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chapter 23 :)
Following the standard ‘Adam procedure’ in case of tantrum, Jozie didn’t speak another word on the way. The dragons walking each side of her weren’t exactly comforting.
She suspected it was on his command. She saw him whispering something to the beasts when he got passed them. It would be his kind to make her uncomfortable on purpose just to have revenge. Revenge for what, this time? The most bothering was that she didn’t know what she was guilty of, in his twisted mind. But she still held her frustration inside; showing it would be letting him win.
As weird as it could sound from the outside, they didn’t need to be vindictive to play this sick game of finding ways to bother the other. Even if they both only gained awkwardness in the end, this was a little competition between them that both enjoyed playing.
He didn’t look like he took this as a game anymore, but Jozie did feed that fire for two. Because it was simply better than assuming he did this in plain cruelty toward her. Ignoring her voluntarily wasn’t meaningless, and she sure hoped he had a good reason. Or else she’d personally kick his butt.
He led them to a place filled with these creatures, heading to a cave with huge doors carved. Around here, he could have found a worse shelter. If it wasn’t for all these reptiles around, it would almost look safe. Jozie still wondered how he ended here. Beside carrying the unknown unconscious lady, he walked like a statue. Without even complaining or grunting. This was quite unusual from him.
The inside of the cave was dark, as expected. But a torch had been left at the entrance seemingly, most likely by him. He grabbed it with his free hand without even looking at it.
“Stay close, or light up your own torch…” he spoke grumpily at her attention.
He could be so insulting when in that state! When she thought that boys were supposed to be empty of that mystery talk, he wasn’t such a nice exception! Couldn’t he simply speak what was on his mind? Attacking straight wouldn’t have been an option, his ego wouldn’t accept it. But he made it quite hard to wait for him to remove his spikes! She just wanted to punch him right now.
But then, since she hadn’t anything on her to light a torch, she hasted her steps to remain close to him and benefit from his fire. Where did he lead them? The dragons were walking behind her now, and descending into the bowels of earth brought back memories of horror movies… movies she had seen with him, if she remembered well!
Against all odd, they arrived to a bigger room with lights on the ceiling. It was beautiful. And it brought a nice atmosphere to the place, that was harmoniously contrasted by the light of the torch. Fixing the torch in a hole on the wall, Adam carefully installed the unconscious woman on the ground.
“The vest… Put it under her head, that will make a fortune pillow.”
He talked in full awareness. How many times this black vest had been his pillow after a long night, totally wasted? Jozie was even angrier at him for not being in condition to hear that tease. It burnt her lips. But the drama would be too annoying. She silently handed him the vest, and watched him as he inspected the lady.
He put a hand close to her nose, to check her breath like Jozie did earlier. He next moved to her forehead, probably to check her temperature. She had done that too, and knew he would also find that she wasn’t affected by a regular infection. But then, he found out his own way that she was sweating anyway.
His hand slipped forward, and Jozie shared his gasp of shocked surprise. Her hair slipped off with the glide of the hand, revealing her complete baldness underneath.
For the first time since she met him there, Adam looked at her with something else than anger in the eyes. He was embarrassed, horrified, and she sympathized to that. She didn’t need to be a doctor to get what he discovered about the poor lady.
He got up and walked away, bringing his hands to his face and breathing loudly while rubbing. He sometimes did that when he didn’t want others to see that he was touched. But he was an open book to her.
“I can’t believe it… Where will the problems stop?” he sighed in despair. “At least this one can wait…”
“Hold on, it can wait?” this time Jozie couldn’t keep her mouth shut. “Have you looked at her?”
“Yes, and in case it escaped your attention, I’m not a doctor, and even if I was, we’re on a freaking island with more than rudimentary material!” He lost his temper a bit. But she wasn’t afraid. He might try as hard as he wanted with her, she knew he had a strict no-woman-hitting policy. He could only be violent with words, at worst. “What am I supposed to prescribe other than a bit of water? A sunray three times a day, with doses of incantations and prayers for the pain?”
