Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Only the merest hint of orange was visible on the horizon when Ronin reached the western guard post. The gearheads, like their counterparts at the east barricade, told him Warlord didn’t appreciate visitors after dark.
Ronin calmly pointed out the lingering sunlight.
After staring at it for some time, the gearheads exchanged a glance with one another and waved him through.
Though his pack was heavy with trade, Ronin didn’t stop in the market. He was urged on by a different sort of weight, perceived not by his sensors but by his processors. He had to tell Lara what he’d found, and he couldn’t guess how she’d react.
He knew only that it wouldn’t be good.
The guards at the interior gate gave him no trouble. As he hurried along the lonely road around the park, he briefly entertained the idea of cutting across the grass to reach his residence faster, as though surrounding himself with life would make the news easier to deliver.
His memory served up the journal entry about people being executed and burned in the park, and he decided to stick to the streets.
While Ronin walked, questions stacked in his mind, caught in a queue that would never clear. Why? Why, after all the senseless death and destruction the world had faced, did there have to be more? What could Tabitha have done to deserve such an end? Could anything warrant such brutality?
Clearly, Warlord had a history of hostility toward humans, but why attack a synth this time? Tabitha’s companion hadn’t merely been powered down, he’d been ripped to pieces.
There’d been a message in the act, and though Ronin possessed the necessary information to decipher it, meaning would not come.
His processors insisted there must’ve been some sort of logic behind the death, deactivation, desecration, and dismemberment.
But even his own recent bouts of illogical behavior couldn’t help him understand this act.
He couldn’t ascertain a satisfactory purpose for it.
Too soon, he arrived at his residence. The windows were dark.
Good. If Lara was asleep, he’d have more time to determine the best way to tell her what he’d found.
The mild relief brought on by that thought was immediately overpowered by shame.
Ronin removed his gloves, goggles, and mask, stuffing them away, and fished the key out of his pocket. Unlocking the door, he slipped inside.
His optics initialized night-vision automatically as he closed the door behind him, but something about using it seemed wrong. He overrode the change and switched on the overhead lights.
He set his rifle down against the wall, and he was shrugging off his rucksack when he noticed Lara at the edge of his field of view and looked up.
She sat on the third step from the bottom of the stairs. The barrel of the pistol in her hand was a gaping black maw, swaying in her trembling grasp.
“I’m so pissed at you right now, I should shoot you,” she said, voice as unsteady as her hand. “Where do you get off leaving without a word?”
There was nothing stopping her from pulling the trigger. Though improbable, at such close range there was a chance that she’d inflict considerable damage. Would that make her feel better?
“I didn’t want to say goodbye. It implies a finality that didn’t seem appropriate.”
With a heavy, shaky sigh, she lowered the gun and averted her gaze, running a hand through her hair. “What are you doing to me? I can’t even stay mad at you.”
“Is that because I’m back a day early?”
She grinned and met his optics. “Maybe. Couldn’t stay away, huh?”
Ronin couldn’t identify the gleam in her eyes, but it added vibrancy to her face. “Apparently not.”
The truth of it struck him hard. He couldn’t stay away from her. After arguing with her over the length of his trip and insisting that three days would barely be enough time to accomplish anything, he’d been the one to cut his expedition short.
He dropped his pack on the floor beside the rifle. It landed with a heavy, metallic clank, and a small cloud of dust rose from the fabric.
“You weren’t kidding when you said the Dust stays with you,” she said.
“It isn’t the only thing in the world, but it permeates everything.”
“I still don’t know what the hell you’re talking about most of the time.” The corner of her mouth lifted. She was…teasing him. “Go on and clean yourself up.”
“Lara—”
“Not yet.”
“I have to—”
“Go clean up, and then you can tell me all the details. I’ve been bored out of my fucking skull since you left, and now my fingertips are sore on top of it.”
She rose and stretched, the hem of her light blue T-shirt rising high enough to allow him a glimpse of the pale skin of her stomach before she turned and walked up the stairs.
From below, Ronin watched the gentle sway of her hips, which were hugged by her cargo pants.
He should’ve demanded she stop and listen to him.
Instead, Ronin followed her. His brow plates lowered. Rather than turn toward her room, she strolled into his, moving directly toward his bed. He froze in the doorway. What was she doing? And why was his desire for her amplifying despite what he needed to tell her?
Lara stopped in front of the chest and set the pistol down before approaching him. “It’s not very good, but I made you something. It’s on your bed.” She raised her fingers to show him the tiny cuts on their tips. “I bled for it, so you’d better at least pretend to appreciate it.”
She slipped past him. Unable to form a coherent sentence, Ronin turned his head and watched her walk to her room.
Why can’t I just tell her?
Death was part of the world. Always had been, always would be. How many corpses, whether flesh or metal, had he seen since awakening?
Tabitha and the synth made 115,299. Most had already been dead or deactivated long before Ronin found them, but they remained in his memory as constant reminders of the world’s unforgiving nature.
He knew there were more buried in the Dust and hidden in the ruins, knew there were more from before the Blackout, trapped in his inaccessible memories. Millions upon millions more.
Entering his bedroom, Ronin turned on the light and undressed.
His fingers were stiff as he unfastened zippers and buttons, and his optics wandered, first to the pistol on the chest, then to the bed.
