Tanis tucked into the sandwich, content to be home with her familiar smells. Dust, a little bit of mold in the walls, the ghost of cigarettes past, and Naree, who was... she smelled good. Freshly showered, covered in that vanilla-scented glitter lotion she liked to buy from Walmart. And hormones. She’d smelled sweet still, sweeter than usual, though that was probably due to Tanis’s poor nose being stuffed full of death, lamia pheromones, and heart blood all day.
“I have a heart in the trunk,” Tanis said in opening. “I’d like to put it in the freezer if you don’t mind.”
Naree side-eyed her.
“...okaaay. Why?”
And so Tanis filled her in on everything, start to finish. Naree looked properly horrified, asking questions Tanis didn’t know the answer to, mostly about Cassandra’s resurrection and how they’d found her body in the first place. She did, eventually, ask the question Tanis feared about the encroaching Gorgons, though, and that wasn’t a feel-good maker.
“So what’s this mean for us?”
Tanis crammed bologna and cheese into her mouth, condiment free, because mayonnaise and mustard both just smelled like vinegar to her. “If I think you’re in danger, you’ll have to head home to Connecticut or far north, like Alaska, where it’s cold.”
Naree frowned. “But you’re coming, right?”
“...I don’t know.”
Naree stared at her for a long minute before chucking her box of crackers at her. Tanis winced as it smacked against her forehead and tumbled to the floor. “Bullshit. You’re coming.”
“It’s not that simple. I would, you know I would, but my mother...”
“Oh, fuck your mother.”
No thanks.
Naree jabbed Tanis in the side with a pointy fingernail. “Seriously, why can’t we just go? You hate her, she hates you. Should be end of story.”
Tanis sighed and crammed the last half of Sandwich One into her mouth, washing it down with a stolen guzzle from Naree’s water bottle. “I had a sister. Name was Agnetha. She got tired of my mother’s shit, I guess, because she took off. My mother spent two months straight scrying for her, and when she finally tracked her to Arizona, sent three of my other sisters to drag her home. She assembled all of us in her den and made us watch as she ate her, alive. I remember my mother’s jaw dislocating and her throat bulging and Agnetha’s muffled screams as she was swallowed. She suffocated before Mom got her halfway down, but it... I was six. It happened again when I was eleven, and again when I was fifteen. You don’t forget that. It’s awful, and my mother’s so goddamned petty, I don’t trust her not to send an army after me. Us. And you can’t outrun a lamia nose. You just can’t.”
Naree frowned, but her hand came out to capture Tanis’s, lifting it to her mouth and pressing soft kisses to her knuckles. “We’ll figure it out, babe. We’re smart. We got the tools. Go to Europe or, I don’t know, the mother country. I know like six words in Korean and one of them is ‘bathroom’ and another’s ‘umbrella.’ We got this.”
Tanis didn’t want to smile, but she couldn’t help it. That’s what Naree did to her—make her laugh when all she wanted to do was watch the world burn. “Maybe.” She pulled Naree close, avoiding the murder spring in the couch as she tucked her best girl’s head against her shoulder. Her cheek pressed to the glossy black hair, her arms held her tight, and for a few minutes, she enjoyed the simple comfort of a warm body pressed against hers.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“THAT’S LOVE, YOU know,” Naree said, watching Tanis slip the heart into the freezer. “Giving you the good Tupperware so you can store some dead chick’s heart in it.”
Tanis grinned, closing the freezer and pulling Naree close to drop her chin on top of her head. Her arms wrapped around Naree’s waist. Naree’s hands settled on Tanis’s ass, fingers digging into the taut muscle.
“Man, if I didn’t feel like dirt, I’d be all over this right now,” Naree said, giving a few firm squeezes. “It’s like two hams.”
“Hams. Having a ham ass is good?”
“Oh, yeah. Firm. Juicy. Not really pink, though. So like... light brown ham. Beigey-brownish ham.”
Tanis grinned and snuffled at her, looking for sickness or anything off in her body chemistry that could be responsible for her malaise, but all she got was that surge of hormones, that concentrated sweetness that happened before Naree bled. “I don’t smell any sickness.”
