Page 28 of Starlight

He had never been so bored in his entire life, but then he had never been grounded before either. He glanced at the bandage around his arm. He could go to the mine, but climbing in and out would suck, and he wasn’t sure he was that bored.

Not yet anyway.

So the plan was to locate something for dinner and breakfast, and then message someone about his Cole dilemma. Maybe he’d lie and say Cole found him wounded in the forest and helped him. Yeah, that was good.

He ran through his list of friends and contacts and eliminated those who would advise him against staying in the cabin and waiting for Cole’s return. He knew the reasons why they’d tell him not to stay, but Cole wasn’t going to return with friends and guns.

It shortened his list of possible people to talk to considerably.

He grabbed a bag, the same one he’d used when he’d gone into the woods to gather edible plants with Cole, and this time, he set off on his own, which was infinitely less fun even though he was used to being on his own. Somehow, after spending a few days with the human man, he was more aware than ever of how alone he was. After all these years, he’d tricked himself into believing that he enjoyed it, though it was apparent that he did not.

He didn’t like the way Cole shone a light on the hollow places in his life.

It was much easier to ignore them when they were cloaked in shadows or hidden in the darkness. Without the human around, it was much easier to find insects and eat them as snacks as he searched for other things. Akai crunched through a cricket and tried to imagine Cole’s face. He peeled back tree bark, scooping up fat larvae and swallowing them with barely a chew, they were so soft.

The good thing about foraging was that it took time to get enough to make two meals. So by the time he reached the cabin, it was dusk. He tried not to look down at the valley and wonder what Cole was doing. Because he shouldn’t care.

But he thought he might, and he wasn’t sure how or when that had happened.

Had it been while he watched Cole build the cabin? Is that the real reason why he kept returning? It wasn’t only on his flight path, but he saw something of himself in the lonely human.

And if he were honest with himself, which was sometimes more painful than being shot, that was the reason he’d stepped out of the woods on the night of the meteor shower. He hadn’t wanted to watch it alone. He wanted company and had been unable to resist.

So it was one hundred percent his fault that he’d been shot. Not that he was going to admit that to Cole. Or to anyone for that matter.

He opened the secure Monster Network and typed a private message to Lick. Akai figured he was the best bet because he knew a lot about humans.

MothAkai: I’m in a bit of a situation.

Was that too dramatic? Possibly. He deleted the message and tried it again.

MothAkai: I got seen by a human.

That was possibly under-playing it a little too much. He might as well go with his little lie.

MothAkai: Hey, I got shot in the wing. A human found me and stitched me up, but now I have two problems. I can’t fly and a human did a bit more than only see me.

He stared at the message for a couple of heartbeats. It covered the basics of his problem. He wasn’t quite ready for the third, mostly because that meant admitting to himself that he didn’t want Cole to sleep on the sofa. He wanted Cole beneath him, or on top. He wasn’t fussy. But it was weird having those feelings for a human. While he’d spent plenty of time avoiding humans and watching humans, he hadn’t spent that much time with humans. And Cole was the only human he wanted to spend time around.

Stupid fate lines.

He pressed send and concentrated on making dinner, which was basically chopping up the greens and roots that he found and then sautéing them in some oil and salt that Cole left in the cabin.

Lick responded with short, rapid questions. He always wanted to get to the point and rarely wanted the full story.

Lick: You were shot?

Lick: Are you okay? Where are you?

They were all valid questions; however, they weren’t helpful. Clearly, he was okay because he was texting and he hadn’t put an SOS up on the message board.

MothAkai: I’m fine. Except for my wing. What am I going to do about the human? He sewed my wing up.

Lick: There’s not much you can do.

That wasn’t helpful either. But Lick was right. What could he do about the human?

Lick: Have you told anyone else?