Chapter 13
CHAPTER 13
CLOVER
I never thought the chemical stench of burning plastic would make me so happy.
I’d pulled two lobsters out of the inlet that morning as well as a floating piece of metal sharp enough to butterfly them, but with everything outside being soaked from the rain, I had to find something inside the cave to burn. Which was a problem because the only dry, flammable things in the cave were my books and my clothes, and I was going to have to be a lot closer to death before I lit either of those on fire.
Luckily, a plastic ammunition box had floated in during the night. It took four matches before it finally lit, which was concerning because I’d only had ten to start with, but once it caught, I knew it would burn for hours. Maybe even days. I’d once read an article about a plastic factory that caught fire and burned for almost a week.
A week. I couldn’t even wrap my mind around that amount of time now. I was the type of person who always had a long-term plan, a backup plan, and a fantasy just-in-case-I-find-a-portal-to-the-otherworld plan, but now, all I had was the present moment.
And a mute, murderous roommate who hadn’t looked at me all day.
I watched him out of the corner of my eye while I cooked the shellfish over the open flame—inhaling enough plastic fumes to shave years off whatever life I had left. When I’d woken up that morning, I’d found him sitting over by the tunnel, slumped against the wall and staring out at the sea. I was happy to see him upright and moving around a bit, but he’d had his back to me all day, and I hated how much that bothered me.
I’d managed to follow my rule about not looking him in the eye for four days now, and it had definitely helped me feel less crazy. Only allowing myself to look at his legs, his wounds, his bare and bloodstained torso … his abs. God. I knew fellas in the military were fit, but he looked like he’d been chiseled straight from the cave wall. It shouldn’t have affected me as much as it did, but with his shirt off, it was easier to forget who I was talking to. Who I was touching. Who was drawing portraits of me in his own blood to comfort me. With no gray eyes to remind me of my insanity and no Russian patches to remind me of his reality, we were just two lonely, broken people in a desperate situation, and honestly, that was the most dangerous illusion of all.
An illusion that was getting harder and harder to recognize with him staring out at the island like that. How many hours had I spent doing the exact same thing after Ma died? It had been thirteen years, and I still found myself searching the sea for something I’d never get back.
We aren’t that different , my mind whispered.
He was hurting too. Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all. Maybe …
I tore my eyes away and stared down at the stiff woolen jacket I was using to hold the piping hot lobster tails. I was hoping a patch might be visible, maybe a medal—some Russian insignia that would snap me out of my commiseration. But all I found was a bullet hole.
Which had quite the opposite effect.
Carrying our lunch over to the tunnel, I walked past the collection of water bottles and bars I’d brought him over the past few days. All sat untouched, where I’d left them.
That wasn’t good.
My hands were full of shellfish, so I bent over and picked up a water bottle with my forearms along the way.
“Hey,” I said, squatting down next to him.
I didn’t want to sit because sitting felt like we were having lunch together, and that was something friends did, not mortal enemies. I faced the water, like him, and from there, I could see that he was really staring at the ship—or what was left of it.
I hadn’t even thought about all the people he must have lost on that boat. I’d lost three people I cared about the night of the attack—he might have lost hundreds.
I held one of the lobsters out to him while keeping my gaze safely on the horizon. I expected it to vanish from my hand, but instead, I found my arm being gently pushed back toward my body.
Glancing down at the bloodstained fingers wrapped around my forearm, I felt my cheeks flush. I wasn’t sure if it was in response to his touch or in anger over him rejecting my offer. Maybe both.
“Eat,” I snapped, extending the lobster toward him again. “Ya haven’t had a bite of food since ya got here, and the only water you’ve had is what I poured down your throat.”
His breathing became heavier. Then, he swallowed audibly and cleared his throat. He was trying to speak again and still struggling. I immediately regretted my tone.
With a frustrated sigh, he pushed my arm away from him again, this time guiding my hand up until the lobster grazed my parted lips.
“Ya want me to eat it?”
He released my arm with a single nod before leaning his head against the cave wall again.
For a moment, I assumed he must be too proud to take charity or too hateful to accept help from the Irish, but that couldn’t be it. The man had given me the shirt and jacket off his back. And he’d let me bandage him. He’d accepted my help in other ways. This was specifically about the food and water.
Then, it occurred to me.
“You don’t think I have enough.”
He shook his head, and I sat down immediately, practically collapsing under the weight of what he’d just communicated.
