He ignores my obvious ploy. Instead, he again presses his disgusting sponge lips to mine. A second shriek presses against my throat, and I break away from the kiss. “Not so fast,” I coo. “Let’s take some time.”
Finally he eases his grip. My arms throb. I’m sure there are bruises wherever his palms have dug in. Why isn’t he sleeping? I gave him five times the dose I give myself when I need Oblivion. Stiles lowers me toward the mattress and one of his hands goes to untie the red curtain. It billows down around us, to the rhythm of the wind. I tense up, every muscle flexed to run. The powder’s not working!
But wait, Stiles sways on his knees as he turns. I attempt to sit up, but he flops down on me before I can. His weight is stifling. He fumbles with the ties on my cloak.
Reaching for his hands to stop him, I say, “Slowly please, I’m new at this, teach me slowly.” I am new to this, but the last thing I want is for him to be my teacher.
“Oh, Ruby, I’ve waited, and waited and I’m very impatient.” At this, he tears open my cloak and puts his paws on my breasts.
It’s not working fast enough. I have to get away from him some other way, but how? My breath seizes. The air is too thin. I wriggle out from under him.
His dark stare is furious. His mouth is open and pursed in a way that looks like he’s going to spit on me. “How dare you—” His eyelids flicker open, closed, and then his body slops over to the edge of the gazebo. Catching himself just before he falls off, he rolls back toward me at frightening speed. I swerve away. “You coldhearted bitch, you … tricked …” His eyes orbit up to their whites, and his head sags like a limp plant stalk. Frothy phlegm bubbles out of his mouth.
It worked! Holy fire, but for how long? I bolt to my feet. Peek out of the curtains, and cringe when I hear the high whimpers of my two unlucky friends. I wish I could save them too. But that would be an impossible task.
At least for now.
Tiptoeing out, I see the old Founders, even older than Stiles, the ones who can no longer be active participants. They are sitting in a row by the burning stage pyres, and closer to me, are the guards, each armed with a spear, whose handle is a carved Fireseed flower.
I decide that the only way out is to slither on the sand like a Dragon Lizard, use no light at all. My cloak makes a dragging sound, so I ditch it. All I have under it is my under-cami so the sand immediately scrapes and sears my flesh. Even at night, it holds in heat. It’s worth any amount of blisters to get away from here.
Back in the compound, I streak to my room and throw on a spare cloak. I toss my stash of Dragon Powder in my hip purse, a few bars of beetle loaf that I’ve been hoarding and some Cure Mead. A change of clothing too. Then I sneak to my brother’s room, on the boy’s wing, off limits to us girls. Luckily, the lazy night watchman is asleep, his head cranked to one side, eyeglasses dangling from his nose.
I was a child on the night that Professor Teitur’s son, Varik showed up, and talked the Founders out of seeing him as the Second Coming of Fireseed. But I’ll never forget the look on his face as he glanced over at me, and how his eyes moved over my three missing fingers as I waved. He looked pained, surely at wondering how I lost those fingers and at seeing how thin I was, how thin we all were. In contrast he filled out the space.
I wanted to tell him how I lost those fingers, but I was too loyal then to talk. It’s a strange world, with few answers. Maybe one day, I’ll figure out the why and where of things.
That night, ten years ago, when Varik took off, with his beautiful redheaded mistress, Marisa by his side, I was relieved for them. That’s why I waved. They brought me hope. Hope that Varik, and maybe his mistress from the north would tell people the story of the starving people down in the desert, and bring us help. Before then, and after, the elders taught us that people everywhere are mad heathens, who want to kill us, eat us for food. What am I to believe?
Varik called us a cult. He told Stiles this when he came that night and argued with him. I was small, but I’ll never forget it. Is that what we are?
So, two years later the elders crowned my newborn brother as the Second Coming, a sign that Fireseed had listened to us on that terrible night of destruction, when our compound was torn apart in the sandstorm like a child’s pile of twigs.
Thorn talks to no one. I understand him though. Once in a while he’ll say a word, but only to me. His eyes tell me entire sentences. His shudders convey fearful omens. I know he senses things, future things. He’s my weathervane.
“Thorn, we need to leave,” I whisper now in his ear as I gently shake him.