Plenty could only guess at what was happening or how, but as Hinata drank from Lyn’s wrist, the wound in her chest knit itself closed.

  He stared, dumb and slack-jawed.

  Suddenly, Hinata began to convulse. Her skin broke out in boils. Like an ant lifting a mouse, Lyn lifted Hinata and carried her below deck with such speed Plenty couldn’t respond or react.

  It all happened so fast, he felt weak in the knees.

  Then, over the pounding drum beat of his heart in his ears, Plenty heard cries of the wounded. He collected himself and ran up the stairs to Danielle and Jerome. The ax was still lodged in her shoulder. They were holding hands and saying goodbyes.

  Plenty dropped to his knees and said, “Enough of that. You’re gonna be fine.” Plenty retrieved the canteen and travel bowl from his belt. He poured water into the bowl and said, “I know it hurts, but we’re gonna leave that ax in a little while longer to stem the bleeding. Once the moon is clear, we’ll take it out and fix you up, right as rain.”

  -8-

  Hinata was dying.

  Lyn wasn’t worried; death was part of the process, but it wasn’t a pleasant process. Watching it happen to a loved one was no picnic, either.

  Hinata was delirious, moaning, vomiting black goo, and shitting herself. Lyn did her best to keep up with the mess, but their cabin reeked, and the floor would be stained forevermore. After an hour of stink and misery, Hinata settled into an uneasy fever.

  Plenty came running into the cabin with infused healing water. But as he moved to pour the water into Hinata’s mouth, Lyn stopped him.

  ‘No,’ she signed. ‘We shouldn’t complicate the process.’

  ‘What process? What the hell did you do?’ he demanded.

  That hurt. Lyn felt herself get defensive. ‘I saved her. You would have let her die!’

  ‘That is not fair!’

  ‘Fair? Don’t be a child!’

  Lyn and Plenty stared each other down while Hinata writhed on the floor.

  ‘Tell me what is happening to Hinata,’ he demanded, punctuating his signs with rage.

  Anxiety and doubt crept into Lyn’s mind. ‘I think she’s becoming like me.’

  ‘You think,’ Plenty repeated with a deadpan expression.

  Lyn wanted to punch him in the face. ‘Yes, I think, not the symbiote in my ear, me.’

  His jaw locked. ‘Fine. What do you think happens next?’

  -8-

  Hinata woke with a mix of sensations: nausea, hunger, headaches, and stomach pain; but she also felt younger, stronger, and faster. She ran her hands along her body, feeling for the chest wound, but all her wounds and scars had healed.

  She sat up, and a wave of vertigo hit her. Every visual detail was crisper than she’d ever noticed before. She looked around the room and noticed new depths and patterns in the wooden grain. She could almost feel the aether light’s vibrations on her skin, her skin which looked and felt 40 years smoother. Somehow, Hinata had died and then woke up as a young woman.

  She distinctly remembered dying. She remembered growing cold and letting go. But then something else, a taste, unlike anything Hinata had ever experienced, sweet and rapturous–then agony, as if every fiber in her body was ripped in half and discarded. Hinata felt different now. She wasn’t simply young; she felt new.

  Her senses were so bombarded with novelty and wonder, she barely noticed Plenty or Lyn beside her amid the deluge of sensations and confusion. But they gathered close as Hinata stirred and looked around.

  “What is happening to me?” Hinata whispered, her voice shaking, her eyes wide and scattered.

  They both hesitated. Lyn answered first. ‘You’re like me now.’

  Hinata turned to stare at her, incredulous. No. That’s absurd, she thought, but no one seemed to be joking, and her miraculously rejuvenated body was a testament to the truth of it.

  “Why would you do that?” Hinata asked blankly, forgetting to sign.

  Lyn looked like she’d been slapped. ‘You would have died!’

  ‘What am I now?’

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  ‘Alive!’ Lyn signed so emphatically it was practically a yell.

  “A long life spent in the darkness, drinking blood, with no memory of who I am!” Hinata shouted. Then she signed, ‘You had no right to make that decision for me!’

  Lyn’s lower lip quivered, and she was shaking. “You’re an ungrateful bitch!” she screamed and stormed out of their cabin.

  Plenty sat silently, awkwardly.

  “And you just let her do this to me?” Hinata demanded.

  Plenty was dumbstruck. Finally, he said, “You were dying. It all happened so fast. I didn’t have time to think. No one did–”

  “Don’t make excuses for her.”

  “I wasn’t! Look, I can’t imagine what you’re feeling right now, but I need you to pull your shit together, because we have a mission, which will be impossible with you two at odds with each other. We need you.”

  Hinata scoffed, shocked he would take Lyn's side. “No, you needed me, past tense. Specifically, Lyn needed me, so she wouldn’t starve or go insane on the trip. But I can’t feed her now. Because now I need to feed. Except I’m twice her size! I was useful; now I’m dead weight. How are we supposed to make it to Garden, let alone accomplish the mission?”

  “You know you can feed on me,” Plenty offered.

  “That is not a solution!”

  “No, but I’ll manage, at least until I figure out a third way.”

  Hinata was tired of arguing. She dropped her head between her knees and tried to breathe calmly. She was already suffering a dull headache.

