Chapter 425: Precious Apathy
"I was not about to fall," Penelope scoffed, eyebrows pinching together. Her foot had barely slipped before she suddenly found herself in his arms! Why on earth was he so jumpy?
"You most certainly were," he said, keeping his distance and his gaze averted from hers until he felt her staring at him long enough that he couldn’t help but lift his eyes to see what hers held. "You look confused," he said aloud without realizing it.
"That is because you are confusing," she replied, brushing her clothes off and walking toward him as if it were the most casual thing in the world and he wasn’t a vampire trying to keep his thirst at bay around her. "What is going on with you?" She crossed her arms in front of her. "Why are you acting this way around me?"
"What do you mean?" He asked, mimicking her expression because he wasn’t sure which one he was supposed to make at this moment. There were too many thoughts running through his mind that even he did not understand such that his typical cold aloof facade was not possible at the moment.
"Do you run around preventing alyko from falling all of the time? Are you always this... disarming?" She said quietly, searching for the words to describe him that weren’t really there. She needed new words to describe the mysterious vampire that acted so contradictory to his nature.
"You aren’t just any alyko," he said simply, fixing her with a stare that bore the truth of that simple statement.
"Because I am helping you with August?" She asked with eyebrows still pinched in confusion. It wasn’t enough of a reason. It didn’t make sense.
"Must we do this now?" He sighed heavily. "Let’s return to the castle."
"If we return now, I fear you will lock me in that room and forget about me again. When will be the next time I am let out?" She asked, her delicate hands running along her arms in a self-soothing way. It was such a nice change to finally be back out in the sunlight that the thought of returning to that hopeless dark room made her stomach plummet.
"I could never forget you," he said distractedly, but the gravity of the words he spoke and the sincerity he used speaking them sank deep into Penelope’s heart as if they were affirming something she already knew in secret, and she backed away from him. His eyes narrowed in on her movements as the glass scattered around her.
"You like me," she whispered, her heart speeding up as she did.
Zagan sputtered a surprised laugh. "I’m sorry? Like you?"
Penelope nodded silently, watching him with an expression he couldn’t read. But the idea of him ’liking’ her was certainly not something she seemed happy about.
"I do not like you, Penelope. I do not like anybody. I do not feel. I told you this. I am not capable of it," his voice turned grave.
"Maybe that is the answer then," she said quietly. "Maybe you must have feelings restored in order to live."
"The Luna will have her job cut out for her then. Making me feel seems more unlikely than La Loba singing creatures back to life around her camp fire," he said with a smirk.
Penelope did not answer, but her forehead feathered with the mention of August being responsible for it.
"How do you suppose she would accomplish it?" He asked, his feet crunching over the glass as he took a few steps toward her. "No alyko ever has."
"I do not know," she admitted, looking at her feet. There was something teasing in his tone now, but she didn’t know what to make of it.
"Well the Luna is very powerful. I suppose she will figure it out," he said, a crooked smile blooming on his lips when he heard her heartbeat speed up again.
"You cannot feel unless you make yourself vulnerable to it," she said quietly. "If you do not allow yourself that vulnerability, then it won’t happen."
"And how do I do that?" He asked, his head tilting to the side as he watched her continue studying their feet that were facing each other with the glittering fragments of glass splayed between them.
"You risk losing something precious to you," she replied, glancing back up at him and meeting his teasing gaze.
"I do not have anything precious to me."
"You do," she argued.
"What do you think is precious to me, Penelope?"
"The alyko here were precious to you. And you let them go."
"Ah, but that wasn’t a risk. That was a decision on my part. I did not risk anything. I can always go and retrieve them if I wish," he replied.
"But you said you wouldn’t!" She exclaimed.
"You are missing the point, dear," he smiled. "I will not do it, but I could. There was no risk in making that decision."
"Then you must risk losing your apathy. That is certainly precious to you," she snapped, glaring at him for the suggestion that he would even consider hunting the alyko down again. Zagan hummed his agreement, his smile slowly falling down as he found himself the target of her quiet fury. It was very amusing to see her get flustered like that.
"Would you like to see the lotus?" He asked, changing the subject.
"What?" She squinted, fighting to maintain her anger. She wasn’t willing to let go of it yet, but now he was moving on from the subject as if it were nothing of consequence. She needed reassurance he would not pursue the alyko. That was the whole point of making this deal with him.
"The lotus," he repeated, pointing upward above the atrium where there was an elevated platform.
"What is the lotus?"
"I will show you. It is a special area of the containment that was meant for the most powerful of the alyko I brought here. But it never worked the way it was intended," he told her.
"Why is that?" She asked, her gaze lifting to find the structure he was speaking of.
"I guess I never found the right alyko for it."
