt us.”
“Us?” Harrow exclaims, raising his eyebrows. “How delightful, but you misunderstand. Punishment need only be felt by one.”

-

Your first fight is with a cougar.
You are required to shift inside the arena – the scientists hoping to record the effects of intimidation in male predators – and you are relieved when your opponent smells of infection despite his large, muscular frame. You stalk the perimeter of the enclosed space, smelling previously spilt blood, thinking you can hear the whimpers and roars of the last hour’s opponents.

Ita is above you, seated next to Harrow in an expensive suit. He has the hard, crooked lines of cruelty in his otherwise handsome face. You have to crane your neck to see fully, but you can make out the leather line of a collar and a leash attaching her to his hold. You focus on her eyes and hold the stare.

When you attack, it is with savage grace. You expose the cougar’s weaknesses with your teeth and cunning. The blood in your mouth provokes you further. The guards have to end the fight early, and your core trembles with the crash of the crowd. The world was not meant for this, you know that. But you also know that barbarity is a stronger foundation for civilizations than compassion.
You turn your back to the cougar, tasting death on your tongue.


-

A victor laying claim to his spoils, you are brought to Ita. You hands shake, so you shove them into your pockets.

You do not tell her that you thought of her in that arena. That you won for her. You pictured her endless hours with Harrow, the silent sorrow built inside of her, and you wanted it to be his throat you were ripping. You wanted to eat the meat from his bones. “This world is a disgrace,” you say while surveying the immaculate, emotionless room. You feel burdened, unusually heavy inside, and you do not know how to compose your body. You cannot relax your shoulders or slacken your mouth. Your eyes feel hot and your muscles sore.

You thought of Austin too. How her vivid eyes had turned lifeless long before her pulse ended. You thought of her hair and how it had become brittle in your hands, how she had been forced to waste away, to join the dust of bones and ghosts. You breathe hard when you exhale, approaching Ita and her bare legs, grasping her skin because it is soft and tender and something you do not need to shred.

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