by Casey Hays
“Thank you,” he says.
I nod and reach into my pouch for the mint leaves. I began bringing them to him a few weeks ago. The first time, to be more precise, was exactly the day after Kate challenged me to truly take a look at Chad. To see if there was something more to him than simply a never-ending means to an end. The answer to my own private troubles. The one way to a few months of freedom from the Pit. She infuriated me with her insistence that the stock were not so different from us, and I didn’t want to hear it. The idea was absurd to me.
And then, one day, I asked his name. He barely remembered, so long had it been since anyone had spoken it. But I remember the sound of his voice so clearly when he told me. There was freedom in it, as if I’d asked him instead to come outside of the cave and walk with me in the sun.
He chews on the leaves now, still smiling at me. I set the bowl aside. After a minute, I take his hand. His gaze drifts downward, and then his fingers tighten.
“I don’t think they are going to repair the gates anytime soon,” I say.
He stops chewing, eyes flicking toward the bamboo and back to me.
“Why not?”
I shrug, uncertain of how much I should share. “The Council… they have a plan. It will just take some time to work it out.”
He thinks a moment, and then nods with a shrug as if I’ve said the most practical thing he’s ever heard. The gesture brings up an unwanted sadness in me, and I’m startled by this. I should be relieved that he seems uninterested in taking advantage of this situation. Instead, it bothers me that he’s so content, and I wonder: If I asked—if I caused him to consider what the open gate truly means—what would he say? Does he have some hidden desire to be free that he has never divulged because there was no point in it? I study him, and then I ask it.
“Would you leave, Chad?” I gesture toward the entrance. “The gate is open; freedom is just past it. Would you go?”
He swings his eyes toward the gate again, chewing on the inside of his cheek a moment, and then he swivels his head back toward me.
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“But… have you ever thought about it?” I prod him. “About getting out? Seeing what’s on the other side of that gate?”
His brow pinches, just the tiniest of motions, as he thinks. And I wait, half-afraid of what he might say.
“I—I don’t know what I want.” His voice carries a hint of uncertainty, as if he’s afraid to say it aloud. “I’ve never been allowed to know.”
His eyes pierce me as they do each time he looks at me—innocent and blunt and so very honest, searching me out. Like always, they touch a spot deep inside me that flutters quite perceptibly. His eyes remain steady, but I doubt he realizes what this one look does to me. His hand in mine has grown sweaty, and I pull away, wiping the wetness onto my skirt.
I’m reminded of the many conversations we’ve had since I decided to allow conversing. I learned very quickly that, besides food and exercise, I am the one diversion that he looks forward to. A break in the mundane loneliness that accompanies the life of the stock. Each time I appear on the other side of those bars, he greets me with a crooked smile that causes one of his sandy brows to rise slightly higher than the other.
“Mia?” My name on his tongue pulls me out of my memories, and I shake them away and look at him. “I would never leave you.”
Surprised, I tilt my head, a familiar fluttering pulsating in my stomach—one that happens often these days, and against my will. The sensation scares me because it thrills me, and this is wrong. These kinds of feelings between a breeder and her mate are dangerous.
“This is my place,” Chad continues, and his voice pulls my eyes toward his. He dips his head slightly. “It’s my duty.”
The fluttering eases, setting things back into perspective. His duty. Of course. I take him in. His eyes rest on me fervently, waiting for my response. And they remind me of how much control I have over his every thought—his every move. Yes, Chad knows his place. He knows that a breeder’s will must be obeyed.
“We all have our duties,” I whisper.
Chad waits, eyes on me. There is no question he is significantly attached to me, but whether this attachment is solely out of a dog’s loyalty is something I’ve never been able to quite perceive in him.
I pause, contemplating this reality. I never intended to let a dog make me feel things. That may have been Kate’s way, but not mine. What transpires in the Pit should fall simply under duty, and as an obedient member of the clan, I perform my duty as required. No emotions, no fuss. In and out.
