Chapter 3
Fuck the Man
Amo
What a fuckin’ jerk .
A real goddamn jerk.
No wonder no one ever wants to be around his handsy ass.
My hand still stings from his slap.
I know I shouldn’t have been trying to grab the compass out of his hand, but still.
He’s quite rude. I don’t know why I ever thought he was attractive.
The hair curling around his ears is now unattractive. His muscles are too muscle-y. And his intricate tattoos on sun-darkened skin are nothing more than stupid little dots and lines made up to make him look mean.
He is mean.
He is.
But what would that smack feel like on my ass—no.
No?
“No.”
“No what?” Moros asks, completely oblivious to my inner turmoil.
Aw shit.
I shake my head to hide the way my eyes bulge at being caught thinking out loud. “Didn’t you ask me something?”
“No,” he answers plainly and just … keeps walking. No other words or questions or looks. Just walking.
And no, I don’t watch the way his tapered waist tilts and twists with each of his steps.
“Where are we going?” I finally ask when the call of bugs grows too loud to ignore, the awkward silence between us pressing in almost as much as the forest. It’s getting thicker, denser, the deeper we go.
Massive tree trunks block our views and roots make the pathway treacherous.
The canopy over us is dense, stealing a lot of the fading sunlight and washing us in a haze.
It’s eerie, almost, to be this far out and I swallow hard at the prickle on the back of my neck.
“Not much longer.”
“I’m not convinced,” I mutter low and catch a branch Moros lets swing my way. “Is there food where we’re going? I’m hungry.”
Unintelligible words are grumbled but none of them make sense. So, I’ll just assume the answer is a big, fat, no.
Which sucks because my stomach is ready to rumble, and my loins are starting to tingle in a way that makes me regret sticking with Moros on this little side quest to the unknown. Just the two of us. In the middle of nowhere. Where I can stare at his ass without worry of being caught.
There’s just something about being around him that makes me want to offer myself up to him on a platter. Maybe it’s knowing he’s queer, too?
Or maybe he’s just hot as fuck, and I’m desperate for a hand that’s not attached to my own body.
But his ass—
Nope. Nuh-uh. We’re not going there again. We said he’s no longer attractive because his personality is shit and that’s final.
I’ll just die a virgin, I guess.
The sharp flick of his fist into the air makes me freeze, the move off-putting and out of character for him. I’ve never seen him do that … did I miss part of his teachings somewhere?
I want to ask him what the fuck, but he’s gone just as still as me, even the sound of his breathing nonexistent amongst the chatter of insects and calls of birds.
Are there decomposed out here?
Slowly, so slowly I barely recognize movement, Moros turns his head to the side and lets out a low whistle.
The sound sends a chill all the way down my back.
I’m so focused on him, that when something wizzes by my fucking head and pings into the tree behind me, I startle violently.
It reverberates, the wobbling sound knocking around my brain along with the pounding of my heart.
And yet, Moros doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak.
“What the fuck?” I whisper frantically to the back of his head, an anxious perspiration blossoming across my skin, especially in my pits.
Oh fuck, did he bring me out here to have me killed?
“Shhh,” he snaps.
Still with that fist lifted, knuckles raised like he’s not clenching his hand correctly, he unfurls his middle digit.
What in the actual fuck?
Another arrow wings through the air, stabbing the ground at his feet, and I jump.
“What are you doing?” I squeak out, grabbing his back, fisting his shirt in a tight grip.
“Flipping him off.” Cool. Calm. Way too fucking collected after being shot at.
“What does that even mean? Who?”
He whips around so fast, I stumble sideways.
“You don’t know what this means?” The finger he waves in my face goes ignored when another arrow slices through the air, clipping his ear the process, and pinging into the trunk beside the first one.
He doesn’t even flinch.
But my heart is racing.
He just stares at me like he’s astonished. At me. And not at the fact that we’re standing on the outskirts of the forest that surrounds our community, the place only the Guard is supposed to go and anyone else can wander into, while being shot at.
“You’re out of your mind!”
Leaving him in my trail of metaphorical dust and definitely some dirt, I dive behind the nearest tree that’s big enough to cover me and fist my rifle.
Is it raiders?
Did we venture too far off our land and onto someone else’s?
Did the fucking decomposed learn how to use a bow?
The sharp claws of fear grab hold of my throat as I chamber a round. It’s hard to breathe as I ready myself to whip around the tree in a crouch. Difficult to think as I line up the scope against a tiny flash of red paper in the distance. And I—
“Whoa, whoa there, kitten. Put away the claws.”
My finger slips from the trigger as Moros snags the barrel and yanks the firearm away from me.
“What in the fuck?!”
“You’re jumpy.” Is that a fucking smirk? “Start picking up arrows.”
“What?” I yell out so loud that it echoes, and launch upright. “We’re being attacked.”
Moros plucks the second arrow from the tree trunk and shoves it in my chest.
No, I don’t focus on the warmth from his hand against me because I am pissed.
“Not attacked. You’d be dead,” he mutters dismissively.
I can’t help but scan the area I saw the red paper in, my sight bouncing between it and him.
There’s a drop of blood collected on the shell of his ear that looks dark and dirty thanks to the arrows, with his lips pulling up, his eyes sparkling though they’re dark.
At one point they seemed brown in the sun, though as that light fades, they seem pitch black.
The lack of light makes shit hard to tell out here.
“You were the one being shot at. How would I be the dead one?”
What does Moros do in response other than yank arrows from the ground?
He fucking grunts.