20. Chapter Twenty

Sylas

When I emerge from the shower, wearing my only clean pair of shorts, Cally is dressed, her orange hair is twisted into an elaborate configuration of braids, and she’s dancing while stirring something at the stove.

I’m struck with a powerful hunger that has nothing to do with the delicious smells wafting my way. There’s something so captivating about watching my female cook for me, not to mention the delightful way her bottom is swaying to imaginary music I’m not able to hear.

“I imagine all that midnight action made you hungry,” she says, not taking her eyes from the pot she’s stirring.

If someone had asked me how I’d feel about the woman I’m courting making fun of my… seminal emissions, I would have imagined I’d be embarrassed to the roots of my hair. But there’s something about Cally’s matter-of-fact attitude about my rut that’s reassuring, destigmatizing.

I bite back the urge to answer her question with something stupid like, “Of course I’m hungry. Hungry for you.” Instead, I respond, “What did you find to cook?”

“Oatmeal, raisins, and even a packet of walnuts. Gourmet all the way, baby.”

“Baby? I’m a foot taller than you.” And could throw her over the fence almost as easily as I threw her battery—though I don’t say it.

“Figure of speech, baby.”

Another smell overpowers the sweet fragrance of the oatmeal and raisins.

“Grizz!”

“What? A… grizzly bear?” She must have caught the alarm in my voice, because she turns to look at me, her eyes wide and frightened.

“Grizz. My best friend. He’s close.”

My gaze darts around the room, looking for anything that would give away her presence. I pick up the school-bus-yellow forty-pound bag of dog food and hurry to stow it in the john as I tell her, “Put away one of the bowls and spoons you’ve set on the counter, grab your clothes and your bag, and hide in the bathroom.”

I scan the room again, but don’t see any other dead giveaways.

“What about Tater?” She sounds frantic.

“I’ll tell the truth. He must have crawled under the fence.” I pause, thinking. “What’s the most pungent-smelling thing in the cabinet?”

“Uhh. Vanilla?”

“What’s that?”

She hurries over, a ball of her clothes that she picked up off the floor in her hands, and pulls a little, brown bottle out of the cabinet and hands it to me.

“Step back,” I whisper, knowing Grizz might be close enough at this point to hear me. I’m about to slam the vanilla onto the tile floor the moment Cally is out of the crash zone, but I stop when I realize shattered glass won’t be good on doggy paws. I grab a kitchen towel and empty the contents onto it. “This might cover your scent. Hide.”

“Come on, boy,” I call to Tater as I turn off the burner. One more quick glance around, and the two of us step onto the porch.

The dog growls low in his throat, teeth bared, hackles standing straight up—standard threat behavior.

“He’s a friend, Tot.” I kneel so we’re closer to the same height. “It’s okay. You can run to the trees.”

Grizz is approaching, about one hundred yards away. He’s an imposing sight, with his thickly muscled body covered with shaggy brown hair. What’s more striking than his superhuman muscles is his swagger. Even when we were prisoners at the lab, he never let them cow him—and paid the price dearly on many occasions. It’s one of the things I like best about him. He’s one tough splicer.

“Hey, bro!” I call, my tone bright and happy, as though a human female who holds the key to our continued safety is not hiding in my bathroom.

“Is it safe?” he asks with a grin.

I freeze, startled. How could he possibly know?

“Have you pissed yourself lately?” he clarifies. “You made my eyes water yesterday.”

Maybe it’s the book-naming conversation I had with Cally earlier, or maybe it’s just that things can get down and dirty pretty easily with my fellow splicers, but I answer, “Naw, I’ve skipped the pissing on myself stage and gone straight to marathon jack-off sessions.”

“Good choice.” He nods. “Less smelly, more satisfying.”

“If they ever announce our existence to the public, you could write jingles, Grizz. Less smelly, more satisfying, haha. Got a jingle for beer off the top of your head?”

Without even thinking, he rattles off, “Sip, laugh, repeat. Beer, a way of life.”

“You’re good. How about Monday Night Football?”

“The hits are hard, the stakes are high.”

“How do you do that? What about when we finally go public? Got one for splicers?”

He takes his time to respond to this one. With this, even more than Monday Night Football, the stakes are high.

“Born from science, courage in our DNA, we’re here to embrace a brand-new way.”