“Oh, you probably wouldn’t. It’s probably the cheese in a can I ate.”
Tanis pulled back to look her in the face. “You actually ate that garbage?”
“Why not? Easy Cheese is bomb. I was putting it in Bugles and making mini-ice cream cones while I watched The Avengers, but then I decided the corn delivery system was secondary to cheese whippets. I have regrets now. Huge ones. I probably won’t poop for, like, a year.”
Tanis smirked and pressed a kiss to Naree’s forehead, her atrocious day further behind her because Naree was there, being Naree, and that was the best thing in her world. “I honestly have no idea what to say to you right now.”
Naree grinned despite the horrific gurgle shrieks going on in her mid-section. “YOLO?”
“Sure. I guess.”
Naree slapped her on the ass before tromping through the apartment toward their bedroom. Tanis checked the locks, checked the lights, checked the everything so she could rest somewhat easy. Naree had moved the box fan from the living room into their bedroom so she wouldn’t melt to death, and was busy mummifying herself in a sheet when Tanis came in to flip off the switch.
“They’re like flashlights,” Naree said.
Tanis went to the closet for a gun. Nothing vulgar like the Colt, but something more respectable: the Glock 19. It was smaller than the other pistols, but it still held fifteen rounds of Fuck Off. She put it in her nightstand drawer and climbed into bed. “What, my eyes?”
“Yeah. If the light catches them at all, it’s like two laser beams. Zshoooooooo.”
Zshoooooo was apparently what laser beams sounded like in Naree Land. Tanis chuckled and pulled her close. Her head dropped to Tanis’s shoulder. Within minutes Tanis was out cold, the day’s events draining her enough that she didn’t dream, or if she did, she’d have no recollection of it upon waking.
Which was at nine in the morning.
Because Naree was puking out her brains in the bathroom.
It was rare for anything to get past Tanis—she woke at every cat’s fart—but the Gorgon thing and the Cassandra thing and the brutal beating she’d taken at the end of it all had wiped her out to the point Naree was able to sneak past her—not good in the event of an emergency. She rolled out of bed and headed for the bathroom, squinting against the too-bright sun polluting the hall.
“Are you okay?”
Naree spit into the toilet. She was on the floor on her knees, one hand braced against the gold-tiled wall, the other flat against the side of the sink cabinet. Her eyes watered, her cheeks were red from strain. The room reeked of bile. Tanis crouched beside her to rub her lower back, her free hand going to her hair and holding it so she didn’t get vomit in it if she retched again. When she retched again; Naree’s shoulders heaved, her abdominal muscles contracted, and she spewed liquid nothing into the toilet water.
“I feel gross,” Naree managed, voice raw.
“I’m sorry. Do you want some water?”
“Yes. Please.”
Tanis headed for the kitchen to grab one of the plastic bottles beside the sink. The tap water was always too chlorinated for her nose, and so they tended to buy cases of a local spring instead. She brought it back to the bathroom and put it next to Naree’s knee, on the pink shag rug with the funny hole cut out in the middle for the toilet base.
Naree retched twice more before going slack, her forehead resting against the cool porcelain. Tanis pressed a kiss to her shoulder, running the ball of her hand along Naree’s spine.
“What do you need?”
“I’m late,” Nar
ee said.
“What?”
Naree rotated her head to look Tanis in the eye, her face still resting against the toilet. Her hand reached up to fumble with the lever to flush her sick away. “I did the math. I’m late. Two weeks. Didn’t really think about it. So this is either canned cheese from Hell or something really messed up is going on.”
“Messed up.”
Pregnant. She’s saying she might be pregnant.
But... Mother said.
Oh, fuuuck.
Tanis sat up straighter. She wasn’t awake enough for this shit. Or, hell, she wouldn’t be awake enough for it ever. Ever since she’d been small, her mother had told her how useless the humanoid daughters packing cock were; “all that potential, wasted.” She’d never outright said it, but the implication was that she’d tried to breed with her own get to produce purer-blooded lamia in the past, and it hadn’t gone anywhere, ever, in thousands of years.
