Dust

II

I draw back from Damien's arm, and he turns to look at me, the terror in his expression as lucid as the stars burning above our heads. I am sure he is crazy, and make sure he sees it in the way I look at him. "Human, Dame? Don't be ridiculous—"

"I'm not being ridiculous, Gemma. You're right. He doesn't look like any of the species, and you'd know if he was a healer."

I can only stare at him. "You're not serious."

"Think about it."

"I am not irrational, Damien!" I've gone to shouting now, and when Damien reaches to contain me, I swat his hand away. He looks at me with an expression of pressured frustration, as if I am a little girl throwing a tantrum, making a scene in front of all of his grown-up friends. This look does not cool me down. "Just because you believe in silly old folk tales does not mean I have to—"

His voice is dead serious, and something about it makes me shiver. "It is no longer a folk tale," Damien says, cutting his eyes toward Gael again. Gael has said nothing since Damien shoved me away from him. "That boy is a human one, and you and I both know it. We have to kill him, Gemma. He could hurt us."

I shake my head, covering my face with my hands. All of this is too much for me to take in. Since I was little, I've been bombarded with tales of the human race, horrid creatures that, in myth, terrorized all of the species and played cruelly with us like toys. But that was myth. I used to have nightmares about the humans, but Mother and Father would sit at the edge of my bed when I woke up from them, assuring me they never existed. They would sit there until I fell into slumber again, and one night, the nightmares didn't come and never came again.

That's all they are. The humans. They're just bad dreams, things I came up with when I still had the rampantly imaginative mind of a child.

Yet, here I am, with one five feet away from me. In my heart, I know Damien is right.

I let him pull my hands from my face, and the next thing I know, I am against his chest. When I was little, I used to listen for a heartbeat in Damien's chest, and it took me a while to learn that there was no such thing as a heartbeat for him. I remember him holding me the night my father died, my blood soaking his shirt, only the vacancy of his chest there to comfort me.

"Gemma," he says. "I know you are afraid, but your father told me to protect you. The only way I can do that is if...if I take his life."

"I'm not going to let you kill him solely because he's unlike us," I say to Damien as he releases me. He stares down at me through his eyelashes, red veiled by black. "It's not fair—"

"Ahem," says Gael from behind us, and both Damien and I whirl to face him. Damien is making disagreeable noises in his throat, but when I punch him in the shoulder, he quits. "I hate to interject, but I really have to go."

"Not so fast, you monster," Damien growls at him, and I see Gael's eyebrows go up. "I'm not going to let you go, not if you're going to destroy Maris."

Gael blinks like a frightened child, and though he tries to discreetly scoot back from Damien, I notice it. "Maris?" is all he says to that.

Damien's expression is deadly; his night black hair is in his eyes, his hands fists. "I must say. You're a horrible actor."

"I'm not acting," Gael replies. "I don't know who Maris is; I just need to get away. I'm not safe."

"Oh, stake me," mutters Damien, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He turns his eyes heavenward before looking at Gael again, as if seeking some sort of otherworldly advice. "You're not safe, that's true, not for us. You want nothing to do with us."

"What I want is help," hisses Gael, clearly losing patience. He begins to struggle against his wires, but they don't budge. I know they won't; knot tying is my forte, and has been for a while. "If I stay here, I'll die. I promise I won't destroy Maris...whoever they are—"

"Maris is not a person," I cut in, and Damien glances at me, as if he disapproves of me saying anything. I meet his gaze with a glare; I'm almost an adult, and he can't keep me contained all the time. I'm not the ten-year-old he first met, and one day, he's going to have to learn to accept that. "Maris is where we live," I tell Gael, putting my hands to my hips and gazing around me for a second. "The Ancient Forest is beyond the borders, but Maris isn't far from here."

Gael sighs, struggling against his ties again. "That's good. So you can take me there?"

Damien finally snaps. He throws up his spindly arms, muttering in incoherence for a while before he explodes. "Daylights! If you think I really pity you enough to bring you back to my home, then you're even more of an idiot than I thought. Listen, human. I've been around for a few centuries, and I've seen a lot of things desolated. I will not be the cause of Maris's downfall, so therefore you are not—"

"Damien!"

He drops his arms and turns his livid expression from Gael to me; as I fold my arms, I see the anger drain from his face, leaving behind his usual sweetheart-y face he seems to associate with me so much. It seems that he doesn't know that I've seen him when he's not as collected as he seems. "Gemma, I don't trust him."

"You hardly trust anyone, so I'm not surprised," I remark, and Dame snorts with flippancy. "I don't believe that Mr. Echeart here is a threat to us, or to Maris," I go on, gesturing at the squirming Gael. His eyes are alight with hope as he watches me, like a green flame. "He's afraid. He's unsure of where he's going, and if we desert him, he might end up just like my father."

Damien is stricken. "Now, my love—"

"Don't call me that," I snap, holding up my hand. He will not break me. "Now. You and I are going to help him. Do you understand?"

"Gemma." My name is a whine.

"Damien, you're acting like a child."

"I am far from a child."

"Then why do you whine like one?"

Damien sighs, whirling away from me, hiding his face. After a moment of making indignant noises, he lifts a finger and announces, "I will oblige to help the human, but on one condition."

I roll my eyes. "And what might that be?"

"He is sleeping in your house, not mine. I refuse to take him with me." Damien is firm, and when he turns to meet my eyes again, one of his eyebrows is lifted. "Got it, Gemma? He is your problem when it comes to a place to stay."

I won't challenge him. Plus, it might be okay for me to have a little extra company. Someone to study always seems to add more to life. "Very well," I say, and cross the distance to Gael. I undo his ties, and he sighs as he stands back up. "Gael, you are staying with me, since Damien is being a whiney child."

Again, Damien snorts. "It's not safe for him to be with me, anyway," he says. He comes behind my shoulder, and as I glance at him, his fangs detach from his jaws like unsheathed knives; they gleam as white as pearls, and Gael gives a girlish squeal. "I might eat the boy."

"Dame," I scold, grabbing up Gael's arm. "He's kidding," I tell him. "Dame, that's enough."

"What?" says Damien, as if he doesn't know he has caused Gael to tremble. He turns a fanged smile towards us as we begin to leave the forest. I figure that if Gael is truly in such a hurry, I can tell the Bureau it was essential for me to leave the premises, that it was an emergency.

Damien chuckles and gives Gael a playful punch, which causes him to emit another squeal. "I am only joking with you." His fangs retract, his mouth twisting into a smirk. "Perhaps Gemma's right. You're not as terrifying as I expected you to be."

Gael coughs. "I can't say the same for you."