by C. B. Wiant
“Onyx.”
29
Run
“Are you a tracker?” I ask.
A black mini cooper cautiously reverses into the parking spot besides the truck.
“No. The closest I got to the Arena after the First Watch was seeing Guardian. He helped me through the well.”
The mini cooper’s driver door opens. A woman in pink scrubs leaves the vehicle. Key chains litter her lanyard.
Hudson scrubs his face. He shouldn’t have been driving. I open the passenger door and walk around the back of the truck like it’s a horse. I walk my hand around the bed and tell her she’s a good girl. My presence is known.
Hudson watches me in the rearview mirror. I get to his door and open it. My heart is pounding.
“Will you come with me?” I ask.
Hudson disengages the keys, slips them into his pocket and follows me inside Kroger. The doors slide open too slowly, too cautiously—we have to wait. Flowers stick out of the walls in plastic shells. The fragrance reminds me of my given name. I hustle us pass the literal hearts and flowers into the fruits and vegetables.
I snatch organic celery and rip a stalk off. Crunch. A woman with a barren grocery cart stops. “You have to wash vegetables before you eat them.”
Hudson picks up a Honey crisp apple, rubs it on his shirt and chomps through the skin. Crunch. We walk off together.
I couldn’t remain in the truck any longer. I need a distraction—something to mindlessly idle with through heavy subjects.
“Do I look older to you?” I ask fondling a wine bottle. I pick wine like I do books, based off the cover appeal. I don’t read blurbs or labels.
“You’ve been an old soul. That hasn’t changed.”
I spin the ugly bottles so that the labels face into the shelves. “I wonder if me being in the forest slowed my physiological clock so you may have aged years while I aged slower—like a twin paradox…but not.”
Hudson laughs, “I’m not drunk enough for quantum theorizing.”
I grab his right forearm and inspect the black & gray scales tattooed. I run my finger over his skin. The texture feels more durable than skin, but rougher than reptilian scales. The markings don’t overlap, they’re more like calloused plates of armor.
Hudson’s skin erupts in goosebumps.
“Tell me your experience,” I say in the coffee and tea aisle. I touch and read all the boxes.
“I did some things I’m not proud of Av.” He takes another bite of his apple and examines an environmentally friendly espresso bag. A woman with a small boy in her cart rolls up next to me.
Hudson spins the bag to skim the fine print. “I killed everyone in the House.” The woman covers her boy’s ears and backtracks, horrified. Her skill at maneuvering a grocery cart san-hands is impressive. She grasps her son’s head like a wheel and retreats.
Hudson and I walk off in the other direction and mosey into the canned alcohol section. “You didn’t kill my dad.”
Hudson pauses. “Did you?”
I pull a case of spiked sparkling water off the shelves. “No,” I say, but Hudson doesn’t move. The currency for joint movement is words.
“Onyx handed me the gun to kill him, but I couldn’t do it.” I take out a can and toss my celery in the cardboard hole.
We walk into the plates and kitchen utensil aisle. Crack. I pop the can.
“The Arena is a dictatorship and I’m its guard dog.” He stops walking in front of a wall of thermoses. One of which is a newer, shinier version of the thermos Hudson brought on our trail to find the shadow—to ultimately find Onyx. “My leash was you. He couldn’t hurt me.” He juggles the thermos, stuck in a reverie. “But he could hurt you—.”
I turn towards him and away from the palm themed dinnerware. “We’re both killers.”
A grocery story attendant walks down our aisle. “Excuse me Ms., you need to pay for your groceries.” The interloper is a teenager making minimum wage. He gives the suggestion only to me. It makes sense. Hudson is too imposing. He takes another bite of his apple and drags his fist along his lip to wipe dribbling juice.
“Thank you,” I say and turn back to Hudson. “But, now you’re free?”
Hudson smiles. Onyx no longer has leverage over him.
I smile. The teenager behind me doesn’t. They’re radioing their manager.
“Let’s get out of here.” Hudson discards the thermos on a shelf full of seasonal oven door towels. He opens his hand for my box of alcohol and celery. He snatches a case of Two Hearted Ale for himself.
