Chapter 11: ... Do Not Notice Their Chains

Chapter 11:  ... Do Not Notice Their Chains

"Hey, Val?"  Lythalia's voice is muffled from behind the door and the wardrobe that I've moved in front of it.
"Yeah?"
"Can we talk?"
I get up, walk over to the door and lean on the wall next to it.  "Sure."
Judging by the pause, I think she expected me to open the door.  I'm not sure why she'd think that, though.  "Did you hear about school?"
"Oh yeah, I know about the evil mutant-baby rumor."
She hums in difficult thought, "I suppose you could call it that."

A minute passes in silence, but it feels like she has more to say.  I don't move since I don't have anything else to do but wait, anyway.  "Tish is gone."  Good.  Cara'll be glad for that.  We both continue to wait, though this conversation is starting to get painfully slow.  When she starts up again, she sounds bitter and resentful.  "I can't believe you didn't talk to her."
I start to laugh as soon as she's done, and only laugh harder as I think about it more.  "I- what?  You wanted us to chat?  About what, the time I gave her a concussion?"
"You know what I mean," she snaps back.

The silence returns as I try to dig through my memory to find what the hells she's talking about.  "Is this about the aphrodisiac thing?  'Cause I'm not the one who needs to apologize for that."
"No, it's-!"  When she starts speaking again it's more clear, like she's talking directly toward the door now.  "You- you!  You didn't- no, you'd have to've."  She takes a deep breath and holds it for a second, before finally, worriedly asking "You knew, didn't you?  I mean, we joke about you being dense," she adds cautiously, forcing me to wonder who is included in "we," "but you still knew, right?"
"Knew what?"  I barely ask the question before the pieces start clicking into place.  My stomach starts to churn before she can answer.
Her voice is thick with incredulity.  "She was on the floor, begging you.  How could you not notice?"

"She fell for you."

"No one's ever truly bested a Manticore before, not that I've heard of.  Some men have beaten them in combat, and they end up with wives who are their equals, but no man has ever dominated one sexually - it's just not physically possible.  But you, you beat her in a fight and then you shrugged off her body's aphrodisiacs."  She finally stops, breathing heavily enough that I can hear her through the door.  "Who knows what kind of relationship you could have."
"Sister, you know that thing you do where you go off on a tangent about something I would never want to do?"

"Val, just think about it-"
"Okay, done.  I have thought about marrying Tish.  If you'll excuse me, I have some vomiting to do."
She waits until I'm done before bitterly countering, "You're not the only one with problems here.  You've never had to worry about starvation when surrounded by people who could feed you, but just choose not to.  Can you blame her for hating them?"
"Yes."  The tension from the angry silence builds until I relent, "Okay, no, but I can sure as hells blame her for being an idiot about it.  You don't get to try and rape someone - twice! - and then turn around and be lovers.  If she's lonely then maybe she shouldn't terrorize everyone around her."

"She has instincts," she finally answers.
"So do I.  And you.  Everyone has instincts, and sometimes they kick in and we do something stupid or mean.  Those are lapses for us, but they aren't for her.  She doesn't even try to hold them back."
"She tried when she was here."
"A day late and a copper short."
Another pause keeps me from wrapping this up and getting back to my game.  "Could you at least talk to her, just once?  For me?"
Why the hells would I do anything for you?  And especially for her?  I fill my lungs, pause, and finally let out an angry "Fine."
She softly answers "Thank you," before leaving.

Regret sets in immediately.  I don't know why I do anything for her.

---

When the sun sets I turn off the light, shut down my computer, close the blinds and draw the curtains.  I can't help there being a little light in my room, but I can at least keep it to a minimum.  Most of the mamono in the neighborhood are either married or too young to be roaming the streets, but there is that one single Dwarf, and I figure that the one Troll family's daughter is going to have her first moon soon.

The darkness keeps me safe, but it also keeps me bored and stressed.  I don't have anything to read or any games to play to take my mind off the fact that my status just went from eligible bachelor to prey animal.  It's just me and the ceiling, and I don't really have it in me for more navel-gazing.  I'm running on about eight of sleep over three days, but my nerves are keeping me from fixing that just yet.

And then my phone rings.  I stare at it for a second, working up the energy to overcome the dread that just settled into my chest.  When I finally pick myself up and walk over to it my fear is confirmed.  "Jennifer Green is calling," it helpfully informs me.  It's been months since that time she forgot to turn her phone off before the moon.

