nala

kiss

Torra

I chased after Nala, who had already situated herself comfortably on a rock. There was a bright purple berry she bit into on the ground. "What's going on with you?" I said as approaching her. Nala's head snapped around, her expression hopeless for a moment before falling.

"I was hoping you were Andi." Nala admitted. "What do you want?" Nala asked, her voice rigid and cold.

"What happened to the warm, welcome knife-to-throat?" I jested. Nala pursed her lips and turned her head away before tilting her head back and wiping her eyes. "You didn't answer my question." I reminded.

"I don't have a knife."

"Not that question, but we'll come back to it. I was talking about the first one. What's going on with you?" I asked, seriousness evident in the growing tension.

Nala still faced away from me, completely disregarding me. Still unfazed, I crept around Nala to see a single tear streaming down the side of her cheek. "You saw the way Andi looked at me, after the clearing. She was shaking. The people who locked us up for ten years and branded her. She won't ever be able to forget that. Those people destroyed her. Yet she was still shaken after watching me kill them. She killed Emerson. Yet I am the monster." Nala vented. It looked like she had plenty more to say, but had let enough of her bottled-up emotions spill. Nala exhaled deeply, laughing while shaking her head. "First person I've met in ten years and I already fucked it up." Nala licked her lips and continued laughing, this time harder.

In this exact moment, I knew that I was about to mess up a good thing or make it ten times better. Nala brushed her hair out of her face, her bright green eyes staring back at me. We sat just like that for a second before she cut through the tension. "Why are you looking at me like—" I cut into Nala's sentence. I leaned towards, pressing my lips against hers. Nala seemed surprised, staying still for split second. Only at this did my stomach drop, feeling nothing but a pit of literal despair inside of me.

But the moment of wallowing in my despair only lasted a moment. Nala grabbed my shoulder, deepening the kiss I so horribly needed. I placed my hand on the back of her neck, pulling her closer. The leaves crunched in the distance, but it could be anything.

"What the hell." Andi stated. Her voice was flat, and she said little to nothing, but everything was heard. Nala quickly tore away from me, her eyes wide. Her lips parted slightly, she said 'shit'. "Yeah, actually. Shit's right. You could say any thing remotely close to that and still be right on the dot." Andi remarked.

"Andi—" Nala began.

Andi cut Torra off quickly. "Don't you dare do that Andi bullshit! That ends here! What the fuck are you doing! We have been on the surface for a day! A day! And you're already swapping saliva? You know what, I should have expected this."

Holy shit.

"What?" Rimona came running over.

"You heard me. All of you did. Aden, Jordan. Come out." Andi said.

"What the fuck? Andi, the reason you got out of the Bunker is you sleep around. You realize that? I was completely fine on my own. You see this?" Nala heled up her arm and showed the carvings. "This is how I got out. I wasn't using people." Nala finished.

"You literally had Torra's tongue in your mouth a minute ago." Andi countered. She wasn't wrong, but it was still a low blow.

"And you know what? Thank god I did." Nala said simply.

Rimona created a face that even I couldn't describe. Her eyes were wide, her jaw dropped.

"Did you actually just say that?" Aden asked, his expression stone.