Chapter 36
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
A loud pop startled Lara awake. Her eyes went wide, but the flames before her were blurry until she blinked away her grogginess. She was lying on the ground with her head propped on something firm and warm. Brow furrowing, she turned her face to look up at Ronin.
Her head was resting on his thigh. He’d drawn her scarf down and draped his coat over her like a blanket.
“You’re safe,” he said, his hand on her shoulder gently squeezing.
“Water,” she croaked.
Ronin picked up her canteen, twisted the cap off, and held it to her.
She cupped the bottom, tilting it back as she lifted her head and drank deeply. The water was heavenly to her parched throat. When she’d had her fill, she pushed the canteen away and dropped her head back onto his lap. “Thanks.”
“You should’ve been drinking more often while we walked.”
“Didn’t want to slow you down any more than I already did.” She met his gaze. “Sorry I fell asleep.”
He cradled her cheek. “You’ll slow me down a lot more if you get dehydrated, Lara. My goal is to keep you safe, not walk you to death.”
She covered his hand with hers and smiled. “Could’ve fooled me.”
“Some of this will get easier. Your body will grow accustomed to the exertion.”
“And how do you know that? I can tell you right now, just lying here, I feel like I fell off a fifty-foot wall.”
“Humans adapt. Your bodies change in response to the way you use them.”
“Hmm.” Lara closed her eyes. Her last waking memory was of the biting bold. But now, between the heat of the fire, her own heavy coat, and Ronin’s covering her, she felt overly warm, but she was too comfortable to move despite her aches. “Where are we?”
“One of the few intact buildings out here. I think it used to house machinery of some sort, but it’s been picked clean over the years. It cuts the wind, at least.”
Opening her eyes, Lara examined the place. The ceiling and walls were constructed of rusted metal sheets. Wind whistled through gaps in the walls, and rays of sunlight streamed through holes in the roof, which meant the sun was overhead.
“How long are we staying?” she asked.
“Not much longer. You slept for four hours and thirty-seven minutes. We need to get moving soon.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.” Four hours wasn’t nearly enough rest. Sitting up with a groan, she pushed aside Ronin’s coat and slowly shrugged off her own. Her every muscle screamed. Even after days spent scavenging or dancing, she’d never been so exhausted.
“Once we reach another settlement, you’ll have time to recover.”
“Will it have a bed, like your house?” She could hope, right? She’d spent all her life sleeping on the hard ground or a threadbare pallet. Nearly a month in Ronin’s house had spoiled her.
He chuckled and used a stick to poke at the fire. “It’s unlikely. You should eat before we go.”
Lara sighed and grabbed her bag, drawing it close. “On it.” She opened it up, removed a strip of dried meat, and took a bite. Around the mouthful, she asked, “Do you think they’ll follow us?”
“It wouldn’t make sense. I broke a rule, and he said to get rid of you. That’s what I’m doing.”
She frowned. “What rule?”
“Humans are not to be kept by bots unless he approves of it.”
She swallowed her food, and her stomach clenched around it, threatening to force it back up her throat. “That’s…that’s what happened to Tabitha, isn’t it?”
Ronin shifted his gaze to the fire and was silent for several long moments. “I think so.”
“Her bot didn’t get rid of her when he was told. So, Warlord did.”
“Or the bot wasn’t deemed valuable enough to the community to earn a warning.”
“But you were.”
“I brought in materials that Cheyenne requires to remain prosperous. That means something to him.”
Lara ran her hands over her hair, sweeping back the strands that had escaped her braid. “He’ll be angry.”
“It’ll spare him the frustration of having to deal with me.” Ronin smirked. “He didn’t care for my disregard for the rules, or my disrespectfulness.”
He was probably right, but Lara couldn’t shake the dread that had taken root in her belly. “Why can’t bots keep humans?”
“Because Warlord hates humans.”
“Yeah, I know. Even before you told me about the journal. I wish you would’ve done that sooner, by the way.”
“What good would it have done, Lara?”
None.
Had he told her earlier, how could she have stood at the window and looked out at that park without thinking of the people who’d been killed there?
How could she have existed for even a moment in that house without being completely consumed by fear, especially while Ronin was away?
