It’s been seven years since Tammy made the unfortunate decision to leave the main streets of his hometown and console a poor, beaten, bloody girl in a dirty alleyway. He’s 13 now, and said poor girl, Avi, is 14. Their latest mission for Avi’s tribe has brought them to a thick forest in the middle of the day.

Avi is marching in the front, knees brought high with every step, a machete in both hands as she cuts through the foliage. Her tail extends behind her, and the last few segments are wrapped around Tammy’s wrist to pull him along. Dark circles line Tammy’s eyes, and he requires a thick, elbow length glove to protect his skin from Avi’s touch.

“A great day to be an assassin, eyy, Tammy?” She says with a gleaming smile, an adventurous, wide-brimmed hat protecting her eyes from the sun.

“I-I guess…” He feels the thumping of his heart in his throat, and waves of nausea pass over him. The rhythmic snapping of branches beneath Avi’s machetes makes his wounds ache. Bite marks and scratches all across his body, hidden under layers of fresh bandages. Were it not for his clothes, he’d look like a mummy.

“Dang right it is!” She happily bobs her head left and right while humming a tune. “Are we going the right way?”

“Th-… the meeting point is a little to the right.”

Avi turns left.

The boy sighs, “that’s left…”

Avi turns right. “So!” Her sudden shout makes him flinch. “What did father tell us to do today?”

Tammy grabs a handkerchief from his shirt pockets and dabs his face. Rays of sunlight shine down through gaps in the tall trees. It’s hot, it’s humid, and the bandages would be bad enough, but he’s wearing long sleeves, gloves, and pants. “It’s- you were right there-“ he shakes his head. “Stuff. We’re doing stuff. Just don’t freak out and kill everyone when we get there.”

“Okay, boss!”

“P-partner…” His voice is weak and uncommitted; it doesn’t carry over the sound of snapping branches.

The pair continue for another mile, then Avi stops. She raises her head and sniffs the air, “food? Cooking. We’re by a camp?”

“Yeah, there’s one over there.” Being a psychic, Tammy senses a vast collection of souls deeper into the woods. He also senses someone standing at the meeting point, and another five souls ready to ambush them. “There should be a small clearing ahead, that’s what your father said.”

With steps full of boundless energy, Avi drags her husband further through the forest, until they enter a large clearing. The bushes uprooted, dozens of wide trees cut down with only stumps remaining. Sunlight shines its brightest as the clouds part perfectly overhead, and Tammy tips his hat forward on his brow. On the far side of the square clearing, a man stands on a stump, tapping his foot. He perks up when he catches sight of the pair, then waves them over.

Avi moves in closer to whisper to her beloved, but Tammy’s eyes round and he jumps back before she gets too close. She recoils slightly, then unwraps her tail from his wrist. “Sorry,” she says softly, looking away sheepishly. “Is that the guy?”

“That’s…” He gulps hard and forces himself to maintain eye contact with her. “That’s the man we’re meeting, yes. Don’t try to bite his throat out,” he says with slightly more disgust than he intends.

The two head across the clearing, Avi walking over stumps while Tammy’s path bends around them, and they stand a good distance from the man. He looks to be in his late 40s, but physically fit, with piercing orange eyes that glimmer from the sunlight reflecting off the ground. “You two the ones that Kashier sent?”

Tammy brings his shoulders back and keeps his chin up. “We are!”

The man puts his hands on his hips, showing off a large pistol as he puts his weight on one leg. “Why’d he send two squirts? I’m giving your clan a lot of money for this.”

Avi opens her mouth in anger, yet Tammy quickly transmits his thoughts telepathically, “[please, I’m begging you. Just be quiet and let me do the talking.]”

She shoots him a sharp look that sends a primal fear running down his spine, “[he called us squirts! We can’t just take that.]” Calling Avi a ‘squirt’ is like calling her a ‘runt’, and she’s thoroughly sick of hearing that insult everywhere she goes.

The tightened muscles of her face, her mouth open just far enough to show off those teeth, a prominent vein bulging out the back of her open hands, and the end segments of her long tail rattling a predatory threat. Tammy can’t bring himself to transmit his thoughts again. His breathing turns labored, his mind becomes a mess, a chill runs deep into his bones.

