Chapter 5
5
They’d both calmed down. Not that she was changing her mind.
Vargr walked beside her, his bulk keeping her in the shadow of stray moonlight as they passed rooms to the left. Within those rooms, huge windows opened onto a strange landscape. Miles away, she glimpsed mountains plagued by the jutting outlines of scrapers that poked at the graying, twinkly sky. Dawn approached. Closer in, beside this scraper they walked through, there seemed nothing, no buildings, just stray wisps of cloud.
“What happened out there?” Cyn halted, wondering if her eyes deceived her.
“There? I’m guessing you don’t mean the apartment. That quarter collapsed. It’s possible there was a nuke some distance away that weakened the foundations. You can’t see it from here, but parts of the buildings still stand.”
“Wow. Kinda fascinating.”
“That tens of thousands died?” He sounded perplexed.
“No. Not that. Though I suppose death has its own fascination. The destruction… that.”
After a last study of her, he strode onward. She guessed that wasn’t the answer he’d wanted.
It made her pout. She rather liked him, despite his pig-headed arrogance.
The sun was limning those mountain-hugging scrapers with the first of its light. She wanted to go in there to look out the window at what lay below, at the bizarre world she now dwelled in, but she followed him.
She only had verbal explanations from him, words, and the recent nightmare above to refer to. Seeing the destruction would make it real… Real-er . After all, what if this were a dream? Or a nightmare?
“A little further to go, then there’s a place I can launch from that will take us across to the next part of Mercantor Quarter. Though there’s a footbridge several stories lower in an old industrial district, without beasters to cover us, flying you across is safer. We’ll stop this side, and wait until tonight.”
The sun cast long, bruised shadows on the side of the opposite building.
“It’s too dangerous to cross now?”
He nodded toward the wall of glass far ahead. A railing curved to left and right. “Go through that gap in the glass, and you come out on a viewing platform. Daylight—there are snipers. Nighttime, less so.”
Once more she longed to be able to stand there and simply look, just to gaze at a world not constrained by walls and more walls. How could she not remember this?
“Can it really be that bad? I want to see .” As the yearning sharpened, she let her feet take her closer. “I will be careful.”
“Stop. That’s not enough. You want to sightsee, save it for when we reach the tribe and take some humans out for sun, with our own men guarding.” He stepped across, blocking her way, and moved to cup her face.
“Hey.” She swatted and ducked his hands. “Don’t treat me like a baby.” But he’d caught her wrist, so she twisted her arm then shucked it from his grip as if lubed in oil.
With a shocking force that halted her, he grabbed both of her shoulders. “Stop!” His face twisted in vexation.
Blinking, she thought through her actions. A wash of seductive nothingness hovered at the edges. She felt it there, waiting, nibbling away at thoughts, wanting her . But so subtle that giving in was easy.
“I must,” she whispered.
“No!” Vargr lightly slapped her face then regripped her shoulders.
The sting helped.
“The Lure?” She swallowed. Oh fuck no.
Slowly he nodded. “Must be. I thought you were immune. You were yesterday. This high, it should’ve caught you when it was full-on daytime. Nighttime it wanes.”
“What can we do?” Panic vied for supremacy with this unnatural desire. Her feet pushed at the floor. Go. There.
Sunlight flicking over glass.
“Hide you lower down?” He shut his eyes for a second. “Shit. Why? Why does it hit you now?”
She tugged. “Get out of my way. I need…” She strained toward the edge of the building where the sun dabbled on the glass.
“Gods.” He glowered. “You need to stay sane. I need to take you lower.”
His big hands held her, tight, and somehow that made a difference.
The confusion cleared. Cyn straightened.
“I can think now,” she croaked, legs shaking.
“Let’s backtrack to those stairs.”
Shafts of sun broadcast the need, pouring in a torrent of want, an ocean that drowned her.
“ Crap. Cyn? Cyn?”
The light spread into a blaze that blinded, and she saw the weakness in him.
A twist, a duck, then run.
The sun beckoned. The beautiful, beautiful light.
She wrenched away, rolled, scrambled to her feet, and ran.