Well, it's only around nine, right?  So maybe it hasn't set in yet, and she just wants to talk about something before it does.  I don't actually think any of that's true, but it's possible.  I tap the button and put it to my ear.
What I get is a low, breathy "Hey."
"Hey yourself."  I'm fairly cetain now, but I at least want to double check.  I want to give her the benefit of the doubt.
She takes a couple deep breaths before slowly, hesitantly offering, "You know, I was just thinking, and, umm," she pauses to swallow, "you should come over tonigh-"
"Good night, Jen."  I hit the button to hang up, and immediately go to the options menu to turn off incoming calls.  I'm not gonna let her do something she'll regret and make a fool out of herself on the phone.

I collapse back into bed, suddenly feeling a lot more tired than I was before.  The phone buzzes loudly on my desk, reminding me that I forgot to turn off the chat program.  I groan into my pillow.  The phone vibrates against the wood intermittently for a few minutes before dying down.  Brief pauses form, then are dispersed by another surge of buzzing annoyance.

I'm not going to look at it.  I'm just going to clear the history the second I pick the thing up.  I know that it's going to be proposition after proposition, and I know that it's all just instinct.  It's not a bother to me, really.  If anything, I feel bad for her.  She's the one who's gonna come to her senses in the morning, realize what happened, and rush to take it all back.  It'll be the same as when she bit my cheek - she'll worry that I'm mad.  I run my hand across the remnants of the wound.  Most of the skin's been replaced, but there's still something of a gouge.  With my luck, it'll form a scar and she'll blame herself for it.

The buzzing finally stops, and I'm tired enough to slip off into sleep.

---

I long, high-pitched howl pierces through the house, ending in a single, sharp yelp.

There's no transition from sleep to wakefulness.  My eyes are open and the entire room lights up.
"Dammit."
I twist myself around and grab the mattress, lifting myself and it up a few inches so that I can grab the bag underneath.

Another eruption of sound causes me to jump as my wardrobe crashes forward, propelled by my door being split cleanly down the middle.  Cara leaps in through the hole, eyes wide, face flushed, panting.  Her eyes focus on me.  Mine focus on hers, trying to avoid looking at her shredded pajamas.  Her mouth widens into a broad smile.
I just shake my head.  "Sorry, Cara."  I grab the bag and rip it open, sending thousands of tiny green shreds flying across my bed like confetti.

For a moment she just cocks her head and furrows her brow in confusion, but a second's all I get before her instincts reassert themselves.  She takes a step forward, sniffs the air, and immediately recoils back, clutching her noise as she trips over a piece of broken wardrobe and hits the wall.  She can barely pull any air into her lungs before letting out a keening whine of absolute discomfort.  "What is that," she spits through her teeth.  "It hurts!"

"Cara, get out.  It'll stop burning as soon as you get out."
Dammit.  I'm sorry, Cara.  I've heard that smelling wolfsbane feels like having vinegar poured into your nose for werewolves, but I didn't have any other choice.  I was hoping that you'd just paw at the door for a while and leave.
She doesn't move.  Instead she stares at me, tears starting to stream down her cheeks from the pain.  Her breathing is in short gasps.  "Make it stop," she begs.
"It'll stop when you get out!"
"I don't want to leave you," she shouts out through gritted teeth.  "You're- you're my pack.  You're all the pack I need.  Run with me."  She pauses to take another breath, causing her to go into a coughing fit.

I move up to her, grab her by the shoulders and push her out the door.  She barely puts up any resistance.  I pull the remains the door in place so that no more of the smell will waft over to her.
"Dammit."  She's just confused.  She's too addled to think straight, and I just unintentionally tortured her for it.
"Dammit."

The creaking sound of another door opening comes from the hallway.  Then another.
"Hey, kiddo," I hear dad shout, "everything all right?"
I look over the shattered remains of my makeshift barricade.  "Not really!"
"Hang on a sec, I'll-" he's interrupted by the softer voice of mom.  "And where do you think you're going, dear?"

The realization only takes a second to set in; I'm on my own here.  I run over to my mattress and flip it over.  I have everything I need: a rusty arrowhead for Vee, a strobe light for Safiya, holy water for Lythalia, and a lighter and torch for Evette.  I can hole up and keep them all from coming near me for a night if I have to.
Unless they try to fight through the discomfort, pain, or the magical warding.  In which case I'll spend the night watching them hurt themselves, like Cara did.  For hours.
"Dammit."

"Hey kiddo, hate to - nng - say it, but there's always the wind-oho-w!"
I did not want that mental picture.
I didn't want that option.
I wanted some damn sleep.

A pair of eyes meets mine through the split in my door, and my mind's made up.  I grab the chain hanging from my wrist and send my makeshift flail through the window.  The hole that forms isn't exactly safe looking, but it's enough.  I kick off from my bed.  The glass scratches my shoulders and the world spins, before hitting me square in the back.  I gaze upward at the full moon as it silently makes my life miserable from well outside swift-lantern-to-the-face range.

