Perdition's Child

Chapter 15

The car ride was as bad as Mehk feared, but not for the reason he thought. Quara ignored him utterly. She didn't greet him, she didn't insult him, she didn't even look at him. Mehk squirmed.

Eventually the silence was too much and he broke it. "I'm, uh, sorry." She continued to ignore him.

"Er... Did you want to hit me too?" He'd stay still if she did. Her and Irika were the closest he'd had to actual friends his own age for the last two Lequin days, and it was an oddly vulnerable feeling. She didn't respond, and he sighed. Tes kept driving, not interfering.

Lacking any better ideas, he awkwardly continued throwing words into the gulf, "So, that hairpin-"

"Shut up, Mehk. We trusted you and you betrayed us, so just keep your mouth closed until we've dealt with this threat and dumped you back on your precious rock." It was hard to tell with that snake-like face, but she seemed hurt.

Oh. Mehk blinked and lowered his ears, wondering what he'd done to get their trust in the first place. It really wasn't fair, and for a moment he was irritated that all the blame for this stupid situation rested on his shoulders. "Because this is all my fault, yes, fine. It's completely unreasonable to not want to be kept captive by a group of killers in space who wouldn't let me interact with the outside world."

Quara turned in her seat to hiss at him, fangs twitching, "Yes, Mehk, that is completely unreasonable when you're carrying around the apocalypse! It's called a quarantine, and it's standard practice for people who get infected with terrorist bioweapons!"

Okay, true enough, but now Mehk was losing his temper and his teeth showed more than usual when he replied, "It was a mistake, alright? And no, you people didn't trust me so don't you try to tell me that shit! I wasn't going to run if Irika hadn't chased me, if she'd waited another second none of this would have happened!" If she'd just used words instead of violence, he would have stood down.

There was a tense silence, both of them in the most aggressive postures for their species. Quara glared at him with mouth open and fangs held all the way out to the sides, neck curved in an S-shape to strike and antenna laid flat to the back of her neck. Mehk was snarling, lips curled back and ears in a defensive position while a low growl rumbled in the back of his throat.

Both of them flinched when Tes braked harder than she necessarily had to and interrupted, "We're here, children. Everyone out, and please try to not be an embarrassment to your ancestors. Or me."

Quara broke first, turning away and sliding out of the passenger seat. "She said something like that too... Anyway, you have a bunch of black hairs caught in your teeth. It's pretty nasty, what were you licking, anyway?"

That threw him off and he checked his reflection in the side mirror when he got out. Yep, definitely had some hairs caught back there. After the shower fiasco Mehk had taken to grooming himself the hard way, running his rough tongue over the areas that had glands beneath the fur and a propensity to stink, particularly his ankles and underarms. It was a bit nasty, he supposed, but surely it beat inflicting his body odor on the rest of the world. Although most of the rest of the world seemed to be scent-dead anyway... He worked on removing the errant hairs and followed Tes into the waiting room of a small neurology clinic.