She hated to admit it, but he made a point… From what she saw around, it was even less than unlikely they would find something to treat her. But still, it highly disturbed her to hear Adam, the naïve humanist, qualify her as a ‘problem that could wait’.
“But… maybe we can do something for her…”
“What I said. Leaving her to rest here in peace, and hope she didn’t have one of her…. ‘appointments’, lately. Or else, we’ll probably need to clean the floor soon… By the way, we should make her rest on her side, in case she actually comes to this...”
“How can you even speak like this?!” this time, Jozie lost it. It truly wasn’t him to speak like that about another human being! “Appointment? Clean the floor? Are you aware that you’re talking about a person?!”
“Professional detachment. One of the things I learnt.” He replied as authoritatively. “It’s sad, but people die. And for the record, I saw many and many die, not because they were bad, not because they were wrong, but because it was just like this. Things have to be accepted when we cannot change them, that’s all. I can’t save her, I can’t heal or prescribe her anything, I’m powerless with her. And crying over her won’t change anything. I have to keep focused on the lives that can be saved.”
She had sensed something was wrong, but Jozie didn’t suspected it was so deep. With him, words had hidden sense, and over time she had become rather fluent in ‘Adam language’. She thought he didn’t care about a human’s life, but he sounded like he didn’t respect life anymore. And it rang all the alarms in her mind.
Drastic contradictions were an ‘Adam sign’ of distress and panic. To change him so heavily, something had probably happened.
“When did you become so cold?” she defied him with pain. It was horrible to hear such dark words from him, when she remembered him being so kind… Always revolted to see injustices.
“The day you told the funniest joke in the universe.” He replied just as coldly. Maybe was it her mind playing on her, but she thought she saw him showing teeth for an instant.
This enigma, again and again. Whatever it was, she would have to solve it at some point! It was probably a stupid grudge that would solve itself if he spoke it at least! But right now, having no idea of what he reproached her, she was disarmed for such fight.
Nearby, the dragons had been so nervously silent that Jozie had almost forgotten their presence. For such big creature, they could be quite discrete. But then, one dared to voice their confusion.
“Wh-What’s happening to her?” The female asked, as to bring the subject back to their patient on hand.
“She’s suffering from a kind of disease that was a scourge in my time. It’s not contagious, but it can randomly appear as well. Given her state, I’d say she’s at an advanced stage, and was maybe in the middle of a treatment. I would have given her a slight chance in our world but here… we just don’t have what she needs…” Adam explained to the dragons. “All we can do is make sure she’s as comfortable as possible until she… passes away.”
It was strange, but hearing him speaking more factual made him more… human, when talking to these reptiles. It was like he totally changed his personality with them. Did he try to appear friendlier to the dragons? It was clear that his choice of words was harsher when speaking to her. It meant that it wasn’t a problem of ethic or moral… he had a problem with her and her alone.
The way he spoke of the lady was just his way to shock and hurt her, an excuse. What had she done to make him so pissed at her?
“Wait… in your time? In our world?” she noticed the strange choice of world. “Adam, where are we? What is this place?”
“Our place. Plus one million two hundred thousand years.” He said casually. “Approximately.”
Jozie first thought of a bad joke, a cruel way to make fun of her in the continuity of his current behavior. But then again, she knew when he made fun of her and… when he was serious. She could sense it. It always gave her a considerable advantage in pranks. This assertion, despite its mocking and joking sound, wasn’t spoken lightly. He believed in what he said.
Had he turned crazy? Like she sought for other clues, she looked at the dragons, whose faces supported the fact. They almost seemed… embarrassed and sorry?
“I’m sorry, you said one million years?” she repeated with a laugh. “What is it? That bad time-travel British series you were so fond of?”
