IGNATIUS The Colors of Rage

Chapter f Photokinesis

Emi’s hands smoothed out the wrinkles along the tops of his shoulders as she came down behind him. Her chin sat in between his shoulder and neck, and he could feel her warmth on his back. “How pretty…” she cooed. “I wonder how they grow in such a secret place.” 

“What is happening-” his brain was emptying “-to me?” The thoughts in his head were slipping away, becoming a silent room. All he could feel was warmth and the heartbeat pounding against his back. 

“What do you mean?” Emi pushed forward past his shoulder to look into his face. His eyes were in a trance, wide open without the reflex to blink. “Iggy?” She pinched his cheek and sat down at his side. “Iggy, are you phased out?” She searched his face, finding no response except for the trance. She rubbed his upper arm with the back of her hand. “Is it because of these red flowers? It won’t be good if the others found that out… they’re already so upset.” She waved her palm before his face. “Can you come out of it?” 

His hand skidded across the ground, flung up, and snatched her by the neck. He whipped her down into the flower patch onto her back and pressed on her shoulders with his palms. Her body dug further into the earth as he planted himself over her. They were in a position that he had never been close enough to anyone else to have done. As she resisted, the flush in her cheeks drove him further out of himself. He pulled the sleeve off of her shoulder and exposed more of her soft skin. He leant inward, mouth open, teeth bared. 

Dreading the pain to come, she pushed back. “Please don’t bite me!” His nose grazed the soft side of her neck in procession, and out of desperation, she sliced the tip of her finger with her tooth and hooked it into his mouth so that her fingerprint laid flat over his tongue. Through the piercing, her blood dripped easily out of her and into him. Her blood was irony, sweet, delicious, but not something that could be healthily lived off of. He swallowed, taking in another piece of her. 

A distant sound similar to sloshing water played over and over in his head in a repeating rhythm, until it became a solidified pattern of shhhh, shhhh, shhhh. Then, like a snap, his vision cleared and he found himself staring wide eyed at the curve in her white neck. 

“Close your eyes…” she chanted into his ear, “close your eyes… close your eyes.” 

Her finger was drying up. With the sharp edge of her nail, strength, and courage, she spliced a small notch into the flesh just above her collarbone, then with one hand behind the neck, she drew him in and pressed his lips against her wound. 

Iggy shut his eyes and covered the hole with his tongue. He could taste her sweetness and heat, yet now he could see nothing but blackness. He lifted his tongue and sucked out what was left before she healed. As he did so, her back lifted up out of the dirt and her breasts curved up toward her chin. A gasp escaped her mouth and became the loudest sound in the silent night. Her breasts pushed into his chest, and he could feel the hardness of her n*****s through her dress. He pulled his lips away and, just as abruptly, she flattened back against the ground. 

Their fingers were tightly intertwined on one hand. As he peeled himself off of her and came back onto his heels, she came up to sitting, too. Dazed and even faint. Her mouth opened and revealed a deep cut was closing on her bottom lip. 

“Did I?” Iggy squeaked, gesturing to his own bottom lip. “Did I do that to you?” Her face glowed hot pink and she shook her head ‘no.’ Without her intending to, her bottom lip tucked inside of her mouth and the cut lined up perfectly to one of her sharp teeth. He laid his free hand over her cheek and looked deeply into her fidgeting lips. “You… gave it to me?” An idea that he hadn’t ever considered. 

She trailed her fingertips over her lips and the tip of her tongue. She stared at his chest, yet didn’t appear to be looking at him at all. “Yea,” her voice was distant, “I did. It felt really good...” She pressed the back of her hand into the side of her neck. Her eyes gleamed. “I stopped your thirst reflex, too. You heard me!”

“No…” he shook his head and looked down at the earth. “I’m sorry… I-”

“We should be lifelong partners,” she interrupted. “Just as Baine told us.”

“What?” He looked up at her in disbelief. “You’re kidding, right?” 

She tilted her eyebrows and twisted her lips. “What? Am I not good enough or something?” 

He was quick to shake his head. “No, it’s not that, it’s-”

“I don’t see anyone else around here to play the part. Do you?”

Before he could reply, he caught another glimpse of the squashed flowers behind her. He straightened his expression and looked at her dead on. “Yes. Please, stop me if you can. If that means that we will be lifelong partners, then I want that, too. I don’t want to hurt anyone.” He stood up and pulled her out of the flowered cave, then with his eyes consciously avoiding the scarlet flowers, he scattered the branches back in place so that the poppies were well hidden. He sighed with relief and gazed down at her feet. “The color of it… It has a lot of power over me.” He looked up into her pitch black eyes. “You can stop me, if you want to. You just saved us both from what could have been really bad. Thank you.” 

She twisted her fingers around his. “I know,” she smirked. “After all, these people wouldn’t make their queen out of just anyone, would they?”