Page 8 of Overexposed

Owain looked at Tove’s shoes. Tove always had nice shoes. It was something of an obsession for him. “Is that like a slave?” the boy asked.

Back then, you have to understand, it wouldn’t have been too unusual. Raids still took place, and captured people were taken as slaves. It was not unilaterally a terrible experience, nor were slaves treated well in all cases. It simply was a fact of living at the time, like trending on social media is today.

“Not like a slave,” Tove said. “You would be free. You will not be beaten. You will stoke fires, carry water, clean shoes. That sort of thing. And you will be discreet, which means you may not gossip about the work you do or who you do it for.”

“Even if I make a mistake, you will not beat me?” Owain asked.

Even beating a servant would not raise too many eyebrows, you have to understand. Owain, rather than being a traumatized orphan, was just trying to make sense of an offer that sounded too good. It made me try to catch Tove’s eye, because at seventeen, I understood what he was and what people might do to him, especially during the day. While I didn’t want the boy to go hungry, what Tove seemed to be willing to offer scared me. What if Owain told others what Tove really was? What if they came to the island to hurt him?

“Even if you make a mistake, you will not be beaten,” Tove said. “You have my word. In exchange, I expect you to do your best and avoid making mistakes.”

Owain glanced up. “Do I get food for the work?”

“You will,” Tove said.

Owain finished the last of his bread, while mine seemed to have lost its taste.

The boy looked up at me. “I will be your servant,” he said. His brown eyes were clearer, and hope had displaced the terror in them.

“Excellent,” Tove said, and clapped his hands. When he wasn’t on the island, he wore gloves at all times to hide his nails, and I wonder, sometimes, whether Owain would have so easily agreed if he’d seen Tove’s nails in the sunlight.

Chapter Three

Ethan

Auris drew patterns on the back of my hand while the fire crackled away. He’d been silent for minutes now and had grown so still that I might have thought he’d fallen asleep if not for his fingers circling my knuckles.

“What happened next?” I finally asked.

Auris shifted, and for a second, I thought he’d forgotten where he was. Then he brushed my hair out of the way and kissed my throat.

“Next, Tove took us back to his island, and there we lived happily ever after. For a while.”

“Happily ever afters are forever.”

Another kiss. “In fairy tales. This happened. I apologize. I didn’t even mean to tell you about Owain. I meant to tell you about me and about Tove’s method of teaching me. Of how he prepared me for living as long as I have.”

“You were trying to tell me more than a story, huh?”

“I was.”

“Because I told you I’m okay with changing managers?”

He braided our fingers together and moved our clasped hands in front of the firelight, creating texture and contrast, fire red and shadow black. “No. I’m still upset your old manager gave out your address. I can happily arrange for someone to look after your apartment. Do you know what fear is for, my sweet?”

I turned around to look into his black eyes. “What it’s for? Apart from creeping people out?”

“Fear is a gift. It runs in your blood so that you have the clarity and strength to fight or run when you are in danger. When I was in that forest, when Tove left me, I watched animals hunt. Rabbits panting after a sprint the likes of which they don’t normally do. It kept them alive. When the priest took you, all that fear was there. You couldn’t fight. You couldn’t run. You couldn’t do anything.”

I unraveled at the last word. The tears came with a violent pull that reduced me to a shivering mess in Auris’s arms. He wrapped the blankets around me, sealed me in with his arms.

On and on it went, crying and a tight dark fog that settled over my brain.

Auris started rocking me against him for long minutes, and after I had no more tears to cry and my limbs grew heavy, he spoke again.

“When a rabbit outruns a fox, he knows that he is safe. Fear saved him. The rabbit can relax, until the next fox strikes. The cycle ends then. Your cycle hasn’t ended yet. I see you flinch at noises --”

“I’m sorry,” I ground out through a rough throat.

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