Page 20 of All That Has Flown Beyond
“I’m a werewolf, Kaiyo! I heal!”
“Not if she aims at your fucking throat!” Kaiyo bit out, his energy flaring as it was fed by frustration. “Just because you’re a werewolf doesn’t mean you’re invincible.”
“I’m your Kephale. I should—”
“Don’t even, Ahmik! I don’t care if you’re the Kephale!”
“If you don’t care, then why are you even here?”
“Oh, fuck you. Don’t even go there. That’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said, and that’s saying something. What happened to being a team?”
“How is throwing yourself in front of an attacker being a team?” Ahmik practically yelled.
“Are you seriously going to stand there and tell me you wouldn’t do the same for me? Look me in the eyes and tell me you wouldn’t have done the same,” Kaiyo demanded. In the gloom of the house, Ahmik stared back.
“It’s different. I’m supposed to protect you. I would be just as angry at Thea if she’d done that.”
“You can’t be the only one allowed to protect the others! We’re three people. Four, if Emil decides he wants to join the pack. If we lose you, we’re nothing. It’s the soldier’s duty to protect the general!”
“Not in this war.”
“You don’t get to decide what kind of war we’re fighting, Ahmik!”
They stared at each other. Kaiyo could see the tremors shaking Ahmik’s body.
“Don’t do that again. Please, Kaiyo. Just, don’t do that again.” Ahmik’s voice had lost its anger, but not its force.
Kaiyo shook his head. He knew he couldn’t promise that. Ahmik let out a shaking breath.
“I can’t lose you, okay? Please. I can’t lose you.” Ahmik’s words were heavy with old loss, with the knowledge of what death really meant. Kaiyo looked back at him, understanding but unable to fold.
“I can’t lose you either.”
They stood in their stalemate. Kaiyo felt the same desperation written on Ahmik’s face.
“Look,” Kaiyo said eventually. “We’re going to get better at this. Each time, we’ll learn. Our pack will be what it was one day. This isn’t going to last forever. It’ll get better.”
Ahmik closed his eyes. Kaiyo knew what he was thinking.
Sometimes, the world didn’t wait until things got better to strike.
Kaiyo took an aching step forward, and Ahmik opened his arms, wrapping around him gently, tightly.
“I can’t…” Ahmik whispered into his hair. Kaiyo closed his eyes.
“You won’t. It’ll be okay. You won’t.”
Ahmik pressed a kiss to Kaiyo’s head. It was a makeshift resolution that turned out to be easily broken.
**********
Kaiyo received a notice from the university about the amount of class he had missed. Attendance wasn’t obligatory in most, but for certain seminars and group projects, it was required.
Kaiyo threw away the letter almost before he had finished reading it. The anxiety was like the trembling of an empty landscape. Nothing was there to fall or break. It was just the ransacking of the dry earth.
He let the tremors go through him, feeling them become consumed by the nothingness until they were just a creak in the floorboard of his soul.
The days melted together. The greyscale of their colours ran into each other until time lost meaning. It jumped from one day to the next, getting caught in loops. One day it was Tuesday, the next Friday, and he was getting a text about going out. Time shrunk away, taking a step back, and it was Thursday, stuck in the middle again.
