Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Diesel
The nightmares start around two.
Not one long terror—she cycles through them. I hear her breathing fracture, the whimper, the ragged sounds of someone trying to run. Then silence. Then it starts again. Over and over, her body throwing her back into whatever she's trying to escape.
I'm not asleep. Haven't managed to shut my brain off since I stretched out on this couch that's a foot too short for me. My feet hang off the end. My spine hasn't unclenched in hours. But it's not the discomfort keeping me awake.
It's the sound of her through the wall.
The first time, I sit up before I realize I'm moving. My hand is on the bedroom door before I stop myself.
The wood is cold under my palm. I can hear her—gasping breaths, sheets tangling as she fights something that isn't there. I should open this door. Wake her up. Do—
Not yours.
She's not mine to comfort. I'm the lock on the door, not the arms that make her feel safe.
I press my palm flat against the wood. Listen to her fight through it alone.
It passes. Her breathing evens out. I go back to the couch.
Twenty minutes later, it starts again.
By the third cycle, I stop going back to the couch. I stand in the hallway with my hand against her door, waiting. Each time she surfaces, I tell myself that's the last one. Each time she goes under again, the crack in my chest splits a little wider.
Around four, she finally goes quiet. Not the held-breath silence between nightmares—real sleep. Deep and still.
I stand there until my hand cramps. Until I'm sure she's not going under again.
Then I make coffee and head for the porch.
***
The air bites cold. No moon, no stars—just black and the smell of wet pine. I can see fine. Orcs don't need light.
I circle the property the way I learned after the camps cut me loose at eighteen—systematic, thorough, never the same pattern twice.
I spent six months on the streets before anyone gave a damn whether I lived or died.
Six months of learning that sleeping in the wrong spot gets you killed, that you check your perimeter before you settle, that you never, ever let anyone come up behind you.
The camps taught us to fight. The streets taught us to survive.
I check the tree line for broken branches—anything that might show someone pushed through recently. The soft ground near the windows for footprints. The crawl space under the porch, dark and tight, where a smaller human could wedge themselves and wait. The blind spot behind the woodpile.
Nothing. The road beyond the trees sits empty, a half mile of dirt and gravel cutting through nothing before it hits anything resembling civilization. We're alone out here. That's the point.
Just me and a woman whose nightmares woke her four times. After last night, I'd bet money I'm in the rotation.
I go back inside as the sky starts to lighten. I strip off my jacket, start pulling things from the fridge.
The chicken's been brining since before Maya showed up with a wounded woman and ruined my week. Whole bird—big enough to feed four normal humans or one orc. Might as well cook it.
I crank the oven. Rub the skin with rosemary, garlic, salt, a drizzle of oil. This I know how to do. This makes sense.
The smell fills the kitchen as it roasts—fat rendering, herbs blooming in the heat. I pour myself coffee and wait.
She emerges at nine twenty-two.
I've been tracking her for the last hour—the gradual stirring, the creak of the bed frame, the soft pad of feet on hardwood.
When the bedroom door finally opens, she looks like hell.
Pale. Shadows under her eyes so dark they look like bruises.
Her lips are dry, her hair a tangled mess she hasn't bothered to fix.
But her eyes are sharp. Green and fierce, scanning the room before her feet cross the threshold. The fight is still in her. I shouldn't like that as much as I do.
She's upright and moving under her own power.
She's wearing Nova's clothes again—a sweater that gaps at the chest and pulls tight across her hips, the fit all wrong. Her sleeves are pushed up past her wrists, showing the fine bones there, the blue veins running beneath skin that probably hasn't seen sun in weeks. She looks breakable.
Like she barely survived the night.
I focus on the stove.
"Coffee's hot."
She nods. Doesn't speak. Crosses to the pot and pours herself a cup with hands that shake just slightly—not enough that she'd notice, but I do.
She settles into the same chair as last night, back to the wall, clear view of both exits.
I pull the chicken from the oven, golden brown, skin crackling as the heat releases. I set it on the counter and tear off a leg with my bare hands.
She stares.
I bite into it, let the juice run down my wrist, catch it with my tongue before it drips. The meat pulls away from the bone in long strips. I chew, swallow, tear off another piece.
"There's more if you want some."
She shakes her head. Wraps both hands around her coffee cup, white-knuckled, holding on.
I keep eating. She keeps watching.