What if she was wrong?
Or what if I’m different.
“I didn’t cheat on you,” Naree slumped, eyes closed. “I swear.”
“I know you didn’t.” It wasn’t just that she trusted Naree, although she did. Tanis’s nose would have smelled someone else on her, especially semen. It had a distinct odor, and even post-washing, it lingered too far inside the vaginal canal to get it all out, even with a douche. Tanis could smell herself on Naree for a full day after they coupled. There was no way she would have gotten a lover by the boards, not that she would have thought it of her in the first place; the nose was never wrong.
She has that stronger scent. The sweetness...
“Hell.” Tanis stood up and padded back toward the bedroom to get dressed. She pulled on fresh boxers, jeans, and a T-shirt, not bothering with a bra because she didn’t have much tit anyway and no one would know the difference. The boots were still wet, and so she went for an old pair of olive-green Chucks that she didn’t bother to lace.
“Where are you going? Are you okay?” Naree called.
“I should be asking you that. I’m fine. I’m just going to run to the store and get you a test. Better to know for sure.”
“Maybe it’s the Easy Cheese,” Naree offered, her voice a little stronger. “That shit’s toxic sludge in a can.”
“It’s not Easy Cheese.”
“Yeah, I know it’s not, but you could humor me a little. Just once.”
She said she’s bloated. Mother gestates quickly. Shit, shit, shit.
“Okay, so maybe it’s the Easy Cheese,” Tanis said, opening a fresh pack of Marlboros and slipping one between her lips. She smiled around it, trying to look a lot calmer than she felt, and went back to the bathroom to stroke Naree’s head. She smelled like puked-up Skittles, which wasn’t nearly as charming as pukeless Skittles. “You okay for me to go now?”
“Yeah, just hurry back.”
“Eat some crackers.”
“You’re not my real mom.”
“Okay, don’t eat crackers.”
“Fine! I’ll just sit here and puke instead.”
“You do that.”
Tanis grabbed her wallet and keys and jogged down the apartment building’s steps. She climbed into the Caddy spied her cell phone on the passenger’s seat, tossed there at some point during her drive back from Adder’s Den the night before. The light at the top flashed with a message. She called her voicemail, because borrowing problems about Schrödinger’s Baby did nothing for her equilibrium; though, to be fair, neither did Bernie’s voice when it hit her ear.
“Hey, doll. It’s me. Do yourself a favor and avoid the Den today. Ma’s on a tear. We’re fortifying in case of attack. I’m laid up bad, but feeling a little better. Toothless, but better. Talk soon. Text me if you need anything.”
Tanis had no inclination to go to the Den on a normal day, never mind a day after she got smacked so hard she saw stars like one of those Looney Tunes cartoons. She slipped the phone into her pants pocket and put her hands back on the wheel, trying to focus on the smoke blackening her lungs and not the panic stewing in her belly.
If Ma finds out, she’ll never let me go. Ever. I’d be her fuck puppet forever. She’d hurt Naree. And the baby. Shit, she’s already threatened Naree. And if we run... fuck. What if she sees it? Scries it out and sees a fat swollen belly or a baby? And what if it’s a fucking snake? Would Naree ever forgive me? I wouldn’t. I’d hate me.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
By the time she parked the Caddy at Walmart, her heart beat fast and a long string of obscenities paraded through her head on repeat. She practically ran to the Family Planning aisle, blindly fumbling for a box and making her way to the ten items or less checkout. The old man behind the counter in his too-chipper blue vest eyed the test and then her left hand. Seeing no ring, his lips flattened into a disapproving grimace. Tanis practically tossed the twenty-dollar bill at him, hoping the old fart was stupid enough to say something about her unwedded bliss. It was better to scream at a judgmental clerk than to let Naree know she was fast approaching a breakdown about their kid.
Maybe kid.
But I’m pretty sure it’s a kid. Shit.