“I maintain it was a great show. And no. It’s more like the movie ‘the time machine’ released in two thousand and two. You know, where humans evolved into monsters abducting the members of the new civilization? Take twelve hundred thousand years instead of eight hundred thousand and you got the pitch.” he replied seriously, pointing at the dragons. “They are the new civilization. We have become the monsters. And because I fought them, they are gathering an army to destroy me. Welcome home. Do you still think her sickness we can’t cure is my priority?”
“Oh god you’re not joking…” Jozie couldn’t help but blow. “How long have you been there?”
“One day and a half I think…”
“And that’s all it took you to get an army at your butt?! God, Adam, you really haven’t changed!” she sighed in anger. How ill-tempered could he be?!
“There are things you don’t know about! Things you don’t want to know about! I’m not the little guy you knew anymore! I have different problems now, okay?!” he shouted at her. She had touched a sensitive point, he never liked feeling judged either. But sometimes he needed to hear it anyway.
“So how the big guy hopes to win this time?” she asked back in defiance. His tantrum didn’t impress her. At all!
“I can’t, okay? As I said, rudimentary equipment, against a fucking army! This very place we’re in, was supposed to be a hope. And it turned out just as disappointing…”
“…As me? Why won’t you say it? I’m not your enemy there, you keep being aggressive on me for a reason I don’t know! Why don’t you speak it once and for all so we can move on?! I’m fine if you’re angry at me, but at least tell me why and stop being inhuman toward others!”
He didn’t answer this time. He kept staring at her but then, she noticed a change. Like anger tinted itself with sadness. He looked like he was searching for his words and took several breathes.
“O…Okay, you want me to act more humanly so… I’ll show you what I figured out about this place. You’ll see… if my decisions are inhuman.” he looked around, then stared at the female dragon. “Nimera, I haven’t slept or eaten anything since I arrived. Can you tell me why I’m not hungry or tired?”
What did it have to do with the subject? What would be his trick to escape his position? Jozie knew that he could have a particular track of mind, and that it was sometimes more strategic to follow his point without disturbance.
The dragoness looked surprised as well, and quickly gave it a thought.
“Hm… I don’t know… maybe you ate recently?”
“How often do you think a human needs to feed?”
“Once a week, if I remember well?”
This reptile could have known very little about humans. This was a simple explanation. After all, Jozie didn’t know at which frequency this species might eat. And if she thought of it, she hoped it wouldn’t be too frequent. It came back to her that they were likely to be carnivores. But the dragoness seemed to say this assertively, like she talked of personal knowledge.
Oddly, it seem to only half surprise Adam. He looked a bit bothered, of course. Jozie remembered he wasn’t one to skip his three sacred meals per day. But it didn’t seem as absurd to him as it was to her.
“No, humans are supposed to eat several times a day.” He argued without much conviction.
“Several times a day? You’d be enormous… or dead… Do you really eat that often?” the reptile looked at his middle, like she tried to evaluate if his fat fitted with his words.
“Yes we do…” Jozie spoke the evidence, then had a sudden doubt. “Usually…”
“But maybe here we don’t.” Adam commented. “When I opened this place, it was supposedly sealed for a long time. No dust. No rust on the metallic door below. I found paper in perfect state of preservation. And most of all, I haven’t slept or eaten since I’m there. You know I used to be the biggest glutton in our block.”
That, Jozie remembered quite well. Especially younger, it had put her in quite an uncomfortable position when she made him notice he put on weight. He had quite corrected that since then, but still… The one who invited him for lunch better had to be prepared to feed an army.
“So what’s your theory? We’re dead?”
“Of course not! And thankfully! First because it would be the shittiest twist, and then because how would you explain her?” he pointed at the unconscious woman. “Do you think we remain sick in the afterlife? That would be pretty sad… No, I think it’s the place that affects us. That affects everything on this island…”
“Go on…”
“You, me, we commonly need to eat three times a day, and sleep every night to be optimal. In one million years, it would have been believable that humans adapted to the scarcity of food. But we are not from this time. The fact I don’t feel hunger or sleepiness may have two explanations, a particularly long adrenalin rush, or something affecting the metabolism here.”
