Page 24 of Guarded By the Vodnik

I jolted, shocked by her answer. My throat tightened even more, and when Zoe looked up, her glittering green eyes meeting mine, I felt naked and exposed. Like my past was in the room with us now, close to the surface and ready to be touched. Ready to hurt again.

“The file said you were in the children’s home when you overheard him making the transaction with the administrator,” I said, grasping for words while I pushed my raw wounds deep down, where they belonged. “But it didn’t mention why you were there. I only got the necessary info.”

She sighed, beginning to tap her fingers across my tentacle that pulsed around her wrist, getting drunk on her warmth. It felt mindless on her part, like playing with other people’s limbs was natural for her. For a sharp, biting moment, I wondered how many people she touched this way and if I could be the only one from now on.

It was a ridiculous thought.

“I volunteered there,” she said with a sigh, shifting to straighten out her leg. “Ever since I read about how neglected children develop differently, I wanted to help. It's just… It’s just so sad.”

She sighed again and looked up, her face tightening with passion. I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

“Do you know what happens when a baby cries and nobody comes to comfort it? It learns from the earliest moments of its life that its voice, its needs, its comfort and happiness don’t matter. Neglected children learn that no matter how loudly they cry, no one will help. Even worse, they learn they don’t deserve to be helped. So they stop crying. They stop asking. It’s heartbreaking.

“And if babies aren’t hugged, if they don’t get that physical contact early on, their emotional and social development is thwarted. It’s been studied and proven across most sentient species. We need touch. It’s literally a basic need, just like food and shelter, except it’s not included in any official guidelines. Ever since I learned that, I made it my life’s mission to hug the children no one else wants to hug. I’ve been doing it for six years now.”

Hug the children no one else wants to hug.

It was like she said a magic spell that broke through all my locks and armor that were already cracked and chipped from her touch.

Stripped of my protection, I was defenseless and raw, and I couldn’t stop it. I was about to break apart, and I couldn’t let her see it.

“Leave,” I snapped, yanking my tentacle back until it disappeared in the pool with a splash.

Zoe’s eyes widened with surprise. “What? But why do you…”

“Get out!” I roared, painful tremors running down my frame.

Memories popped open like overgrown slugs, flooding my mind with agonizing fury. Normally adept at keeping them hidden, I couldn’t stop them from coming forth now. I struggled to breathe as they assaulted me, some so vague and hazy, I wasn’t even sure what they were, and yet the feelings accompanying them were sharp and clear.

Desolation. Helplessness. Pain.

Unworthy.

Zoe scrambled to her feet and rushed to the door, sliding on the wet floor. She made it out with a stumble, slamming the door shut behind her. Once she was out, I submerged and released the scream of crushing fury that choked my throat. It rose to the surface in a stream of bubbles as I wrestled with my mind, trying to put my wounded past back in its place out of sight, but I couldn’t.

She broke something in me. Either her presence, her touch, her warmth, or all three made me incapable of restoring the calm equilibrium from before.

And so I was forced to relieve my worst experience. My body, though fully grown now, still couldn’t contain all the hurt and burning shame left over from when I was a child.

I was eight years old, and my grandfather kept me tied up in the land summer house he had on Isle Royale. He’d been at it for over a day already, and I was in agony. My dry skin cracked and bled, my mouth was parched, and my surface organs, barely developed at the age of eight, couldn’t keep up breathing the surface air.

I was dying.

Vodniks were born under water and spent most of their childhoods there, gradually getting used to functioning on land as they grew into adolescence. But my grandfather was determined to make me tough. He trained me for hours, depriving me of food and punishing me physically when I disappointed him.

Keeping me out of water for longer than a day was insane. Even a few hours was way too long for an eight-year-old.

I was in so much pain and so terrified, I cried that day, even though I knew better at that point. He abhorred all weakness, and he hated my tears above all else. And yet I couldn’t stop them. Maybe it was that instinct all children had, crying to get their needs met, like Zoe said. He hadn’t beaten it out of me completely yet.

But of course, crying was a mistake. When he heard my whimpers of pain and small, childish pleads to be let go, he lost it.

At first, he just beat me with his tentacles, their blows shaking me in the ropes. I stopped crying at that point, my training kicking in. I knew he’d go easier on me once I stopped sniveling, so I forced the tears back and just took it.

But he was beyond stopping at that point. He grabbed a wooden board and smacked me with it, screaming I would never amount to anything, that I was too weak to survive, would never be a man. He said I would die just like my mother, torn to shreds by lamias, and he was done watching me fail.

I was unworthy of his name and blood. I was a failure.

He left me like that. My entire body was enveloped in a crushing, cold pain, and my lungs gave out. My breaths came short and wheezing, my small torso spasming, my gills fluttering as I tried to get more air.

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