27. Buixezez

27. Buixezez

Dessin

Skylenna sleeps in my cagetonight, lying across my lap as I apply cream to those gaping slices across her back. The blisters and welts have gone down, the bleeding has stopped, and my girl only winces a little against my thigh.

“How’s that?” I ask her softly.

She groans in response.

“No more beatings when we get out of here, okay?” I lightly press cream into the longest lash mark down her spine, watching the fluid ooze out of her from the pressure. “When this is all over, we’re going to only know comfort.”

“Hmm,” she coos with her eyes closed. “Where are we going to live?”

“I told you I’m going to build you a castle.”

She nods. “That’ll take time. Can we start with a cottage in the Red Oaks?”

I feel Kane sigh close to me, letting his eyes fall shut as he imagines the beauty of a life in peace. “I’d like that.”

Everyone is blustering with excited conversation. The entire group took a sigh of relief the moment we were able to imagine DaiSzek striding in to save the day with an army at his back. Well, everyone but Niles. I watch him. He’s lying on his side, brows scrunched together, trying to sleep.

Since when does Niles stay out of socializing?

“What is it?” Skylenna brings me back, following my eyes. “What’s wrong with him?”

I shrug.

“Is he sick?” she asks again.

“Who cares? It’s Niles,” I reply coolly.

Skylenna doesn’t respond with words, only a glare that snags my attention and pulls a defeated exhale from my lungs.

“I don’t know,” I say, using my thumb to smooth the worry lines from her forehead.

“Oh? I guess you’ve lost that special talent, huh?”

My eyebrow lifts. “What are you talking about?”

“The infamous Patient Thirteen who could study the body language of his victims, examine their strengths and weaknesses based on the way they walked, a spot they scratched. Right? I guess you’ve lost it.” She shrugs, settling back down on my lap with a yawn.

I roll my eyes to the ceiling. “Well played.”

She smiles against my leg.

Turning my focus back to Niles, I tune out the rest of the prison, carefully examining his small movements, heart rate, perspiration, muscle twitches, and the rhythm of his breathing.

“He’s…upset,” I say slowly.

“About escaping?”

“I can’t read minds.”

She laughs, and the sound reaches into my heart.

“No, he’s not scared or anxious. More like his feelings are hurt,” I clarify.

“Is that as much intel as your small brain can identify?” she taunts.

Greystone laughs close to the front, filling my thoughts with dirty intentions. Kalidus is near too, infecting my personality with cockiness.

I accept her challenge with a male eagerness to impress her.

My brain is a complex web of memories that I’m unable to forget. At least, the ones not including what other alters have experienced. I comb through the many obnoxious moments with Niles in the prison. I don’t land on anything that would explain why he has his feelings hurt now. But maybe that’s because I don’t speak the theatrical language of Niles.

Skylenna taps her fingers against my kneecap impatiently.

I dig deeper. I sift through my memories of him in the asylum. I studied the other patients from their files. I didn’t want to go into the intricate section without being completely prepared. I see his file opening in my hands in the dead of night, remember scouring his name and diagnosis. His file stood out to me because I could relate to his identity crisis.

The rest of the information is useless. Treatment plans. Notes of behavior. I almost close the file before the top right corner stands out to me. I blink in surprise.

“What is it?” Skylenna asks, watching my face diligently.

“What’s today’s date?” I muse, quickly counting back from the days since we arrived.

“Uh.”

The dates connect, and the light goes off like fireworks in my mind.

I chuckle, shaking my head.

Skylenna is sitting up now, eyes wide with curiosity. “HA! I knew you could figure it out.”

“It’s his birthday tomorrow.” I shake my head. I don’t remember when the last time any of my alters have celebrated a birthday. We have a lot of them.

Skylenna gasps, putting a hand over her mouth.

“He thinks no one is going to know, Dessin! His feelings are hurt!”

I smirk, imagining how entertaining it will be to watch him pout through the prison tomorrow. “Yeah.”

She swats my arm. “Knock it off.”

I stare at her in surprise. “This is prison. We aren’t celebrating a fucking birthday. Especially not for Niles.”

Her grimace is actually kind of scary. I pinch my lips together, leaning back an inch.

“We’re celebrating my brother’s birthday,” she says, ice coating each syllable.

I glare back at her, unwilling to fight this fight. These desperate times call for desperate measures.

“Fuck,” I breathe.

Skylenna grins, doing a little dance in her seated position.

“What’s on the agenda, Captain? You want to bake him a cake and sing to the baby boy?” I roll my shoulders back, grimacing at the thought.

And fuck me, her big, emerald-green eyes light up.

“Dessin, we have to bake something!”

“No.”

