Episode 13: A Pet In The Garden

The first time they called her “it,” Marla said nothing.

They were laughing, silver-mouthed and bright-eyed, lounging in the gardens of the fallen Capitol, dressed like gods from old paintings—if the gods had cheekbones sharp enough to slice bread and no shame about hunger. One of them—the girl with a voice like broken glass—tilted her head, smiled without warmth, and said, “Ant’s pet looks sad. Did he forget to feed it?”

No one corrected her. No one ever does. It was a joke. It was always a joke.

Marla didn’t laugh. Silver Adjacent weren’t supposed to laugh unless the Silverbloods said something funny, and no one ever said it was funny to bleed.

She moved slower than them. Not slow, just slower. Not like a mouse—more like a wolf with a limp. Her skin had gone gray in the weeks after the rescue. Ashy, moonlit. Her eyes still brown, which they said made her look “uncooked.” She hated that. Not because it was cruel. Because it was true.

They all smelled like cold metal and wildflowers. She smelled like old sweat and trauma.

Ant didn’t say anything, either. He stood near the broken fountain, arms folded across a shirt that hadn’t been washed since Seattle burned. He was always silent, always watching—like a statue that might move if the world ever asked the right question.

Marla used to know him. Unit Twelve. Search and Rescue. She remembered him laughing at bad coffee and holding her arm when she twisted it on the stairs. That Ant was gone. This one had silver eyes and a heartbeat like war drums.

This one saved her by turning five Marines into mulch with a scream that cracked the ground. His ability. Break and Repair, they said. Like glass exploding from the inside out he can shatter anything and mend anything he shatters.

He had picked her up afterward like a broken doll and carried her here—to their world of polished ruins and polished teeth.

And now she lived.

Lived.

If that’s what you called being stared at like meat with a heartbeat.

—

“They should’ve let you turn,” hissed Jax, another Silver. His gift was smell. He could scent weakness like perfume.

“Not human enough to miss,” he said once, sniffing the air around her. “Not Silver enough to matter.”

She wanted to punch him, but didn’t. Not because she couldn’t. She could. She’d broken training dummies and clawed through a brick wall two nights ago when the nightmares returned.

No—she didn’t hit him because that’s what pets do. Lash out and get put down.

Ant watched her from the balcony later, when the moonlight made her skin look silver instead of grave-gray.

“You should eat,” he said.

She was chewing leather strips, pretending it was food. She looked up.

“Why did you bring me here?”

His eyes didn’t blink. Didn’t shimmer.

“You were dying.”

“I still am,” she said.

Something like regret flickered through him. Not real regret. Just its shadow.

“They would’ve ripped you apart.”

“They still might,” she said.

A pause. A breath. A moment where the air went heavy.

“I wouldn’t let them.”

She laughed. First time in days. It sounded like choking.

“You don’t own me,” she whispered.

Ant stepped closer. Close enough that she could see the thin silver line where his bottom lip had once split in battle. His voice dropped like a stone into water.

“No,” he said. “But they think I do. It’s the only reason you’re still breathing.”

—

Marla dreamt of fire that night. Not metaphorical fire. Real fire. The kind that melts teeth and screams into one sound.

In the dream, she was running. Carrying a child. Maybe herself.

Ant was behind her. Or beside her. Or ahead. He kept changing.

When she woke, her fingernails had torn through the mattress.

There was blood. Not silver. Not quite red. Something in between.

It glowed faintly.

She said nothing.

—

The next week, a Silverblood named Vira decided to test her.

“You’re Ant’s favorite toy,” she said, circling Marla like a wolf around a new corpse. “But what happens when he gets bored?”

“I bite,” Marla said. Flat. Cold.

Vira smirked. “Do it. Show me you’re not just decoration.”

So she did.

Broke Vira’s jaw in three places before anyone could blink.

They let her live. Barely. Ant didn’t speak to her for two days.

When he finally did, it wasn’t what she expected.

“I warned you,” he said.

“She wanted me to break,” Marla said. “She didn’t like that I bend instead.”

“She wanted an excuse,” Ant said. “Now she has one.”

Marla looked out the shattered window. The city beyond was dead. Quiet. But things moved in the dark. Cannibals. Remnants. Humans, maybe.

“Let them come,” she whispered. “I’m not afraid to break anymore.”

Ant looked at her for a long time.

And for the first time since he’d rescued her, he smiled.

Not a Silver smile.

A human one.