Page 9 of All That Has Flown Beyond
You turn your mind away from it desperately. It is not something you can stand looking at for too long.
**********
Kaiyo let the night fall around him. He sat in his car but left the heat off in penance. His mom would be furious at him for staying out in the cold so long, especially with his injury still aching against his side, but nothing could penetrate the numbness that had come with the dark.
He watched the familiar stars move across the sky. It was fourteen days until the full moon. The orb was sliced in two and hanging by a thread.
A moving shadow shifted Kaiyo’s attention. He sat up, watching Ahmik’s form materialize from nothing. Stiffly, he opened the car door and slid out. The noise it made as Kaiyo pushed it closed was ominous in the forest’s silence.
Ahmik stopped on the other side of the wards. Just out of reach.
“Ahmik of the Garrow pack, what an honour it is for you to meet with me,” Kaiyo bit out. He had been stewing in the broth of his emotions for hours. Ahmik, on the other hand, was as cold as the night.
The silence stretched between them. Kaiyo had never felt anything like it before. They had bathed together when they were little, had gained scrapes in the playground, had fallen in lust and bed and love. They had been a team since Kaiyo had the ability to conceptualize the idea of self.
Now, in the darkness, Ahmik looked like a stranger. This person he had known all his life. His packmate and partner. It was like they were nothing now.
Desperation flared with a suddenness that scorched at Kaiyo’s gut.
“Look,” he said shakily. “I’ve learnt my lesson. Please, Ahmik. Please.”
Ahmik’s face twitched before turning away.
“Just, let me come back. Let me…don’t do this. You guys are all I…you’re all I…please. Please,” Kaiyo whispered. He saw Ahmik close his eyes.
“Kaiyo…” How many times had he heard his name in that voice? But not like that. “Go. Live your life. We don’t need you, okay? We don’t want you here.”
Kaiyo had seen Ahmik catch a rabbit with his claws once. It had been for a ritual, but the sight had still been gruesome and wrong. He still remembered the noise the creature had made. A thin scream, its legs twitching wildly, the red of his blood.
Kaiyo tried to take a breath, but it had been run through by Ahmik’s claws.
“What ifIneedyou?” Kaiyo whispered, abandoning all pride. He was bargaining with death. There was nothing left to lose. “I’ll do anything. Anything you say.”
Ahmik shook his head. “You say that now, but in a month? Two months? A year?”
“I’ve learnt. I won’t—”
“This isn’t a negotiation, Kaiyo,” Ahmik said, looking back at him. His eyes were dark. There was no light to hold onto. “You are no longer part of this pack. You need to leave.”
They stared at each other. The flapping whisper of an owl flew overhead.
“Ahmik,” Kaiyo pleaded. He pressed forward, but the wards had no more give.
“Go.” Ahmik took a step away.
The last thing Kaiyo saw was the shadow of Ahmik’s face, and then there was nothing.
**********
Kaiyo didn’t know how it had begun. He wouldn’t be able to point out all the stars making up the constellation of his love for Ahmik, but he could describe the moment he’d realized his feelings had stretched beyond friendship.
He’d been thirteen. Ahmik was a year older, but they often spent lunchtimes at school together with Thea. Their parents had worried about their lack of socialization with children outside the pack, but their tight-knit circle had proven hard to crack even by the adults.
Kaiyo had been hearing rumours for a while that one of Ahmik’s classmates had a crush on Ahmik. Thea would point the giggling group of girls out, the confident Sheila at the edges, her bright brown eyes and equally glowing smiles.
Kaiyo had disliked her at once.
It hadn’t been until the girl had gathered the courage to ask Ahmik out that Kaiyo’s disgruntlement had solidified. He had felt incredulous. Indignant.
