It was no use, though.
He rolled onto his side slowly, frowning as the sheets peeled back away from his skin and fell into place. Green light washed him from the digital clock on his nightstand as he read the numbers, bright and clear in the darkness:
[4:17]
The dreadhead groaned out loud and buried his face into his pillow. Every moment that passed by was one more thought filling his head, one minute less spent in the peaceful bliss of unknowing, and the more he thought about it the less likely, he knew, that he would fall asleep at all. One hand grabbed the sheets and comforter he had tangled around his body in whatever fit he’d had during his sleep and wrenched the back, letting his legs swing down. There was another grimace as the soles of his feet touched the chilly wood floor and he made a note to himself to buy a rug. A really fluffy, nice one.
“Awake so early?”
It was impossible. The moment the words fell on his ears, his entire body rejected the voice. It was cold, not quite monotone enough to seem unthreatening, but devoid of any tease or charm a real person might have used if they had broken into someone’s house in the middle of the night. The sound felt like a deathgrip on his heart and his pulse raced, instantly, beating frantically in his cage as if it had just realized, too late, that he was in danger. A delayed fight or flight response, trying to win back the minutes it had already lost. His teeth grit so hard that his jaws protested, but he forced his eyes up from where they had tried to bore holes into the interlocking pattern of the faux wood floor.
She was standing next to the open door of his bathroom suite, still and perfect in the shadows, unnoticed at first because she didn’t move like a human - she didn’t blink, she didn’t breathe. A car passed by outside of his window and cast her in a ghostly, running bar of light for the space of a few seconds.
“What do you want?” The words sounded like they belonged to a stranger, but he heard them in his own voice, deep and raspy from sleep and a lump that had lodged itself below his adam’s apple.
Then she smiled, that wicked smile that haunted his nightmares when he wasn’t drowning in a red sea. She didn’t answer him at first, but took a few slow steps across his floor, making a pointed click, click, click against this floor boards. When she stopped, it was so close to him that she could have touched him had she wanted, and he was still too afraid to move. She leaned down very slowly, until her eyes were level with his, two bright pools of light in the darkness of his room.
“My little Mars Knight,” he stiffened before he could stop himself, and she laughed, “what don’t I want?”
There was a part of him that wanted to deny it and he felt his mouth open and close, working around the words to tell her he had no idea what she meant, that those words didn’t make sense but he could see it on her face - she knew. His objections would mean nothing. Belatedly, he realized he could call his magic, fight her off here but - he also realized, only half a breath later, the true implications of what her knowledge meant.
Isaiah. Ariel. Sana. Orah. Fiona.
Faces flashed through his mind.
Khal.
He wasn’t the one at risk anymore if this woman, this monster, decided to punish him for his inheritance of Gehenna’s gauntlet. When she’d only known him as Khal’s brother, for whatever reason that she did, he’d been nothing more than a civilian to warn away from her business. Now he was a Squire of Mars, and not just any Squire, but one that had just slammed his fist through her body and proved that she could be shattered like a true china doll. He refused to believe that didn’t mean something, to believe any longer that she was undefeatable, but he had to accept the punishment for that boldness.
“What. do. you. want?” The words were bitten now, sharp and punctuated by the glowing rage swelling inside of the terror still gripping his heart. He was still afraid, but his temper couldn’t be cooled for long.
The amused smile on her lips tightened, but didn’t disappear, and she reached out one hand to clasp his chin tightly in her grip. He wanted to wrench it away, keep her hands off of him, but she was the stronger being when he was only Kamboja. There was no choice but to let her force his jaw up, so that he stared directly into those amber eyes.
“I trust that I don’t have to explain the situation you’re in, now. If you don’t listen to me, I’ll kill every single person that you care about.” He did try to pull his chin away then, but she held tight, digging the hard tips of her fingers so hard into his flesh he knew it would bruise. The muscles in his jaws were starting to ache and distantly, he heard the sound of his teeth as he ground them together. “I don’t care about their lives, do you understand? It won’t mean a thing to me. I’ll make you watch as I swallow every - last - starseed.”
Kam’s dark palms pressed into the bed at his side and the fingers curled into the sheets, gripping them tight to keep his body from shaking. The monster spared a single glance down, and then looked back up at his eyes.
“I only want one thing from you, and we can forget all of this,” her free hand motioned to her torso, as whole as it had been before he’d run his fist through it, “ever happened. Bring me a transcended senshi, one who gives energy.”
Dark, thick brows drew down into a furrow at her request. Of all the things she could have said in that moment, he hadn’t expected that. It wasn’t that he couldn’t guess at what a transcended senshi might be able to offer her - unlimited energy, perhaps - but what game was she playing at?
“I don’t know any-” the lie started.
“I don’t care,” she cut him off, “you will find one, and you will let me know when you do.” She released his chin with a thrust, making him fall back so quickly that he had to catch himself with an arm. “You have a week.”
She was gone so quickly that he couldn’t protest any more, popping out of existence with a crackle that reminded him of fireworks. The lingering chaos smoke fizzled out of existence and he leaned forward, propping his arms on his knees, suddenly thankful that his senses were dulled to the point that he didn’t know what his apartment felt like in that moment. His head fell to his hands and he ran his thick, dark fingers along the sides of his head where the hair was short and soft.
“What the ******** am I supposed to do?” He asked of no one, of the empty air.
There was no answer.
((Word Count: 1313))