“If we have a lower need to eat or rest, it logically means that the body isn’t in need for energy. And thus… working slower?” She summarized his reasoning, starting to connect it to the girl’s case. “It’s quite farfetched.”
“Maybe but if the cells division is slowed down, it means her disease is slowed down as well. And thus, that she isn’t in immediate danger. I’m not disregarding her state. I just have a bigger sickness to cure before I can focus on hers.” He replied naturally, with an amazing ease she didn’t know he could have. “Does that make more sense to you? Does it make me more human to your eyes?”
Jozie looked at him with distance. She conceded that point, but felt like he used a trick to fall back on his feet. He had to know this wasn’t the subject. He just wanted to be right, to not be annoyed. Efficiently avoiding the core of it, on purpose.
“Good.” he planted the final nail, taking advantage of her silence. “Now if you excuse me, I have to find a way to defend against an army of savages.”
“The white shadow said it’d send you cavalry, maybe she’s it?” The male dragon intervened, but met a severe look that made him step back. White Shadow? Cavalry? What did it mean?
“So much for the cavalry… A severely sick lady, and the woman who did the worst in my eyes. I think I’ll pass.” He spat coldly.
“What the fuck have I done to you?! Why do you keep acting like we’re complete strangers?! Stop being a dick and speak!”
“Because we are strangers. I’m not the Adam you knew. I’m ten years older than the Adam you knew. I’m what’s left. You don’t like what you see? Fine. But stop acting like I have a problem to solve especially when you’re the cause. I told you what you owe me. Come to me only when you’ll know what was so funny about it.”
This time he exited the place promptly, and Jozie didn’t have the courage to stop him. She was sure she spotted a tear in the corner of his eye, and that was her limits. She wasn’t scared of pushing him to the edge, but she knew when she got too far, even when her point was genuine. She’d obtain a clear answer. But it might take a bit of time.
Following the standard ‘Adam procedure’ in case of tantrum, Jozie didn’t speak another word on the way. The dragons walking each side of her weren’t exactly comforting.
She suspected it was on his command. She saw him whispering something to the beasts when he got passed them. It would be his kind to make her uncomfortable on purpose just to have revenge. Revenge for what, this time? The most bothering was that she didn’t know what she was guilty of, in his twisted mind. But she still held her frustration inside; showing it would be letting him win.
As weird as it could sound from the outside, they didn’t need to be vindictive to play this sick game of finding ways to bother the other. Even if they both only gained awkwardness in the end, this was a little competition between them that both enjoyed playing.
He didn’t look like he took this as a game anymore, but Jozie did feed that fire for two. Because it was simply better than assuming he did this in plain cruelty toward her. Ignoring her voluntarily wasn’t meaningless, and she sure hoped he had a good reason. Or else she’d personally kick his butt.
He led them to a place filled with these creatures, heading to a cave with huge doors carved. Around here, he could have found a worse shelter. If it wasn’t for all these reptiles around, it would almost look safe. Jozie still wondered how he ended here. Beside carrying the unknown unconscious lady, he walked like a statue. Without even complaining or grunting. This was quite unusual from him.
The inside of the cave was dark, as expected. But a torch had been left at the entrance seemingly, most likely by him. He grabbed it with his free hand without even looking at it.
“Stay close, or light up your own torch…” he spoke grumpily at her attention.
He could be so insulting when in that state! When she thought that boys were supposed to be empty of that mystery talk, he wasn’t such a nice exception! Couldn’t he simply speak what was on his mind? Attacking straight wouldn’t have been an option, his ego wouldn’t accept it. But he made it quite hard to wait for him to remove his spikes! She just wanted to punch him right now.
But then, since she hadn’t anything on her to light a torch, she hasted her steps to remain close to him and benefit from his fire. Where did he lead them? The dragons were walking behind her now, and descending into the bowels of earth brought back memories of horror movies… movies she had seen with him, if she remembered well!
