Soulstess

✧ Chapter 6 ✧ Emerald ✧

✧ Emerald's POV ✧

"Please. Star is wanting Giovanni, I can't stay here – I have to go to him!" I hold Jepson's wrist, as his hand applies a cold press to the bruises on my face from Star's torture today.

"Your shift is over, you're not going anywhere," Jepson holds my shoulder, keeping me sitting on top of the kitchen sink in our apartment on the Zoulton ship, "So is mine – so we'll spend the night together."

"Star hates the new Soulstess," I catch Jepson's dead eyes.

He was always so cold when I was abused – showing moments of warmth when we had moments of happiness trapped on the Zoulton together. Well – he wasn't, but I was.

I was a Soulstess.

"Giovanni is busy working out the new Wanderer, if you know what I mean," Jepson distracts me from touching my bruises, by grabbing my hand and placing it on his pants – making me giggle a little.

"Stop taking my mind away like that," I whisper, smiling brightly.

"I can't let you work outside your hours for that whore," Jepson throws aside the cold press and holds my chin between two fingers as gently as he can.

"Don't call Star a whore," I croak up at him, while petting his buzzed head above mine, "She'll kill you."

"Giovanni would never allow that, I'm his highest paid security," Jepson reminds me, as he does every night, "How is your memory of today, baby...?"

"I got to play with some bunnies today, before I packaged them up to go to their new owners," I whisper, feeling my mind is fuzzy on that fact.

"I never know what you mean by that," Jepson regains his look of frustration, "I love you, babe, but you're always so lost on me sometimes."

"I do the best I can but I love my job," I lie to his face – because I hate seeing Jepson going numb inside... because of me, "...has Gio made a new elixir for me...?"

Jepson's black eyes harden, "I'm done with him experimenting on you, you're allergic to all of them, nothing foreign agrees with you –"

"When I was in Zour, I lived on Freeze, I lived in the clouds, with the rain," I remember that time, being trafficked and dosed up on Freeze – a drug that hurt not only my brain, but my immunity. Now I was always numb, permanently damaged – but I was protected by my boyfriend and carer, Jepson.

He stopped me trying to drown myself by the sea, when the Zoulton was at port – and he helped me recover by sneaking me onto the ship.

However, Star knew me. I was a Soulstess, whom she plucked from the DIG.

She stole my name.

They all called me Emerald for my hair – but only Star knew my first name.

...Star...

I think deeply inward, as Jepson speaks, I see his mouth move but the words are nothing.

I'm thinking back.

To a memory.

I'm in a snowglobe world – with a music box playing.

I'm living in the reeds, by a lovely swamp, playing with frogs and snakes when the woman in the sky asks if I want to fly. Yes, of course I want to fly. Good. So I fly. What's your name? Star. My name is Star. I like that name, that's my name now. No, give it back. Threw me out. Sold me. Abusers. Torturers. Users –

I gasp back to the present by the lips on my lips – taking my startled and short breath away for a moment.

Jepson is cupping both my cheeks, kissing me back to consciousness.

She. Stole. My. Name.

And ever since I could not escape her.

Every time Jepson kissed me – I felt my permanent brain damage start to heal.

Love healed me.

"Baby, please, don't go distant like that," Jepson pulls off my lips, his eyes are glossy but he never lets a tear leak out.

"Kiss me again –?" I beg him and Jepson kisses me at my request.

I've always loved him, to the swamps and back.