SPIRALS
Phthisis (noun): a progressively wasting or consumptive condition.
DAY 30, HOUR 13
Knock.
A person stood outside the closet door.
Ice coated the floor beneath me.
Knock. Knock.
Did no one have respect for the champions of war anymore? If I were a man, they never would have interrupted me.
I was obviously holed up in the dark closet of the medical barracks for a reason.
The reason was an extremely important meeting between two champions of the gods. Highly classified business.
Supplies were piled high all around, and my knees were tucked against my chest. A box of needles dug into my ribs. Outside the closet, doctors ran about, treating wounded soldiers.
A gurney rattled as a man cried out in pain, and across the room a woman moaned.
Doctors yelled instructions.
Knock-knock-knock-knock. Two shadows obstructed the sliver of light under the door.
“Go away,” I ordered.
“You’ve been in there for hours,” John said. “People are starting to worry—I’m worried about you, Aran.”
I inhaled enchanted drugs and enjoyed how the smoke burned my lungs.
“You don’t need to,” I said hoarsely. “I’m doing amazing.”
There was a pause.
“For some reason I don’t believe that—please come out.” John sounded tired and frustrated. “We still need to talk about what we told you earlier. All three of us can face this together.”
“Later,” I said. “I’m having an important meeting.”
An elbow jabbed my stomach.
Sadie repositioned herself.
“Sorry,” she whispered, then rammed her elbow into my face. “Sorry again, my foot’s numb, and I’m trying to get feeling back into the damned thing.”
“Control your limbs, woman.”
She huffed as she knocked over a box of supplies. “Cool the attitude. I’m not the one who insisted we needed to talk in a closet after a battle. You know I love you, but sometimes—it’s hard to be supportive.” She paused. “This is one of those times, in case it isn’t clear.”
“Wow,” I said. “Excuse me for trying to have an important business meeting with just the two of us.”
“Why are we having a business meeting in the closet?” Sadie asked.
“For the privacy—duh.”
Sadie flung herself forward and strangled me. Her acrylic nails jabbed my skin. Boxes fell over and needles clattered on the floor.
Never mind. It was a hug.
Sadie held me tight. Even fully clothed in our uniforms, her body heat contrasted with my chilled flesh. I shivered and hugged her back.
It was nice.
My nose wrinkled, and I coughed at her stench. “This is kind of gross,” I said as I tried not to inhale through my nose.
She squeezed me harder. “I’m not the one who said we didn’t have time to shower. Just don’t think about all the gore rubbing between us right now. Dripping and mixing—”
I shoved her off, and she laughed as more boxes fell.
She was insane.
A third shadow appeared outside the door. “Get out of the closet, Sadie,” Cobra ordered, “or so help me sun god, there will be consequences.”
Sadie clacked her nails together. “Try anything and I’ll tell Jax that you’ve been secretly bullying me.”
Cobra hissed like a snake as he kicked against the door. “He’ll never believe you.”
“Please,” Sadie said. “We both know that’s not true.”
“Aran, are you sure you need more time in there?” Luka asked, his voice tight with worry.
“Yes,” Sadie and I replied in unison.
Cobra and John whispered something to each other. After what sounded like a long tense debate, the three men walked away from the closet.
I didn’t trust them.
“Finally, they’re gone,” Sadie said. “Now we can—what were we doing again?”
“Talking about highly classified secrets,” I whispered conspiratorially.
“Well, then get on with it.” Sadie clapped. “You said we had an emergency that we needed to solve. Let’s do it.”
She clapped again in my face.
“Really?” I asked.
She clapped as fast as she could.
I fantasized about a friendless, lonely existence.
“Did you hear that?” a doctor asked, their shadow pausing outside our door.
Sadie whispered in a spooky voice, “Thisss isss a poltergeist, you didn’t heaaaaar anything or I will haunt youuu.”
I smacked her arm.
She hit me across the face and her nail took a chunk out of my cheek.
We both raised our arms and smacked at each other as fast as we could for five minutes.
“Don’t worry.” She wheezed between laughs as she put her talons down. “No ghost would want to haunt you. You’d haunt them.”
A male soldier screamed, then started sobbing uncontrollably, and the doctor outside our closet ran to assist him.
“Pussy,” we both said at the same time.
It wasn’t funny, but postbattle delirium had set in.
The closet was exacerbating our instability; however, there weren’t many quiet places you could meet these days and not have men watching you like perverts. We were making do.
“That’s actually part of the reason I dragged you in here to talk,” I said as I tried to calm my racing heart.
Sadie stopped laughing.
Awkward silence expanded.
“You’re a pussy?” She asked.
“The other part.”
“Oh,” she said. “If I’d known you actually had a ghost problem, I never would have mimicked one. What do you need me to do? An exorcism?”
I smacked her. “That’s not a real thing.”
She punched me. “Do not disrespect the time-honored tradition of violently extracting ghosts from people.”
“What are you going on about?” I asked.
Sadie shrugged, “That’s for me to know and for you to find out—be gone, evil spirit.”
I huffed. “It’s not a ghost issue. I’m in good standing with the poltergeist community. I meant the haunting part.”
Needles clattered like Sadie was playing with them. “I’m not going to lie, I have no idea what’s going on right now. A part of me thinks I don’t want to. Spell it out like I’m stupid.”
It was only on account of our friendship, and the fact that I loved her like a sister, that I refrained from a sarcastic reply.
