Endosymbiosis

16. Peeling

For the last two noxdiems the ship glided through the space towards the galaxy's core. We were no longer on the forgotten outskirts of Itopis, but it would still take a long time for us to reach our destination, which condemned us to boredom... And to our questions about what else we would find along the way.

"Want to know something we should do?" I took Kadi's attention to a prototype he was working on. "Train your fevino."

He stared at me like I'd always been crazy.

"I didn't know you were an iatric and an animal tamer."

"I survived Oasis pediatrics." I shrugged. "Same thing."

"I thought I was the one with a daily hazard quota to fill." He teased. "I have books, if you want to be distracted with something... Less deadly." I had seen the books he had. And the first two human world wars were not my favorite subjects. The third one was much more interesting.

"You have a powerful weapon inside you, Kadi." He rolled his eyes. "That could have helped with the looters and could be the only thing that will save us in the future." I leaned forward. "But you don't even know how to pull the trigger."

"If you're suggesting, it's because you want to pull it." He also leaned in, defying me.

"Don't let your pride stop you from reaching your potential."

"And you don't let your ambition shoot you in the foot." I backed off.

"You're just afraid to do something stupid."

"I wouldn't call killing you "stupid"."

"Then you should let me train him!" I insisted. "If he emerges when we are not waiting, it will be much worse!"

That seemed to be enough to at least make him uncertain.

Kadi ran his hands through his hair, as if trying to shake the neurons, and somehow they seemed to work. He cracked a smile, his feline eyes sending goose bumps over my body.

"I'll prove to you that not everything you can control..."

He got up and walked towards me, the closeness between us becoming colossal as the space became meaningless. I stopped breathing as he walked past me and opened one of his cabinets under the dash, pulling out a huge silver chain, the kind that anchored ships to the depths of oceans. He turned to me and said:

"Tie me up." I was already obeying. "And don't let me get away."

• • • ֍ • • •

I tied up Kadi as if my life depended on it - maybe it really did - and wound the chains around the pipes on the walls. Fevinos were beings of extreme strength, but it would be impossible to escape metallic bonds like those. Or at least that's what I expected.

"I need something to torture him..." I muttered. And Kadi stared at me like he was already the beast. "How do you expect me to force the fevino to obey me?!"

Kadi surrendered, frustrated, and nodded to another closet.

"I have an electric baton in that drawer."

Why did he have that? I took the weapon without asking questions.

"And now, how do we get him out?" Kadi asked.

I bent down to be at his eye level. I could just leave him there, tied up for the rest of the trip... It would solve all my problems. But then why didn't I? Damn it. He probably knew that, or else he wouldn't have let me tie him up.