Chapter 7 #3
Asha realized too late that Cade was staring at her, clearly trying to parse what the hell was wrong with her. Her glassy-eyed stare was probably starting to unnerve him. She cast her gaze at the floor; his piercing grey eyes penetrated her defences in a way she didn’t like.
“Make yourself at home,” he said after a moment, walking into the kitchen area. “You hungry?”
“No,” Asha replied, even though she was. She looked around the sparsely furnished room, trying to figure out where, exactly, she was supposed to make herself at home. She settled for sitting at the dining table.
“Is that your standard response when someone asks if you need anything?” Cade asked, a sliver of impatience in his voice. “It’s not a trick question, darling.”
She recalled him sharing his meagre meal with her when they traveled to the Nest. She’d said no then, too, and he’d shared anyway.
She’d found that surprising and even sweet.
Now, she felt nothing. His kindness had only lured her into a false sense of security.
If he’d been brutal from the start, maybe it would be less confusing as to how a man who’d only been kind to her could stand to live in a place like this, to serve a gang leader like Angel.
There was nothing more repugnant than a man who cloaked his depravity in a thin veneer of civility.
It was the kind of cruelty that the compound’s regime had excelled at.
“What will happen to me now?” Asha asked in a hollow voice.
Cade cocked an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“Living with you. What will my duties be?”
He fetched a bag from under the kitchen island. “For now, your only job is healing. We can talk more about it when you’re feeling better.”
“I want to talk about it now.” She hoped she sounded firm, despite how she felt.
Cade pulled two chunks of red meat out of the bag before walking over to the fire barrel.
He didn’t say anything as he lit the fire and began to grill the meat on top of the metal grate.
He used a metal rod to flip them, and Asha hated to admit it, but the smell made her mouth water.
She hadn’t had anything except Leo’s peppermint tea since the night before, and her daily rations had hardly been enough.
That Cade was cooking for himself struck her as peculiar; Angel certainly never did. He had far too many of his women available to trouble himself with that, and besides, it was beneath him.
After another few minutes of stilted silence, Cade grabbed a nearby aluminum tray and scooped the meat onto it. He held it out to Asha and said simply, “Eat.”
She took a hesitant bite as Cade sat across from her.
The fat melted in her mouth, and she sighed.
It felt like so long since she’d eaten anything more substantial than gruel or soup.
Hunger took over and she ate with abandon until the meat was gone and her belly was full for the first time in weeks.
Cade finished his portion, then walked back to the kitchen. He pulled out a knife and began sharpening it on a stone. Asha froze, her hands shaking. She remembered the knife that Angel had heated over a flame, then pressed against her back.
Cade clearly noticed her reaction, because he promptly tucked the knife away in a backpack at his feet.
“Just sharpening it,” he said. “It’s used for hunting.”
Not for torture seemed to be the unspoken message. A heavy silence hung between them that Asha didn’t know how to break. She’d told him what she wanted, and he’d ignored her—a likely harbinger of things to come.
“Where are you from?” Asha finally asked. “You’re from a compound, but clearly not mine.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “A question for a question: where are you from, and how the hell did you end up out here?”
“I asked you first,” she replied testily, “and you still haven’t told me what my duties here will be now that you’re here. If you expect me to get on my knees for you and suck you off every day, then I’d at least like some warning.”
He gave a dark chuckle. “You really do think I’m a monster, huh?”
“You work for Angel,” Asha said, unflinching. “You may come from a compound, but clearly, the life of a Wastelander suits you just fine.”
“I’m not like Angel,” he replied coldly. “I would never do what he did to you.”
Asha didn’t know when she’d clenched her hand into a fist, but it ached now, as did the rest of her battered body.
“Don’t act innocent,” she gritted out. “You may not do it yourself, but you allow it to happen to others. If you think that not being a rapist and torturer absolves you of that, think again. You’re still a monster, and a hypocrite.”
Another tense silence descended, and Asha wondered if this was it: the moment when he’d explode, show his true colours, and rip away the mask to reveal a man every bit as soulless as his master.
So, she was downright shocked when the corner of Cade’s mouth ticked upward.
“You’re right.”
She wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly.
“What?”
He shrugged. “You’re right. So, what’re you gonna do about it? So far, the whole spitfire routine you have going on isn’t doing much for you.”
