Page 61 of Fathom

Perfect for what my family needed.

In a world shifting beneath our feet, predators had to project gentleness, benevolence, whether they felt it or not. The charities, the synthetic meat companies, the public displays of restraint… all of it wasn’t born of compassion, but of strategy. The prey species outnumbered us by a vast amount, and there was only so long a population could be devoured before it rose up and slaughtered those who preyed upon them.

The world had shifted towards the demands of the meek, and the ruling predator families had to put on the right appearances if they wanted to stay alive, let alone in power.

Leija looked like prey in every way. Her soft features, her round nails, her small teeth. The curve of her form, the warmth of her presence, every part of her whispered of gentleness, of submission, of soft flesh that was waiting to be feasted upon by the strong.

And yet she had eaten meat like she’d been born to tear into it.

Her eyes caught mine in the mirror.

“Eun,” she said, and the sound of my name in her voice, so soft, so relieved, wrapped around my ribs and pulled. It was like a tether catching a falling star.

I stepped back, my hand brushing the doorframe. Ishouldn't have come in here. Just seeing her was too much. A sudden wave of conflicted emotion rose in my chest like a storm surge, overwhelming, inescapable. She looked so small, so radiant, her body draped in silver light. Every instinct in me screamed to go to her, to hold her, to bury my face in the curve of her neck and stay there until the world made sense again.

But when I watched her eat, it was clear that it was not the first time she had eaten meat.

She watched me from where she stood, the distance between us so vast, yet so familiar.

I couldn't run from this, I couldn't run from her.

So I asked the only question that actually mattered.

“Leija,” I said, barely more than a whisper. “How are you feeling?”

"I'm..." She held out her hands, fingers trembling slightly as she searched for the word before she rejected it. "How I'm feeling doesn't matter. I've convinced your mother that we'll be back tomorrow, so we can leave tonight. There is a car waiting for us."

"How you're feeling is the only thing that matters," I said, keeping my voice steady.

She deserved the space between my assumptions of her intentions and my rejection. She deserved this moment to tell me if she was the person I always knew her to be, or if she had been a paid actor this entire time.

I owed her the space to say her piece.

If she was gleeful or joyous, or horrified or scared, any of those emotions would tell me a different story about what was going on inside her head. All I had to go on was that single, horrible moment where she suddenly showed herself to be everything my parents wanted and everything I feared.

"I feel like I would like to go now," she said. "Being here is a lot."

At least she didn't want to stay.

"Are you overwhelmed?" I offered, bridging the gap between us.

"I'm... stronger than I realized," she said, and the way her worried expression softened into a hopeful smile nearly shattered me. "I wish you had told me how you grew up, so I could be prepared."

"So you would know how much you wanted to ask for?" I said, a bitter laugh in my throat, unable to keep the worst of my assumptions in. "You wished you knew how high you could name your price."

She crossed the room, the liquid silver of her gown trailing behind her like moonlight spilling across the floor. Every movement pulled at me, like gravity, like fate, as she stopped in front of me, her eyes blazing.

"I wish you had told me so that we could have run straight from the wedding to the spaceport rather than going to get rings," she hissed under her breath at me. "If you think for one second that I would ever allow our children to be controlled and used like this, you have no idea what kind of woman I am."

I stared at her in shock, my bitter feelings washing away with the shock of the words I desperately needed to hear.

She glared back at me, her tone low. "There is a car waiting for us. We can't rush to get to it, so we don't look like we're running, but once we go, we need to go. If you want to get away from these people, we have to get off this planet tonight. We can't hesitate."

I dragged my claws through the thick locks of my hair that even now reached for her. They were always reaching for her, always wanting to hold her, to envelop her. The storm ofemotions tangled in my chest. I wanted to find the right words, ones that would help us navigate this moment, get us through to the other side, where I could hold her, claim her again, without doubt shadowing the space between us.

"I'm sorry," I said at last, the two words magnifying the depth of how I had misjudged her, an apology for the thoughts unspoken that she didn’t deserve.

"You don't have to be sorry," she replied. "You just have to tell me you don't want to stay here. Tell me that you'll come with me."