30
Here
The truck doors shut us into the cab. I buckle my seatbelt and look at Hudson and smile. I rip off another celery stalk and hang it out of my mouth like a piece of straw. I fucking missed his face. I missed his unconditional acceptance.
He smiles back.
I pull the celery stalk out of my mouth. “Tell me you’ve been missing me.”
Hudson starts the truck’s engine, it rumbles to life, “I’ve been missing you alright.”
Our connection is skin tight.
Hudson drives us to a hotel a street over. It would have been faster for us to walk. We caught the only light.
He pays for a room with one bed. We take the stairs to the second floor. I pinch his ass between flights and he swats me playfully.
Once inside our room, he puts the celery in the mini fridge. Our cases of alcohol rest on the counter. There isn’t enough room in our mini fridge for our alcohol. Ripping open cardboard, Hudson lifts an IPA and walks to the nightstand. He removes the phone from the cradle and dials a number out, 9-1-. I drink my alcoholic beverage like water. I slip a bottle and can respectively of our drinks into the mini fridge. We’ll rotate out.
Though if we handle the mini fridge like we used to rotate the dishwasher, we’ll be drinking out of the cardboard boxes.
“Hey,” he says into the speaker. He opens the amber bottle of Two Hearted. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have driven off.”
I’m in his crosshairs. He’s speaking to Ramona, but he’s talking to me. “I got us a room here in town. No more driving.” He nods his head a few times. “Yeah…Okay…Room 210.” And hangs up.
I strip my shoes and socks from my feet. Mismatched black and white socks roll off my feet and ball up near the bed’s skirt. Ramona will lose her mind when she realizes I didn’t arrange the socks like I said I would. Instead, I sorted by size and touch while binge watching the Bravo channel.
Hudson takes a few more slugs off the bottle and sets it on the nightstand. “Ramona thinks we should go back to the farmhouse. She’s worried about your mental stability. How are you doing?”
My can of spiked sparkling water swings from my clutches. “I’m real tired of asking people who haven’t been through what we’ve been through for direction.”
I toss the empty can into the trash. It hits the rim and falls to the floor. Backwash spills out the mouth. “No more fucking anyone but me.” I kick the white sock into the black sock and roll my toes anxiously into the carpet until they crack. “And fuck Terra as a human being. I’m not searching for another half. I’m not half. I want you—for you.”
Hudson reaches for my thighs and pulls me close. His palms slide up and curve over my hips to my waist. His fingers slip under my shirt. He presses his forehead to my rib cage.
“It’s me and you…” I say.
He nods against my sternum and lifts my shirt higher. His lips press and articulate against my skin. The cupid’s bow of his upper lip pushes against my lower rib. My fingers sift through his hair, it’s short. Too short for my liking. He’s a lion shaved for the zoo. I thread him closer. I fucking love Hudson. He’s the simplest, quickest decision I’ve ever made.
I disentangle us, step back and crack a new can of 5% alcohol.
“So, did I end up killing you?” I ask after taking a drink.
He looks scrambled. “In the same way I poisoned you, you burned me. We took each other out
, so we were both admitted to the Arena through a death loophole.” He picks back up his beer and rolls the bottle between his palms.
Condensation drips off the bottom of the bottle. “It’s different for the Beasts. We wake up in the Arena.” The bottle rolls like a rolling pin, flattening out the day he woke up.
“I thought I was dead. I didn’t understand how I was alive. I was naked. Ipsumroot powder caked in my ears. At the time I didn’t know it was Ipsumroot powder.” He takes a drink and licks his lips.
“I woke up alone on the grass of the Arena. The first Beasts I came upon were a cluster of three in the standard issued black set of scrubs. They were singling out a contestant—they were circling a man. The man twisted side-to-side. Water sprayed out of his fingers like a human sprinkler. The three Beasts took the man out at the knees.” Hudson picks at the corner of the label.
“We’re savages, the Beasts, we roamed for contestants to kill. Your season wasn’t the only one happening. Multiple battles were happening simultaneously. Once we killed, we swiped the contestant’s blood on an artifact and we’re transported back to holding—the place the well brought you. I was able to get clothes, but only after I killed.”