Asha balked. “Oh, I’m sorry, how am I supposed to react when a bunch of brutal Wastelanders kidnap and rape me? Fuck you. I don’t need your judgment.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Just stating a fact. I like a woman who takes no shit. But you need friends if you want to survive here, and so far, it doesn’t seem like you have anybody on your side except me. I’m no prince, darling, but I’m what you’ve got.”
She exhaled sharply. She hated everything about this moment…but he had a point. He wasn’t the hero she would’ve chosen. Far from it. But he was also the only one who’d done anything to help her besides Leo, and Leo had only done it on Cade’s orders.
“I do what I have to do to survive,” Cade continued.
“Your problem is that you’re still in denial.
You think of this as a temporary setback rather than your permanent situation.
Your compound is gone. Your old life is over.
Now, you adapt or die, and you won’t find anyone who understands that better than I do. ”
Asha sighed, rubbing her eyes. She felt exhausted, even though she hadn’t been up for long. Her body was still terribly sore, and she didn’t have it in her to argue more.
“Fine,” she said wearily. “I take your point. But if I’m going to live here with you, I’d at least like to know a bit about you.”
He nodded. “Fair enough.” He paused, as though considering his words carefully. “I’m from the Delta. It’s a compound up in the northern part of the province. Quite isolated. I was assigned as a captain in the military. Leo and Dom were on my squad.”
He leaned over the island counter. “Now, you tell me: where did you come from? We’ll trade an answer for an answer.”
She couldn’t pretend that that wasn’t fair.
“I’m from the Cave,” Asha said. “It’s maybe a day or two’s walk from here. I was assigned to be a high school science teacher. A terrible disappointment for my parents. They were high-ranking officials, but they weren’t in charge of the career assignments, so that’s what I got.”
Cade’s lips twisted with amusement.
“What?” she asked sharply.
“Can’t picture you as a teacher, frankly,” he said with a chuckle. “Aren’t you supposed to be nurturing and all that bullshit?”
She couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah. I was never very good at that part. I did an adequate job…but not much more. Claire was always the better teacher.”
Her name was out of Asha’s mouth before she could think better of it.
Cade’s brow wrinkled. “Who’s Claire?”
“No one,” Asha said too quickly, and he scoffed. “Fine: she was my best friend. But you owe me an answer now: how did you end up outside the Delta?”
“We’re coming back to that,” Cade warned, but then continued: “We left. Deserted on patrol, a couple years back. There was a lot happening in our compound at the time. There’d been an uprising, and some unrest. Then something…
unfortunate happened, and I decided to leave rather than be kicked out.
Leo and Dom agreed to go with me. Maybe someday, I’ll tell you the story. ”
The closed look on his face told her that there was definitely more to it than he let on, but also that he didn’t trust her with it. In a strange way, Asha respected that, if only because his distrust was relatable.
“How did you end up outside the…Cave, was it?” he asked, drumming his fingers on the old stone countertop. “I can’t imagine how a civilian would’ve gotten out.”
She took a deep breath, bracing herself for the images that would inevitably resurface in her brain.
“I didn’t leave,” Asha confirmed. “A faction of our own people attacked. They seized control of the compound and killed everyone who wasn’t in their group. They wore strange masks with gold eyes painted on them.”
Cade shot her a bewildered look. “The military didn’t fight back?”
“No,” she replied with a sigh. “I don’t know why. I can only assume that enough of them were part of the attack that whoever was left couldn’t put up much of a fight. There were no alarms, no firefights…nothing, as far as I could tell.”
“Very strange.” Can’t say I disagree.
“I only escaped because I made it to Claire’s house.”
“What was so special about her place?” Cade asked, leaning back against the counter.
“Nothing, except that her sister was one of the attackers, and she decided to spare Claire’s life and get her out of the compound. When I got to her house, Claire insisted that I be allowed to go with her to the outside. So, her sister escorted us out into the Wasteland, and we never went back.”
“So, everyone else…” he trailed off.
“Dead,” Asha said with a short nod. “My husband. Her husband. My family. As far as I know, I’m the only survivor.”
“The only survivor?” he said, stroking his chin. “So, what happened to your friend?”
She tried to take another breath, but found herself holding it instead. Pain rose up inside her chest, and she covered her hand with her mouth in a desperate bid to hold it in.
“Look,” Cade said, clearly seeing her distress, “it’s okay if you—”
“No,” Asha murmured. “It’s not okay. I did something…bad.”