Without anyone holding her back, Avi looks to the man, “who’re you calling squirt? We’ve killed dozens before, hundreds!” She marches closer, snarling, “I’m the newest champion of my tribe, fresh off my right of passage!” Her rite of passage to become an adult was two years ago, and nobody considers her a ‘champion’ in any regard. The man can’t possibly know this, but he frowns as she approaches and remains completely unconcerned. “You said you saw my father, Kashier? He’s next in line to be the patriarch of my tribe, and I’ll-!”

With her chest puffed out, she passes a previously agreed-upon spot of dirt, and three shots ring out from the nearby forest. Two shots connect with her head and knock Avi on her back. One bullet collides with her skull just above her right ear, and another skims the top of her scalp. Her bones are indestructible, but the skin above her ear bursts as the force of the bullet creates a wound the size of a large coin, while a line of flesh and hair is ripped from the top of her head.

“A-AGH!” She holds her head, blood seeping between her fingers, but she quickly adjusts to the pain. Adrenaline pumping, she tries to stand and face her opponent, only to be met with a steel-toed boot to the face. Her nose broken and her top lip split, the force of his kick snaps her head back, her skull landing hard against an exposed root. Already used to the pain, she flexes her abs and tries to stand again, only for the man to stomp one boot on her chest, forcing her back down, with his other boot pinning the end segment of her tail to the ground. With steel knuckles slotted over his fingers, he swings his shoulder and back into a set of devastating punches against her formerly cute face. Each hit is met with a deep thud as the steel cuts through flesh to meet her skull. She grips his ankle and kicks her legs wildly, but it doesn’t do much.

At 14 years old, a bone-tail is almost fully grown, and many times stronger than a normal human adult. Avi is both but completely lost the initiative and is far smaller than the average bone-tail. She’s only 5’7, but the average girl her age stands at 6’3.

Tammy stands to the side, watching the assault. His eyes are glazed over as he watches her pummeling, gashes continually ripping up the skin from her chin to her hairline. She isn’t crying out in pain and is even trying to stab the man with the needle at the end of her tail. After a dozen hard punches, she gives up and brings her arms up to cover her face, which is when the man lands a hard punch on her neck. Her bones may be hard, but her esophagus isn’t as protected, and she starts choking, gasping for air.

The man finally steps off, and she rolls to her side. Her face is bloody, she’s crying, and she’s a choking, coughing mess. The man shakes some of the blood off his hand, then notices that Tammy still hasn’t taken his cold eyes off his partner.

“Hey, boy,” his words make Tammy perk up.

“Y-yes?”

“Why didn’t you try to help her?”

“Well…” His eyes fall back on Avi, who’s frustratedly sinking her fingers deep in the soil. “I was going to tell her that you had five men waiting in the surrounding forest, but she didn’t want to listen.” His upper lip curls, looking down at her. Avi’s face is already starting to swell from the repeated blows.

“Ahhh,” the man smiles a little. “So that’s what that Kashier guy meant in his letter. You must be the one actually worth a damn.” He nods his head off towards the side, “come on, our camp is this way.” He raises a finger and moves it in a circle, prompting his men to stow their guns and head back. Then he sticks out his hand, “I’m Leiben, leader of the sarigaina resistance front.”

Tammy’s body jolts and he steps back, “a-I, uh,” he gulps and waves rather than shaking his hand. “It is nice to meet you, s-sir. M-my name is Samuel.” He looks down at Avi, “she’s… probably not getting up, so don’t worry about her.” Leiben is standing between Tammy and the camp, so the boy circles around him in a wide berth, careful not to move too close. “I’m eager to get started!”

Leiben puts his hand down, realizing the boy means nothing by it.

The two leave the clearing, with Avi struggling to lean back against a stump. She has to breathe through her mouth as her nose is too full of blood. Her ears are ringing, her entire head pulses with agony, her hair is ruined, and she can’t open her eyes due to tears and swelling. Given her bone-tail biology, none of these wounds are permanent, but the scars of her failure will remain for weeks.

