Girl, Interrupted

Chameleon freezes instantly. So do I. Heavy boots crunch against gravel somewhere beyond the flickering lights. A massive silhouette steps out of the darkness between the mine supports. Even crouched slightly beneath the low beams, he looks enormous. Thick muscles strain beneath filthy furs streaked with dust and old blood.

The big mutant spits onto the cave floor. “Papa said she his.”

Chameleon snarls immediately, low and animalistic. “She mine, Pluto.”

Pluto laughs once. The sound is ugly. “Ain’t nothin’ yours lessen Papa says so.”

Chameleon withdraws with a slow, deliberate motion, and the sound is a wet, hollow separation. The pressure recedes, a slow and deliberate withdrawal that feels just as violating as the invasion. A slick, obscene sound follows the scaled length of him as it slides free.

The sudden absence leaves me feeling cold and cavernous. Chameleon rises slowly off me, shoulders hunching instinctively as he turns toward the larger mutant. My hands are released, falling limply to the stone floor.

My thighs are wet with a mixture of our fluids, and a sense of profound ruin pulses between my legs, a raw and gaping fissure in the gloom. When I manage to turn my head, my gaze falls to the space between my thighs. The sight is one of raw, glistening ruin, the swollen flesh left parted and abraded, a stark testament to the **** of the claiming.

I scramble backward across the cave floor immediately, gasping for air while both of them ignore me completely. The tension between them changes the entire tunnel. The mine suddenly feels too small. Chameleon crouches lower near the wall, scales shifting strangely beneath the flickering lights as parts of him almost disappear against the stone.

Pluto cracks his neck slowly. “Boy, you too stupid t’learn?”

“She come down here,” Chameleon hisses. “I found her.”

“And Papa want her alive, for breedin'.” Pluto points one thick finger toward me without taking his eye off Chameleon. “That means she goes upstairs.”

Chameleon’s lip curls back from broken teeth. “She stay.” For a moment nobody moves. The generator hum vibrates through the tunnel beneath the silence while weak amber lights buzz overhead.

Then Pluto steps forward once. The entire mood changes instantly. “You gonna make me take her?” Chameleon snarls loudly now, circling sideways near the wall. His scaled skin flickers against the rock in broken patches every time the lights dim. He looks almost impossible to focus on clearly.

Pluto does not care. The huge mutant rolls one shoulder and spreads his hands slowly. “Come on then.” I stap my overalls back together with shaky fingers, watching both of them square off beneath the hanging lights like two animals about to tear each other apart. Somewhere deep in my chest, beneath the terror and pain and adrenaline, a tiny spark of hope flickers alive.