GREEN [complete]

CHAPTER 28: Sekam

In the early morning, when the humans still slept, the little town lied. It told a story of ruin; no lights, no movement, no life. Every door was marked and every shop front boarded over. Standing on the mountainside high above the valley, Sekam only saw death in the wake of the green.

Death was supposed to be benevolent and kind. She was supposed to take those whose time had come and give them new life—in the soil, in the water, in the air. They nourished the world. But death was not benevolent and kind any longer. She was cruel and merciless, taking all and giving nothing in return. The green had poisoned her just as it had poisoned the world.

"We do not belong here," Ahl said.

All the calm Sekam had mustered since she left the tiny rooms and bright lights fled. Discomfort stirred in her chest. Even under the wide open sky, she felt crushed. Squeezed too tight to breathe. "This is my path, and I plan to follow it."

"Your path is to cure this world. How many more will you let die?"

"My duty is to protect Mars." She tried to keep her voice even, but the growl slipped through. "To keep him alive. That is what will cure this world. It has to be."

"Thanuk said this." It was a statement, spoken slow and calm.

"Yes. He came to me and told me to protect Mars and not to hurt any more humans."

"And you never wondered why? Why Thanuk would ask this of you?"

"You taught me that our spirits do not belong to us. All the anger and hate that we carry is lost when we die. All that Thanuk had left was the good in him." She had to believe it was true. She didn't want to carry all that was bad in her into the afterlife.

Ahl bowed his head. "Yes." He looked out over the town again, his lids dropping down over his starry eyes, then lifting back up in a languid blink. "I fear for this world, Sekam."

"We can't give up. We can save it. We will save it."

Hours passed and the town woke up. Sekam forced herself to return to the town, to their tiny rooms and their scentless air and their suspicious looks. She needed to be with Mars. Ahl stayed behind. He preferred the open air, he said, and he felt no obligation to the humans or to the mongrel.

The hospital's security team, reluctantly, let her back into the building. They'd taken her weapons and assured her they wouldn't hesitate to shoot if she behaved in a threatening manner, but they still believed she was a mongrel. They refused to listen when she tried telling them she was anything else.

The girl at the desk, Amelia, led her to where they were keeping Mars. The door hung open wide, hot air wafting out. "Bek told us to keep the room warmer for him," Amelia said. She shepherded Sekam inside. An empty bed occupied one wall, and the other half of the room was wrapped inside a curtain. "Sekam is here," Amelia announced gently, pulling the curtain aside.

"Where have you been?" Dylan demanded, swiveling around to face her.

"On the mountain, with Ahl."

Mars was settled in the bed, as easily as someone like him could settle in a bed. His lower half was pulled to the side, coiled loosely near the foot of the bed on a second mattress. The blankets were pulled up to his shoulders and his eyes shifted beneath his lids as he dreamed. He looked healthier than he had since Sekam first saw him.

"He did well," Bek said. She waved Sekam over to the other side of the bed to an empty seat. "There were no unexpected complications and Cecil expects the recovery period to go smoothly. He wants to keep an eye on Mars for the next week, then we're going to need to leave."

Sekam's stomach turned. "Another week? Here?"

"You can leave," Dylan suggested. "We're fine now."

"No," she said. Then, more reaffirming to herself than either of them, "It is my duty to protect Mars. I'm staying with him."

"There's not much you can do right now, doll," Bek said, touching her knee. "If you need to get out of her for a few days, we'd understand. We won't be going anywhere."

She wanted nothing more than to leave, to go back to Ahl and take off into the mountains. But she couldn't. She tried to tell herself that she was afraid of something happening while she was gone, but she knew the truth. She knew that, if she left, it wouldn't be easy to come back. "No, I can't leave." She punctuated her words with a decided shake of her head.

"Well," Dylan said, "if you're staying, now is your chance to have a shower. And by that I mean, if you want to stay, have a shower."

"Shower?"

"Yeah. With soap. A lot of it."

Sekam frowned. "Soap?"

"Oh my god. Oh my god. No wonder you smell like constant death. Come on. Come with me. I'm going to introduce you to mankind's most underappreciated creation." After a moment of hesitation, Sekam followed them across the room.

A second, much smaller room was tacked onto the side. The air was heavy with moisture, and the tiled walls were cool to the touch. Dylan closed the door behind them and the small room suddenly felt even smaller. There was barely enough space to breathe without ruffling their hair.

"This," they said, "is a shower." They gestured to one half of the small room. "You know what bathing is right? You bathe, at least? In like ... lakes or something?"

Sekam nodded.

"This is better." They twisted one of the knobs in the wall and water gushed from the ceiling, splattering the floor tiles. And Sekam's boots. She retreated a step and found her back pressed up against the wall. "Soap is even better. You might even have, I don't know, hair in that bird's nest somewhere. The white bar is soap. That's for your body. That's the important one. The bottles are for your hair—shampoo first, conditioner second. Got it?"

"I don't ... want this?" Sekam tried to put her hands up, to get Dylan to stop. They didn't.

"Yes you do. Trust me. Now, please, for the love of everything holy, wash yourself." They slid out of the room and closed the door behind them, leaving her alone with the running water.

Sekam dipped her fingers in the warm water, and sucked in sigh. As she struggled to get out of her clothes in the too-tight space, she wished again for her fur. No one demanded she shower when she wore her fur; no one demanded she do anything. Especially not a human.

So, she showered. And it went terribly. The soap stung her eyes and tasted foul on her tongue. It stripped the dirt from her skin and made her feel even more naked than she already did. The shampoo was even worse, but she tried to yank it through the mats in her hair nonetheless.

"Are you okay in there?" Bek asked.

Sekam, blinded by shampoo with her hand tangled deep in her hair, couldn't bring herself to lie. "No."

"Mind if I come in?"

"No." She spat out another mouthful of shampoo and gave her hair another firm yank. It hurt worse than it should have.

When Bek spoke again, she was wedged in the room too. "What's the probl-oh." She covered the laugh that dared bubble off her tongue.

Sekam flashed Bek her teeth, letting in another fizzy wave of suds. She spat it out, face contorting unpleasantly.

Bek moved closer. "Mind if I ...?"

"No."

She took Sekam's hand and gently untangled it from her hair, letting it fall. Then, she got to work on the real problem. She was only a few minutes in when she stood back, planted her hands on her hips, and said, "Are you very attached to it?"

"My hair?" Sekam asked. "Yes?" It existed. It was physically attached to her.

"So you don't want me to cut it off?"

That was what Bek meant? "Please!"

"Will do," Bek said with another laugh. She left Sekam alone, and when she came back, she toted a pair of scissors. "How long?"

"I want it gone." Fortunately, most of the shampoo had washed away, and she was only talking through water now. "I want it gone now."