We both take a deep breath, our shoulders sagging at the same time.

“I think we’re going to need more than a catchy jingle to sell splicers to the public,” Grizz says as he makes his way to the hut.

“Right.”

“Where did the pooch come from?”

Tater headed for the treeline the moment we left the house. Although he’s finished his business, he’s hanging back, head cocked, fur on the back of his neck still standing erect as he gives the grizzly-bear-man a wide berth.

“A housewarming present. Found him yesterday.”

“Think he’ll taste good?”

“What?!?”

“Just fucking with you, bro. Come here, boy.” He pats his thigh. “Have you named him?”

“Tator Tot.” As the name flows off my lips, I realize I’m probably busted. Grizz will have to know I would never in a million years name an animal that.

He simply shrugs, then crouches and calls, “Come here, Tater Tot.” He clears his throat. “That’s a ridiculous name. Come here Tater.” He glances at me and says, “That’s better.”

I have to give the dog credit. If I were that small and close to the ground, I’m not sure if I’d have the balls to approach Grizz. The male is taller than me and has to weigh over three hundred pounds. Damned if Tator doesn’t slink over, albeit he’s still baring his teeth.

He hits the ground and slides on his belly the last few feet, submitting to the larger male.

“You’ve stolen his dignity,” I grouse.

“It’s the way of the world. One of us has to be the dominant. I vote for me.”

After a moment of belly rubbing and “Good boys,” the two of them have established their pecking order and Tater seems happy to have another packmate.

“You gonna invite me inside? Show me your home away from home?”

“It’s kind of smelly in there. I think the only way you’ll remain my friend is if we hang out on the porch.”

It’s only now that I react to what’s in his hand. I took off in such a hurry yesterday morning, I chose books over my guitar.

“Thanks. You brought my guitar.”

“I thought you might want my company, but I knew you’d want this.”

“I thought you would all be thrilled that I took my stinky self and my terrible guitar-playing to the other side of the property.”

“We love to give you shit about your playing, Sylas, but we’re all proud of you.”

What? This is news to me. He’s not kidding when he says they give me a hard time. It’s constant, even when I go to my room to play.

“We’re splicers, man. We’re not going to sing ‘Kumbaya’ and tell you how pretty your music is. We’d lose our man-cards over that.”

I don’t interrupt to tell him that we’re not exactly men and will never have man-cards to lose.

“When you’re not around, we talk about how proud we are of you. Your guitar playing is amazing.”

The Army was nice enough to equip the little porch with two oversized wooden rocking chairs, which are several feet apart. We’re not so far away from each other that I can’t reach over and punch his arm.

“I thought I was terrible,” I admit, not mentioning that I go to my room and strum as softly as possible so they don’t give me shit about it.

He shifts back in his chair and looks genuinely surprised.

“I thought you knew we were joking, Sylas. Is there one other guy in the barracks who can play any instrument half as well as you? Isn’t it obvious that you’re…” he pauses as though saying these next few words are going to cost him, “really good?”

“No. Not obvious.” Although I had to drag it out of him, I Iet his praise wash over me. I’ve only been good at a few things in my life: running long distances with a heavy pack and sniper-level skills with a rifle. To have a civilian skill, something that wasn’t forced on me by evil scientists, well, that feels amazing.

“You know that Army shrink who Zooms with us once a month, which by the way is today? He’s always urging us to express our feelings. I thought it was a pile of crap, but maybe… maybe we should try harder.” Grizz looks thoughtful. “It sucks that you’ve been laboring under the illusion that we didn’t like your playing—”

“It wasn’t such a leap of reason to think that,” I interrupt. “You all told me it sounded, and I quote, like a musical crime scene.”

“Well, c’mon, that’s the splicer way.” Grizz rubs his shaggy chin with his palm and says, “But I think the way we were pitted against each other since birth and encouraged to tear each other down needs to stop. The next time we have a barracks-wide meeting, I’m going to bring this up.”

“I’d like that. We’re a family.”

“Dysfunctional family,” Grizz pipes up.

“We’re a big, ugly, loud, farting, smelly family, but we could be nicer to each other.”

Perhaps in a normal family, there might be a hug at this point, but hey, we’re still splicers, bred to be supersoldiers. This was as close to a Hallmark moment as two splicers can get.