No emotions.
Chad understands this all too well, and I should take a lesson from it.
With a sigh, I close my eyes and lean into him. He takes his cue, habitually wrapping his arms around me, and I listen to his heart thud against my cheek. Soon, duty obediently steps in, and we are tangled on the mat, which is all we truly know of each other.
Until recently, I always left immediately after, grateful to have the week’s task behind me. And I wouldn’t give Chad a second thought for an entire seven days. But these days, his face slips into my mind more often than not. As I scrub laundry in the creek, wash dishes, gather vegetables. It shocked me at first, which is why it took weeks for me to tell Kate that Chad was becoming more to me than just a dog. First, it was simply out of sheer stubbornness that I said nothing. I never liked admitting when I was wrong, especially to Kate, who always seemed to make the right choices, even when she suffered for them.
Later, it was more than stubbornness that kept me quiet. By then, I sensed Kate’s ever-growing rebellion, felt a shift in her attitude with each word she uttered—with every moment she spent in the Pit with that boy. Revealing more of my changing frame of mind toward Chad would have only encouraged her.
I lie next to Chad now, the lengths of our bare bodies pressed against each other in a glistening sheen of sweat, and I wish I had said more. I wish I had told Kate of my feelings for him. I sigh, and close my eyes until her face disappears. I shift my position.
“Chad?”
I whisper his name into the darkness as if speaking too loudly may break a spell cast over the earth. Outside, the sky has grown black, a twinkling blanket of stars our only light.
“Mia?” he replies. His mouth is close to my head, and my name comes on a puff of air, disturbing my hair. I smile.
“Did I tell you Kate is gone?”
“They let her leave the Village?” he asks.
“No—” I break off thinking. “Yes, I suppose they did. They didn’t stop her, at least.”
“But... where did she go? Where would she go?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. Another pause, and another sigh. “But she was my best friend. Even after I brought trouble on her she—”
My words are cut short by the lump that suddenly swells up in the back of my throat, and then a quiet sob erupts—breaking the lump free with one heavy sound.
Chad shifts beside me, snaking an arm beneath my body to pull me more tightly against him.
“Don’t cry.” His tone floods with true concern. “I don’t like it when you’re sad.”
“I have no one.” My whispered voice is wet. “Everyone has left me behind.”
I do cry then—thick and sloppy—wetting his chest. I thought my heart was finished with its weeping, but it wasn’t. I hold nothing back, and Chad’s arms tighten around me, silently giving what I require as if he’s been trained to do this as well. To comfort me. To listen to my complaints. But when my tears are spent and my body is weak with exhaustion, he speaks.
“Are you finished?”
I hold still beside him. His tone sounds different—irritated. He’s never spoken to me this way before, and I lift my head in surprise. He is all shadows.
“If you are,” he continues. “I have something to say.”
I push up onto my elbow, the sudden space between us causing a cool wisp of air to slice through the stickiness of our bodies. I
shiver, but I keep my eyes pinned on him.
“Okay,” I say, curious.
He eases up until his back rests against the rough wall, and he takes my hand.
“You aren’t alone.” His voice is low and husky. “I’m here. Every day, I wait for you.”
The sweet gesture in his words causes tears to pile up into the corners of my eyes again.
“Oh Chad,” I shake my head, but my words are careful. “Of course you do. It’s your duty—”
“No,” he interrupts briskly. “That isn’t why.”
I sit up, growing suddenly impatient. I shouldn’t have let him see me fall apart. It’s not good for him. He can’t understand what I’m feeling, and I’m too exhausted to reason with him. Night moves in more deeply; I should have been gone hours ago anyway.
I tug my shirt over my head and swing my legs off the edge of the mat, but before I can stand, Chad has me by the waist, holding me in place.
“That isn’t why,” he repeats.
I frown.