“Stop playing with stuff,” I said.
“Oh my sun god,” Sadie whined. “If you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’m going to stab you with a needle. The suspense is killing me. You know I’m not patient, come onnnn. Just blurt it out.”
“Some things,” I enunciated each word, “just can’t be said.”
“Just give me a hint,” Sadie demanded. “Is it about the ungodly? Your dead mother? Is the cannibalism coming back to haunt you? I always worried that would happen. Is it the kings—because I noticed they’ve all been acting weirder than usual around you lately. Malum made a show of opening the door for you the other day, and I was honestly worried he was going to bludgeon you with it—but he didn’t, and then you thanked him and he turned red like a tomato. It was all very strange. Side note—does he have a rosacea skin condition? I might have a cream recommendation.
I pressed my palms against my eyes until I saw stars. “It has nothing to do with any of that. Please stop talking.”
Sadie ignored me. “Is it the fact that ‘whore’ is carved on your back? Did you wish she wrote ‘slut’ or something a little trendier? I’ve always wanted to ask you that but didn’t want to sound insensitive.”
“Too late,” I said.
She continued, “Is it because it hurts when you’re turned on? Or is it because she wrote it super inconsistently and the w is so much bigger than the h? Honestly, that’s also always really annoyed me. Like how hard is it to carve a word evenly into someone’s skin? The lack of basic decency, and any eye for proportions, is horrible.”
“Are you for real right now?” I asked.
Needles clattered. “Yeah,” she said brightly, “I honestly feel so much better after telling you. A huge weight off my shoulders. At first I thought this whole postbattle hiding-in-a-medical-closet-thing was a little weird. But I get it now.”
“Sadie,” I snapped.
“What?”
“We’re in here because I don’t have a soul. I’m a soulless monster—I’m missing my fucking soul.”
Stunned silence.
“So you don’t want me to give you the skin cream recommendation?”
“No.”
She patted my back. “I will admit, sometimes I also feel soulless because I struggle with making moral choices. I think it’s because of extended time with Cobra, but—”
“No.” I cut her off. “I’m actually missing my soul. I have a hole inside my chest.” I thumped against my sternum.
“Okay, let’s not panic,” Sadie said calmly. “Explain.”
My voice quivered. “The betrothal jewels the twins gave me are linked to souls, and apparently, enchanted jewels can be sentient.”
The jewel of death pulsed against my chest and diamonds vibrated on my wrist as if agreeing with my statement.
I continued, “The twins said that for some unknown reason, the jewelry I’m wearing has gone ahead and completed the bond between us.”
I let Sadie process what I was saying and waited for her to make the obvious connections.
“You got married without telling me?” she asked shrilly. “I was going to be your maid of honor and give a funny speech. I’ve already written it.”
She burst into tears, then started wailing at a heinous pitch.
I pushed my pipe deeper into my mouth.
Why I’d thought Sadie would ever react like I expected was beyond me. I rubbed circles on her back as she sobbed and said, “Let it out.”
“It’s just really hard.” She gasped, dug around in the boxes, then blew her nose loudly on what I could only hope was a tissue. “You would have been such a beautiful bride—do you know how this makes me feel?”
“Um.”
“Horrible. Dejected. Shattered.”
I drawled, “Oh yes, me being married against my will while fighting against monsters—by sentient jewelry, that is apparently killing the men I’m tied to because I’m probably missing my soul—is hard for you.”
I slapped her on the back of the head.
She sniffled. “Are you being sarcastic?”
“Not at all,” I said.
She did loud breathing exercises, then said, “I can’t have this conversation until you promise you’ll still have a ceremony and I get to be your maid of honor.”
Three point one, four, one, five, nine, two, six, five, three, five, eight, nine. The numbers of pi helped give me some perspective.
“Fine,” I agreed. “I’ll have a wedding just for you.”
Sadie squealed and chucked herself at me. I fought against her hug, but she must have channeled her shifter strength, because she pinned me to the icy floor.
“You’re going to make the most beautiful bride,” she whispered into my ear. “Also, I want to wear a white bridesmaid’s dress.”
“Get off me.”
She chuckled and pulled away.
“Can we please now talk about this seriously?” I asked. “I’m kind of panicking.”
“I understand.” Sadie sniffled. “I was really freaking out about your wedding. It really took a toll on me.”
“I’m glad you recovered,” I said sarcastically.
“Me too.” She patted my head. “And you’re very brave for talking about your jewelry issue. I’m proud of you.”
“The twins have been sick lately,” I whispered.
Guilt twisted in my stomach because I should have told them the extent of my problems. I never should have pretended I was a normal woman who could do something as mundane as have husbands.
Mother’s cruel smile flashed in my mind.
“Soul bonds go both ways,” I said. “You have connections to your mates’ souls, and you can feel their emotions. Good and bad. That’s what you have with your mates, right?”
“Yeah,” she said.
Smoke whistled through my lips. “I don’t feel anything from the twins, and all they feel is my pain. Every time I’m aroused, they feel pain in their backs, just like I do. The jewels didn’t work properly because they’re attuned to souls—and I don’t have one.”
“That seems like a logical leap.”
“It’s not.” My voice cracked. “I’m empty, so there’s no soul to join. It connected them to the only thing I’ve ever had.”
“Which is?” Sadie asked with confusion.
“Suffering.”