She drove home, stopping at the golden arches to score breakfast on the off chance Naree found an appetite after her spewfest. Into the driveway, up the stairs, through the front door. Naree had migrated, now sprawled on the couch, a metal bowl by her head, the empty water bottle clutched to her chest. Her eyes were closed, her coloring better than it had been before Tanis left.
“I brought coffee and a bacon, egg and cheese.”
“Cool. Let’s pretend food’s not gross and put it on the coffee table.”
Tanis did as she asked, dropping off the bag and moving down to her feet. She lifted them up and sat, rubbing Naree’s toes, her eyes skimming up her legs to her stomach and lingering there. It was swollen. Her girl was ‘fluffy’—Naree’s word for her chub—so a few extra pounds wasn’t something that would have called attention right away. But now that she was looking, really looking, she couldn’t help but notice that the stomach looked different from usual. Her midsection was less gentle sloping rolls of soft girl fat and more a mound with the rolls portioned out to the sides.
Mom’s clutches gestate in three days. She could be a day along, or two days, or months. I have no idea.
“Do you have to pee?” Tanis asked. “It said on the box to do it in the morning.”
Naree groaned. “No, but I’ll find some in me. Help me up.”
Tanis did, walking her to the bathroom by the elbow. Naree shook her off, frowning as she jerked the Walmart bag from her grasp and closed the bathroom door. Tanis stuffed another cigarette into her mouth because she was absolutely positive the next three minutes would be the longest three minutes of her life. She let herself out of their living room and onto their ‘veranda’—a shitty little walkway with only enough room for a rusted-out folding chair and an empty flower pot—and smoked her butt to the filter far faster than she should have.
A little while later, she heard the bathroom door opening, feet shuffling. She glanced behind her. Naree appeared in the hallway, her hands in her hair, her cheeks red.
“Well. Congrats? I guess?”
Tanis ground out the cigarette on the metal railing and tossed the dead soldier into the flower pot by her feet. Her brow was furrowed, she could feel it, and she evened it out so she looked as calm as possible when she went back inside, pulling the screen door into place in case a breeze wanted to usher out the humidity.
“We need to talk.”
“I... yeah. Okay.” Naree sat down again, her eyes fixed on the blank TV screen, her arms wrapped over her stomach. Tanis sank in beside her, her hand going to her knee and squeezing. Naree’s hand slid over to rest atop of hers, her fingers light against Tanis’s darker ones. There were no words, only silent comfort and shared terror. Tanis’s brain swam with a million what-ifs, but she wanted to give Naree time to adjust to the first bomb before she dropped any more.
“
So maybe this is years of being cunt-punted by the Catholic church, but I don’t think I can get rid of it,” Naree said eventually. “I don’t feel good about that possibility.”
“Okay.”
“I’ve got insurance still. Blue Cross through my parents for at least another six months. I should call a doctor.” Tanis nodded. Naree sucked in a breath. “Probably an OB/GYN.” Tanis nodded again and pulled out her phone, finding the insurance website and plugging in their zip code for offices nearby. There was an OB/GYN not ten miles away, in the next town over, that’d take their insurance, according to the internet.
But.
“Hon.” Tanis handed the phone over so Naree could call and swept a lock of thick black hair behind Naree’s ear. A strand got caught on her topmost piercing, a little gold hoop, and she gently disentangled it. “You realize it’s quarter-lamia. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what? It’s on me, too. I could have gone on the pill and I didn’t.” Naree put the phone down to balance on the meatiest part of her thigh.
“You didn’t because I told you I was sterile. I’m supposed to be. All the other lamias are. I just... maybe we’re evolving? Nature finds a way or some bullshit.”
“Or maybe you’re special,” Naree said, smiling faintly. “Well, you are special, but now we know you’re super-special.” She eyed the McDonald’s bag and pulled away from Tanis to dig into her breakfast, the nausea clearly replaced by something that looked vaguely feral as she crammed McMuffin into her face. Tanis watched her, her gaze drifting down to the midsection poking out the T-shirt at the waist. That was her son or daughter in there. It was, if they were lucky, a healthy little boy or girl and not some fucked-up half-snake-monster with four dicks and venom spit.
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