“Yes!”

“The only thing we’re baking in these cages is irritable bowel syndrome from the food they’ve been killing us with,” I deadpan.

She snorts. “Okay, funny guy. Seriously, get us out and to the kitchen. I know you can.”

I can already sense the beginning stages of a massive migraine.

“What are we conspiring to do?” Warrose leans against his rusty bars, raising his thick brows at us.

“It’s Niles’s birthday tomorrow. We’re breaking out to bake him something sweet!” Skylenna whisper-hisses.

“Oh.” Warrose chuckles softly. “I’m out.”

Skylenna narrows her eyes. It’s both adorable and bone-chilling. “You’re both pissing me off.”

Warrose darts his confused hazel gaze to me, seeking answers to what we should do or say to weasel our way out of this one.

I lift a shoulder, chuffing out a laugh. “If I have to cater to Niles, then you certainly have to suffer with me, brother.”

“Dessin, you’re in charge of our escape to the kitchen. I’ll be in charge of event coordination. And you’ll be the lookout, Warrose!” Skylenna wiggles in her seat, beaming with excitement. Even if it is Niles of all people, how can I take this from her? She’s so happy.

Warrose scoffs. “How am I reduced to lookout?!”

“Can you bake?” Skylenna crosses her arms.

“No.”

“Then lookout it is!”

I smirk at my friend now pouting with his mouth open.

Niles is full-on snoring, out like a light, and we have about an hour until we need to break out of this cage. The first time I escaped to bake the cook in her own oven, I found a twisted piece of metal in her pocket. A makeshift key to the cages. To be on the safe side, I shoved it in a small gap between the floor and the wall at the back of my cage. I knew I’d need it when we finally figured out how to make a break for it.

Never would I imagine risking losing it to throw Niles a fucking birthday party.

I work out the fine details of making it past the sentinels on night guard, slipping into the kitchen, how long it will take to assemble ingredients, oven time, cool time, and how quickly we can make it back without anyone noticing.

The birth of Niles could add a strike closer to the executioner’s block if we’re caught. Is it worth it? Mmm, probably not.

But making my girl smile is.

“How long do we have until you’re breaking us out?” Skylenna asks.

“Nineteen minutes now,” I answer, then give her a side-eye. “How’d you know I already planned it out?”

She shrugs. “You had that look.”

“What look?”

“The one where you’ve just worked out a problem.”

I start to smile. “You know me that well?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Skylenna says with a small laugh. “I had to learn the language of your expressions when you kept so many secrets.”

My face falls.

“And you have a handsome face. I watch you a lot,” she adds with a shy smile.

Good save.

After the nineteen-minute mark passes, I fish the piece of metal out from its secure hole in the wall and thrust my hand around a bar at the front of my cage, jiggling it into the keyhole to unlock. My cage door clicks open, and I step out.

Warrose and Skylenna gape at me with wide eyes.

“How long have you been able to do that, you piece of shit!” Warrose yell-whispers.

“I’m getting flashbacks to the thirteenth room.” Skylenna laughs.

I open both of their cages swiftly. We only have two minutes to get from here to the kitchen without being caught.

“Wait!”

I turn on my heel to see Marilynn waving at us. We walk to her cage, leaning in with raised brows.

“I know it’s Niles’s birthday. Can I help?” she begs.

I peer back at Skylenna. Her lips are pinched together. Those glowing green eyes suspicious. Unsure.

“I promise to stay quiet,” she adds, licking her full lips.

“Can you bake?” Skylenna asks.

Marilynn nods with a glimmer of hope in her eyes. “I love to bake. It’s all I did when I lived alone.”

Skylenna sighs, glancing in my direction with a hurried nod.

“We have one minute and fifteen seconds,” I announce in a hushed tone. Without letting the cage door screech, Marilynn slips out like a thief in the night.

We decide to leave Ruth sleeping next to Niles in case he wakes up. She won’t be happy that we’ve left her out of the plan, but someone needed to stay here with him.

I account for the shift changes, the patterns of the Blood Mammoths that walk these halls. Over the weeks we’ve been captive, I’ve studied it all. Thankfully, those wretched creatures are fond of blind routines.

The lights are off in the commissary, so we’re vigilant to slip around the tables and chairs, reaching our hands out to find our path in the dark. Warrose curses as he stubs his foot on a table leg. Skylenna snickers at his expense.

I have a countdown ticking in my head. There isn’t time to do anything other than what I had planned, down to the second.

We flip on a few lights in the kitchen, searching through the ingredients to see what we have available to make.

“Not much to choose from,” Marilynn comments, snagging what she can from the pantry.

“What are our options?” Skylenna asks.

