Chapter 5
FIVE
Asia
“I thought I was a hard worker,” Jack muttered.
He was talking to me, but looking at Uncle Levi, who was hoisting a roll of barbed wire.
“You are, but Uncle Levi has the market cornered,” I said.
“Yeah. Hasn’t stopped for a second,” Jack said.
“You haven’t either,” I said to Jack.
It was true, other than the two times I caught him reading the complete history of modern art under a dim flashlight, he hadn’t slowed for more than a second these last few days.
Didn’t look any worse for the wear, though.
“Whatever.” He waved me off and looked toward Miles. “So what do you think we should do with the barbed wire?”
Miles looked uncertain for a moment, then spoke.
“Well, maybe we could use it to set traps?” he said.
He scanned the field, clearly taking a moment to gather his thoughts.
“And what’ll that do?” Jack asked.
“That way, nothing can get to us without us noticing,” Miles said.
Jack nodded. “Not bad. Come on with me so we can figure out where to put them,” he said.
Watching them walk off together hit me in a place I couldn’t name.
On the surface, it was lovely. Miles had taken to Jack like a duck to water, and Jack felt the same, even if he’d never admit it. Their bond was pure in a way that nothing else was anymore.
But seeing them, Jack’s broad-shouldered silhouette next to Miles’s lanky frame, made me ache. Because that same scene would play out again when Jack found his brother.
When Jack was gone.
I swallowed and tore my gaze away, forcing my mind to focus on work.
In the three days since we had been here, we’d done the same thing every single day.
With the help of the few farmhands who’d stuck around, Jack had set about the task of fortifying the farm.
He’d been maniacal about it, insistent in a way that was almost scary.
But it didn’t keep me from staring at the way his muscles bunched under his T-shirt every time he moved. Didn’t stem that nagging ache that grew impossible to ignore.
It had been two days since he touched me.
I told myself I understood.
He wanted this place to be safe.
I knew that to be true, but I also couldn’t help but think about what else it meant.
Like the fact that he was preparing for the time when he would be gone.
My chest tightened, and I tried to swallow the breath-stealing clamp. Turned so that Jack wouldn’t look back and see me, forcing me to explain something I wasn’t even ready to name.
“You trying to grow a tree under you?” Uncle Levi said after he deposited the barbed wire.
“I’m sorry. I’m just standing still, old man,” I said with a smile on my face.
“I know. No time for that right now, though.”
I smiled, remembering my first day at the farm. “You remember when I got here?”
“Like I’d ever forget?” he said, letting out a low chuckle. “I knew you city kids were strangers to hard work, but you took it to the next level.”
“I did not,” I said, looking faux offended.
Uncle Levi smiled.
“I know. You always were a hard worker, but stubborn as the devil himself,” he said.
“Yeah, but I met my match in you,” I said, remembering my first week here.
Uncle Levi, or “that old bastard,” as I called him back then, had engaged me in a war.
He always said everyone had to earn their keep, and the way I would earn mine was doing chores on the farm.
The other kids in detention eventually caved, but not me.
No. I did nothing. Nothing at all, and waited for the consequences.
Then one night he told me to pack my bags. Stared dead in my eye and told me some people couldn’t be saved. I’d never forgotten the heat of that shame. And my desperation to prove him wrong.
Cajoling hadn’t worked.
Begging hadn’t worked.
And Uncle Levi hadn’t even tried being stern.
But ego? My Achilles heel, then and now, too.
And by the time the social workers from juvie came to assess me, I was his number one farmhand.
A lot of those skills were still there, though rusty.
“That’s not a bad-looking knot,” he said, looking down at my hands.
I wore canvas work gloves and held needle-nose pliers that I used to twist the barbed wire.
“Yeah, it is pretty good, isn’t it?” I said.
“Where’s Thorne?” Uncle Levi said.
“Why do you think I would know that?” I asked.
Uncle Levi shook his head. “So now you’re gonna insult me?”
I laughed. “What are you talking about, Uncle Levi?”
“You can’t take three steps without that boy knowing it, and I dare him to try to take four without you,” he said.
I scratched at an imaginary itch, fighting to stifle the heat that creeped into my face. Hated that Uncle Levi could so clearly see things I couldn’t even acknowledge in my mind.