She’d been afraid enough of being discovered by Warlord and his gearheads before she’d known they had slaughtered the people who’d lived in those homes.
She shifted her gaze to the dwindling fire and ate quietly.
“Why does he hate us so much?” she asked after a while.
“I don’t know, Lara.” Ronin shook his head, his brow creasing. “I don’t know. Intense emotions are new to me. Haven’t hated anyone before.”
“It’s an ugly feeling. He allows everyone only a handful of crops and forces us to share one water pump. Couples aren’t allowed more than one child. Sometimes I wonder why he hasn’t just killed us all… But he enjoys it, doesn’t he? The torture, the suffering. Our terror.”
“I don’t know if he enjoys anything. He puts on a steely facade, but underneath… It’s just hatred for humans and a desperate need for control.”
“But he has to feel some enjoyment from it. Why else would he be so cruel?”
“There should be a chain of logic to follow. I can’t piece it together with him.”
“Not everything is logical, Ronin. You have emotions, and you act on them. Why wouldn’t he?”
“He’s behind us now.” Ronin slid beside her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, drawing her against him. “Whatever he’s done, we must leave it in the past and look to our future.”
Lara nodded and leaned her head against him.
Her thoughts turned to Gary and Kate, who had a young daughter and a second child on the way.
They couldn’t just leave it in the past. They were stuck in that place.
And there was nothing Lara could do for them, nothing she could do for anyone in Cheyenne.
All she could do was look ahead to the life she’d have with Ronin. To her own happiness.
She lifted her head and kissed his jaw. “Thank you for giving me a future to look forward to.”
“It’s nothing you haven’t already given me, Lara.”
Though her appetite had fled, she finished off the jerky.
She would need her strength for this journey.
After draining the canteen, she pushed herself to her feet.
Her body threatened to collapse at the exertion, but she didn’t give in, she couldn’t.
They had to keep moving. She refilled the canteen from one of the larger containers and hooked it on her belt.
Ronin gathered their belongings, stuffing Lara’s coat into one of their packs as she wrapped her scarf around her head.
Together, they went out into the sweltering heat.
Sweat beaded on her skin, trickling between her breasts and down her back.
How could anyone deal with such wild variations in temperature every day without reliable shelter?
As they walked, they passed the twisted, skeletal remains of trees. After having seen the greenery in the bot district, she could almost imagine how this land might’ve looked, the beauty it must’ve possessed.
The rugged terrain soon put an end to such musings.
The ground dipped and rose with increasing severity, and large, scattered rocks became increasingly numerous.
Several times, her foot caught on the uneven ground, causing her to stumble.
She stopped occasionally to catch her breath and take a drink, often at Ronin’s insistence.
It took all her focus to keep her legs moving.
As they progressed, the dirt gave way to sparse patches of green grass. It was an unexpected sight outside of Cheyenne. Part of her hadn’t believed it could exist anywhere else.
She stopped at the crest of a tall hill, eyes wide. A stream wound through the small valley below, with clusters of lush grass, trees, and bushes growing along its banks.
Lara tugged the scarf down from her mouth. “It used to look like this all over, didn’t it?”
“I think it did, in a lot of places.”
“Wish I could’ve seen it. Is the rest of the world anything like this spot?”
“There’s a lot more vegetation to the north and west, but the Dust goes on for a long, long way. It’s near a thousand miles across in any direction.”
A thousand miles? Why had she thought she could do this? She was ready to fall over, dead, after a single night.
Lara recalled the day she and Ronin had argued, recalled how angry she’d been at the implication that she would slow him down, that she couldn’t keep up.
How fucking wrong I was.
Ronin watched her closely, as though he were puzzling out her thoughts. “We’re in the northwestern corner of it now. We still have a long way to walk, but not nearly a thousand miles.”
“I can’t walk day and night, Ronin.”
He tilted his head. “You don’t have to.”
“Then we need to get on some kind of schedule for proper rest. I won’t be able to keep doing this. Even with as good as I’ve been eating, I’m not used to traveling like this.”
“Glad I didn’t take you on scrap runs?”
She shook her head. “No. We could’ve taken our time on those. There would’ve been no reason to rush. But this…we’re running from something, even if we think it’s already long behind us.”