“D-dammit…” She mutters out between gasps for air. Despite all her wounds, the worst pain was having Tammy leave without a second thought.

****

“Her father told you the job?” Leiben says as he marches along a small path in the dense forest.

“Y-yes!” Tammy declares with his chest, walking a distance behind him. “There’s a traitor amongst your camp, and we- err, I guess I, have to figure out who it is.”

“And how do you plan to do that? No offense, but you can’t be any older than, what, 15?”

A bolt of joy runs through his body, “I’m only 13!” He says with a smile. He’s a bit big for his age thanks to a healthy diet and continual growth serums provided to him by Avi’s tribe. “But, uh, I’m a psychic. It won’t be hard to read the intent of their souls and figure out who’s harboring ill-… intent.”

“Kashier mentioned in his letter that the boy would be a psychic. I’ve heard rumors of your kind but couldn’t find any real information. Can you prove it?”

“Sure! I can read your mind. Well, really, it’s reading your soul, due to how the mind is just a byproduct of how our true selves—our souls—are interacting with the mortal world through our biological bodies… I guess that’s boring though, so never mind the real explanation. Just think of a sentence and I’ll tell it back to you.” Tammy and Leiben stop their march through the forest, with Tammy opening his eyes wide to focus, the irises glowing white. “You’re… thinking… ‘there’s no way this kid can really- oh shi-err, shoot, he’s actually reading- haha, no, kid, I didn’t say shoot’?” Tammy blinks, and the glow fades, “right?”

Leiben looks down at him with an approving smile. “Kind of jumbled though.”

“It’s difficult to tell someone their thoughts, as the act of telling them tends to impact what they’re thinking.”

Leiben continues walking, with the boy trailing behind. “Fair enough. I have a list of potential traitors and my own suspicions, so I’m eager to see if your conclusion lines up with mine.”

Tammy nods, “so, uh, why do you think there’s a traitor?”

“Ha! Can’t you read my thoughts to figure that out.”

“I… can’t dive that deep into a person’s mind yet. I can only read their current, surface level thoughts. B-but they can’t hide their intent! I’ve figured out ways to sniff out a traitor.”

Leiben grunts in approval. “Our world was conquered by the gurant centuries ago, but there’s always been pockets of resistance here and there. We raid the Gurant Empire for food, ammunition, medical supplies, anything we can’t make ourselves. A few months ago, we ran into a string of bad luck on our ops, and it hasn’t stopped. The enemy is too quick to react, they have too many guards, they just happen to cut off our route of escape. It can’t be a coincidence. Someone must be feeding them information, but it has to be someone with intel on our operations. That’s only like a dozen guys, but each man has his own batch of loyal subordinates. I need you to figure out who the traitor is without making it obvious, so then I can arrange a kind of accident. Take him out in such a way that his loyalists won’t get pissed off at.”

“Makes sense. Haha, then it’s really good we left her behind. She isn’t too good at subtly.”

“Why’d Kashier send her along with you anyway?”

An intense desire to vomit sucker punches Tammy in the stomach. “I… technically I’m not part of the tribe,” he pats his lower back, “no bone-tail. I’m only a member through… ‘marriage’ to that girl. B-but, uh, we work well together, so we’re kind of like a package deal.”

“You letting me beat her face to a pulp counts as working well together?”

“Well… that’s more of a recent thing,” Tammy mutters, rubbing his bandaged arm. He winces slightly from a dull pain, applying pressure to where she bit him so hard that her teeth chipped bone. If it wasn’t for her mother injecting him with the right serums, Tammy either would have died of blood loss, or several of his nerves would have been irreparably punctured, to the point of paralysis in several limbs.

