Chapter 14
“All borders in the northwest quadrant are closed until further notice. Only Level One Command may cross borders until I lift this order. We’re moving in to choke out the rebellion.” - Excerpt from a message from New America President Soren Whitman to all military officers
Marcus
I close the door behind Briar, slide my pack from my back to the floor, and sit down in a chair at the table in my small front room.
Leaning forward, I put my elbows on my knees and my face in my hands.
She’s always been the weak spot in the armor of my self-control, but I can’t believe I’m destroying camp over it.
“Don’t spiral over what just happened,” she says softly. “It wasn’t your fault.”
I huff and sit up straight, shaking my head. “It was, though. I know that’s in me and I lost control.”
“Can you handle talking about us?”
Before I met her, I was an emotional vault. Robo Marcus. Grouchy at times? Yes. But I didn’t mess around with any of the women in my camp, ever, and I was fine with it.
Now I’m a live wire, firing sparks in her presence that could burn down everyone and everything in the vicinity. My powerful feelings for her make me a dangerous liability instead of a steady leader.
“Yeah,” I grumble. “We can talk, but it’ll help if I can’t see you while we do it.”
Just looking at her sets me on fire; it fills all my hollow parts I didn’t even know were empty.
She takes my idea in stride. “We’ll sit back to back.”
I get up as she grabs the back of a chair.
“I’ve got it,” I say.
She puts her palms in the air, not meeting my gaze.
I set the two chairs back to back, then dig through my pack for my canteen and take a long swig.
“I’ve never needed a shower so damn much,” I say. “Sorry about my smell.”
“It’s fine.”
I always showered before we went to bed.
Sometimes we even showered together, saying it was to save water when really it was foreplay.
I loved standing behind her, her back to my chest as I washed her body, my hands finally roving to the places I’d fantasized about every time I looked at her that day.
She’s sitting, and I make myself look at anything but her as I walk to the other chair and sit down in it.
“If you start to feel ... you know, intensity, tell me,” she says.
“I’m not a bomb that could blow at any second. I just can’t look at you without feeling anything. If we do it like this, I’ll be fine.”
I have to be. We’ve got enough problems on this island without me causing ground-splitting earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. I’ve got to learn to harness my feelings for Briar.
“What do you feel when you look at me?” she asks.
I exhale softly. “Regret. Desire. Anger. Jealousy.”
“Talk to me about the regret.”
I shake my head, unsure where to even start. “I’m not good at this.”
“You’re not good at what?” She’s keeping her tone even, like a therapist.
I’m not built to sit in a chair and discuss my feelings. I’m good at many things, but this isn’t on the list. It’s what she wants, though, so I have to find a way.
“I’ve never let myself be more to a woman than a good fuck. I don’t know how to”—I exhale hard, frustrated—“care for a woman in nonphysical ways, I guess.”
“I think you know more than you realize. You always listened to me, and that made me feel cared for.”
“I do care.” I clear away the gravel in my throat. “I just don’t show it very well.”
“You don’t show it with words, but I felt it,” she says softly. “In the way you looked at me and ... the ways you touched me. You never let me think there was another woman you’d rather be with or even look at than me.”
My chest hollows out with a deep ache for her. “There never has been, B. You caught me by surprise.”
A few seconds of silence pass, and then she sniffles. A fist closes around my heart.
“Are you crying?”
Another sniffle. “I miss you calling me B.”
Emotions surge through me. I close my eyes and take a deep breath in, holding it for a few seconds before releasing it. I want to be able to do this with her, and I don’t want her to hold back on what she says because of the way it affects me.
“I miss everything,” I say. “I miss every second I had with you. I know it’s not enough, but I’m sorry.” I take another calming breath. “I was wrong for not telling you, and I was wrong for my part in making this place what it is.”
“I’ve talked to McClain about it. He told me it was meant to help people.”
“Yeah, it was.”
“Will you tell me about it? How you got involved? Why you got involved?”
My fight-or-flight response kicks in hard. The adrenaline hits. My stomach bottoms out and my heart gallops unsteadily. I steady myself, taking a deep breath.
“Give me a second,” I say.
“Do we need to stop?”
“No. Just ... wait.”
It’s time to say goodbye, Marcus.
I shove back the feelings flooding my system like a lineman with a blocking sled. That stuff stays buried deep with good reason.
In med school, I learned to present things as a clinician. I’ll think of this in those terms. I’m just presenting facts.
“McClain took a liking to me when we met. I was going to become a geneticist, so I jumped at the chance to be a part of his research. There’s usually all kinds of red tape with the government, but since it was all privately funded, we could do whatever we wanted.
I could go into all the details, but the bottom line is that our virus team had developed a virus that replicated one the Russian government had created.
They developed it in order to make a vaccine we could have ready if the Russians ever dropped their virus on us.
” I stop to inhale through my nose and exhale with my mouth. “You with me on all that?”
“Yes. This is something my mom would’ve wanted to be part of, too. But you guys were doing other work, right?”
“Right. Genetics experiments. Our goals were to reverse climate change, fight famine, and make humans stronger and healthier.”
We were close. So fucking close. After an initial couple months of groundwork, the breakthroughs were starting for our team.
“But then the virus escaped the lab it was in,” I say, the memories still fresh. “And all hell broke loose.”
She gasps softly. “The vaccine wasn’t ready.”
“It wasn’t. And with an aerosolized virus, there was no chance of containment.”
“There had to be mass panic.”
“Yeah. But back to your question about why I got involved.” I’m just a clinician presenting facts. “It was because of my brother Alex. He died from a genetic disorder called Batten Disease when he was eight.”