We both take a swig from our drinks. I take an extra drink for good measure.
“The House wants the elite Beasts and the most-skilled contestants from each season. They sell the selected individuals to government agencies or the black market crime syndicate.” Hudson downs the rest of his beer and sets the empty bottle on the carpet by his boots. “When I found you I started indiscriminately killing those hurting you. Onyx pulled me. The House was told I died in the Arena. Onyx kept me sequestered, and I did his bidding. That was the deal. I reaped delinquent debts… Do I need to get into specifics?”
“Not unless it turns you on,” I say and toss him a cold beer.
He chips the nightstand opening the bottle. “No, nothing about killing does anything for me.”
I nod in contemplation. “Has Onyx reached out to you since I’ve been back?”
Hudson takes a drink, “No, the past two weeks he’s ghosted me. I used the opportunity to see Ramona.”
“And bring fucking Terra with you,” I snide.
“Av-”
I add to the remark. “To fuck her.” I require clarification.
“I didn’t know you would be on the other side of the wall.”
“But you knew, you came thinking of me, didn’t you?”
“I thought I felt you.”
I smile. His orgasm was mine.
“Tell me about the missing years.”
Hudson falls backward on the bed at my inquiry. “I committed the years to Onyx. He had me all over the globe collecting on his behalf. Time is perceived differently in the Arena, it’s as if it exists across several time zones at once fluidly. There is an innate jet lag. Your recovery after the First Watch took months. Your battle with Ruby spanned a couple of days. Onyx truly flexed his coercion once they pulled me. He isolated and navigated my access to you—my allotment of screen time.”
I nudge his knee. “That feels too basic for you to sit around watching a screen.”
Hudson lifts himself to his elbows. “It was the only way I could see you. When I misbehaved, Onyx would send you in the Arena or hold you longer in recovery.”
“Tell me about your time outside of Onyx’s blackmail,” I say and bump his thigh with my knee.
Hudson releases his elbows and falls back with a thump. “Terra tried to hold me down. I saw her when I was in town. I wanted relief between someone’s legs. Is this what you want to hear?”
“It is and it isn’t—because… If you weren’t longing for me to be alive, you wouldn’t have been at anyone’s command before or after the forest.” I unbutton my pants and pull down the zipper. “You may not have waited for me, but you did for me.”
A small chip of me shouts off my shoulder to make him grovel. The rest of me doesn’t see the need. I am needing. We’ve already lost time. I know the kind of lover Hudson is—I’ll make him pay in the currency of my desires.
Communication is primarily nonverbal, its only humans who construed such emphasis on verbal communication. I don’t want to hear him talk anymore. I don’t want I’m sorry. I want thank you. I want grateful caresses and security in his touch.
I stretch the fabric over my ass and kick it off my legs. I pull my shirt up and over my head. I’m naked. Bras and panties are for virgins.
I didn’t actively sense each day of the years that separated us, but celibacy made an impression on my body. I rub my thighs together in anticipation.
“I stayed alive, Hudson.” What are you going to do with me now?
I slip between his knees. Hudson watches me slide into place.
His reverent expression flashes pain, “Is this from the Arena?” His forefinger traces a line from my collarbone to my navel. Ruby’s razor-thin whip from the Arena sliced me. The Ipsumroot patched me. But didn’t erase the scar.
The thin, light rose-colored line is flat and smooth beneath his touch.
“Yeah,” I say on an exhale.
He kisses me between my breasts, “You weren’t supposed to be marked.”
I look down, Hudson’s thick curls brush my skin covering any trace of faint scar lines.
Hudson’s tongue traces the hairline mark.
I wrap myself around him because I don’t want gravity to hold me down. I want Hudson to hold me down.
Torrents of rain crash down on Dahlia and I. We’re not in the Arena. We’re in the vacant Kroger’s parking lot.
“What did you do with the others?” Dahlia screams at me.
A bulb flickers in a light pole.
Dahlia’s hands are on me. “What did you do with the others?”