Against all odd, they arrived to a bigger room with lights on the ceiling. It was beautiful. And it brought a nice atmosphere to the place, that was harmoniously contrasted by the light of the torch. Fixing the torch in a hole on the wall, Adam carefully installed the unconscious woman on the ground.
“The vest… Put it under her head, that will make a fortune pillow.”
He talked in full awareness. How many times this black vest had been his pillow after a long night, totally wasted? Jozie was even angrier at him for not being in condition to hear that tease. It burnt her lips. But the drama would be too annoying. She silently handed him the vest, and watched him as he inspected the lady.
He put a hand close to her nose, to check her breath like Jozie did earlier. He next moved to her forehead, probably to check her temperature. She had done that too, and knew he would also find that she wasn’t affected by a regular infection. But then, he found out his own way that she was sweating anyway.
His hand slipped forward, and Jozie shared his gasp of shocked surprise. Her hair slipped off with the glide of the hand, revealing her complete baldness underneath.
For the first time since she met him there, Adam looked at her with something else than anger in the eyes. He was embarrassed, horrified, and she sympathized to that. She didn’t need to be a doctor to get what he discovered about the poor lady.
He got up and walked away, bringing his hands to his face and breathing loudly while rubbing. He sometimes did that when he didn’t want others to see that he was touched. But he was an open book to her.
“I can’t believe it… Where will the problems stop?” he sighed in despair. “At least this one can wait…”
“Hold on, it can wait?” this time Jozie couldn’t keep her mouth shut. “Have you looked at her?”
“Yes, and in case it escaped your attention, I’m not a doctor, and even if I was, we’re on a freaking island with more than rudimentary material!” He lost his temper a bit. But she wasn’t afraid. He might try as hard as he wanted with her, she knew he had a strict no-woman-hitting policy. He could only be violent with words, at worst. “What am I supposed to prescribe other than a bit of water? A sunray three times a day, with doses of incantations and prayers for the pain?”
She hated to admit it, but he made a point… From what she saw around, it was even less than unlikely they would find something to treat her. But still, it highly disturbed her to hear Adam, the naïve humanist, qualify her as a ‘problem that could wait’.
“But… maybe we can do something for her…”
“What I said. Leaving her to rest here in peace, and hope she didn’t have one of her…. ‘appointments’, lately. Or else, we’ll probably need to clean the floor soon… By the way, we should make her rest on her side, in case she actually comes to this...”
“How can you even speak like this?!” this time, Jozie lost it. It truly wasn’t him to speak like that about another human being! “Appointment? Clean the floor? Are you aware that you’re talking about a person?!”
“Professional detachment. One of the things I learnt.” He replied as authoritatively. “It’s sad, but people die. And for the record, I saw many and many die, not because they were bad, not because they were wrong, but because it was just like this. Things have to be accepted when we cannot change them, that’s all. I can’t save her, I can’t heal or prescribe her anything, I’m powerless with her. And crying over her won’t change anything. I have to keep focused on the lives that can be saved.”
She had sensed something was wrong, but Jozie didn’t suspected it was so deep. With him, words had hidden sense, and over time she had become rather fluent in ‘Adam language’. She thought he didn’t care about a human’s life, but he sounded like he didn’t respect life anymore. And it rang all the alarms in her mind.
Drastic contradictions were an ‘Adam sign’ of distress and panic. To change him so heavily, something had probably happened.
“When did you become so cold?” she defied him with pain. It was horrible to hear such dark words from him, when she remembered him being so kind… Always revolted to see injustices.
“The day you told the funniest joke in the universe.” He replied just as coldly. Maybe was it her mind playing on her, but she thought she saw him showing teeth for an instant.
This enigma, again and again. Whatever it was, she would have to solve it at some point! It was probably a stupid grudge that would solve itself if he spoke it at least! But right now, having no idea of what he reproached her, she was disarmed for such fight.