  “Here,” Plenty said as he reached to grab one of Hinata’s hooks from their luggage. They were sharp enough to cut, which he did, a gash on his forearm. Blood flowed down his wrist in steady bursts.

  “No. There’s got to be another way…” she begged in vain, salivating, unblinking, her eyes locked on his wrist with ravenous hunger.

  “Try to drink slowly, and stop when I say enough,” Plenty said gently, like he was serving tea. He put his wrist to her lips and sweetly brushed her hair with his free hand.

  Hinata cried, but she drank, and in drinking, she forgot all her worries. As her thoughts swirled in bliss and ecstasy, Hinata wondered if perhaps she'd been unkind to Lyn.

  -8-

  [Ungrateful, self-righteous, asshole!] Lyn stomped the floor by the bookshelves. [Would she rather be dead?]

  She was overwhelmed in the moment. One day she will be grateful. Just let her be for now.

  Lyn dropped onto a stool and glared at nothing in particular. Her mood slowly ripened from dark to blue, as she came to a miserable realization.

  [She would rather be dead than live my life. And I forced my life onto her. I guess I’m the asshole.]

  That isn’t true!

  [Oh, shut up! Why do I even listen to you?]

  Lyn banged her fists against the sides of her head until she cried. Then she let out a heave and stood up with a vengeance. She paced the floors for a couple hours like a caged tiger. Every now and again, she’d look at the books on the shelves and ponder taking one down to read it, but then her thoughts would wander, and she’d continue pacing. Then she would drop onto a stool, brooding for a while before she’d get up and the cycle would begin anew.

  Her ritualistic self-loathing was interrupted when she felt the floor vibrate from a stomp. Lyn looked up to see Hinata standing in the doorway with a contrite expression.

  Seeing Hinata now was surreal. She looked so different. Beautiful, but different. Her skin was smoother, her hair had more lustre. Her movements were lithe, quick, and elegant; all the speed and strength of youth yet with the precision of age and experience. Hinata’s eyes were the same, but there was an uncanny glint that hadn’t existed before. At least she seemed in a better mood.

  ‘For the things I said before… I’m sorry. I… reacted poorly. I regret my words.’

  Lyn shuffled between feelings of relief and consternation. She wanted to accept Hinata’s apology. She wanted to beg forgiveness for cursing Hinata without first consulting her. She wanted to hug Hinata and cry and take it all back, but it couldn’t be taken back, and if she apologized for cursing Hinata, then the curse would become a known fact, confirming Lyn as the monster Hinata already suspected her to be.

  She couldn’t do it. Better to believe herself a cursed monster than to say it out loud.

  ‘Forget it,’ Lyn signed as she barreled passed Hinata. ‘Let’s just go.’

  She returned to the cabin. Hinata followed sheepishly. Plenty was lying in a hammock, looking pale and tired.

  Lyn clapped her hands together and rubbed them. ‘Let’s discuss.’

  Hinata sat on a stool. ‘Discuss what?’

  ‘Our plans. The situation has changed. We all know it. Now we need to adjust and prepare. I’ve been reading up on Garden City, and I have some ideas.’

  Plenty roused. ‘Okay, I’m listening. But while we’re on the subject, I have a few suggestions.’

  Lyn nodded. ‘Okay. Shoot.’

  ‘Your ears. You need to enchant them to hide the symbiote. Wearing your hood won’t work forever. Also, we should dye your hair, and you should change your name.’

  Lyn blinked in surprise, but then she nodded. He was right. Lyn Avalyn supposedly died almost forty years ago when Adam wiped Crescent off the map. She couldn’t very well stroll into Garden University and register under that name.

  She thought for a moment. It might be nice to start over, to choose a new name, a new identity. Would she be different? A rose by any other name would still have thorns. But could she be better? Sharper, perhaps? What would Morgan do, she wondered. Then she looked at Hinata, and an idea came to her.

  ‘We should be the Fishers. My name will be Gwen Fisher.’

  -8-

  Plenty gave Gwen his black pearl stud earrings to enchant. When she was finished, he pierced the studs through her earlobes, and the illusion was complete. The green symbiotic protrusion in Gwen’s ears was rendered invisible beneath her illusion.

  While he was piercing her ears, Gwen detailed her plan.

  ‘Hinata, you should volunteer at the Lower Garden Bethesda Tower. According to the Garden history book, the Bethesda Tower is like a general hospital. You’ll have to be opportunistic, but that’s our best bet at regular access to blood. While I’m busy pretending to be a school child, and Hinata is procuring our blood supply, Plenty, we need you to be our feet on the ground and our eyes and ears on the streets. The book had some useful information, but nothing about crime or the black market. Even in Garden City, there must be pockets of resistance. As you say, I’m too conspicuous, but you can ask around. That’s your mission, Plenty. Find the underground. Find us local allies.’

  Plenty felt breathless, dizzy, and exhausted. His blood pressure was low, and Gwen’s idea was dangerous. It terrified him, but he’d been terrified nonstop for the last couple days, so coupled with the sleep deprivation, he was getting numb to terror. He simply nodded and signed, ‘I think we already know someone who might be able to help us. And he owes me a favor. Let me rest for a few hours and I’ll ask him.’