He was choosing not to eat or drink, willfully risking his own life, so that I would have more.
“There’s plenty,” I assured him, my voice rough with emotion. “See those ropes lyin’ on the cave floor? Each one is attached to a lobster trap. This inlet’s full of ’em, so we’re not gonna starve. And I’ve been collecting rainwater outside, so there’s plenty to drink.”
Cracking one of the butterflied lobster tails open even wider, I pulled out a tender piece of meat and quickly glanced at the side of his face. His eyes were closed, so I relaxed and held the morsel up to his dry, parted lips.
“Eat,” I whispered. “Please. If ya don’t, you’re gonna die, and then I’ll be stuck in here with your smelly corpse because you’re too heavy for me to push into the inlet. I already tried.”
A glimmer of a smile illuminated his face, a sliver of white teeth, and before I knew it, I was hypnotized, watching two curtains of black lashes lift in slow motion.
At the first flash of gray, I slammed my eyes shut, breathing heavily from that close call. Then, I felt his warm lips close around my fingertips, and I stopped breathing altogether.
But soon they were gone, along with my offering, and the sound that rumbled in the back of his throat made my empty stomach flutter.
“Good?” I smiled, dropping my gaze to the shellfish in my hands. Then, I pulled off another piece and popped it into my own mouth just to give myself something to do other than watch his square, stubble-covered jaw flex as he chewed.
“Mmhmm.” Those two syllables hung in the air like sunshine, warming me from the inside out.
“That was almost a word.” I smiled as I offered him another piece, keeping my gaze fixed solely on the shellfish in my lap. I could feel his eyes on me, and my cheeks flushed under this stare.
His teeth grazed the soft pad of my finger.
I could tell from his energy that one almost word would not be enough to ease his pain. I only wished I knew which kind of pain he was in. Physical or emotional.
“Are you sad about the people you lost … on the boat?” I lifted my chin toward the bow of his warship, protruding from the sea like a giant steel shark fin.
He shook his head.
“No?” I asked in surprise.
No.
I held another morsel out for him and felt the warmth of his gaze as it roamed over my body. First my face, then my lap where his jacket had fallen, then my bare legs. I held my breath as he reached toward my thigh but released it a moment later when nothing happened. Looking down, I saw that he was pointing at a particularly deep gash in a sea of cuts and bruises and puncture wounds.
“Oh, that? I, em, took a tumble down the cliff a few days ago.”
His lips closed around a bite of food that I’d forgotten I was holding out, and my breath hitched in my throat.
“I went out to look for better shelter, or supplies, whatever I could find, but … a drone found me first.”
His whole body stiffened. He knew about the drones too.
Because he was one of the arseholes who’d brought them here.
My stomach soured.
Glancing down at the hand that had just been dangerously close to touching me, I placed what was left of his lobster in it and drew my knees up to my chest.
He hadn’t been staring out at that water, thinking about the people he’d lost—he’d said so himself. He’d probably been thinking about the people he’d left behind. Back in Russia .
This man is not your friend , I reminded myself.
He is not like you.
His family’s still alive.
And yours isn’t because of him.
Setting my untouched lobster aside, I shook out his jacket and folded the torn, bloodstained material into a square, making sure to drape the sleeve with the Russian flag patch over the top.
“You miss home, don’t ya?” I asked, my voice cold and sharp.
After a moment’s hesitation, he nodded slowly.
“Yeah.” I stood up. “Me too.”
Then, I dropped his jacket on the ground next to him and turned to walk away.
I hadn’t taken a single step before a hand shot out and wrapped around mine.
“S-s,” he stuttered, squeezing my hand harder as he struggled to find the words.
I closed my eyes and waited, trying to block out the sympathy pain I felt every time he tried to speak.
“Sorry.”
That single word, deep and raspy and laced with regret, landed on my soul like that woolen jacket, snuffing out my anger, soothing my grief.
I stood with my back to him, paralyzed by indecision as a battle broke out between my heart and my pride. My pride demanded that I storm off, that I continue to hate him and punish him for what he’d done. But my heart … my heart was fixated on the slow, rough drag of his thumb over my knuckles. The warmth of his skin on mine. The sincerity of his apology and the way it felt to be seen as a human being for once, rather than a sex object or a servant girl or the silly little laughingstock of Howth Head peninsula. My heart needed what he was offering far more than my pride needed to deny me of it.
So, without another word, I sat back down, my shoulder grazing his, and together, we finished our lunch.