Page 133 of Envious Of Fire
A flicker of Markadian’s maddened, hungry eyes.
The gentle kiss. The sudden bite. The taste of blood.
The unwelcome hand stroking up and down his cock.
Kaleb doesn’t need elaboration on what she means with the word “consequences”. With his hands still covering himself, he quickly goes to his armoire and carefully pulls out some clothes. “I-I’m going to change really quick … if you don’t … um … if you don’t mind.”
“I would like you to be comfortable, yes,” she agrees.
Kaleb slips into the bright bathroom, presses the door shutwith his back, then closes his eyes. He doesn’t get dressed. He doesn’t move. He just stays there with his back against the door and breathes in the silent air.
When Raya’s voice comes, it’s right by the door, soft and slightly muffled. “Are you okay, Kaleb?”
Kaleb puts a hand on his mouth suddenly, tries not to cry.
“It’s okay if you’re not okay.” Raya sighs.
Kaleb shuts his eyes tightly.
Tears let loose, but no sound.
“I … I want to tell you something. But I don’t know if I can just yet,” she murmurs quietly. “I just hope you see someday … someday very soon … I hope you see how this House is full of so many little deceptions, more than its décor. The people in it, too. The gods you may have once trusted with your life … and your future …ourfutures …” Her voice trails off. “EvenIhave to remember sometimes that no one is who they seem.”
Kaleb drops his hand and parts his lips, struggles to control his breathing, tries to not gasp for air between his silent sobs, to not sniffle or make a sound.
“Do you see me as a goddess?” she then asks.
He can’t answer. If he speaks, his voice will crack, the tears will spill, he’ll fall apart. He can’t let her know he’s crying.
“I’d … I’d prefer you not to,” she goes on. “Honestly. I just want to be … hmm …” She thinks about it. “I want to be a girl. Just a girl you know. Maybe like another tenant. A neighbor. I would like to be just your neighbor girl, a normal girl. It can be our own deception. But … But since we know about it, it isn’t a bad deception, is it? It’s a nice one. I’ll just be a girl you know.”
Kaleb would like that very much.
A girl who lives next door to him, whom he can visit, talk to about the weather, laugh over coffee, have lunch with.
“And you don’t have to be a Blood,” she goes on.
The words at once cause Kaleb’s tears to stop. He listens.
“You don’t even have to be a violinist if you don’t want.” He hears her weight shift on the other side of the door. Perhaps she’s leaning against it, too. “You can just be a boy. A boy who lives next to a girl. You can be the sweet, sensitive guy I’ve kept my eye on. Would you … Would you like that?”
Kaleb swallows. He tries to say, “Yes,” but chokes. Instead, he finds himself saying, “I … I think my friends are dead.”
Raya pauses. “Friends?”
“The ones who tried to escape. With me. Ashara said they were fine, but … but I don’t think …” Kaleb chokes again, tries not to cry. “I don’t think she let them live.”
A long moment passes. There’s a dreamy note in her voice when she says, “I don’t know the fate of your friends. What I do know is you deserve better. Better than this. Than all of this. It’s not too late to have a life outside of this deceptive place … a real life, an honest life. Hey, do you remember our game? … That one we played in the cells where we pretended to be other people?”
Kaleb finds himself smiling, remembering it.
“I want us to become people,” she says. Then she laughs. “That sounds so stupid. Doesn’t that sound stupid?”
“It doesn’t,” answers Kaleb.
There is a tender silence. “You need to stay strong. You are going to have to fight for that dream, Kaleb. Both of us are. We may not find our dream for another year, maybe many years … or it could be tomorrow. But we have to fight anyway.”
Kaleb is seduced at once by that dream. He can nearly taste it. Smell it. Feel it like fresh air on his skin. His parents at the kitchen table, making a fuss over his grades. His overprotective brother who kept walking him to school even when he hated it.
