Chapter 13

13

SYLAS

Mina considered my statement, then frowned, her deep brown eyes misting with memories, and I knew I had pushed her too hard.

"The only thing I currently want to take off is the clothing that I slept in, so can you please give me some privacy?" she snapped, and I appeared to withdraw at once.

"Of course, my queen," I said, dissipating myself until there was no way she could know I remained.

Most of my hiring clientele were obsessive or insane. If I said pretentious things, their first inclination would've been to agree with me, because they were pretentious people, who needed to make the world work the way they thought it should—which was, of course, always in their favor.

So I was curious why fate had brought me this girl, who kept trying not to be frail, even though she was.

Poor little lamb, I thought, watching her undress, remembering her dream from the prior night .

She took off her sweater and inspected my hourglass mark first, watching the sand inside it run down, rubbing at its edges—not trying to get it off, but attempting to understand it. Then she kicked off her jeans, and walked into her bathroom to turn her shower on, in her bra and underwear, their black fabric stark against her pale skin. After that, she began to brush her teeth, while giving herself furtive glances in the mirror.

I still possessed a concept of beauty, but I had seen millions of people in my very long "life," and thus most of humanity was a vague blur to me. What did their lives even matter, when they were so short, and no one would remember any of them in a century?

But she was pretty in the way that things that are appetizing become more tasteful when presented well, like the contrast between the food taken hot and food taken cold. Both were the same at base, and yet one was often better than the other.

When she was done brushing her teeth she cupped water to her mouth to drink, and then afterwards took another palmful, I thought to drink again, but instead she whirled and spattered it against the wall.

"I know you're there!" she hissed. I let the water drops fly through me, and I realized why she'd turned the shower on so hot—so that any shape I kept would show in its emanating steam.

It hadn't worked. I didn't need to maintain my form like that, but that she'd thought of it and tried...that was alluring, beyond mere physicality, and made me amend my prior thoughts on her. My cunning lamb, I purred, to myself.

This version of her made me want to show her all my teeth.

But once she was done huffing and puffing, her own image obscured in the fogged bathroom mirror, she deflated, thinking I'd never been there at all, and she took off her underwear and bra. Her breasts were small teardrops, there was a thatch of unkempt hair between her legs, and there was an unexpected mark upon her inner left hip, that I could barely make out before she jumped behind the shower curtain, so I followed her there.

I stood under the shower's spray, letting all of the water flow through me as she started performing her ablutions, washing herself off, shampooing her hair, the mark on her hip moving as she did, the water trails making its edges ambiguous.

What wasn't hard to read though was her mood, which darkened the entire time she was in the small, enclosed space. I watched her run a soaped washcloth over her body once, twice, and then after that it was clear that whatever it was she wanted to wash off of her was something she would never find as she segued into a frenzy, as though she were trying to clean something deeper than her skin—perhaps her soul—until she was crying again, and once more I was forced to watch her tears go to absolute and utter waste.

I felt myself solidify without thinking, angry at her for showing me so much but somehow still not enough to understand her. Luckily, she didn't notice, lost as she was in her own pain. It permeated the humid air around her and my choices were to make myself known, or fully retreat, and so I whipped myself out of her fog, standing on the other side of the curtain as she finished, like the monster so many humans feared in the movies.

I will know you shortly, lamb.

Whether you like it or not.