Page 80 of Emerald

“Do you have empathy?” she asks.

“Yes,” I reply, though I leave out my struggles with facial expressions.

“Great. You aren’t a psychopath. You’ll be fine,” she says in the same brisk tone as when she stripped naked.

As if it is a completely settled topic.

“I’ll teach you how to hunt,” she adds. “It’ll be a fucking riot. Now get some rest. You need it. I won’t let any of the fucking idiots in.”

With that, she strides out of the cave, and I realize that somehow she made me feel… better. Like I’m not a complete, colossal freak. Maybe just a partial, normal-size freak.

“Wait!” I call out, and she turns around. “How is all of… that,” I say, gesturing to let her know I’m talking about all of the changes to her body, “helpful?”

Her lips stretch in a grin. “Well, the bone crown is pretty clutch if I need to headbutt something like a fucking dinosaur, I guess, but it’s mainly the blue and red hide that’s awesome. I’m mostly bullet proof. Then there’s the extra strength.”

I blink, letting my world shift again as I think through just how deadly it is here.

“Great for crushing necks?” I ask, voice hushed and sounding like a horny teenager.

“The best,” she says with a laugh in her voice.

It pulls an answering laugh from me. “Blood, you said?”

26

Kroaicho

WhenIfinallytunnelmy way through into the valley I hope they took her to, I draw in a relieved breath when I smell overlapping alien scents and hear the odd sounds.

My skin——which has been lit red ever since I realized that not a single thing in that hoard was as precious as the one that walked away——transitions back to pink. I follow zha’s scent, which smells strangely like… zhasie now.

And a lot of other scents. And… blood? My skin lights up red again and I increase my pace.

I don’t bother to hide my presence. I can’t live with this constant pinkness and from the smell, Olivia might be in danger. The risk is worth taking. Then I consider how stupid that is and start moving toward the nearest cliff side as I try to gauge how to tunnel close to the scent.

A metallic clicking sound stops me. I turn to see the pink-haired human. All the human colors lie and I know this one is one moment away from doing something painful.

Zha lowers the weapon, surprising a blue flash across my skin.

“Are you here to talk with Olivia?” the human says in my language.

“Yes,” I chitter back.

Zha points in the direction of Olivia’s scent. “Fix what damage you caused or next time I won’t miss,fucker.”

My skin pulses to purple, but the anger is only directed at myself. Hopefully zha realizes that or zha might shoot me in my upper segment as I walk away.

Yes. Zha might take that shot, but I don’t turn around once I walk past zha or look back. My eyes are trained on the shallow cave I can see now.

When I get close, I see that Olivia is laying prone, with zha’s small arms raised, poking zha’s fingers at the patches of…

I stop in my tracks, my back limbs tripping over my middle limbs.

Beautiful.

Zha is glowing and a thrill passes through me. But then I take note of the color. Pink.

Just like me. It gives me hope and gets my limbs moving again. Zha lifts zha’s head as I get close and there is a bright flash of orange on zha’s new patches and an answering flash on my own when I see it.

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