Before Beasts, There Was Ice--Book 8

Fire Bath

Kai had come to discover a new side of Ayah over the past week. There was the ordinary, vanilla flavored anger, in which she acted as anyone would with a little above average levels of self-control and calm. And then there was the kind of rage that overwhelmed her when she was fueled by concern and the inability to protect who she loved through their own choices, like Kai's to work out despite having been hit by a missile the week before.

She didn't yell. She didn't scream. She just looked at him with icy blue eyes hard as diamonds and a high pitch, almost imperceptible wail would fill the room until she opened her mouth.

"I can knock you out," she said, quietly. She was always very quiet when she was this kind of angry—though Kai suspected the high pitch tone was actually a type of closed mouth scream for her, being the avatar of sound and all.

Kai didn't say anything. The first time he had told her she wasn't his mother, he really had ended up knocked out, along with everyone else in the room at the time. She knew just the right pitch to give them lights out. Kai was beginning to suspect this is what she had done back in the island bunker rather than killing a room full of men. Tyson and Ray, who had been residents of said room at the time, were not happy with him and happily helped her belt him down to a bed to redo his stitches—and leave him there to writhe in horrid boredom and hunger for the rest of the day.

"If something is bothering you, you need to learn to talk about it rather than working your brains out," she continued, going down almost to a low murmur.

Kai didn't miss Max sliding out of the control room behind him with the others. He had come up to work out a plan about the gas, but apparently that would have to wait until he appeased the woman of the group, and he wasn't sure how that was going to happen. It made him angry with them for ditching him. Didn't they have more pressing matters than Ayah's 'Heal-Kai' agenda?

"I can't change overnight," he murmured, just as low. No, he was not terrified.

"I know you turned on music to blast me out," she said. "You couldn't even keep it to upper body stuff, did you?"

"I didn't do it to block—"

"Then why did you do it?"

He let out a quick hiss of breath. He hated this whole accountability crap and was dying to snap out at her. But a poignant voice in his mind reminded him of the day of complete silence and tears she had shed after he had attempted to jump into the ocean. He deserved this. He had lost their trust in his ability to take care of himself.

So he took a slow, steadying breath, and said, with as much honesty in his words as possible, "I just wanted some privacy." It came out as a plea and he winced. Maybe it was a good thing the others had fled.

She blinked, probably hearing all of that and more, then sighed as well.

"But you did push your leg. I can hear it."

Just do it, man. "I'm sorry."

"No you aren't."

He was now. "Will you believe me when I said I didn't use it? I went as easy as possible."

She snorted. "You always push yourself, it's like your drug. Kai Hiwatari take it easy is like Tyson taking it slow during dinner." Her eyes narrowed.

He knew what was coming before she had even opened her mouth and threw his hands up. "Look, the others need me to help with getting gas, you can't knock me out."

"I wasn't going to," she said with a sniff.

He hesitated. Did he dare ask what she was going to do then?