“Oh, Marcus. I’m so sorry.”
Your brother lives in heaven now. He’ll always be with you.
“No one knows that. I didn’t even tell McClain.
” I rub my sweaty palms over the heavy canvas pants covering my thighs.
“I can’t talk about it more than I just did, but it’s why I kept going with the project even when I knew we were crossing too many ethical lines.
I told myself the ends justified the means. ”
She’s quiet for a few seconds before saying, “I’m processing. I wish you had told me all this sooner.”
I cross my arms over my chest; her pained expression when Pax told her I was one of the first Rising Tide leaders burned into my mind.
“It doesn’t excuse any of it. I knew better.”
“You’re imperfect. So am I.”
I huff out a note of laughter. “Your flaws haven’t decimated humanity, though. You didn’t come here knowing you were facilitating the creation of genetically manipulated children.”
“So you did know that.” Disappointment tinges her words.
“I did. I chose self-preservation. I was selfish.”
For almost a minute, we sit in silence. The soft sounds of her breathing remind me of when we were together and I’d wake up before her. I’d stay still and just listen.
“Did you know the children would be what they are?”
I sigh heavily. “No. None of us did. We hadn’t tested aromium enough to know how it affects people long term, so we thought they’d be stronger, faster, need less food and sleep. All the supposedly good effects.”
“You don’t think they’re good anymore?”
“No. I think we flew too close to the sun. People are meant to have imperfections. And the cost of what we did was too high. My mom died from the virus. I’d give anything to undo that.”
There’s movement beside me, and when I glance that way, I see she’s holding her hand out to me, her arm stretched behind her. My chest constricts as I take it.
“I’m sorry,” she says, the therapist tone gone. Her deep empathy is one of the things I admire most about her.
“I tried to evacuate her, but she wouldn’t do it. She said nurses have a responsibility to treat people, and that’s what did her in.”
“She sounds like an incredible woman.”
I swallow past the boulder in my throat. “She was.”
“Do you know what happened to my mom?”
The anguish in her voice tells me she’s at war with herself over whether she really wants to know. Briar reminds me so much of her mom. Lucy Hollis was bright, compassionate, and brilliant, but she took no bullshit.
“I don’t know exactly what happened, no. I know she refused to continue the work because she had ethical objections, and then ... I didn’t see her again.”
Briar’s quiet, so I just sit with my shame and guilt.
“I left two men and a woman to ... to be tortured and killed.” Her voice breaks as she says it.
“It was after the virus and I was by myself. I waited almost two months for my family at my parents’ house, and then I left to look for them and Mae.
” I rub my thumbs over her knuckles as she pauses.
“I was in the woods somewhere—Utah, I think. I heard people nearby and I went to check it out. It was a group of fifteen people, and they had machine guns. I saw an RPG on the ground.” She sighs deeply.
“They had three prisoners. Two men and a woman, and they were ... it was bad. They were beaten and starving. Barely had any clothes on. And I left them there. I didn’t help them. ”
I squeeze her hand, wishing I could see her. “What could you have done, B? Fifteen people with machine guns against just you?”
She hums a bitter note. “Yeah, that’s the thing. The odds were against me. But what if that were my sister? How would I feel about someone running the numbers and deciding not to take a risk that was statistically unwise?”
Her anguish cuts through me. The post virus world is merciless.
“You had two shitty choices. No good ones. I would’ve done the same thing.”
“I still remember what they looked like.” She’s crying now. “I carry that with me. What I did. What I didn’t do. My dad wouldn’t have walked away. He would’ve left and come back with a plan.”
“Your dad would’ve wanted you to live.”
“I’m trying to tell you I’ve done bad things, too. Things I’m ashamed of. Why did you assume I couldn’t forgive you instead of talking to me?”
I’m too stunned to speak for a few seconds. “Are you saying you could?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. But you shut me out and didn’t give me a choice.”
Hope flickers. I didn’t think there was any way she’d give me another chance.
“I was an asshole over my assholery. I’m sorry.”
“I love you, Marcus, but you have to talk to me.”
I go still. Her goodness is like shining molten gold, filling all the dark cracks in my broken soul.
“I love you, too,” I say. “More than I can put into words.”
“I want us to keep talking,” she says.
“I’ll talk as much as you want.”
We could talk while fucking, but I don’t say it. I’ve wanted her in the most primal way every minute we’ve been apart. To have any chance of getting back there, I’ll have to swallow my need for her longer.
“I need a shower,” I grumble.
“Can we look at each other again? I prefer a view of you to the wall.”
A corner of my mouth quirks in a smile. “I’m flattered you think I look better than a wall.”
She gets up and walks around to stand in front of me. As she pulls her hair from its bun, combs her fingers through it and puts it in a new messy bun, her tits jut out and my fingers twitch.
“No clothes come off yet,” she says, reading my mind. “We’re just talking.”
I put my hands on her hips, tipping my head back slightly and locking my eyes with hers.
“If you’re wearing that tank top while we talk, can I take my pants off?”
She grins and steps closer to me. I tug her all the way onto my lap, and she lets out a laugh as she wraps her arms around my neck and her legs around the chair.
I close my eyes, more at peace than I’ve been in a long time. She knows what I’ve done, and she’s still here, in my arms.
I can’t completely relax until I know no one was hurt by what I did to the camp. As long as that’s the case, we can figure out the rest, including my emotional connection with endolithic life. Briar is Lucy Hollis’s daughter—she’ll be able to make a stabilizer.