Page 83 of Starve
Slowly she walks around the room, giving the chair a wide berth. In the dim light of early morning, she gropes for the light on the desk, finally finding it and making it flare to life, surprising me into blinking a few times.
Dr. Radley’s sharp intake of breath is soft, and she searches my face before setting down her keys and phone to press her hands against the top of her desk. “They got you,” she breathes, resignation and fear in the set of her shoulders. “They took you before I could help you, they?—”
“No.” I don’t get up, but I run my nails over the fabric of the armchair, gazing down at it. “I’m sorry about your sister. Really, I think it’s awful what happened to her.” I do, in a way, though the fate of a random human isn’t at the top of my priority list anymore, if it ever was. I care about them in the way I care about a butterfly getting stepped on by Moro when she’s playing in the woods.
Which is to say, not very much at all.
“Do you hate the wolves that live in the mountains? Or the bears?” I go on. “We’re the same thing.”
“No,” Dr. Radley disagrees sharply. “You’renot.You eat?—”
“Animals.” I show her a wry, sharp-fanged grin, and something in me twists with joy at the way she recoils from me. “I ate a deer this morning. But I didn’t come here to debate with you. I very much doubt I can change your mind, Dr. Radley.”
“Then why are you here?” I let the question hang in the air and take a breath to scent her fear, working through the different, bitter notes in my nose.
“You won’t tell my mom about this. I doubt she’d come looking for me, but…” I trail off, hating the tickle of anxiety over my mother wandering too close to something she shouldn’t in the mountains. “I’d rather that she think I’m dead, and she’ll be happy to believe you if you lead her down that path.”
“You’re not coming back.”
I shake my head, a little bit rueful as I get to my feet. “No, it…I can’t,” I say. “I don’t know if you ever really cared, or if you just wanted to get vengeance for your sister on anyone you thought was similar. But I just needed you to see that this isn’t the worstfate. Not when the alternative was what it was.” When I look at her now, the malice and imagined revenge that I dreamed about on my way here fades out of me and trickles into the floorboards. She can’t hurt me anymore. There’s no point in holding a grudge, so I give her a half smile that she flinches back from.
“I don’t believe you,” she murmurs as I walk to the door, prompting me to glance back at her rigid posture, fear bleeding off of her in waves. “They’re monsters, and they’ve made you one too.”
I study her, and her words just roll right off of me. What once would’ve hurt me or caused me to panic, required me to ground myself or at the very least find a way to shake it off, now just washes off of me.
Neither she nor my mother can hurt me anymore.
The revelation is cathartic, and my smile widens. “That’s okay.” I shrug. “That’s your choice. But I hope you can get some peace.” Without another word, I leave, closing the door behind me. I hear her loud, explosive exhale, and the way she sits down hard in her chair, thinking she’s safe from me now that the door is between us. But if I were the monster she thinks I am, then that flimsy piece of wood wouldn’t be nearly enough to protect her.
Thankfully for her, I’m not.
Moro dropsthe stick she’s carrying when she hears me, and she barks in greeting, though I know Cairo has been watching me through the trees for the last ten or so seconds. Sitting on the steps of Bluebone Ridge, he has a duffel bag and a backpack at his side. He looks better finally, and not so much like a victim of a violent crime now that his wounds are healed and the bruises have faded. Even the scars are shiny and thin instead of marring his body with red claw and teeth marks.
“Did you get Moro’s medicine?” I ask, glancing down at the backpack.
“Yep,” he confirms, rising to his feet. “Did you accomplish what you needed to?”
I meet his gaze as he steps forward to tuck my hair back from my ear, and Moro pushes between us, as if reminding us to leave room for her. Cairo reaches down to tangle his fingers in her ruff, and the wolf dog wags her tail happily.
“She’s supposed to bemydog, you know,” I huff, though that’s not really true. She’s ours, and her favorite between us seems to change every day, with this morning being Cairo’s turn. “And yeah. I did.”
Cairo studies my face before cupping my jaw in his hand, bringing his face close to press his forehead to mine. “Are you okay? I doubt she gave you what you needed, little bird. Which I could’ve told you, if you hadn’t snuck away and left me with Hattie.” His voice twists on her name, and I can’t help but grin. The woman seems to have gotten a little better hold of her mental state since becoming cursed, but I doubt Cairo enjoys being followed around like a mother duck with his awkward duckling child.
I reach up to run my claws over the back of his hand, and lean in to nose his cheek. “She didn’t,” I admit. “Actually, I had plans. I thought I might scare her, or get her to apologize for intentionally triggering me. I thought maybe I’d give some speech that would make her see we aren’t the monsters she thinks we are.”
“Even though we are,” Cairo points out dryly, prompting me to scoff. “I take it she wasn’t very receptive to the fiery speech full of passion and dreams?”
“Shut up!” I laugh. “Don’t make me pull the ‘I saved your ass’ card again.”
“Right, because you’ve only used it six times this week.” But he gently shoos Moro away to drag me against him. Now that the strength of the curse taking hold is losing its effect, Cairo is stronger than me again, thanks to his years of experience.
Not that I mind. I like it when he drags me around, and I like it even more that he no longer has to be so careful not to break me. Which I’m able to appreciate now that I know how strong he is when he isn’t holding back.
“I realized I didn’t need it,” I admit at last, burying my face in his throat with a purr I never could’ve vocalized before. But now my throat is different, and the sounds I make are less than human most of the time, and I’m even realizing I can understand and interpret those sounds when I hear them from the others. “I don’t need her to accept this, or me, or to approve of it. She doesn’t understand.”
“Oh, yeah?” Cairo tilts my head up to his. “Does that mean we can leave this particular mountain for a while? It’s sort of my least favorite, and I think I’d like to take you north for a while.” His lips brush mine, and I lean up on the balls of my feet to kiss him in earnest. He kisses just as he had before, but with less restraint. My growls are met with his, and my teeth never find purchase in his bottom lip as he chases back with equal fervor.
By the time we break apart, I’m panting and grasping at the front of his shirt, not letting him go anywhere. When I purr up at him, he mimics the sound, licking at my lower lip. “We can go wherever you want…but you know Hattie is going to come too,” I tease with a laugh, making him groan.
“I don’t remember agreeing to adopt a feral child recently.” There’s no heat in his voice, and I know that while he’s sometimes exasperated, neither of us wants her to wander off and get killed or hurt by one of the others who might take advantage of her. He just sighs, and licks at my lower lip, hisattention back on me and his focus here, in this moment. “Are you hungry, little bird?”
My answering grin is equal parts feral and voracious, and when I drag him to me, I bare my teeth happily to say, “I’mstarving,” before kissing him again.