It's not subtle. Her eyes track every movement—my hands tearing flesh from bone, my tusks working through cartilage, the grease on my fingers, my chin. She's trying not to stare and failing badly.
"You're staring."
Her eyes snap to her cup. A flush crawls up her neck.
"Sorry. I just—"
"Never seen an orc eat?"
She doesn't answer. I tear off another piece of meat, let my tusks do some of the work. My tusks scrape bone. I don't look away from her.
There's no point pretending to be something I'm not.
"Not up close," she admits.
"Uncomfortable?"
She should lie. I can see her considering it—the polite deflection, the it's fine, the I didn't mean to stare. But my face must tell her I'll know if she does.
"A little."
I finish the leg, start on the thigh. The meat is tender, perfectly cooked, and I'm not bothering with manners because part of me wants her to be uncomfortable. Part of me wants her to see exactly what she's locked in here with.
"Good," I say. "Stay uncomfortable. Keeps you alert."
She doesn't flinch. Doesn't look away.
I work through the chicken while she nurses coffee that's gone cold. Outside, the sun climbs higher.
When I finish, I wash my hands. She's still on her first cup.
"You need to eat something."
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine. You're running on caffeine and fear." I dry my hands on a dish towel, taking my time. "There's bread. Peanut butter. Fruit Maya left. Pick something."
"I said I'm fine."
"And I said pick something."
Her jaw tightens. Those green eyes flash—not fear. Anger. For a second I think she's going to fight me on it. For a second I almost want her to.
Then she stands. Crosses to the counter. Yanks a banana off the bunch.
"Happy?"
"Thrilled."
She rips the peel back. Takes a bite. Glares at me while she chews.
I almost smile. Don't.
The hours crawl after that. She drifts through the cottage—window to window, room to room. She runs her fingers along surfaces. Picks things up and puts them down. I know the feeling. The walls pressing in. The itch under your skin that says move, run, do something.
But there's nowhere to go. Nothing to do. Just time, stretching out endless in front of us.
Around noon, I remember the boxes in the hall closet.
"Here."
She turns from the window. I'm holding a cardboard box, lid askew, books spilling over the edges—paperbacks mostly, spines cracked from years of use.
I set the box on the table. "Might as well get some use out of them."
She crosses to the table, movements careful.
She pulls out a book, then another. The Count of Monte Cristo. Rebecca. A few thrillers, some literary stuff, a handful of romances with shirtless men on the covers.
"These are good." She sounds surprised. "Some of these are really good."
"Don't sound so shocked."
"I'm not—I just—" She pulls out another. East of Eden. Steinbeck. The spine is cracked in three places, pages yellowed with age. "You read Steinbeck? I didn't think—"
"That orcs could read?"
Her mouth snaps shut.
"Found them in the wall when I tore out the built-in." I watch her face. "They're not mine. But thanks for the vote of confidence."
She starts to protest. I cut her off.
"We're not supposed to have inner lives. Makes it easier."
"Easier for what?"
I hold her gaze. Let her see the anger I usually keep locked down.
"To not think about what they did to us."
The words hang there. She doesn't flinch from them. Doesn't rush to fill the silence with something that makes us both more comfortable.
She just stands there, holding East of Eden against her chest, and lets me be angry.
"I'm sorry," she says finally. "Not for asking. For... all of it."
"You didn't do anything."
"No. But my people did."
I don't know what to say to that. The camps took everything—our language, our dead, our right to exist. She can't give any of it back. But she's not pretending it didn't happen, either.
"Read your book," I say. "I've got shit to fix."
She sits down with the box. Starts sorting through titles with careful hands. I grab my tools and head for the kitchen—the cabinet hinge under the sink has been sticking since I moved in.
We don't talk. We don't need to.
***
The crash comes from the bathroom around two.
I'm on the kitchen floor, reinforcing the back door hinges, when I hear it. Something clattering. A muttered curse. Then a thud.
I'm at the bathroom door in three strides. "Eden."
"I'm fine."
She's not fine. I can hear it in her voice—the strain, the ragged edge.
"Didn't sound fine."
"I just—" Another clatter. Something small bouncing off porcelain. "I dropped something. I'm fine."
"Let me help."
"I don't need—"
"Open the door or I'm coming in."
She doesn't answer. Through the wood, I can hear her breathing too fast.
"Eden."
"Fine." The word scrapes out of her. "It's unlocked."
I push the door open.
She's on the floor.