Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 42861 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 214(@200wpm)___ 171(@250wpm)___ 143(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 42861 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 214(@200wpm)___ 171(@250wpm)___ 143(@300wpm)
“Don’t hurt me!” He lifts his hands and looks at me with concerned eyes. It’s the first time anyone or anything on this planet has shown the slightest fear of me, and it confuses me for a second.
“Don’t hurt you? Aren’t you going to try to hurt me?”
“Why would I do that?”
We stare at each other, trying to work out who is the aggressor and who is the potential victim.
“I don’t…”
“My name’s Billy,” he says. “I turned eighteen two months ago.”
He says that like it is some kind of explanation.
“Okay. Happy birthday?”
He laughs. “No. There was nothing happy about the birthday. I was cast out at the first touch of daylight. Eighteen years and one day was too old to live in the city.”
It makes sense. In a world without females, young males become disposable. This one looks hungry and scared. He’s skinny, and his horns are yet to curl, they’re just sort of sticking up out of a mass of red hair. He’s got blue eyes, and there’s a lost expression in them that arouses every single bit of protective instinct I have inside me.
“You were thrown out without anything?”
“I was given supplies,” he says. “But before the first dark came, I had been robbed of everything. I’ve never had to survive in the wild before. I don’t…” he looks like he’s about to cry and I feel my heart break with pity and outrage. “Every time I cross the path of another buck I have to run and hide, or…” He does not finish the sentence, but my mind fills in the blank admirably and awfully well.
“Fuck,” I curse under my breath. “Are you… do you need medical attention? I have some painkillers, and I have some bandages.”
I was going to keep them for myself. This journey won’t be easy, and the odds of me being injured at some point are fairly high, but now his need is greater than mine.
“I’m okay,” he says. “I look worse than I am.”
“Are you hungry?”
Again, my rations were finely calculated to be as much as I could humanly carry, but he needs to eat. I unpack Gruff’s favorite meal, a sort of meaty smelling fermented product that he insists is the most nutritious sustenance there is, and what once made me gag when I smelled it.
“Here,” I say, offering him half a pound of the stuff. “Eat this.”
He takes it from me gratefully, though he doesn’t thank me until he has wolfed almost all of it down in one fucking go. His pelt is reddish like his hair, I realize. It’s just that he's so dirty it looks brown. He needs a bath and clean clothes. He needs someone to take care of him. He needs a friend.
“Billy,” I ask while he eats. “The city, do you know where it is? Would you be able to get back there if you had to?”
He nods while chewing.
“I know what we are going to do,” I tell him. “You’re going to take me to the city.”
“I am?”
“Yes,” I tell him. “You are.”
“And what… what do I get out of it?”
“Well, for one, I won’t shoot you. And for two, I won’t let any of the other bucks get you. I have these weapons. They won’t dare touch us. And, if you want, I’ll take you with me when I leave the planet.”
“But we can only go to the female world, and I can’t go there.”
“Once we get a ship, we can go anywhere. We can do anything.”
He looks doubtful. I understand that. He’s been cast out. He’s been told he’s worthless. He’s been treated badly by everyone he’s encountered. I can relate. Strongly. I have to show him that he can trust me.
“Okay, but before we run away to the city,” I tell him, “we’re going to go back to where I was staying. I want to get you some clothes and some more food.”
This is a risk. I already feel guilty enough for leaving Gruff — though I shouldn’t. I don’t owe him anything. He saved me, yes, but I never made any pledges or promises in return. I’m fulfilling my destiny by leaving. That’s what I tell myself, over and over. I remember what the EET did to me, the betrayal I experienced and suffered. I remind myself that I have to do this alone, and that giving into the urge to submit to Gruff’s will is the same as giving into the EET. I can’t let a male, of any species, control me. I can’t let them decide my fate. I have worked too hard and desired too much to allow that.
Billy follows me all the way to the very edge of Gruff’s bridge. There he stops, as if hitting an invisible forcefield. We’re still quite some way from the actual house.