The blankets were rumpled as though Lara had been atop them while he was gone, and a shirt made from the thick gray fabric he’d given her before leaving lay atop one of the pillows.
Ronin brushed his hand over the wrinkles in the bedding. What had she looked like on his bed? How might it have felt to be on it with her? His processors could composite her image into the scene, but it could never compare to reality.
No. Not now.
Not while he was covered in dust and carrying such devastating news.
He stepped into the adjoining bathroom and showered, wiping the dirt from his skin with a cloth. Steam billowed around him as he scrubbed beneath his fingernails. His sensors registered the water temperature at one hundred ten degrees Fahrenheit, but it was just another number.
Before he’d met Lara, Tabitha also would’ve been another number—115,298.
Lara was the key, she was the reason Tabitha was more than a number, more than a nameless face. Because of Lara, Ronin could see Tabitha as a person. As someone who had loved and been loved in return. Someone who’s death meant something.
Every death did, whether he understood that meaning or not.
Turning off the water, he stepped out of the tub, dabbing moisture from his skin and rubbing his hair dry with a towel. Ronin stopped in front of the mirror and wiped away the condensation. His face was unchanged. No indication of grief, no sign of the hardships the Dust had wrought upon him.
He walked into the bedroom and pulled on a clean pair of pants before picking up the shirt Lara had made. It sported inconsistent stitching, uneven cuts, and a miniscule stain near the left shoulder that was likely her blood. Somehow, those flaws made the shirt more appealing.
“So, tell me,” Lara said.
Ronin turned his head to see her enter the bedroom through the open door. Her eyes ran over his bare torso, lingering low on his abdomen before lifting to focus on his optics. There was a tinge of pink on her cheeks now.
She sat on the edge of the bed and leaned back with her hands propped on the bed behind her. Her shirt pulled snug around her breasts, drawing his optics to the points of her nipples. “Your bag looked full. You find anything good?”
“I did,” he replied, hating that it was the truth, hating how his systems were reacting to her body in this moment. “What’s in the bag doesn’t matter, Lara.”
“So…? Don’t keep me in suspense! Tell me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so serious, which says a lot because it’s not like you had much of a sense of humor to begin with.”
Folding the shirt, he laid it atop the chest and moved to stand in front of her. She arched a brow when he crouched to her eye-level.
“You’re making this kinda weird, Ronin.”
“I found Tabitha.”
The words hung in the air, suspended like the ever-present haze in the sky.
Lara snapped upright. “What? Where is she? Is she okay? Did you talk—”
He raised his hands, signaling for her to stop. She did, though the excitement didn’t fade from her expression. He ignored the electric tingle on his cheek.
“She’s dead, Lara.”
The color drained from her face, and she stared at him blankly. “That’s a fucking lie.”
“I found her on the way into town, with a dismantled synth.”
“You’re lying!” She jumped to her feet and struck him, sending a brief, dull pain through his left shoulder.
He rose and caught her arms before she could strike him again, taking both her wrists into one hand and clamping them together.
She struggled against his hold. “You’re a lying can of shit! All you fucking bots can go fuck each other and rust that way!”
“She had a scar,” he said gently. With a fingertip, he traced a line from the first knuckle of her left pinky to her thumb.
Lara frantically shook her head as she rasped, “No, no, no, no…” She gave a final, surprisingly strong tug on her arms, and then crumpled. “No!”
Her wail filled his audio receptors. She sagged against him, her sobs muffled by his chest.
Though he wasn’t sure why he did so, Ronin released her wrists and wrapped his arms around her. It wasn’t a tight embrace, but it was solid, and she leaned into him. Her body shook, and her teardrops traced wet paths down his bare chest and abdomen.
Didn’t she want to know how her sister had died? Hadn’t she wanted all the details?
No.
That information would only cause more pain. Tabitha was dead. The cause wasn’t important, the circumstances couldn’t alleviate the grief.
“I buried her.” He brushed his palm over her soft hair. “West of town. Away from…all this.”
Though she didn’t speak, her sobs quieted to soft whimpers. Her breathing was erratic; sharp, shuddering inhalations rocked her body with no predictable pattern.
“Now, Tabitha is free,” he continued gently. “Free from the struggles we all suffer through every day. She doesn’t have to worry about where her next meal will come from, or if she’ll have a roof over her head, or whether a cut will get infected. She can just…rest.”
Minutes passed as Lara cried. For a time, she made no sound at all, but her tears continued to fall. He registered each warm drop on his skin before it cooled. Through it all, she clung to him, and his hold on her didn’t relent.
When her breathing calmed, she pulled back and looked up at him. Her cheeks were wet, and the whites of her eyes were red, making her blue irises bright and vibrant. Her gaze searched his. It reminded him so much of that day in the rain, when she’d been lost, nearly broken, but not yet defeated.
Without looking away, she leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his.
Ronin first registered the warmth of her lips, and then their softness. They yielded to the shape of his own, molding into a perfect fit. An electric pulse unlike anything he’d experienced spread across his face. This was not a malfunction, was not the result of an error in his coding.
His eyes widened as the sensation crackled over every electrode in his body. His attraction to her, his arousal, surged with new power, triggering the automated systems that pumped fluid into his phallus, which swelled in his pants.
Pulling back again, Lara glanced at his lips. Her pink tongue slipped out of her mouth for an instant before she kissed him once more.