Ugh. So much for feeling sorry for the guy. I hope he gets an icicle up his tush to fix that attitude.
But then something alarming happens.
My chest quivers. At first I think I’m shivering again. That I’ve caught a cold. But then the quivering gets louder, like someone’s starting up a lawnmower nearby. I look around for the source of the sound, and it takes a moment before it dawns on me—the reason why it’s so loud is because I’m the one that’s making the sound.
I’m vibrating.
Resonating.
Frowning, I press my hand to my breasts, which feel like they’re being motorboated by my internal organs. I look up—and see the lizard guy’s triumphant expression.
He’s resonating, too.
Oh hell no. That’s for me? He’s supposed to be mine?
There’s an expression about dating and plenty of fish in the sea, but I wonder if there’s also an expression for throwing back the catch you don’t want. Because I most definitely do not want this absolutely obnoxious, pompous jackass.
He smirks at me and thumps his chest again, the gesture one of triumph.
Yeah, no.
I get to my feet and leave. I imagine my minus column just filling with endless negatives, one after the other. Nightmare. This is a nightmare I can’t wake up from. I see a sympathetic look on Sabrina’s face, but I avoid her. I don’t want to hear her say sweet things about how it’ll all work out for the best. Another woman looks miserable as I stagger past, as if she’s realizing that we can just as quickly be fucked over by this “resonance” thing as we can be rewarded. I don’t want to talk to her, either. I don’t want to be comforted by anyone.
I just want to get away.
To run. To escape this hellish nightmare I’ve woken up to and never look back.
I hug my fur-trimmed tunic tighter to my body and keep walking. We’re in a valley—it’s apparently where all the clones were dumped—with high cliffs nearby. I avoid climbing out of the valley bowl, sticking near the walls and walking in the shadows of the rocky cliffs. I don’t know if I’m much of a climber.
I don’t know anything.
Well, I do know one thing—the lizard guy sucks.
What the fuck, khui? What the everloving fuck? I thought we were friends. If not friends, that at least we had a common goal—survival. But that guy is the worst. Maybe my khui is unhinged. Maybe it’s faulty and it’ll just resonate to anyone and anything. There has to be a logical explanation as to why it would pick a bully for me right away. What the hell does that say about me and who I was?
My thoughts spiral as I continue walking. The valley walls ease away, and I see a cluster of trees on the horizon, swaying on the breeze. The ground slopes, the purple and white-capped mountains ubiquitous in the background, a constant reminder that this isn’t home, because home was…
I pause, waiting for the thought to finish itself.
It never does.
With a growl of frustration, I continue on, arms hugged to my chest. I concentrate on those words, trying to force my mind to finish. Because home was…what? Home was…? Home was….??? I chant this mantra, trying on different things as I walk and walk.
Home was…cold? But not this cold?
Home was…hot? The desert?
Home was…the ocean?
Nothing fits quite right.
The crunch of footsteps in the snow tell me that someone has followed me. I turn my head—and recoil when I see it’s the lizard guy. He’s followed me out here. I face forward again, scowling. “Ugh. What do you want?”
There’s a pause, as if he didn’t expect that kind of greeting. “I wanted to look at my female.”
“I’m not yours,” I point out. “I don’t belong to you.”
“Of course you do not.”
His scoffing tone makes me pause. Is this guy reasonable after all?
“It would take more than a paltry sparring session for me to be permanently awarded a female body-slave.”
Nope.
So much for that hope. With a disgusted look in his direction, I decide to keep walking.
He races in front of me. “Wait. Stop.”
I stop, glaring at him.
“All I want to do is look at you.” He raises his hands in the air. “Do you not wish the same of me?”
His words make me pause. I have to admit that I haven’t done more than glance at him since we arrived, because I’ve been lost in my own headspace, fretting over my lack of memories. Maybe studying him will show me what this khui of mine finds so appealing. Even now, just standing close to him, it’s revving like an engine, purring up a storm and making my entire body quiver. He rubs his chest and it’s only through the greatest of efforts that I don’t mimic the action automatically. “Fine. Look at me, but that’s all.”
He grins, showing a flash of pointed teeth that curve slightly inward. “Unless you wanted to mount me, that is.”
“I can assure you, nothing is further from my mind.”
He looks abashed at my heated retort. “Just looking, then,” he finally says, and then spreads his arms. “You can look at me as well.”
“Quit posturing and just let me look,” I tell him, impatient. Good lord, he poses more than a wrestler trying to excite the crowd.
“I posture because I am excited,” he says, all grinning. “I knew I was the best and this just proves it, our resonance.”
“Are you going to keep talking or will you be quiet so I can look at you?”
“I will be quiet.” He puts his hands up and then pauses. “Can you not look and talk at the same time?”
Oh, I can, but he’s annoying me with his incessant questions and I’m too busy trying to be angry and frustrated at the world. “Does it matter? I’ve asked you nicely. Or do my feelings not matter at all?”
I know I’m being a little nasty to him. I’m just so damn frustrated and he’s so darn unlikeable. I want to sink down into the snow and weep that this guy and this icy snowball of a planet are somehow my future. Which deity in the heavens did I piss off for this to happen?
“I am Skarr.” He eyes me. “What did you say your name was again?”
“I didn’t say, and you didn’t ask.” I don’t point out that I don’t know my real name. That my mind is a blank. It feels like a dirty shameful secret that I need to keep hidden. Like I’m flawed or unworthy.
He doesn’t look abashed this time, just shrugs at me. “I am asking now.”
“Vivi,” I say resentfully. “Everyone’s calling me Vivi.”
His mouth presses, his jaw flexing as if he’s tasting the word silently. “Vivi. I like it.”
As if he gets an opinion. As if I’d change it if he didn’t. “Can I look now?”
“I am not stopping you.” He raises his arms again, in a wide, expansive gesture, and then remembers that I didn’t like him posing. He lowers them again, hesitating, and then raises them once more as if deciding that he doesn’t care. It makes him flap his arms back and forth like a bird, and I snort with amusement at the sight.
His name is Skarr. It sounds very pro-wrestler-y but where those guys seemed like all glitz and theater and kayfabe (seriously how is it I know so much about pro-wrestling and not my own name? My head sucks), there’s a hint of menace to Skarr. Like he’d bodyslam you and then bite your face off just because.
Maybe it’s the posture. His build. Because he’s smiling, but there’s still an air of menace to him. It’s in the way he holds himself, like even now he can’t relax. Like a coiled serpent, waiting to strike. He stands at least a foot taller than me, making me feel uncomfortably fragile near him, and I get the vague impression that this doesn’t happen. That I’m a tall woman and used to looming over men.