Page 37 of In This Iron Ground
“Well…hear me out,” Nicola said, the wind obviously taken from her sails, but barging on. “I think you’re gonna like this, okay?” She left another dramatic pause. Damien gritted his teeth. And then— “It’s the Salgados!”
Dead silence. Damien’s head went completely and utterly blank. The sentence would have made more sense to him if it had been in Chinese. She could have told him that his dad had come back from the dead and it would have been as easy to process.
“Damien…did you hear me?” Nicola asked, sounding tentative now. Damien couldn’t speak. Everything inside was horrifyingly still. All his muscles had tensed up like in the moment before a jump scare, before death.
“No,” he rasped out. The sound was like an echo from somewhere else, some deep cavern that held everything Damien wanted to hide. “No, no, Nicola please don’t do this. Don’t do this.” Damien panted, trying to breathe pleadings in, breathe them out, choking on them. The stillness inside suddenly cracked and everything was rushing forwards, falling, falling.
“What? Damien, but—I thought you liked the Salgados! I thought…we didn’t tell you because we wanted it to be a, a surprise. We thought—”
“No. No, no, I can’t, I can’t live with them,please.”
That old, rank water was filling his lungs. He couldn’t breathe. All the noise around him was getting distorted as it was drowned out by the rush of his blood, his thoughts. He clutched at his head.
How couldn’t she see? How was it not obvious? Every house Damien went into he was kicked out of, every one worse than the last. What was she expecting? Damien’s family wasdead; he wasn’t going to get that. All that could happen was that they would see, see what Damien was really like. How he couldn’t do his homework sometimes and forgot to clean up after himself and broke things. How he could be silent some of the time, but then would talk a mile a minute, like he was retching all the words that had been pent up.
They would see his nightmares, would smell them off him, hear them in the middle of the night. And what did she think would happen then? Damien would get kicked out. They would return him to Oak House or worse, and God, how it would hurt.
Like a premonition his body clenched into itself, filled itself with acid, ate itself away. There would be no bracing for that hit. There would be no surviving it. He wouldn’t blame the Salgados. It would be him. But he couldn’t have it confirmed. Couldn’t look at their sad, apologetic faces as they said, “We just can’t do it anymore.”
Damien realized that Nicola had stopped the car on the side of the road when her hands were suddenly on his shoulders. There was a voice asking him to calm down, saying, “Okay, okay, okay.”Damien looked up, eyes dry, burning, wide, wild, pleading. Nicola looked shaken.
“Okay, Damien. Okay,” she was saying.
They breathed in silence until Damien calmed down.
“Have they…” Nicola said softly. “Have they done anything, Damien, has any of the Salgados done anything,anythingthat you didn’t like? Anything at all? Please, if—”
“No!” Damien shouted, suddenly realizing what she was asking. To compare the Salgados to the McKenzies—no.
“It’s not that. They’re…they’re great. They would, they wouldnever…it’s not that,” he repeated. “They’re nice. But I can’t be part of their family. I just—can’t.It’snot how it works,” Damien said, breathing harshly again.
Nicola put a hand on his, calming him down. They sat there.
Even when the car rumbled to a start, the silence stretched for miles.
**********
Damien found himself in the forest. Since the conversation with Nicola a few hours ago, he had felt as if he couldn’t quite drag in a full breath, as if his lungs were decaying slowly. He didn’t really think about it, but the search for fresh air led him to the safety of the green. He walked through the dappled sunlight until he found a large tree surrounded by soft leaves, sitting at its base.
He closed his eyes, resting his head against the trunk. He let the sound of the forest seep in, filling his consciousness. The leaves murmuring to each other, the birds calling, the wind. He felt the slight damp underneath him, the earth.
He shredded the crunchier of the leaves with his fingers to keep them occupied. He tried not to think of anything, and when that didn’t work, tried to guide his thoughts towards nonconsequential things. The comic he was reading, the way Olive had laughed at one of Damien’s jokes today. But the conversation with Nicola would slip in, making Damien’s stomach clench.
It projected the same scenes in high definition. Damien trying to fit into the Salgado family, an obvious odd man out. The pain of pretending, of how stark the contrast would be between his nomad soul and their pack spirit. The way the unavoidable rejection would punch all the breath out of him.
Damien sat there, trapped in his ouroboros thoughts, only noticing the change of temperature and light that marked the passage of time when a sudden noise startled him, like something was barrelling through the forest towards him. He didn’t have time to panic before Hakan was suddenly there, an apparition. He was panting, which was worrying in and of itself. Before Damien could open his mouth in surprise, Hakan was by his side, clutching his arms.
“Are you, have you, have you—” Hakan cut himself off, wild eyes looking at him almost desperately, searching all over Damien’s body.
“What is it? What’s happened?” Damien asked urgently. Hakan didn’t reply, instead taking a deep sniff. He relaxed slightly, although his hands still clenched around Damien’s forearms. He looked at Damien eyes, intent.
“You haven’t…taken anything. Have you?” Hakan asked. It took a moment for the question to fully process. Embarrassment burned through Damien, and he shoved Hakan away, who barely moved but removed his hands from Damien. Damn him for his werewolf strength.
“What the hell! No, jeez!” Damien said.
Hakan frowned. “Damien, you’ve been gone for hours! You won’t answer your phone!Fuck, you can’t just—run off like this.”
Damien bristled defensively, but his insides tensed with guilt. They scowled at each other for a moment before Damien capitulated, the guilt winning out over his indignation. “Okay, okay. Sorry. I-I didn’t even realize. I put my phone on silent for school and never…” He took it out of his pocket and blanched as the screen unlocked. Thirty-two missed calls.
