Rise

Chapter 5 - Listen

            I blinked, neither moving nor speaking. My stomach and chest had turned to stone, weighing me down to the asphalt, and my hair covered my face in a knotted mass.

            "I'm sorry I frightened you," Rhy said quietly. He was crouched above me, a look of concern in his innocent face.

            I closed my eyes. My body ached.

            "You don't need to be afraid. Please let me help." He gently used the tips of his fingers to brush away the hair from my eyes.

            "You just can't let me die, can you?" I wheezed. I surprised myself at the darkness of the words as they escaped my lips.

            He smiled lightly. "I don't even think you can let you die."

            I sighed. We spoke of death so casually, like it was an old friend.

            "I see a lot of fight in you," he said. "Plus, I think your life is more valuable than you realize."

            I opened my eyes and studied him again. His short black hair stuck out every which way like blades of grass. Suddenly, his light eyes widened and then narrowed as they locked onto mine.

            "You have purple eyes," he marveled, fascination coating his voice.

            "You didn't notice?" I croaked.

            "It was dark last night, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. But now clearly..." he trailed off, staring with wonderment. "I've never seen anything like that. They're huge."

            "Mutation," I muttered. I had been given so much grief in my life over my purple-colored irises. Doctors thought I had some sort of infection when I was a baby, but when I kept growing with no changes or side effects, they concluded that it was a result of mutated genetics. Thanks to that diagnosis, in my first two years of prep school all my classmates called me a "mutant". Every year after that every new classmate I ever came into contact with felt the need to bring it up.

            "More like magic," he smiled.

            I looked away uncomfortably, and tried sitting up. He automatically started helping me and eventually pulled me unsteadily to my feet. I leaned on him out of necessity, my leg searing every time I put weight on it.

            "So, are we going back to the warehouse now?" I asked, breathlessly.

            "I thought you wanted to go to the explosion cite," he replied.

            "I broke our deal."

            He ran a hand through his hair. "Well, we could say you were getting a bit of a head start?"

            I raised my eyebrows in surprise. He would keep his promise even after I broke mine. I was sure he was going to drag me around trying to win me over for the next few days until I attempted another escape, but that apparently wasn't the way he thought. I didn't understand him at all.

            "So you'll take me there?"

            "Yes," he said.

            "Right now?"

            "Right now."

            He placed my arm over his shoulder and held me by the waist so that we could precede down the street in a sort of three-legged hobble.