“I know there’s not much on TV, but you got to do something else with that wild imagination,” I said, a brittle smile pasted on my lips.
“Yeah, yeah. When you see him, tell him to come find me,” he said.
I looked at Uncle Levi, frowning, hearing something in his voice that had my ears perched.
“What do you need to talk to him about?”
“Mind your business, Asia,” he said.
He walked away, and I couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Uncle Levi is looking for you,” I said to Jack about ten minutes later.
“Yeah. Probably wants to talk about the perimeter,” Jack said, still focused.
I was again reminded of the maniacal way he had thrown himself into fortifying the farm.
I appreciated it, knew that it was essential, but also felt a sadness that I didn’t want to acknowledge, not even to myself.
Because as soon as this place was in a condition that Jack accepted, he was gone.
I wasn’t ready for that day, but knew I couldn’t ask anything else of him.
So I’d have to get used to it. Just like I got used to everything else.
“I don’t think that’s it,” I said.
“Well, I’ll see.” He looked at me, his head tilted. “You all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said, but the words came out brittle, and I cursed when I pulled away from the wire and ripped a hole in my glove.
“Fine, huh?”
“The fence is getting fixed. That’s the mission, right?” I snapped, still refusing to look at him.
But I felt his gaze on me as I tried to fight back the tears.
Then I looked at him.
Let him see.
Wondered what he would do.
Something flickered in his gaze, guilt, something else I wouldn’t try to name. He shut it down so fast, I was halfway convinced I imagined it.
Then he studied me for a long moment. “All right.”
He walked away, headed toward Uncle Levi.
He didn’t look back, didn’t miss a stride.
I thinned my lips as I watched him go. I’d done what I’d sworn I never would. I pushed him, and he’d gone cold.
That told me everything I needed to know.
Should have been the end of any question.
Still, I watched him go, unable to turn my eyes away, my heart felt like ice in my chest at the thought that one day I’d see him do that for the last time.
Jack
“You looking for me, Levi?”
I found him in the shed, the one that we turned into one of the caches where we kept supplies.
“Yeah. Asia tell you that?” he asked.
“Yeah. You told her to, though, didn’t you?”
The old man, who had been tying rope into a manageable bundle, stopped and then looked at me. “What are you up to?”
“What are you talking about?” I said.
“You and Asia.”
“What about us?”
Us.
That fucking word slipped out before I could swallow it.
Her face flashed in my mind. The beautiful smile I would carry with me forever. I pushed it away.
I couldn’t afford for there to be an us.
Evan couldn’t afford it.
“Is this a conversation I need to be having with you?” I said, not pulling the edge out of my voice.
“You best believe it,” Levi said.
I said nothing for a moment, weighing what to say next.
I didn’t ever appreciate anyone making demands, but also knew that I owed Levi, and this was his place.
“It’s…complicated.”
The word tasted weak on my tongue. Levi saw it, too. His eyes probed, making me feel like he noticed things I hadn’t even admitted to myself.
But I didn’t look away.
“Don’t have to be,” Levi said.
“Maybe not, but it is,” I said.
“Then let me help you uncomplicate it,” he said.
“Meaning what?”
He tilted his head and looked me up and down.
“Meaning I’ve been watching, and I need to remind you of what I said before.”
“I remember what you said, Levi,” I spat through gritted teeth.
“Then act like it. Because that girl is the last thing I have to call family in this world. And just in case you forgot, I will kill you and anybody else I have to to protect her. So if you’re thinking about hurting my girl, think again,” he said.
He meant it.
Levi repeating himself only proved what I’d already known.
She didn’t need me.
That was good, was how it was supposed to be.
I clenched my fists, but then forced myself to relax my hands.
“How am I supposed to take that?” I finally said.
“Take it how you want,” he said.
After a moment, I nodded. “Duly noted.”
I should have been pissed, but I wasn’t. Because Asia had people who loved her. Who would protect her.
People who wouldn’t make her cry.
She doesn’t need me.
Who gave a fuck if that thought made my stomach twist with wrongness?
Levi nodded toward the pasture. “Now get back to work. That fence ain’t goin’ fix itself.”
I followed Levi’s orders, but when I stepped outside, my gaze searched for her automatically.
Pathetic.
Dangerous.
And completely out of my control.