Page 81 of Homebound
“No! I can’t… Why?” The sight was beyond horrific.
Simon gave a one-shoulder shrug. “I didn’t get all that they were saying, but I understood enough to know he led the pack to us. He knew about the outings.”
Gemma raised her eyes to him and had to swallow. “But… the head. Was it necessary?”
Simon’s eyes were flattening, losing their liquid brilliance. “It was effective. No species can function without the head. Arc was strong and I was getting tired.”
He listed to one side and had to prop himself with one hand against the wall. His torso was grimy, smeared with blood and gore. An angry gash bisected his cheek.
Gemma took note of his condition but couldn’t properly process the significance of it. Or the significance of him, alive, where four Perali were so obviously not. She could process nothing except the sight of the severed head right in front of her.
Realizing it was majorly distracting her, Simon give the head a well-aimed kick that sent it rolling away, spinning and bouncing, into the fog.
“I hate to ask, but may I have my chair back?”
As if in a trance, Gemma slid off the chair, careful not to step into the blood. She was supposed to act, to say something, but at the moment she couldn't fathom what. She looked at Simon. He was badly winded, barely able to stand upright. His braid was coming undone.
Breathing in and out, measuring the depth of each inhale, she worked to collect herself while he settled into the chair and rearranged his soiled shirt to conceal the damage done to his body. His face was dirty.
Without fully realizing what she was doing, Gemma mechanically cleaned the worst of the grime off his face using the hem of her shirt. He stayed silent and still, letting her do what she did, reminding her of the Simon she’d been so familiar with. Her sick, frail, harmless Simon who needed fussing over. Not the Simon who tore off body parts like they were tree branches. That Simon was not her Simon. She had no idea who that animal was.
“Are we late? We’re probably late. We have to get back to the prison,” she babbled semi-coherently.
She turned the chair around, and, one foot after the other, started walking away from the carnage. She knew that no matter how far she walked, the sights would always stay with her.
Simon was silent for a while and then he dropped both feet on the ground effectively applying them as brakes and stopping their progress. He threw his head back looking at her from upside down.
“Run away with me now.”
The tight roll of suppressed emotions within Gemma threatened to burst. She gripped the chair handles tighter.
“I have nowhere to go.”
He reached up and grasped her arms, circling them with his long flexible and clawed fingers. One yank, and her arms could pull apart from her shoulder sockets.
But he wasn’t hurting her, he was merely holding her. “I will take you away from here.”
Her skin burned through her clothes where he was touching, and the intense gaze of his huge alien eyes held her immobile.
“Away? There’s no ‘away.’ This is it, with no way out.”
“This rotten City is doomed like this whole miserable planet is doomed. Nothing is holding you here. No one. Let me get you out.”
“How?” He was delusional, riding high on adrenaline. “You can’t run away! You have a tracker.”
“There’re ways to disable it.”
Scared of an overwhelming desire to go along with his wild scheme, she was shaking her head so hard her neck pinched.
“No. No, it isn’t right. You can’t run away! I can’t go with you.”
He gave her a good long glance and released her. “Okay. Not now. You aren’t ready.”
It isn’t that she wasn’t ready. It was the reality of their respective situations.
“You don’t mean it, Simon. It’s your adrenaline talking.”
“Rix don’t produce what you call adrenaline. It’s not how we work. Come on, let’s get back.”
