GREEN [complete]

CHAPTER 23: Mars

Bek drummed her fingers on the steering wheel as she sang a tuneless song and bobbed her head in time with what Mars assumed the rhythm should have been. Her comfortable smile never faltered. Everything about her made Mars feel comfortable; at home. She was soft and warm, happy even in a world so dark.

Hot air blasted from every point, warming his scales and soothing his mind. It felt almost as good as his heat lamp. Paired with the gentle movement of the truck, it was enough to wrap Mars in a blanket of content. He let his eyelids fall and welcomed the dark fuzziness of sleep wash over him.

Bek's song came to a rather abrupt end and she said, "So, the city in the mountains?" Her eyes parted momentarily from the road to look over at him.

"I was given life there." His movements were slow and sleepy, and he barely managed to pry his eyelids back up.

"Given life?" She gave him a strange look. "Don't you have a mom?"

"What is a ..." Mars struggled, searching for the word. In the end, he spelled it out.

Her fingers stopped tapping on the wheel. "You don't know what a mom is?"

He shook his head. He grasped at the previous thread of their conversation, searching for what she could be talking about. "Is it an egg? I know what an egg is."

Sadness bit into Bek, its teeth sinking to her core. "Oh ... oh, sweetie."

Her foot eased onto the brake and she pulled her truck to a stop on the shoulder of the road. She jerked the gear stick and clambered out of her seat, sliding sideways. Tears left clean streaks through the patches of dirt on her face and that everlasting smile had faltered.

"It's okay," Mars assured her. "I'm not sad. I'm okay. You don't need to worry about me." He didn't understand why she was sad, and he didn't know why the topic was something to be sad about—it was just a word that he didn't know. If it was important, Jones would have taught him.

Bek opened her arms. "C'mere. Come on."

Mars leaned into her as best he could, letting her throw her arms around his neck. He was too big for her to properly hold, but she tried her best. He tentatively hugged her back. This was different than the hug he'd shared with Sekam; she'd been hurt and angry and he'd been trying to make her feel better. Bek was different. Bek's sadness wasn't a raw wound; it was more like a closed-over scar that would never quite heal. She was sad, but her sadness was soft and overwhelmingly full of love. Mars understood that least of all.

He stayed silent, his hands trapped behind her back. As he wrapped them tighter around her and felt the heat of her and heard the steady thump of her heart, something different entirely stirred in his chest: hunger.

The chilling realization brought a violent reaction. He twisted away from her, shoving her as far away as he could. He didn't want to eat her. He wasn't going to eat her. She wasn't food. It didn't matter how hungry he had been or how hungry he was; Bek was Bek. Bek was a wonderful person that he didn't want to eat.

"Sweetie?" she asked, staring at him through tear-glazed eyes. When she blinked, wet speckles dripped off her lashes. She didn't try to wipe them away; she wasn't ashamed of them.

"I'm sorry," he said. His back found the passenger door. The glass kissed his back; cold and sharp, like a surgical blade. It grounded him, clearing his mind. "I'm sorry. It's just-I don't ... I don't want to eat you."

Bek's brows came together. "What? Why would I ..." She sniffed and shook her head. "I don't want you to eat me either." She laughed then; a sad sort of laugh that told him she still wasn't good, but she was going to be okay. "Why don't we get back on the road, huh?"

Mars nodded his agreement and averted his eyes.

Bek sidled back into her position behind the wheel and jerked the truck into get. Its components clunked under the seat and she wheeled back onto the road. Mars slouched as much as his cramped position allowed him to slouch and wrapped his arms tight around himself, trying to shove down the nauseating hunger that gnawed at his insides.

So hungry. Too hungry.

He recognized the feeling; he knew it all too well. This hunger happened after every trial. After his body destroyed the green and started working on him. Organs. Muscles. Bones. Enough for now, but it would only be a matter of days before they were broken down, eaten away, and hollowed out. If he was lucky.

But it was wrong. It shouldn't have been happening. It only happened after the green; never without. After the green. Mars drew a shuddering sigh, fingers bitting deeper into the notches that stretched between his ribs. His body said he needed food. He knew food wasn't enough. Not now. He'd eaten and eaten and eaten.

He needed the green. He didn't want it; he didn't want the pain anymore ... but his body needed something to destroy that wasn't itself. A low whimper burrowed into his chest.

"You okay over there?" Bek's voice was cleaner now, smoother.

Instead of answering her question, Mars asked, "What's a mom?"

Bek's hands tightened on the wheel, her dark knuckles paling to white. Her breath stagnated in her chest. Then, she released it, and the tension fled her body. "A mom is ... gosh, sweetie." She laughed, weak and breathless; more of a wheeze, really. "That's a big question. Do you know what a dad is?"

"No."

Bek glanced at him, then back to the road. "That's just not right," she said softly. "Babies need their parents—their moms and their dads. This world is too big and scary to face alone." She took several more seconds to gather herself, then said, "Okay, how about babies?"

Mars nodded. He knew what babies were.

"Well, moms and dads ... we give parts of ourselves to make babies. We give them all of our love and some of our DNA. Human babies are a product of moms and dads—sometimes two moms, sometimes two dads, sometimes a mom and a dad."

"Only two?" Mars asked. He was a product of more than two beings.

"There can be more," Bek said, "but most humans ... well, we're selfish. We like to have one partner all to ourselves." She offered him a gentle smile, waiting until he nodded his understanding to continue. "Our babies get older, and its a mom's—and a dad's—job to love them and prepare them for the world."

Was that who Jones was to him? Was she a mom or a dad? She created him, and she took care of him. She had to be something—if she wasn't a god, maybe this was what she was. "And take care of them?" Mars asked.

Bek's gasped a sob, her face squishing up as she bit her lip and managed a nod.

"I'm sorry ... I didn't mean to make you sad." He didn't know what he'd done.

"It's okay, sweetie. It's okay." She flipped the sun visor down. A single photograph was pinned to the underside of it—bright and orange, but that was all Mars could make out. "I know your eyes don't work the best but"—she plucked the picture from the visor and handed it to him—"these are my babies, and my husband Michael."

Mars accepted the picture, bringing it close to his nose. He recognized Bek. She stood next to a man nearly twice her side; both of them smiling like it was the best day of their lives. She cradled something in her arms, and a child sat on the man's shoulders.

"Helian and Chrysa," she said, flipping the visor back up. "My little flowers." Bek shook her head, her smile as loving as it was sad. "Those girls ... those girls were everything to me. When the green took them ... Helian was nine and Chrysa was barely two." She exhaled, long and slow. "It was almost too much for me to bear."

"I'm sorry," Mars said again.

"It's okay, sweetie. You didn't know." She wiped the back of her hand under her nose and flashed him a smile that tried to reassure him it was okay. He knew it wasn't. "Been about ten years now. I miss them every day."

He reached for her knee and she took his hand.

"Everyone needs a mom or a dad. Everyone."