18. The Unstolen Radio
The Unstolen Radio
An hour later, Cosmer still hasn’t reappeared – and Riss has noticed. She rounds up Drake and I and marches us back to our cabins. It would be an understatement to say she isn’t happy.
“Completely irresponsible. Always disappearing. We’re going to have to sort out sleeping arrangements tonight. Find a four-sleeper—”
She stops mid-sentence, having just opened the door to my cabin.
“Oh,” she says. “You’re here.”
She holds the door open for us, and we squeeze into the tiny room. She pulls the lever that manually turns on the laser light, which otherwise seems to go on and off by itself.
Cosmer is on his bed. Has he just been laying here in the dark?
He does something strange. Unnerving.
He starts chuckling to himself.
“You thought I’d deserted my post?” he says, in an odd, giddy, higher-pitched voice. “I’m no deserter.”
He rolls over, sort of falling out of the bed into a crouch. He staggers to his feet.
“Not like some people in this room,” he says, taking a few wobbly steps towards us. He squints at Drake. “People like you.”
“He’s drunk,” I gasp.
Drake is calm. “I think high is the correct term.” He asks him, rather smugly, “Take a trip down to Deck 1, did we?”
Riss whips around to him. Stabs a finger at his chest. “Shut up. No more.” Glancing at me, too, she says, “This doesn’t leave the room.”
I say nothing.
She leads Cosmer back to his bed.
“I’m fine, Riss,” he says. “I swear.”
Wordlessly, she helps him take off his blazer and his shirt. Removes a belt that had been at his waist.
The belt that holds his radio.
She tucks it under his pillow – and just as she readjusts it, I get a glimpse of a thin strip of black fabric there.
Riss peels up the tightly made sheets and helps him get in.
“You idiot. You said you were off it,” she whispers to him.
“I am. I completely am. I’m happy now.”
“Just go to sleep.”
Drake looks at me, faintly smirking, as if to say, your task just became a whole lot easier.
But it’s like I could sink right through the floor.
Because for some reason, I think my task just became the opposite.
Once Drake and Riss have left, I change into my old dress, feeling relieved to get out of Riss’ one, which had begun feeling tight.
I crawl into my bed. Cosmer is already sleeping soundly.
Gradually, the sounds of voices and boots in the hallway outside die down.
Time passes.
Thoughts keep racing in my mind.
Taking Cosmer’s radio feels wrong. He was my friend, once.
But Drake is my friend, now.
And if the fate of our country, the country I’m loyal to, depends on him getting out a message, I should be happy to help him. Shouldn’t I?
I wait an hour. Maybe more.
Soon, I can stand it no longer. I get to work before I can change my mind again. I start off by rolling over, so I’m now facing Cosmer’s shadow. He’s turned away from me.
Very slowly, I use my forearms to push myself closer to him, once.
Then I do it again.
I’m by the narrow gap between our beds now.
He turns in his sleep – meaning he’s now facing me.
I stop dead. Wait.
He’s still sleeping. His breaths are long and deep.
Carefully, I grasp his bedframe. Using my arms to propel myself, I clamber over the gap to get myself onto his bed, the metal squeaking slightly. He doesn’t wake.
Right beside him, I stretch my arm out. Reach under his pillow.
It doesn’t budge. And I’m too close to his neck. It’s too risky.
Oh, Sisters.
Changing tactic, I lift myself up, and gently, very gently, lean my whole body over him, to reach him from the other side. I steady myself with one hand by his head. I slide my fingers under his pillow – and the tips touch leather.
My breaths feel louder – too loud. I decide it’s safer not to breathe at all. The next breath I take, I hold.
I move my fingers forwards a fraction.
I know I can wrap my hand around the belt. Definitely.
But I can also feel the black strip of fabric I’d noticed earlier.
What is it?
Feels like silk. Like –
A silk ribbon.
I wait a beat. Two.
I jerk – but so does he, with a gasp of air – and, in that split second, I make a choice.
I grab the piece of fabric, not the belt – at the same time that he grabs my arms. He yanks them up and over him, pinning our fists against the wall.
“Can I help you?” he asks, looking up at me through the dark.
I try to prise my fingers out of his, but his grip only tightens.
I’m very aware I’m now lying flat on top of him. There’s barely any space between our bodies. Just a sheet, and our clothes.
“Let me go,” I say, firmer than I feel.
“Why? So you can rob me?”
“I wasn’t trying to rob you.”
