Dim Sum Asylum(45)

I’d always let them down when they’d needed me the most, and even as I stood over their gravestones, I was reminded of that final, ultimate failure and knew guilt drove me to drape their carved rocks with flowers and fruit leis.

The moment was gone when the stone creature convulsed as Trent grabbed at it, and its tail whipped about to strike my cheek as its front legs scratched my flesh. Bile purged from my stomach, clearing away any melancholy regrets I nursed. My tongue swelled, pressing the wriggling stone into the roof of my mouth, and I couldn’t stand the pain much longer. My teeth hurt, banged about, and one chipped, or maybe the scorpion did, because a fine spray of powder coated the inside of my cheeks and the grit tickled my throat.

I couldn’t fucking breathe.

“Hold on, Roku,” Trent pleaded, his voice breaking. “I can’t get a hold on it.”

The pressure against the back of my tongue intensified, and bits of the scorpion started fragmenting in my mouth. I heard a crack, and its body jerked, yanking at my flesh. Trent’s arms went wide, and the stone tail slashing at my face broke off in Trent’s hand. He flung it away, his arm a flashing blur at the corner of my eye. A second later he was back, digging into my mouth again, his fingers struggling to get a purchase on the stone.

The scorpion was intent on making its way down my throat, and my face ached with the effort of keeping my jaw closed enough to stay the stone animation but allow enough room to let Trent dig around my teeth to grab it. My Adam’s apple bobbed, the creature gained another minute crawl forward, and I clenched up, feeling its body begin to block my air passage.

Trent’s breath was hot on my face, and we were both soaked through with sweat. I smelled of fear, and oddly my hands hurt from curling my fingers into fists. I lay between Trent’s legs, stiff and sore with the effort of not moving, but the scorpion was gaining ground. The powdery slake of its battered body scratched my throat, and I gurgled, unable to clear away the spit I was drowning in.

Anguish filled Trent’s face, and then slowly a strong resolve ate away the fear in his eyes. His heart rate slowed, its pulse thumping through his body and into my cradled skull, and I felt him calm.

“I need you to hold your breath, Roku. Nod if you understand me, but I need to do this,” he said softly, and he smiled gently when I nodded. He looked older, more worn around the edges, and he rubbed small circles on my belly with his free hand, probably hoping it would calm me. “Whatever you do, do not inhale. Take as deep a breath as you can through your nose, and on the count of three, I need you to hold it, then let your jaw go slack.” I must have looked like I thought he was insane as he patted my belly with the flat of his hand. “Trust me, Roku. We don’t have time. Now, breathe in and I’m going to count.”

My chest hurt, and when I sucked in air, I couldn’t get much past the stone lodged in my throat. If anything, the scorpion felt like it was swelling, mantling to fill what little space I had left at the base of my tongue, and its body wedged into my palate, pushing the soft tissue into my skull.

I stared up at Trent, my stinging eyes flung wide open, because I wasn’t going to fucking die alone. I wanted to see someone, know they saw me when I finally bought it, and some small part of my brain hoped beyond hope Trent would hunt down whoever sent the cursed stone bug after me since I needed some damned justice. Justice I hadn’t given John or the girls. Justice I’d let wallow while I’d been begged not to soak the city’s streets in death and blood.

Three hit while I was contemplating Trent’s mouth, and I couldn’t remember if I’d taken a breath or exhaled… just that I had to hold whatever I had in me and hope for the best.

Whatever the fuck the best was going to be.

Something was wrong with Trent’s face. It… fluttered or shifted, growing harder around the edges. His fingers were pressing against my jaw, forcing me to open my mouth, and when I did, the stone creature dove in farther, ripping at my lip with its back claws. Something clear folded out of Trent’s right eye, a wisp of a lens catching on his too long lashes, and he blinked, shaking his head slightly so it fell, floating gracefully away from his face.

Leaving me to stare up at an eye made of blue ice and frozen steel.

A bloom of white mist frosted the air in front of his parted lips, and Trent thrust his fingers into my mouth, fighting the stone scorpion for space. His bare flesh hit the warmth of my tongue and froze the blood welling from the scorpion’s claw marks.

“Almost… got it,” Trent grunted. “Stay with me, Roku.”

My face stung with the bite of a snowy wind I couldn’t comprehend. The blast of a freezing touch across my tongue burned, and I almost gulped, fighting every bit of instinct I had to catch my breath… to do something to dislodge the creature trying to kill me.

I felt the scorpion crack as dark splotches dappled across my eyes. My heart was near to bursting when Trent yanked at the creature’s body, jerking the stone golem off my tongue and leaving me with a mouthful of blood and ice.

Rolling over, I cleared my mouth, hawking up what lingered on my tongue. Vomit followed, my gag reflex overloaded from everything pressing into the back of my throat. My jaw hurt, and I couldn’t stop heaving, emptying everything I’d eaten for the past year—at least that’s how it seemed. Shivering, I rested my weight on my palms and simply tried to breathe through the pain, but the burning tingles on my tongue and in my mouth weren’t subsiding, and when I looked down at the street curb, I found I’d plunged my hands into a thick layer of glittering snow.