Page 9

I giggle and pull out one of the hot dogs. “Hungry?”

His eyes fall to the food and then back to me. He nods, the most successful communication we’ve had so far, and I offer it to him. He takes it, sniffing along the length of it as I open the first aid kit.

I watch him out of the corner of my eye while I find the bandages and antiseptic cream. I have no idea how his body handles bacteria, how it heals, but I'm going to do what I can.

With the supplies in my hands, I turn back to the bed and watch as Fitz takes the hot dog off the bun and shoves it in his mouth. When he sees me watching, he hands the bun back to me.

I laugh. “All right, no carbs. Gotcha.”

I take out another one of the hot dogs and offer it to him. And then I go to work on his wing. I wet a washcloth with warm water in the bathroom and clean it first. It's a clean hole through the thinnest part of his wing with the slight rip under it from our escape. His blood is coated on, almost black in the dark room. It’s a little like cleaning a hole in a sail. Once I have it as clean as it's going to get, I rub some antiseptic on.

Fitz makes a strange noise in the back of his throat, and my eyes shoot up to him. He must be hurting. He's munching away at the second hot dog. I let him be. It's a bit awkward, but I manage to wrap a bandage around the end of his wing, just the corner.

“Okay, all set,” I tell him, standing.

His eyes are on the bandage, and I grab another hot dog from the bag. I got four of them, and I'm not even hungry. I hand it to him, but he shakes his head.

“Not hungry anymore?” I ask. He points at me with one long claw. “No,” I say, shaking my head. “I’m not hungry. You eat it.” I shove it into his hands, and he doesn't fight me, immediately pulling out the meat again. I turn back to the bag. “I got some dessert, too, but seeing how you reacted to the bun, I don't think you're going to have any interest.”

I cut off when I turn around and find him standing right behind me. I'm staring at his muscular chest, mostly covered in dark hair. I have to tip my head back to meet his eye.

He grunts out something in his language, three very clear words that I can’t even begin to understand..

“I don’t—” I start to say, but he takes my hand, sets it over his heart, says the words again.

I think maybe he's saying thank you, but I can't be sure. I can feel the heavy thudding of his heart under my hand, beating at a much quicker pace than a human's. Now that we're not careening through space or fighting Zach, I can really pay attention to the feel of him under my hand, his hair coarse, his skin leathery. My eyes slide back up to his.

“You're welcome,” I tell him. “You saved me, too. I didn't do anything, really.”

He broke himself out of those chains, got us both out of there, but I can't exactly explain that to him right now. He nods, and I find myself extremely frustrated by the language barrier here. I want to talk to him. I want to ask him what the hell we're supposed to do next. If he has somewhere to go.

Instead, I gently pull my hand out from under his and reach down to the table to grab one of the snack cakes.

“Here,” I tell him, ripping it open. “Try this.” I hand him the cupcake, chocolate with a little white swirl on top. He looks at it with narrowed eyes. “Just try it,” I say. “You might like it.”

I hold it up to his mouth, and to my surprise, he doesn't take it from me. But he does open his mouth and take a big bite while the cupcake is still in my hand. I see every single sharp tooth, watching in fascination as his mouth closes around the cupcake, taking half of it without hesitation.

He makes a noise in his throat, something like a moan. I think maybe he's going to spit it out, but then he takes a step closer to me so that we're pressed together. It's like he doesn't even know what he's doing as he wraps his hand around mine that’s holding the cupcake and lifts it to his mouth. He eats the rest right out of my hand. And while I'm still trying to get my bearings, shocked by the turn of events, his tongue slips out and swipes across my fingertips, licking up any traces of chocolate or cream filling still left.

A sharp sound bursts from somewhere deep in my belly.

In the time it takes me to blink, he's flown to the other side of the room, his back pressed to the door. He's saying something to me, gibbering quickly, an apology, I can only assume.

“It's okay,” I tell him, putting up a hand, not the hand he just licked. “It's okay,” I tell him again, until he stops talking. He almost looks afraid of me. I don't know how to explain to him that I didn't mind what he did, that it was exciting, that there’s something fizzling between my legs that I can’t bring myself to identify right now.

“We should probably go to bed,” I say, mostly because I need to stop lusting after him, someone who doesn't even speak my language, someone who isn’t even the same species as me. I turn my back to him and huff out a sigh. I just have to get through this somehow; we have to get through it.

“We'll have to share the bed,” I tell him, turning back around and settling on one side. “Sorry.”

His eyes drop to the mattress, then up to me. He takes a few slow steps toward me. He points one long finger at the bed, tilts his head to the side like he's asking a question. I nod.

I don't really know how to explain it, but I'm not afraid of him. I think about what Candace and Professor Watts said in class yesterday. That just because people like Fitz look like demons and because they could probably rip you apart with their fangs and their claws, with their sheer strength, that they must be violent and scary. And yes, I did watch Fitz attack my boyfriend, but I'm pretty sure he only did that because Zach was hurting me. I don't think he has any plans to hurt me. If he wanted to, he certainly could have by now.

I lay down on one side of the bed, and Fitz lays down on the other. He’s almost comically large, laying beside me, his feet, both with three large toes like a bird, hanging over the end. We face each other. And even though I want to stay awake—I feel like I should, to somehow keep him company—it’s very very late, and the exhaustion, the wearing off of the adrenaline, has come for me, and I fall asleep quick.

6

The hours I spend beside him in that bed are a blur. I toss and turn, drifting in and out of consciousness as we sink further into dark, moving at a steady pace toward sunrise. My body is aware of Fitz’s, even in sleep.