It’s not quite a lie. I was planning to give the radio back. But the words still taste sour in my mouth.
What am I doing? Sneaking around like this, stealing from someone who was my friend?
This isn’t me.
For a moment, we just lie there. I can feel his every breath through my body. I’m aware of the heat of the room closing in on my neck. I open my mouth to speak – say something, anything, that will get us out of this stalemate.
And, as I think through the events of the last two days, I realise I already know what to say.
Because I know exactly what the piece of silk in my hand is.
I say to the shape of him, “This is my ribbon, isn’t it?” I shake it so that it floats between us. Tickles his face.
“Your ribbon,” he states.
“You took it out of my hair the day you boarded the ship. I wondered why you did, but now it makes sense. You wanted to remember me up here, didn’t you?
Remember who you were going hungry for, in your Sacrifice.
” I speak like this is urgent. Because it is.
“Maybe you even wanted it to remember why you came up here in the first place. And you kept it with you, close to you, all this time...”
He says absolutely nothing.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” I prompt.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He lets go of my arms. But I don’t move a muscle. Stay exactly where I am, still on top of him. And, slowly, I feel a growing bulge at his crotch.
And it thrills me, because I know what that means, too.
And in my heady state, more things are falling into place.
“And earlier. I thought you were repulsed by me when I was dancing. But now, I—”
“I was repulsed.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Ara,” he breathes, in a tone of disbelief.
“You’re lucky no one shot you – you in white, and him in black, dancing like that.
You looked like a Rhavnan king and his queen on their wedding day, or something.
” He pauses. “It was dangerous. You looked like everything we’re up here trying to eradicate. ”
I choose my next words carefully. “Maybe it was a mistake,” I admit.
“And I’m sure others may have been repulsed.
But I think for you, it was a different feeling, wasn’t it?
” My breath hitches in my throat. “You were jealous. The same way you’ve been jealous of me and Drake this whole time.
It’s one of the reasons you hate him so much. It’s why you got drunk—”
He interrupts with a warning. “Ara.”
The words keep flowing out of me. “Even now. You’re aroused by me.” I swallow. “Riss thinks you like me. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? You… You’re in love with me.”
He shoves me off, hard, and I end up beside him.
I lie there, my head on his pillow, just listening out for him. His breaths have sped up.
So has my heart. It’s like the beats in a Hevallan song.
I could roll over, back onto my bed. Forget about this.
I don’t want to.
Instead, I take a risk.
I ease myself closer. He’s facing me. I can see the glint of his pupils. Feel the heat of his breath on my lips.
“It’s all right,” I whisper.
“My head aches, Ara,” he murmurs. “I’m not myself right now. Can we not do this?”
“That’s exactly why we should do this,” I reply, my temperature rising. “I might get a straight answer.”
“And what answer are you hoping to get?”
“A yes or a no.” I tag on, quieter, “There’s one I’d like more.”
There’s surprise in his voice. “You’d like a yes?”
I almost roll my eyes. “Cosmer. It’s you I wanted to dance with—”
“No,” he snaps. “I know you must have had too much to drink—”
“I didn’t have too much to drink—”
“—but you can’t say things like that to me. It’s not fair—”
“Not fair because you love me?”
“Fuck,” he says.
“That’s not a yes or a no,” I say.
“I don’t think any answer in this world is a yes. If no is the only other option.”
I let his words settle.
Breathe, I remind myself.
My whole body, and the room itself, seem to tighten. Warp. Like anything could happen.
“You could have done, you know.”
“Done what?”
“Asked me to dance, instead of sulking. I’d been completely on my own until then—”
“It wouldn’t have been appropriate.”
“Because I’m a prisoner? And you’re an officer?”
“Obviously. Could’ve been seen as IR.”
I scoff wholly. “And yet it’s okay to share a room with me? Practically a bed?”
“I don’t make the rules, Ara.”
“No,” I say, inching forwards. “You just go out of your way to enforce them. We already established that.”
“Shut up,” he says.
And then – wordlessly, wonderfully, like a wish came true – his lips crash into mine.
The kiss he gives me is urgent, desperate. I respond to it completely, sinking into him.
We stop, suddenly and in sync, like the kiss has shocked us both back to our senses.
And maybe stopping is the right thing to do. We could leave it here.
Or, we could carry on.
And my question has been answered.
“There it is,” I whisper, to his mouth.
“There it is,” he agrees, to mine.
And we move in again.