Through the detection of souls, Tammy realizes that they’ve finally entered the territory of a settlement. Built within the trees, beneath the thick canopy of leaves, tens of thousands of sarigaina make their homes outside the reach of the Gurant Empire. Each of them has the same distinct eyes of piercing orange. Their homes are made of wood, or pitched tents, and there are camouflaged tarps strung up to prevent gurant planes from spotting their settlement from the air. There are no campfires as that causes smoke that can be seen for miles. Instead, they have warehouses full of gas canisters, and their food is cooked with a special type of propane. The men and women walk around with rifles strung on their backs; the children are corralled together in special daycares run by the elderly to prevent the young and foolish from wandering off. Every so often, Leiben leads Tammy past a row of deep trenches, a bunker, or a thick row of stakes sunken into the ground at sharp angles.

Tammy keeps his eyes on the ground as he walks, using his peripheral vision to follow Leiben but avoiding eye contact with all the members of the resistance. Some wave as they pass, and everyone is friendly to Leiben, who returns the kindness.

They reach a large command tent in the center of the camp and Leiben holds a flap open so Tammy can enter. Leiben follows him in, and the five guards wait outside.

“Do you need to look at a person to tell if they have ill-intent?”

“No, I just need proximity.”

The man nods, then walks over to one of the chests that line the room. The tent has a U-shaped table full of maps and little figures representing enemy and ally forces. The fabric of the tent is thin enough so light can pass through, and the floor has wooden planks set in the dirt, creating a platform to stand. Leiben opens one of the chests, “get in. I’ll have you listen to the strategy meeting, and you’ll tell me the intent of each man once we’re done. I won’t tell you which ones I’m suspecting of being the traitors, though perhaps you could read my thoughts as well.”

Tammy looks into the chest, there’s a folded blanked on the bottom, and enough room for an adult man to lay down. “You… already had this prepared?” Tammy quickly reads the resistance leader’s thoughts as he speaks.

“Of course. You’re not the first one I’ve had listen in on these meetings. When you get in, I’ll stack another crate on top so you’ll blend in.”

He narrows his brow and gulps, “you’re not… going to betray me, are you? Lock this chest after I get in, then sell me to the gurant?”

“No.” He’s being truthful.

“Oh, okay. Sorry.” Tammy climbs into the chest, and Leiben closes it.

“Ha! Your lie detection isn’t nearly as good as you think!”

Tammy’s muffled voice comes through the small airholes in the chest, “I can tell you’re joking.”

“Good, your powers really do work without line of sight. Now quiet, the meeting will start in an hour. If anyone comes in while I’m gone, tell me later.”

Tammy gives a thumbs up, not that Leiben can see.

Tammy senses the white-blue flame of Leiben’s soul head out and intermingle with the other souls in the camp. The only thing Tammy can sense is the direction of souls and their distance from himself. He can see neither the ground beneath their feet, nor plant life, animals, or structures. Tammy sees souls as flames which spread outward from a core and don’t conform to gravity, roughly oval in shape and vaguely corresponding to the physical body they inhabit. He can tell if a person is standing or laying down due to the orientation of the flames but cannot tell which way a person is facing. If he focuses on a particular soul, he can read their thoughts, but cannot see what they see, or hear what they hear. Some souls are silent as they don’t have an internal monologue, and they freak Tammy out a little, so he never focuses on them long.

For a moment, Tammy stretches his soul all the way back to the clearing. A blackened soul is out there, lying down.

Tammy hears a soul’s internal voice as the person imagines it, but with slight echoes that are slightly higher and lower in pitch. Some souls sound wildly different from their real voice, but for the soul in the clearing, hers is a perfect match.

“[I’m so stupid, I’m so stupid, I’m so stupid. I’m sorry, Tammy. Gah, he hates me. Probably loved seeing me get the tar beat out of me, he didn’t step in at all… I messed up so bad.]”

Tammy sighs and cuts off his soul reading. His wounds ache, but he doesn’t hate Avi. He just freaks out when he’s near her, and touch is completely off the table. Will he feel better once his wounds fully heal? Several of his bones were shattered by her, and Avi’s mother injected him with a bone-sealing serum that patched the cracks to prevent further damage while they healed. It took weeks for the phantom pain to fade, but even now that it has, his damaged opinion of Avi hasn’t improved much.

She can feel bad over it, but how’s Tammy supposed to know if she’ll lose control again? Or, more likely, when she will.