Page 80 of Primal Hunger
After several hours, his distance starts to weigh on me, dragging my shoulders down despite my resolve to make this radio portal work. Tyler’s voice accompanies us the whole time, filling the quiet gaps when silence settles between Syros and me, but it’s not the same. It isn’t just conversation I want; I want to talk to Syros, especially since our time together is growing more limited as the minutes pass.
My departure is impending; I can feel it in my gut.
Very soon, I will be face to face with my way back to Earth.
My fingers fly over the wiring that used to belong to an electric kettle. If my transmitter works, then we’ll attempt to make the connection around midnight, the same time the original portal opens.
There is a lovely symmetry to the plan, but everything hinges on supposition, physics, and a whole lot of magic. I dare not lean into the small shred of hope too much in case this entire endeavor fails.
A clawed hand falls on my shoulder and grips it hard. “Erin, take a break,” Syros grumbles. “You haven't moved in a very long time.”
I shake my head, my eyes gritty and burning, my stomach flipping. “I need to get this done. Otherwise, we’re wasting daylight. And there’s no guarantee it will even work.”
“Erin? Who’s there with you? Who is that, really?” Tyler wants to know, his voice reedy and anxious.
Syros has never spoken close enough to the radio for his voice to transmit clearly. He reaches past me like he’s going to turn off the radio, but I grab him by the wrist to stop him.
“I am a little hungry and thirsty,” I admit, ignoring Tyler’s question.
He’ll be full of them once I get home, and there are some parts of my story I’m going to have to omit. Definitely the sex, because we don’t want Tyler turning hisCornholed by the Cryptidinto a memoir. Maybe it should beGagged by the Griminstead.
I can see it now.
But a large part of me doesn’t want the college student knowing about my connection to Syros, the lovely and insular relationship we’ve sort of established with each other. I’m protective over it, and over him.
“You have to talk to me. Are you sure you can trust whoever it is with you? I know you said you were in a safe place, but what happened to the Grim?” He groans in frustration.
Now I’m the one ready to turn off the radio, but it could be the hunger talking.
Syros releases my shoulder and holds out his hand, waiting for me to place mine in his, and then he drags me to my feet. “Come. We’ll take a walk, and I’ll show you the stream, and my patch of plants.
My excitement spins up from where it’s been buried underneath the weight of tiredness and single-minded drive.
We move toward the door and rather away from Tyler’s squawked demands over the radio.
“Is it safe to go outside?” I want to know. “We’re not going to run into any more creatures like the Ech, are we?”
“We should be safe as long as we make the outing brief and you stay by my side. Always.”
It certainly makes a girl think when a man—monster—says those words to her. And right now, my mind is churning a thousand miles an hour as Syros leads the way out the door, holding the curtain open and waiting for me to pass over the threshold.
The sun overhead is duller than I thought, but compared to the comforting gloom inside the cabin it might as well be a blindingly bright day on a sandy beach.
I squint against the glare and shield my eyes with my free hand, the other still gripped tightly in Syros’ hold. It’s light enough for me to see the trees looming over the small cabin in their gnarled detail. The trunks are a strange gray color streaked through with black, and the leaves a dark green, nearly blue.
The sky is a darker version of our robin egg blue back home, and there are no clouds. At least, not from this vantage point.
I glance toward the area where the Ech dragged me and halfway expect to see a dead body there.
“I took care of the body while you were healing. There are no spots of blood to draw any other predators to the area, either, and everything doused with more gollilock,” Syros explains.
“You were very busy.” The memory of pain constricts my throat, and the burning sensation travels down to my heart.
If Syros hadn’t pulled an extraordinary win out of a hat, I’d be dead. There is still so much about this place and these creatures that I don’t understand. Which is part of the reason why I need to get back home.
These are stories I need to tell, only this isn’t the right time to do it. Now, I need to focus on survival. And it is much harder tofocus on it when I’m enjoying Syros and his company, knowing our time together is limited.
“The woods used to be filled with the sound of living creatures. They were noisy, exciting. Finding food never took much effort,” Syros explains.
