My Dear Damsel

Chapter 19

We find him covered in blood and foam. 

Before all this, I really liked snakes. They had pretty, shiny scales in a myriad of colours. Their little tongues were so cute, flicking the air. Their venom, for the ones who have it, can be used to create antidotes and medicine. 

But now... 

I stand there, useless, as Cherry rolls him onto his side. She slips off his coat, then wrestles his shirt off. 

I gag. 

So this is what Cherry saw. 

His wound must be bigger, though. It's a huge, gaping hole with so much blood it's black. Ropy veins pop out on his pale back and around his neck. 

Oh, no...

Those aren't veins. 

That's the snake, lodged so far inside it's visible from the surface. 

Which makes that tiny flicking thing in the middle of his back—

Oh, ew. It's a miracle that I don't throw up everywhere. 

There's no point in checking for a pulse. He's very clearly dead—chalky skin, vacant eyes, and that uncanny stillness that follows the departed. 

I know it's too late. 

Cherry, however, doesn't want to give up. She looks at his back hopelessly. 

"We could cut it out..." she says. She pulls my knife out of her bag and levels it to the biggest bulge, right near his right shoulder. 

"Cherry." 

"Or maybe pull it out?" 

"Cherry." 

She looks up at me, running her hands across the snake's body like she'd be able to draw it out. 

"No. No. He's not dead!" 

She's cried so much. We both have. I sit next to her. "Cherry... I'm so sorry." 

"He's not gone! It's not possible! He can't just—"

Whatever she was going to say comes out as a twisted sob. She springs towards me and buries her face in my shoulder, despite the mud and the stench. 

I... don't know what I do. I rub her back and whisper reassuring nothings into her ear, all the while keeping one eye on Ransom's body. 

The loss of Ransom himself doesn't really affect me. I wonder briefly if that makes me an awful person or not. But the idea that I was talking to him just a few short minutes ago, and now he's here, the sight of what the snake did to him—I mean, it's terrifying. 

Besides, those snakes were following me. So I should be the one lying there while Ransom consoles Cherry. 

Ransom did nothing to deserve death, but clearly death doesn't care. If it did, Ree would be here too. 

Life and death don't know mercy. They just roll the dice. 

Finally, she pulls away from me. "Sorry," she sniffles. 

She's not pretty when she cries. No one is. Sadness deteriorates. 

"You gonna be okay?" I ask her. 

She nods. "But he had... he had the answers. And he—the mage—why would he kill him?" 

"I don't know. But we should be on the lookout for the other snake." Another thought hits me—if I hadn't chopped the snake, Ransom could still be alive. 

I force my brain to refocus. My brain isn't the best at refocusing, though. 

Cherry tries to swipe the tears away, but they're still flowing. "He sealed off both exits. It'll take awhile for the other snake to get out. Our only threat is that one."

I force myself to look. Cherry doesn't look bothered by the gore. It's more whose blood it is than the blood itself. I can no longer see the tip of the snake's tail, which means all of it is inside. The snake writhes inside. 

"What's it doing?" I ask quietly. 

"I'm not sure," Cherry says, "but I doubt it's good." 

"Should we go?" I ask Cherry. "Or do you want to stay for awhile?" 

Cherry shrugs. She picks up Fahd-Dsal, who's been wandering around. The little dragon licks the tears off , causing Cherry to laugh a little bit. 

"It's just—" she shakes her head and studied Ransom's corpse one more time. "What do we do? With him. With this." 

"There's no easy answer." I drop my gaze and, inevitably, start to think of Ree again. 

"You've lost someone," Cherry realizes. "Recently." 

"I—yeah. My twin. Sister," I add hastily. "Her name was Ree. She died in a raid." 

"Oh," she says. "I'm sorry." 

"Death sucks," I tell her. 

She sighs. "Yeah, but you're right. We have to move. We could take some of his stuff—his shoes'll be big, but they should be better than nothing. And his coat..." 

"What about the body?" I ask. 

She rolls her shoulders as if shirking off hundreds of pounds of emotion. "We'll leave it here. It's not like we can do anything else. The snake will eat its way out, and I don't want to be here when that happens." 

I shudder but slip off his left shoe while she grabs his right. 

She slides them on. They're big, but they fit surprisingly well. 

Cherry stands up. She casts one final look downwards, a bitter goodbye to the brother she both gained and lost in the span of... god. An hour, maybe. Two hours. 

Then she slings her bag over her shoulder. I do the same. She takes a couple steps away, her gait easier now that she has actual shoes instead of bloodied cotton dresses. Fahj-Dsal scampers up her leg, leaving faint red scratches. She settles around her shoulders. 

"Come on," Cherry says. I can tell she's trying to look back, but doesn't dare. Dead bodies are hard to tear your attention from. 

I take one more look at Ransom. Using his discarded shirt, I wipe the blood and foam from his mouth. I shut his eyes. 

Then I catch up with Cherry. 

"I'm gonna do it," she mutters. "I'm going to kill him." 

"I know," I tell her. "And I'm here to help." 

She smiles gratefully. The look sends blood rushing everywhere. "Thank you," she whispers. 

"No problem," I reply softly. 

She laces our fingers together. 

Our pulses thud in unison. The entwined grasp feels right. 

The two of us walk back into the unknown.