A Deadly Bite

47.2 || Freedom

I feel like I'm attempting to outrun the darkness. By the time my bare feet pound the packed dirt of a path, I'm stumbling through thick black sheets of it, squinting as I feel my way blindly towards the washed-out spheres of light the torches latched sparsely underneath windows cast. My fingers find rough-hewn brickwork and claw me upright before my rubber legs can fold. I shove a shoulder up against the wall and double over, wheezing, my throat dry as bone and limbs wracked with uncontrollable trembles, like I'm a stick-thin winter tree one gust of wind from toppling. I give my head a hard shake, clearing out the muzzy blur that strangles my vision and my thoughts as one.

Fearful impatience rattles in the pit of my stomach, leaving me little time to force air back into my lungs before I'm moving again. My heart pounds loudly enough to shatter every one of my thoughts before they can fully form, drowning out common sense and filling my head with tangled, torn ribbon.

All I need is a person. Someone, anyone, who is willing to help, wherever they might be. Do I bang on doors? Do I keep wandering until someone shows themself? Will I be here all night? I can't afford to leave Fiesi there all night. Too much time has passed already.

Is Cody still here?

A soft gasp sounds behind me. Desperation latching onto that tiny human sound, I spin around, voice pouncing before my gaze has the chance to identify the figure before me as a woman, small and brunette, swaddled in a woollen coat, tense as straightened wire.

"Excuse me." My words break apart, loose and breathless. "Hello. I, uh, I was wondering if you could--"

She jerks a step back, and I realise the glint of her eyes snatched by the torchlight is bright with terror. Her hand fumbles for the sharp corner of the wall behind her, the one that curves into a small alley.

"--help," I finish, word dropping as if it plummets into a pit, unheard. She's already running. Before I can blink, she's gone into the alley's gloom.

My fingers tap an anxious dance at my side. I spare a glance down at them and withhold a sigh. Violet flames adorn the back of my hand, woven over my knuckles and twirling in sparks between my fingertips, their glow wild and blatantly obvious. I mutter a curse under my breath, then startle. I didn't think I knew how to curse.

The frustration of the harsh phrase grates through me all the same, ridden with ever-present nervous energy. Fists curling to crush the fire, I rock back on my heels, even more lost. I'm nothing to fear any longer, but the Cormé don't know that. I'm just as strange to them as I was when my touch was poison, and I doubt I look particularly easy to trust.

I catch a hazy glimpse of my faze reflected back in a window as I pass: eyes frantic and bloodshot, highlighted by their concentrated purple hue, and a tired face framed by a long, untamed black bush of curls, thrown in windswept arcs that make me look like some kind of feral animal. I still don't look human.

My shoulders hunch, drawn in by the small, squeezed feeling strung amid my ribs. To be ordinary was always a useless desire, and this so-called untainted fire in my core does nothing to blank out the terrible things I've done. I have no right to feel disappointed.

Nor do I have the time; the night wears on as one of scrubbed-at panic, a rope knotted in my stomach that frays another thread with every minute that passes. Whistling gales kick up chinks of dust and ice, cold, rolling waves that drag through the empty streets and rustle my short cloak. I finger its silver edge, tugging on it, though it isn't the kind designed to be wrapped around and clung to for warmth. I'm still in Shaula's clothes, dressed as someone else. Maybe that's why the dark remains helpless and barren, absent of anyone else.

Enough time scrapes by that I'm eventually forced to begin knocking on doors, though even that proves fruitless. Most don't answer, deaf to the soft, nervous rap of my knuckles. Those that do are eager to shut me out the moment their doors crack open. Fear casts grey, dismal shadows over this town, etched into the monotone nighttime shades that stick to every nook and cranny, hung as chattering ghosts in corners and swaying with the cobwebs. I see it in every face that turns me away. If trust were a thread stringing Lo Dasi together, it has snapped so harshly its haunting twang shivers in the wind. All these people want is to hide.