“Best to treat it that way for now. Knowing what we left behind…”
“I just know I can’t keep up this pace, Ronin. We have to either rest at night and walk during the day, or the other way around. You can’t expect me to do both.”
“I don’t expect you to, Lara. You’re worn out, and I’ve taken you away from the only place you’ve ever known. There is uncertainty both in front of us and behind us. I’m not going to walk you to death when the only reason we left is because I care for you.”
She turned away, eyes watering. It wasn’t I love you, but it was pretty damned close.
Ronin was in front of her a second later, lifting his hands to wipe away the tears trekking down her cheeks.
“Got sand in my eyes,” she murmured.
“Of course you did,” Ronin replied, smiling.
He cradled her face between his hands, keeping it tipped up toward him, and gently stroked her cheeks with his thumbs.
“I don’t truly understand what you are experiencing.
I can’t. But I see, and hear, and smell, and touch, and I know how your feelings affect you, even if I don’t fully comprehend what those feelings are. ”
Lara offered him a smile in return even as her heart constricted with the immensity of her emotions. Covering his hands with her own, she turned her head and pressed a soft kiss to each of his palms.
His gaze dipped to her lips, and she felt him go utterly still.
There was no doubt in her mind that he was considering kissing her, but she knew he was always calculating—mapping routes, counting the time they had until sunset, right down to the second, weighing whether the moment it would take for their lips to meet would be one moment’s delay too many.
She chuckled and lowered their hands, making the decision for him as she released him. “We better get moving. Still lots of ground to cover.”
Ronin’s eyes lingered on her mouth before he finally nodded, turning his head to survey the land. “We’ll start veering north, away from the main road. It’ll be rough going, but it’s safer.”
With a groan, she pulled her scarf back up and followed him into the valley.
“At least we’ll be going downhill for the next minute or so,” he offered.
“Oh? I hadn’t noticed. Are you going to tell me next that we have a big hill to climb?”
The corner of Ronin’s mouth curled wickedly. “We do.”
“I’d kick you if it wouldn’t hurt me more than you.”
“We’ve already established that I have feelings. Those can be hurt, too.”
“But my foot would be hurting more. Besides, you know we’d kiss and make up later.”
“Wouldn’t it be more enjoyable for both of us to skip the kick and move directly to the kiss, then?”
“Take my frustrations out on you with sex?” She grinned, the thought sending a rush of excitement through her and making her core clench. “It might work.”
Ronin stopped and turned to face her, his vibrant eyes roaming over her.
He’s considering it!
“You’ve got more walking to do before you earn that privilege,” he said with a grin of his own.
“Oh, really? You know, on second thought, I’ll probably be too worn out for it by then anyway.” She walked past him.
“I thought you already are, with the way you’ve been talking.”
“Smart ass.”
“My ass is, at best, of average intelligence.”
Lara shook her head and laughed. His footsteps crunched behind her as he caught up.
Soon, she lost count of the hills. The irregular cycle of climbing and descending, of being short of breath with her muscles aflame going up and her limbs feeling heavy and rubbery going down, took a new toll on her.
She pushed on nonetheless, driven by pride and stubbornness, but she couldn’t deny her relief and gratitude when Ronin finally took her in his arms and carried her.
Once again, his pace increased.
Large rock formations came into view as the afternoon faded into evening. Lara stared at them as they drew near, fascinated by their multilayered, strangely smooth stone. Her focus was so intent that she jumped at the first boom of thunder.
Ronin halted, twisting to look back.
Lara’s eyes widened. “Oh, shit.”
The sky, normally blanketed by a persistent, yellowish haze, was black with storm clouds in the east. Everything between the clouds and the ground was obscured by dust that stretched as far as she could see from north to south, a massive, moving wall of dirt.
Ronin spun, head turning as though searching, but Lara couldn’t take her eyes off the dust storm. Though it was distant, she knew it was coming toward them. And it was moving fast.
Back in Cheyenne, she’d weathered many such storms. People hunkered down in their shacks, tied down doors and shutters, and hoped everything would hold together. If you were well enough to repair your home the next day, it was a victory.
She’d never been caught by one in the open.
“Hold on, Lara.”
She clutched Ronin as he ran.