Nearby, the dragons had been so nervously silent that Jozie had almost forgotten their presence. For such big creature, they could be quite discrete. But then, one dared to voice their confusion.
“Wh-What’s happening to her?” The female asked, as to bring the subject back to their patient on hand.
“She’s suffering from a kind of disease that was a scourge in my time. It’s not contagious, but it can randomly appear as well. Given her state, I’d say she’s at an advanced stage, and was maybe in the middle of a treatment. I would have given her a slight chance in our world but here… we just don’t have what she needs…” Adam explained to the dragons. “All we can do is make sure she’s as comfortable as possible until she… passes away.”
It was strange, but hearing him speaking more factual made him more… human, when talking to these reptiles. It was like he totally changed his personality with them. Did he try to appear friendlier to the dragons? It was clear that his choice of words was harsher when speaking to her. It meant that it wasn’t a problem of ethic or moral… he had a problem with her and her alone.
The way he spoke of the lady was just his way to shock and hurt her, an excuse. What had she done to make him so pissed at her?
“Wait… in your time? In our world?” she noticed the strange choice of world. “Adam, where are we? What is this place?”
“Our place. Plus one million two hundred thousand years.” He said casually. “Approximately.”
Jozie first thought of a bad joke, a cruel way to make fun of her in the continuity of his current behavior. But then again, she knew when he made fun of her and… when he was serious. She could sense it. It always gave her a considerable advantage in pranks. This assertion, despite its mocking and joking sound, wasn’t spoken lightly. He believed in what he said.
Had he turned crazy? Like she sought for other clues, she looked at the dragons, whose faces supported the fact. They almost seemed… embarrassed and sorry?
“I’m sorry, you said one million years?” she repeated with a laugh. “What is it? That bad time-travel British series you were so fond of?”
“I maintain it was a great show. And no. It’s more like the movie ‘the time machine’ released in two thousand and two. You know, where humans evolved into monsters abducting the members of the new civilization? Take twelve hundred thousand years instead of eight hundred thousand and you got the pitch.” he replied seriously, pointing at the dragons. “They are the new civilization. We have become the monsters. And because I fought them, they are gathering an army to destroy me. Welcome home. Do you still think her sickness we can’t cure is my priority?”
“Oh god you’re not joking…” Jozie couldn’t help but blow. “How long have you been there?”
“One day and a half I think…”
“And that’s all it took you to get an army at your butt?! God, Adam, you really haven’t changed!” she sighed in anger. How ill-tempered could he be?!
“There are things you don’t know about! Things you don’t want to know about! I’m not the little guy you knew anymore! I have different problems now, okay?!” he shouted at her. She had touched a sensitive point, he never liked feeling judged either. But sometimes he needed to hear it anyway.
“So how the big guy hopes to win this time?” she asked back in defiance. His tantrum didn’t impress her. At all!
“I can’t, okay? As I said, rudimentary equipment, against a fucking army! This very place we’re in, was supposed to be a hope. And it turned out just as disappointing…”
“…As me? Why won’t you say it? I’m not your enemy there, you keep being aggressive on me for a reason I don’t know! Why don’t you speak it once and for all so we can move on?! I’m fine if you’re angry at me, but at least tell me why and stop being inhuman toward others!”
He didn’t answer this time. He kept staring at her but then, she noticed a change. Like anger tinted itself with sadness. He looked like he was searching for his words and took several breathes.
“O…Okay, you want me to act more humanly so… I’ll show you what I figured out about this place. You’ll see… if my decisions are inhuman.” he looked around, then stared at the female dragon. “Nimera, I haven’t slept or eaten anything since I arrived. Can you tell me why I’m not hungry or tired?”
What did it have to do with the subject? What would be his trick to escape his position? Jozie knew that he could have a particular track of mind, and that it was sometimes more strategic to follow his point without disturbance.
The dragoness looked surprised as well, and quickly gave it a thought.
