Time Of Traitors

5

And her, too, to Senches and his wives, living and dead. Cres turned and walked back.

Ada was still sleeping sweetly, covered with a cloak with her head. Cres took time to push his beloved and decided to do warm things. The bag contained a jacket, a pair of holey mittens, and pants heavily moth-eaten. Not God knows what, but it could hardly have been better. At least Kres no longer risked his trousers, and that's not bad.

Clutching his clothes to himself, he turned around and froze - Ada was sitting on the floor and rubbing her swollen eyelids.

…

Good morning my love. Breakfast is ready. And you?

I secretly hoped that this time I wouldn't have to drag you by force. Maybe today you will open your eyes and look at me with that old look?

Yes, that would be nice.

Today I won't have to shove bread into you piece by piece, fight for every new step, drag you in my arms, fight until you stop screaming and biting?

It's the same game, silly.

Today is not that terrible day when I will again be forced to put rags in your mouth and listen to every rustle?

And I thought it turns you on?

Maybe you don’t have to stomp this damned edge with your feet at all? Just look at me, look with those eyes. Let there be at least a spark of reason in them. All to Senches!

It is high time. He is always waiting.

…

And for a while, Cres really thought he was seeing that spark when Ada opened her eyes. I wanted to throw away those stupid rags and kiss her swollen eyelids, dig into her half-open mouth, lick off the stream of saliva on her chin.

Ugh! Not since the morning.

- Hell?

It's me. And you thought...

But this spark - if it was - quickly dissolved after the outgoing dream. She gave way to some kind of puppy expression that hadn't left her face for… how long? From the day he returned home and did not recognize the place he used to think of as such.

I wanted to bake you a big, big cream pie. But life does not always agree with our plans for it ...

Ada slid her lazy eyes past, showing no interest in her companion. Silently got up and ran on all fours to the exit.

- Hell, stop! Cres said after her, opening the bag and pulling out something to eat. A familiar morning ritual followed.

- Sit down, eat... Ada, come here, it's delicious!

He lied, of course. The crackers and moldy cheese were already making his teeth hurt.

So eat it yourself, dear. In the meantime, I'll go and pull cakes from the branches. Here they are, hanging and smelling.

He barely seated her on a semicircular threshold and began to give her bread. Ada resignedly chewed crackers, drowsily and thoughtfully looked at the wall, overgrown with black moss.

Her hand began to tug on his buttons, seizing the moment, Ada leaned over and tried to grab one of them with her teeth. Cres swore and pushed her away, but the girl was persistent. She grunted in displeasure, thrust her hand into his bosom and with unexpected force pushed with all her might. The rest of the food, along with Cres, flew to the ground.

Cres exhaled and coughed. Senches, it was unbearable!

As he struggled to control his own lungs, Ada's eyes dropped their sleepiness and lit up with sparks of childish mischief. In her palms lay a small bag.

“Ada… give it back here, you don’t know…” Kres spat out. - Is it dangerous…

The girl was nervous, spinning around her axis and sniffling, pulling her tongue out - she tried to untie the ribbons, and, unable to bear it, dug her teeth into them.

Here is a torn bag fell to the ground. Ada was left with a small stone the size of a quail's egg, smooth black agate with a core that burned bright scarlet fire deep in its depths. Nothing remarkable to the casual eye - a simple trinket, with which the bins of fairground crooks are full, but Ada could not take her eyes off him - she held the stone, her hands folded like a boat, as if for the first time she took a newborn kitten in her arms. For a moment she brought it too close to her mouth. Her lips twitched.

"Ada, dear," Cres whispered, holding out his hand to her. “Give me that thing, okay?

The girl squeezed the stone in her fist, purred and sat back on the threshold, not looking up from the outlandish eye floating in the depths of the stone.

Breakfast continued, but now Cres had two concerns - to feed the obstinate girl and make sure that she did nothing with the ill-fated stone. For example, she didn’t throw it somewhere in the bushes, as she often did with crackers. When the last piece measured for the day disappeared in Ada's mouth, Cres began to dress her in warm clothes. It turned out to be easier than he thought, since the girl was busy with her acquisition. The last figure of Ada was covered with a traveling cloak. It remains to collect their few belongings and delay the last business longer.

Cres hesitated, looking down at the boots. He moved his broken yellow fingers a little, remembering the sweet feeling of freedom - soon pulling off his boots at a halt would be an unaffordable luxury.

