The War of Elevens| Book 1 of the Space Thief Chronicles

Chapter 4| The Wish Devouring Being

Where most people's hearts were composed of blood and tissue, Melissa often feared hers was created of wishes. She was a wish devouring being, and it took sitting in front of Nathan Ecscent for this term to hit her full-force.

When she was seven, she made it a point to pluck every jamboree blossom she came across. She would brush dark, skinny fingers over each delicate petal before pressing her lips against the flower's middle as if she were about to tell the flower a secret and whisper her wish. She asked for the most fantastical things her little mind could think of...for the sun to stay up another hour, for the flowers to grow legs and dance, to hear the lullabies the trees sang at night that only deaf children could hear, for the tendrils of silver mist thick with the scent sweet-rotten corpses to lift its heavy presence from her training camp.

As a grown woman, the only thing she had to wish upon now was the chokehold of her life before Lilly. Every morning, she wished for her tired hands to move, for the biting pain in her right leg not to hinder her from work, and for the sun to rise every morning. She wished for sunny days. To not have a panic attack while cooking dinner. No nightmares. She wished to the Great King to forgive her for shooting that innocent man in the head.

But most regrettably, she wished for Nathan Ecscent.

Her mind clogged and her thoughts shattered when she wished for Nathan Ecscent.

He was everything that broke her heart, and she could not let it go.

Melissa wished for his kindness to turn to hostility, his knowing smile to sharpen into a jeer, for his inviting, tea-making hands to turn to claws that caught baby birds and squeezed. Every bit of warmth he radiated hurt, and it would be so much easier to let him go if he was a monster.

"Where's your son?" Melissa asked him now, trying to keep her face from tightening into a pained expression. They were in his kitchen. The room was a furnished, spotless swath of burgundies and dark browns, the color scheme only disrupted by the vase of sky-blue cornflowers on his kitchen table.

Nathan handed her a mug of chamomile tea and sat across from her. "At Khofie's. The cool place, according to Jake. He said a bunch of kids from Eldnac were going to celebrate the end of the school year. What about your cousin?" His voice welled with amusement. "When my son told me it was Lillian Cart Ci who set several hundred butterflies loose in the school, I wasn't exactly surprised, but man, what a bold move!"

"She should be at home," Melissa replied, nodding her thanks for the tea. Knowing Lilly, she was probably out hunting for that journal despite being grounded. "Ah...I can't stay long. I've already worked late for the past three nights and she needs a little extra love right now. She's angry."

Nathan cocked a long, handsome brow. "At you?"

Melissa sighed. "At the world. Always at the world."

"She has funny ways of showing it. Setting butterflies loose! That's a clever—um, I mean...interesting prank. If it's any consolation, she's been a great math student this year. I know she struggles, but she's persistent."

Nathan was the pre-algebra teacher at Eldnac. Lilly had always struggled in math, and through all the battles of tutoring, studying, and extra math problems Melissa had drafted up to help her, it was...difficult...to get mathematical concepts through Lilly's head.

Melissa smiled. Lilly was persistent. All the nights she had come home griping about math homework but not giving up until she understood the concept showed just how determined she was. "I think she would understand concepts better if she didn't rush through the problems and complain about how the concepts don't matter in everyday life."