“Hm… I don’t know… maybe you ate recently?”
“How often do you think a human needs to feed?”
“Once a week, if I remember well?”
This reptile could have known very little about humans. This was a simple explanation. After all, Jozie didn’t know at which frequency this species might eat. And if she thought of it, she hoped it wouldn’t be too frequent. It came back to her that they were likely to be carnivores. But the dragoness seemed to say this assertively, like she talked of personal knowledge.
Oddly, it seem to only half surprise Adam. He looked a bit bothered, of course. Jozie remembered he wasn’t one to skip his three sacred meals per day. But it didn’t seem as absurd to him as it was to her.
“No, humans are supposed to eat several times a day.” He argued without much conviction.
“Several times a day? You’d be enormous… or dead… Do you really eat that often?” the reptile looked at his middle, like she tried to evaluate if his fat fitted with his words.
“Yes we do…” Jozie spoke the evidence, then had a sudden doubt. “Usually…”
“But maybe here we don’t.” Adam commented. “When I opened this place, it was supposedly sealed for a long time. No dust. No rust on the metallic door below. I found paper in perfect state of preservation. And most of all, I haven’t slept or eaten since I’m there. You know I used to be the biggest glutton in our block.”
That, Jozie remembered quite well. Especially younger, it had put her in quite an uncomfortable position when she made him notice he put on weight. He had quite corrected that since then, but still… The one who invited him for lunch better had to be prepared to feed an army.
“So what’s your theory? We’re dead?”
“Of course not! And thankfully! First because it would be the shittiest twist, and then because how would you explain her?” he pointed at the unconscious woman. “Do you think we remain sick in the afterlife? That would be pretty sad… No, I think it’s the place that affects us. That affects everything on this island…”
“Go on…”
“You, me, we commonly need to eat three times a day, and sleep every night to be optimal. In one million years, it would have been believable that humans adapted to the scarcity of food. But we are not from this time. The fact I don’t feel hunger or sleepiness may have two explanations, a particularly long adrenalin rush, or something affecting the metabolism here.”
“If we have a lower need to eat or rest, it logically means that the body isn’t in need for energy. And thus… working slower?” She summarized his reasoning, starting to connect it to the girl’s case. “It’s quite farfetched.”
“Maybe but if the cells division is slowed down, it means her disease is slowed down as well. And thus, that she isn’t in immediate danger. I’m not disregarding her state. I just have a bigger sickness to cure before I can focus on hers.” He replied naturally, with an amazing ease she didn’t know he could have. “Does that make more sense to you? Does it make me more human to your eyes?”
Jozie looked at him with distance. She conceded that point, but felt like he used a trick to fall back on his feet. He had to know this wasn’t the subject. He just wanted to be right, to not be annoyed. Efficiently avoiding the core of it, on purpose.
“Good.” he planted the final nail, taking advantage of her silence. “Now if you excuse me, I have to find a way to defend against an army of savages.”
“The white shadow said it’d send you cavalry, maybe she’s it?” The male dragon intervened, but met a severe look that made him step back. White Shadow? Cavalry? What did it mean?
“So much for the cavalry… A severely sick lady, and the woman who did the worst in my eyes. I think I’ll pass.” He spat coldly.
“What the fuck have I done to you?! Why do you keep acting like we’re complete strangers?! Stop being a dick and speak!”
“Because we are strangers. I’m not the Adam you knew. I’m ten years older than the Adam you knew. I’m what’s left. You don’t like what you see? Fine. But stop acting like I have a problem to solve especially when you’re the cause. I told you what you owe me. Come to me only when you’ll know what was so funny about it.”
This time he exited the place promptly, and Jozie didn’t have the courage to stop him. She was sure she spotted a tear in the corner of his eye, and that was her limits. She wasn’t scared of pushing him to the edge, but she knew when she got too far, even when her point was genuine. She’d obtain a clear answer. But it might take a bit of time.
Category Story / Fantasy
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