Well, stick your feet into the leather blocks and tighten the straps, but tighter, Senches would you!

Ada kept the stone in front of her nose. Cres, grimacing and counting the calluses, came up from behind and wanted to seize the moment to snatch the dangerous little thing from her fingers, but the girl came to her senses earlier and jumped a few steps like a wild cat. Then she turned around and for the first time that morning looked Kres directly in the eyes - with an expression of truly animal fury. Before Cres had time to be frightened, Ada grinned so that blood came out again on her chapped lips, growled like a dog and showed her companion a red plump tongue.

“Put your tongue away, please,” Kres sighed, anticipating further developments. Look Senches, look carefully. You're a witness, he didn't mean it.

“Ada, give it to me, please.” Hell! Kres repeated, slowly approaching the girl. She, besides herself with anger, jumped back again and showed her teeth, as if she would now grow hair and rush to bite his leg.

Now he didn’t have enough, to rush after her with a lasso. And why can't a single morning go well? Maybe because there is nothing normal in her head?

Shut up, shut up…” His teeth clenched. Do not give Senches such happiness, and she will now run and drop the stone into the grass, where it will be lost forever. No, we need to act more decisively. Or everything is a disaster.

But the stone itself decided its fate. Immediately overgrown with a dozen flexible flagella and escaped from the fingers of the taken aback girl. Ada screamed as a pebble caught on her clothes and jumped into her face. Cres, with a belated cry, rushed towards her, but the pebble, along with its appendages, had already disappeared into her wide-open mouth.

They both flew to the ground. Ada's hysterical groan broke off as Cres unsuccessfully pushed his fingers into the girl's mouth, trying to induce vomiting. But she clenched her jaw with unexpected force and almost snatched off his finger. Cres screamed and pushed her away from him.

“Oh, you bitch…” he hissed, cradling his bloodied hand. "Do you realize what you've done, you fool?!"

Beside himself with rage, Kres forgot about the pain in the bitten finger and again reached out to Ada. The girl tried to escape, but again ended up on the ground. He knocked out all the determination from her with a whipping slap - and the air and all the agility jumped out of her with one click. With a kind of manic frenzy, Kres put his wounded hand into her mouth and reached for her tonsils. Ada choked on a belated squeak and began to vomit. Cres her to kneel - a gag spasm instantly twisted her in half. Cres decided to help him - he grabbed the girl by the waist and pulled with all his might.

- Let's! Come on bitch! he almost shouted, squeezing it out like a half-empty waterskin. The girl coughed up breakfast until some kind of viscous slurry came out. Cres jumped up, pushed away her limp body in tears, and rushed to the clumped lump of bread crumb.

“Where is he…?” Kres turned to Ada, maddened, when there was nothing solid among the vomit.

The girl wept uncontrollably, coughed and tried to cope with the enraged insides.

Is he still inside?

And again climbed to her, gritting his teeth. Ada screamed and tried with all her might to push Kres away from her, but he was relentless. Again and again until it works. The girl was beaten, as if in a fever, and vomited again and again, but Kres did not let up and kept putting his fingers into her mouth, and when she was throwing up, he pressed on her stomach. And he did this until he fell to his knees in despair, clutching his head in dirty hands. There was no stone. Maybe she spat it out and he didn't notice? For some time he scratched the grass with his hands, as if with a comb. But there was no stone. The sun was already at its zenith when Cres rose to his feet, not himself and shaking as if in epilepsy. He never found the stone. If he didn't escape and fall through the ground, then the bastard is still in her stomach. Cres wiped his hands on the grass in disgust.

“This can't be,” he whispered to himself. How stupid it was. - Where is he, honey?

She did not answer - she lay in the grass and showed no signs of life. Kres crawled up to her on his knees and... No! his hand trembled. How could he? As?..

“I won’t do it again…” he tried to calm her down, but stammered when he saw her bloodless face and trembling lips. No, he won't do it again...

- Hell? he whispered almost soundlessly. He knelt down, brushed his hair from his sweaty forehead, and shook her by the shoulder. No reaction.

Almost without remembering himself, he rushed to the abandoned bag, pulled out a small mirror and brought it to Ada's nose - the glass immediately fogged up. The girl is alive, but he knocked out the remnants of consciousness from her with his own hands. He grabbed the flask and splashed it on her face. All the same.