“Pancakes…”

“Oh.” Skylenna’s shoulders droop. “Are you sure?”

Marilynn pauses, drumming her fingers against her bottom lip.

Tick, tick, tick.

“I think I can make a cake from the pancake batter and frosting from…ah, there it is.” Marilynn fills her arms with ingredients, passing us jars to set out on the dirty table for her.

I’m relieved at how fast she mixes the ingredients with Skylenna’s help. After the oven is heated, they slide in a metal container and clean up their mess.

“We have company!” Warrose races in the kitchen.

No. That’s not within the perimeters of time we have. Who is it? Did they hear us?

“Lights off,” I command. “Everyone under the table.”

Everyone scrambles to crawl under the table. I flip the lights off, crouching low in a corner. The footsteps are light, and the pattern indicates it’s a woman, around one hundred and forty pounds. The rhythm of her breath is slightly labored. She’s older. Fifties perhaps.

My eyes grow wide as I notice a glowing light hovering closer, illuminating the doorway.

I’m going to have to kill someone again.

As the soft yellow light floods the kitchen, I lock eyes with the older woman. She’s wearing a white hat. The new cook. Her sleepy facial expression doesn’t change. No shift in the muscles of her forehead. No startled blinks. She isn’t surprised to see us.

“Canux é hoiex?” she says, lifting her tone at the end, indicating a question.

Help. I recognize that word.

“Buixezez,” I respond, hoping I pronounced it right.

The older woman with a round face, olive skin, and fluffy brown hair, lifts her chin in understanding.

“Canux yé dequexez tuex?” I know that’s not right. But I hope she pieces together what I’m trying to ask.

She nods twice and says a full sentence I can’t translate for the life of me. I flip on the lights so we can finish. Skylenna gives me a few strange looks as she helps remove the cake from the oven and finishes the frosting. We rush out of the room, hoping the cook understood the assignment I gave her. Otherwise, this was all for nothing.

“Be honest, have you known how to speak Old Alkadonian all along, or have you been learning while we’ve been here?” Skylenna finally asks as we jog back to our cages.

“I’ve been picking it up, committing Ruth’s translations to memory.”

Warrose laughs behind us. “Don’t tell Ruth.”

I wasn’t planning on it. It’s the one area she feels useful in. Plus, I’m not fluent in the slightest. It’s a complex language with a lot of variations based on intent and circumstance. I’d need to see it written, to understand the grammatical practices.

We need Ruth, even if I can pick up on words and phrases.

We’ll always need Ruth.

“What did she say?” Marilynn asks from my left.

“I think she asked if she could help or if we needed help.”

“And your response?”

“I told her the word birthday. And asked if she could deliver it to our table.” At least, I hope that’s what was asked.

Ruth is awake by the time we return, looking pissed, confused, and like she’s about to explode with questions. Loud ones. The kind that will wake Niles up.

“Shhh.” Warrose kneels next to her. “It’s for Niles’s birthday.”

“Why wasn’t I included?” Ruth hisses.

“Someone needed to stay with Niles,” Skylenna answers, closing my cage and settling in.

“Great. So I was a prop in this adventure.” She rolls her eyes, laying back down.

“I was a lookout. Join the club,” Warrose grumbles.

Skylenna and I lay side by side on our stomachs, gazing into each other’s sleepy eyes. She rests her thin hand over mine, stroking my knuckles.

“Promise you’ll be nice to him tomorrow,” Skylenna murmurs through a yawn.

“That is a tall order.”

“Dessin…”

“He asks for it, baby.” He does. He really does. Niles is a long list of adjectives that fall into the same category as annoying and obnoxious. Being nice to him for an entire day would cost me dearly.

“For me?” She flutters those long, wispy eyelashes.

I curse, surrendering to her request in quiet indignation. Skylenna grins at the look of defeat on my face, squeezing my hand twice. As her eyes go half-crest, I don’t miss the signs of a concussion popping up one by one. She shielded her face from the light in the kitchen, as if it physically pained her. That boy at the whipping post bashed her head in during the beating. She vomited twice while she thought no one was looking.

I’ll take care of her.

I’m sick to death of watching my girl hurt.

Before I drift off to sleep with her, I raise my head to look over at Ruth and Warrose, still awake, still talking.

“Ruth?” I whisper.

Her curly brunette head perks up, eyeing me over Warrose.

“Can you translate something I heard tonight?” I ask.

Ruth nods, waiting to hear it.

I relay the sentence the cook said to me in the best accent and pronunciation I can manage. Ruth’s soft brown eyes glaze over as she listens, finding the right words in her head.

“It means… ‘The mother you took the whipping for was my sister. I’ll not forget your sacrifice.’”