I pull myself off the grace and set off at a sprint down the road.  Cara's stunned, and her sense of smell is probably shot for the night.  Therefore all I have to do is outrun my other sisters, and I'm sure as hells faster than they are.  It doesn't take long to discover that I should've grabbed some shoes, but I didn't have time and it seems like I won't tear my feet up too badly if I just stay on the grass.

I'm silently grateful for all the time I spent on a sport in which I'd never be allowed to play actual games.  They felt bad about it, too, thinking that they were keeping me from some childhood dream out of the fear that someone would get a concussion if I wasn't keeping perfect track of my lantern when I took a spill or made a sharp turn.  Meanwhile I just wanted a game that would keep me running and make me fast.  The distraction helps when the cold, dry air is shredding my throat and making my nose and lungs ache.

My lungs start burning too much and my feet start to feel like they're blistering in spit of the soil I'm running on, so I'm forced to slow down to a normal walk.  As I do, I realize that I've made my way back to the park from this morning again.  I'm right here, alone, in the same damn place I've joked about being a perfect spot to get raped.  I almost start to laugh.  Where else should I go?  It's too far to get anywhere that wouldn't be filled with way more people, and it's not like we ever had any crazy orderites in town who put a rape bunker in their cellar.

I walk out to the dilapidated wooden bleacher on the side of the field, thinking that at least out here I'd see anyone coming.  The downside is, without anything to throw over my light, anyone would see me out here.
No, there's a solution for that, I just don't like it.  I pull off my shirt and wrap it around the thing, keeping the light to a minimum.  Now I'm alone and shirtless in the rape park during a full moon.
And I don't have my phone to call the FERAL hotline if things go sour.
Perfect.

I set myself down on one of the seats.  It's still weirdly damp, and it still lets out a loud creak under my weight.  Only once I stop moving and I start to relax from the dead sprint I was just in does the last of my unpleasant realizations come to me: it's damn cold out here.  That's what does it - I finally start laughing.  I stop when I realize that that might not stop Vee or Safi from trying to come after me.
Shit, it's not so cold that it'd do damage, right?  They'd just go into hibernation until we stuck them in a hot room for a few days.  Nothing permanent.  Just horrible discomfort.

I plant my head in my hands.  What a damn night.

This is because of me.  They're in pain because of me.

I pull myself forward into a huddled ball on the seat and try to focus on just getting back tomorrow.

I stare angrily at the grass.  It's just as unhelpful as my ceiling.

---

In spite of the cold, and my awful posture, it seems I actually managed to get some tiny amount of sleep.  I immediately groan as I try to straighten out my back and it recoils at the suggestion.  My first bleary view of the world shows that it's still dark out, so I'm not out of the woods yet.

"You're so cute when you're sleeping."  My neck snaps upward, ignoring the pain of my muscles.  Lythalia's looking down at me with those brilliant, violet eyes and a wide, toothy smile.  I scramble to my feet only to have another weight fall on me from behind.  Lace-covered hands wrap around my chest as Evette's voice rings in my ear, "Now now, dear Sister, you wouldn't be thinking of doing anything to our," her voice slows and deepens, "poor, sweet, defenseless, virile younger brother, would you?"

I move.  I twist the arm around my chest and whip around it at the same time, putting as much distance as I can between myself and the both of them.  Evette lands with a startled yelp on the same seat I was on.  I spun around too fast, though, and end up on my back, looking upward into a pair of golden eyes.
Safiya's completely naked, arms wrapped around herself, staring at me with open need.  "Val," she starts, her soft, sweet voice quaking, "I'm cold.  Make me warm.  All of me."

(DISTRACT [THEM:your sisters {Evette, Lythalia, Safiya}])

I hear words, but I don't physically hear anything.  It's more like I feel the words as they reverberate through my head, wracking my skull with pain and giving me a sudden and violent sense of vertigo.  It's ike I just had the world's most painful epiphany.
I know exactly what it meant, but I don't know why.

I feel the shackle holding the chains to my hand, focusing on the barely recognizable draining sensation.  I'd never noticed it, as it had always been there, and yet now that I know what it is it seems so obvious.  I "pull" on the flow of energy, redirecting it to my hand, where a tiny, glowing wisp of white energy forms.  In an instant, Safi's head jerks toward it and her eyes refocus.  Her mouth very slowly begins to open in surprise.

And then I force the energy from my hand, and all three of them bolt after it as though they were possessed.

A warm, golden glow spreads across my vision.  It's so intense that it should rightfully blind me, but it doesn't.
And then the light is completely gone, and all I can see is Cami's face directly in front of me, three inches away.  "Hi there," she beams.  "How are you?"
I stare at her for a moment.

"Confused?"