“Fine, Chad.” I twist in his grip to face him, my former well-kempt demeanor snugly in place. “Tell me why, then?”
He hesitates, his fingers loosening their pressure. And when he says nothing more, I stand, satisfied that he’s scurried back into his place beneath me. It’s much easier for both of us this way, despite these feelings that crop up on occasion. I slide into my skirt tugging on the string to cinch it.
“I’ll bring you some food tomorrow, okay?” I swing my pouch over my head and push on the gate.
“I wait for you... because there’s something in the middle of my chest that hurts when you aren’t here.”
Silence.
The gate falls back into place. I turn. Chad stands and comes to me. Our eyes connect, and for once, I don’t see duty written in them. I see his heart beating for me. And I can’t move.
Chapter 5
T
he sun sets, darkness creeps in on us, and I lie next to Chad, his steady breathing matching my own. In silence, we stare at the darkened ceiling. I’ve studied it many times in the daylight. When the sun hits it just right, there is a stern frown in its clumpy surface that always makes me feel uneasy. As if the cave is a living being that hates me and longs to spit me out of its mouth. But tonight, it stares back at me from the blackest of blacks.
I raise my hand toward it, imagining that the frown might have grown sharp teeth in the darkness and will gladly take a bite out of me. It doesn’t. Instead, I catch a shimmer of my fingers in the small bit of moonlight. After a moment, Chad reaches up, entwines his fingers with mine. His grasp is a solid truth in my reality.
At his touch, I turn, barely able to discern him. He shifts his weight until he faces me. Another minute, and that crooked smile slides into place. The shadows can’t hide it.
“Are you going to stay with me tonight?” he asks.
The question tumbles around inside my brain. I’ve never spent a night in the Pit. In fact, the thought has always repulsed me. But my body stretched out beside his, one leg looped over his thigh, has no desire to move, and the short trek back to my hogan seems miles long.
I tug my hand free from his and reach out to run my fingers through his dust-colored hair.
“Would you like it if I did?”
The question floods me with panic. To speak it aloud is to commit to it.
“Yes,” he whispers, an anxiousness in his tone.
A sudden, silent flash of lightening illuminates the cave, surprising both of us. It lasts just long enough for me to notice Chad’s eyes flooded with heated emotion. Just long enough to tear at my heart and make me weak and sick and so utterly ashamed that I disregarded his feelings for so long. Yet, how was I to know?
A pealing roll of thunder rumbles overhead. I take Chad’s face in my hands.
“I’ll stay,” I whisper.
With those two words, something in the air seems to shift. Something new and dangerous, and I assume this is what it means to be a rebel—which I am not—and the entire moment holds both of us captive. Lightening flashes. Chad’s face, his beautiful, familiar face, lights up, falls into shadow. But not before I see his eyes again.
It is then that I give in to the nagging, groaning beat of my heart—a heart that has been speaking to my deaf ears for far too long to no avail. I ease up until my face is level with Chad’s. He inhales, holds his breath in a moment of anticipation. And before another thought can pass through my brain to change my mind, I lean in and press my lips to his for the very first time.
He jolts at the unexpectedness of our bumbling lips bumping into each other, and at first, everything is awkward, and it feels wrong. Madame Belle never taught kissing. Kissing is not required—is not a necessity for mating—but as Chad’s mouth parts, accepting mine more readily, I begin to wonder why. He presses his lips together, catching my bottom lip between them, and they cling to each other as if they were always meant to be joined like this.
His hands slide up, catching my jaw in their palms, and he pushes in. Our tongues meet, just a small lick. A shiver climbs my spine, and I’m suddenly fully aware that kissing is the most natural of things.
Seconds turn into minutes as our mouths explore each other, an uncharted and very new territory. And it is wonderful and innocently intimate, and I wish that I could kiss Chad like this forever.
We snuggle down together, my head on his chest. I am inside this cave—after dark. The rain patters the dust outside, growing heavier and keeping me here whether I want to stay or not—and I am content.
