The screams continue until they abruptly cut off. They will haunt my dreams for years to come.
When I know the area around us is clear, I head for Gemma, who’s bandaging her friend with as much care as possible. Gemma’s hands are bloody, and ash has gotten all over her hair and skin. She turns to me when I approach and wipes her hands on the grass at her sides.
The grass is covered in blood.
“You said you know of a medical pod? You’ve seen one?” Her face is strained, worried.
I coil my tail around her. “It’s unusable.” I glimpse the other female. She’s naked save some strips of cloth, and half her face is mottled, bright red with purpling splotches. She’s burned from the left side of her face, down her chest, to her navel. If she survives, it’s a wound that will never fully heal.
I’m sickened. I see Gemma in her place, and bile rises.
Zaku’s tail is ringed around where she lays motionless, leaving just enough room for Gemma to get close. His hands are white, his expression is a mask of worry, desperation. I see the pain, the fear.
I’ve never seen either from him and of all the naga males, he’s the closest to me. Not in distance, but in history. He and Vagan.
“I have a pod in my den, but it’s far from here,” he rasps, his eyes on the female before him. “Her screams when we move her… They destroy me.”
“You have a pod?” Gemma turns to him. “We need to get her there. Now! While she’s unconscious.”
I shake my head. “It’ll be dark soon.”
“Daisy can’t stay out here in her condition. She needs shelter, a place to rest, food, and medicine.”
Zaku growls. “Then we go.” He pulls his tail under him and begins to slowly push his hands under Daisy.
The female’s eyes fly open, her mouth parts, and she shrieks. Zaku roars and jerks his hands away. “I can’t help you here!” he yells.
A sob leaves the female, and her entire body convulses.
“Try again,” Gemma stammers. Her face has gone whiter than the snow-capped mountains.
Zaku’s hands shake.
Gemma leans over her friend and coos, petting her brow where she is unharmed. The Daisy’s cries lower to whimpers. “Shhh, sweetheart. We’re taking you to safety. You have to be strong, okay? If the pain gets to be too much, let it take you away.” Gemma looks at Zaku when Daisy blinks out tears. “Again.”
“I can’t,” he chokes.
“You can. You can do this, Zaku. You can do this. She needs you.” Zaku and Gemma share a look, and my first reaction is to pummel Zaku to the ground and kill him, but I force my mind to calm.
No one’s ever talked to one of us the way Gemma is talking to Zaku. She’s comforting him. She’s doing it while she’s still hurt and afraid, wearing clothes that are falling off her body, her feet bound. She’s showing more strength than Zaku, than any of us.
“Zaku,” she orders when he doesn’t move, her voice hardening. “Lift her. We don’t have time to waste.”
Zaku’s nostrils flare. He looks down at the female and closes his eyes. I place my hand on Gemma’s shoulder, curling my tail around her as Daisy screams again.
My soul winces.
Azsote joins us, and together we make the arduous, devastating journey to Zaku’s den.
Twenty-Six
Betrayal From Above
Gemma
The next several days are a blur. I barely sleep. I don’t leave Daisy’s side once we make it to the King Cobra’s lair. Zaku’s den. He doesn’t leave her side either, which means, Vruksha, Zaku, and I are hovering over Daisy day in and day out.
I rub my eyes.
If it wasn’t for Azsote, I don’t think any of us would take the time to eat.
I drop my hands to stare through the plastic screen of the medical pod. The buzz of it soothes me, and I’m just so thankful it works. It works, and Zaku has one. He didn’t like what it did to Daisy when he turned it on, how it stuck her with needles and shot her up of questionable stuff, but Vruksha and Azsote managed to hold him down and keep him away long enough for it to do its thing.
I wasn’t thrilled about it either, but I managed to keep it to myself. A pod over a thousand years old going to work on my friend? I can’t help but hope for the best and be terrified and suspicious at the same time. But suspicion is better than helplessness. And whatever the medical intelligence did… it worked.
Daisy hasn’t screamed since we laid her down.
She’s stable. Resting. And the pod, though not perfect, is keeping her clean. Zaku’s robots are keeping her fed... The burns on her flesh appear less angry every day.
I sigh and turn my head from where it rests on my arms and stare out the window. Vruksha is gazing out of it too, facing away from me. His glistening ruby scales dazzle me with their beauty.
It takes my breath away. He’s gorgeous in the light. My naga male.
I would paint him just how he is now, how I see him when he doesn’t notice me looking, gazing over the land he’s conquered. I would paint him with the sun at his back, and his spear held high, casting lightning upon his foes.
The picture would hang over my bed. I’d stare at it and touch myself.
He wants to go home. I feel it. He’s not comfortable here, in Zaku’s domain, and it shows. He’s always touching me in some way, like right now, his tailtip is curled around my ankle. He doesn’t let me talk to Zaku or Azsote without him. And when I’m about to faint from exhaustion, he winds me up in his tail and forces me to sleep on him.
I’d enjoy Vruksha’s concern if it wasn’t for the beds Zaku