Her fists grip my waterlogged shirt. “We don’t need you,” she cries. Water and tears stripe down Daliah’s face. “No one needs you. Where are the others? What did you do?”
I try to unfurl her fingers from around my shirt. Skin sloughs off. Necrotic tissue dribbles to the pavement.
“No one needs you. Where are the others? What did you do?” Dahlia repeats over and over until I’m wrenching her skeletal digits from me.
Another bulb flickers. Two light poles go dark.
“I killed you.” I say grappling with soggy flesh. Her wrists droop. Her skin looks like egg drop soup.
Dahlia won’t release me. “I killed you,” I scream. “I killed all of you.”
A black SUV screeches from beneath the darkened light poles and rams into me. I crash.
“Av, are you ok?” Hudson asks me.
I fell off the bed. “Yeah, just a bad dream.”
Hudson doesn’t ask me if it’s from the Arena. He knows that trauma kicks me out of bed at night.
My skin is slick with sweat when I wake. I stretch and kick Hudson in the calf. He mumbles and rolls over onto his stomach. Sideways on the bed, I crawl off the mattress and plummet to the ground like an anchor in shallow water. Empty cans crunch. Bottles roll and ping off last night’s pizza box. Why don’t hotels have recycling bins? I throw clothes on my body and scribble a note to Hudson: You sleeping is boring. I draw a heart that encompasses my message and sign the note with an A that looks like a star. We litter the hotel note pad with old messages between the two of us. Neither of us wants to rip off the sheet and start fresh. I swipe the keycard to our room off of the counter, take Hudson’s wallet, and close the door as if a sleeping baby rests inside. The Do Not Disturb placard waves.
I take the stairs and cross the street to the 24/7 grocery store. Hudson and I have been naked hibernating for two days. When we must, Hudson answers the door for room service wrapped in the bedsheet. He pushes me into the bathroom or throws the comforter at my face so I’m unseen. We only dress to visit the store.
The Kroger doors slide open. Contaminated air blasts my face. I acclimate to the freezing temperatures. The self-scan attendant gives me a double-take. I breeze past them to th
e nail polish aisle end. I pick up the red nail polish and see the trays from the Arena. I put the red down and pick up a lilac color that I pair with a mint green.
I bypass the self-scan and wait in line behind full carts. I support workers and not electronics; I have nothing but time for proper customer service.
“Did you find everything you were looking for today?” The register attendant asks. It takes her longer to ask the question than to scan my two nail polishes.
“Yes, thank you.” I open the maw of Hudson’s wallet. I provide a twenty and accept the change. I do not donate to any fund. If funds are needed, maybe the seventy-billion-dollar corporation should donate their earnings instead of petitioning to their customers. The CEO’s salary has to be a cool million. They’re just as greedy as churches. Do I have any spare change? Do I want to round up? Do you? I’m stealing from Hudson.
“I don’t need a bag.” I snatch and roll the nail polish in my hands like boading balls as I walk back to the hotel.
The woman behind the front desk nods at me as I pass. She’s called our room a few times with noise complaints, she’s heard enough of my voice.
Sliding into our room like a ninja, I turn and see Hudson propped up on the bed. He has a book spread open, spine bent in his hands.
“Does my rocking hard core turn you on?” He asks in all seriousness—eyes down, still reading text. The lamp on the bedside table is lit. The notepad angles towards the bed. He saw my love note. “Can I put my thick length between the apex of your thighs and thrust?”
I let loose a snorting guffaw. “Only if you make us both cum at the same time and we scream each other’s name in perfect bliss.”
He smiles and turns the page. “You ache for me with a burning desire, don’t you?”
“Not unless you gave me an STD.”
Hudson readjusts himself on the bed. The sheets are cockeyed and wound up. He gets on his knees. “Look at my sleek lines and cock Aviana. This is serious. We are perfect.” He skims a few pages. “How many times does the word perfect, bulge, and rock-hard show up in these things?” He lowers the book. Hudson absentmindedly strokes his dick with his right hand while gazing at me. “You went to the store in my boxers and a t-shirt?”