Burning Blood

“What…are you?” he asks, his voice filled with the kind of wonder I usually only hear in Wonderland. I watch him as he watches my blood pool in my hand, liquid gold and reflecting the small amount of sunlight that reaches us through the trees. I can’t let it fall, or it’ll leave behind a scent that can be tracked.

I drop my voice to a whisper and tell him, “I’m a Row.”

I can tell even before he says it, he doesn’t know what that means. Wherever he’s been all this time, I guess it wasn’t somewhere he could hear people talking about Alice. “I’ve never heard of a row before.”

“I think sometimes, nobody really does for a while. Especially not people Outside. Victoria said she read a Outside history book once about Leonardo da Vinci, but it didn’t mention Alice or Eva.”

“How could it not mention Eva? They were best friends,” he points out, because everybody who’s Fa’e, and probably even Punishment, knows that.

I shrug, because I don’t understand it either, then I grin, “Victoria burned that book. She said there’s no point of it existing if it’s not even going to tell the truth.” Kaida laughs at that, his dark brown eyes filled with light.

He looks at the blood pooling in my cupped hands again. I can’t hold it like this forever, but I haven’t figured out how to get rid of it without leaving behind my scent yet.

“What are you doing?” Kaida asks.

“If I let the blood drip, it’ll leave behind a scent. They won’t be able to track it, but it’ll still tell them I was here.” It’d be safer if they never figure out which direction we went in.

“What if we burn it?” Kaida asks. “Can that help?”

I blink. Would it help? The smell of the fire would mask my scent, wouldn’t it? And it’d burn away all the blood. “Build one!” Kaida jumps up and darts away to start gathering wood. I want to go with him, but I don’t want to spill any blood, so I just groan instead. “I’m hurrying!” Kaida calls back. I giggle. He’s cute when he runs around like that, even if it is annoying I can’t run around with him this time.

It only takes him a few minutes to get enough wood, and I breathe into the center to set the whole pile on fire. Kaida’s eyes widen in amazement. “What are you?” he wonders again. I should probably explain to him exactly what a Row is…but it’s kind of fun letting him wonder, so I just let my blood drip into the fire. I wish I could use the fire to wash my hand too, but I don’t think I’m fireproof, so I just scrub my hands with the insides of my sleeves as best I can. It doesn’t do very good though.

“Oh…” Kaida’s watching me again, except he’s looking at the rip in my hand that caused all the blood. “That’s gotta hurt…I didn’t think of that.” He looks worried again.

“It’s okay,” I kiss his cheek. “It doesn’t bother me. It’s only a little cut.”

“It is not,” he protests. “That looks deep, and it’s still bleeding!” I look down at my hand and scowl. He’s right, it is still bleeding. I guess I should wait until it stops before leaving the fire, so I don’t track blood anywhere. “I wish we’d been able to grab bandages or something before we escaped.”

“I don’t.” I don’t really remember our escape. When I try to, everything’s so hazy and dark and painful. I still hurt from it, not just my hand but my whole body feels broken and disconnected, like stone and glass all at once. I hate it, and I miss running, and I still can’t shift but I still try sometimes, and every time I do it feels like all my bones are breaking. I don’t do it very much because of that. Part of me wonders if I can push past this stupid collar’s bounds if I just push hard enough, but I know trying would scare Kaida. He has a collar too, but he’s smart enough to not to try to go against it. Still…we need to shift soon, we need to hunt. I do, at least. My stomach twists, craving more than the berries we’ve been able to scavenge so far.

I settle down beside Kaida and lean into him, wishing they hadn’t taken my key and hoping we’ll get to a Sanctuary soon.