“Mia,” Chad whispers.
“Mm-hmn?”
“What was that?”
I smile. “That was a kiss.”
“Oh.” A pause. “There’s another feeling in my chest. What is it?”
Outside the gate, the rain beats up the earth, and I swallow my answer. Because I’m certain the same feeling batters inside my own chest.
*
My convulsing stomach wakes me in the middle of the night. I jut upright on the mat, my hand flying to cover my mouth. It does no good.
I leap from the mat and heave my last meal all over the floor.
Chad rolls to his side, props his head on his bent arm. I stand on shaky legs staring at the mess. And one thought runs through my mind: the Moirai are punishing me for that kiss. I press the back of my shaking hand to my mouth.
“I must be coming down with a sickness,” I insist. Chad reaches for me, pulls me down to him.
“Do you hurt?”
I assess myself, shake my head. Oddly, I feel surprisingly good. I check for fever. Nothing.
“I’ll bring water to clean this up.”
Chad merely shrugs and pulls me into him until my back is against his chest, his arm locked tightly around me. His solid form is so comforting. I’ve never allowed myself to notice before. The contents of my stomach pool near the mat, already causing a sour stench, but I close my eyes and relax into Chad, sleep moving back in. For a minute, as his breathing matches mine, I don’t care what the Moirai think, and a strange thought permeates my brain just at the edge of sleep.
Right here… this is where I belong.
*
“It must be something I ate.”
Rhoda lifts my chin to peer into my eyes for the third time. After getting sick twice more this morning, I decided it was best to see a Village physician. Still, I feel perfectly fine, and I sigh as she presses her fingers gently against my throat, feeling for lumps. I’m tired of her prodding.
She lays her head against my chest, listening to my lungs.
“Take a deep breath.”
I do, but it comes off as another exasperated sigh. Her hands come up, press into my abdomen. A giggle erupts from me when she squeezes my ticklish sides too hard. Shock slams into me when she unexpectedly yanks my legs apart to check my lower regions.
“Rhoda!” I work to press my thighs together. “Can you please just give me some ginger syrup, and I’ll be on my way?”
&
nbsp; I know this remedy. In fact, I know many. Medicine is a favorite subject of mine, and Rhoda has been kind enough to humor my curiosity, letting me loiter in the infirmary and teaching me how to mix herbs for all sorts of cures. The duty of physician has always enamored me, and Rhoda is knowledgeable of so many remedies. I truly admire her.
She rests her smooth palms against the tops of my legs and looks me in the eye. “Ginger syrup isn’t going to cure what you have. But it will help with the nausea.”
I straighten.
“What’s wrong with me? Is it… something terrible?”
“That depends on your definition of terrible, child.”
There’s a playful twinkle in her eye, and I furrow my brow, not liking this game of riddles.
“What is it, Rhoda?”
She leans back, crossing her arms over her chest, her smile showing off the small gap between her two front teeth.
“When did you last have a cycle?”
Her smile widens, one dark brow raised knowingly, and with a gasp, I press my hands against my stomach.
“Nooooo.” The word is a long whisper leaking from my lungs. And then, I stare at her in stunned silence while she continues to smile like a village idiot.
For eight long months I have waited, and finally, the Moirai have answered. Elation washes over me. No one has ever been cruel enough to say it to my face, but I see the pitiful looks from breeders who are with child. I can read their eyes plainly. Poor Mia. She must be tainted. Whether they mean it or not, their enlarging bellies are a mockery, and as much as I’ve tried to deny it, each passing month made me believe it myself. I was marred.
But now?
Rhoda chuckles with a shake of her head as I sit on the edge of her examining table letting the news settle in. Her laughter is infectious, and soon, I’m grinning from one side of my head to the other.
“Congratulations, Mia. It appears you’re not useless after all.”
My joy is only stifled by the fact that I have no one to tell. I slide off the table.