43. In
In
Dylan
Their host had led them to another room carved into the concrete. There was a trace smell of rubber, mixed with the chalky scent of concrete. Elodie’s headquarters had the air of freshly fabricated areas where previously there were none.
“Maybe it’s not that she never told you about this place, but that she just extended it recently, adding to the bones of the car wash?”
The neon night glow of Shoreditch seeped in through carved slits in the walls, blasted with a cutter in the same way as those next to Elodie’s desk in the other, larger, room.
Isaak sat on the bed, right by one of the slits, purple and blue highlights dancing over his skin. He looked stunning. Even more so than usual.
His eyes were fixed on the skeletal towers of Canary Wharf on the horizon, and she worried about breaking his long reflection.
He’d been sat like that for ten minutes, practically since Elodie had guided them here to rest before tomorrow’s big plans.
Sacha had stayed by Talia’s side, but there was a different room ready for him if he wanted it, she assured them.
It was not lost on Dylan that there was only one bed in this one.
“They were people…” he said suddenly, interrupting her thoughts. “I killed people.”
She went over and stood next to him. Very deliberately she placed a hand on his hair and fondled the back of his head, slowly stroking it up and down.
“Boy, I told you I did the same. Those people… Astrid set them against us.” Her breathing went shallower and quicker.
“We didn’t know, and we didn’t have a choice. ”
He looked up at her, face washed with light, eyes pooled with tears. He wrapped his arms around her and gave out a troubled moan. She held his head with both hands, hugging him to her chest.
“How aren’t you broken up about it?” he asked, tears wetting the fabric of her dress.
She knew she probably should be, but her feelings, when she searched them, were entirely something else.
Rage. At Astrid for putting him through hell, for tape-napping Talia.
At the millionaire carnist mates of Astrid, who didn’t give a shit about anything as long as they were happy.
At Elodie for keeping things from Isaak.
“I care about three things,” she said eventually.
“Animals, the planet, and my people. If I hadn’t stopped and killed those sleptigrades in the Tapeworld, Astrid would have turned you into one.
” She’d killed for love. Maybe her Apocalypse Revolt training had prepared her for more than she expected.
Hours in the rain and sweltering heat, breaking and rebuilding her mind towards one goal: save the planet, at any cost. “I’d do it again. For you, for Talia.”
He shook his head. “But they’re innocent people! We could have saved them…” He sounded defeated.
“We’re going to try our best. But there’s a chance we’ll need to kill more to stop Astrid and get Talia back…
Fuck.” The more she thought about it, the more it hurt.
“It hurts to find out the mortal danger we’re in every time we use the tape, the people we killed.
But my time in the Revolt camps prepared me for something like this.
It doesn’t make sense, it can’t make sense, but you need to think about your loved ones who will die if you don’t fight back. ”
Isaak gripped her tightly, his fingers digging into her waist. His shaking slowly came to stillness as he processed what she said.
“You had no choice,” she said again. She kept playing with his hair, his breath warm on her chest.
“Okay. Okay. I understand.” He took a deep breath, and seemed to calm down. “Thank you.”
Now felt like the right time to bring up something else that had been bubbling inside her.
“Unlike slipping on the Sleeper, a device you knew nothing about. That was a choice you made.”
His breathing halted, chest tightened against her waist. “I was upset. I wasn’t thinking.”
It was like being jabbed in the gut. “And, after we’d already risked our lives to save you, you went and jacked in to Cardinal Row when that wasn’t the plan at all.”
He pushed himself gently away from her, arms flopping down to his sides. “I needed— We needed answers!”
Eyes watering, she struggled to get her words out. “While you were doing that, me and Talia were put through the ringer by Astrid and her bodyguard. If it wasn’t for Sacha…”
He dropped his gaze to the concrete floor, dealing with his guilt.
“And your stunt with the spyware cat?”
“We spoke about that already!” he said, getting defensive. “I thought you accepted my apology?”
Her heart hurt. “I did. I do. But all these things put together…” Tears rolled down her face. She wiped them off quickly, steeling herself and trying to look composed. “Why do you always do these things alone? You don’t trust me?” She backed up and stood a few steps away from him.
He stood up. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. Please don’t think that. I worry about you. I don’t want to lose you in there.”
“You say that… But if you really cared for me, you would want to take me with you.”
Isaak took a big, uncomfortable swallow, his eyes watering. “I go alone because I’m afraid.”
“Afraid of what?” Dylan said, a lump in her throat.
“Afraid of you dying, or getting seriously hurt. I didn’t know it was deadly, but… I always worried.”
She looked up, away from him, to try to stop the tears running down her cheeks.
“You’ve always been silly. That’s what it is.
If it’s dangerous in there…” She approached him again.
“Wouldn’t it be better to go at it together?
I can help you. I’ve been taping in long enough now.
I know my way around the Tapeworld. I want in, Isaak.
Just let me in. I know you worry about me.
I can see it when you look at me. I feel the same about you. I worry about you!”
He was playing the stoic again, looking out to the cityscape, away from her.
“Isaak…” She took his hand. A flashback to that first time they held hands. It felt like a million years ago.
As she traced the shattered and fused-together knuckle-bone, Isaak winced and tried to pull his hand away. She gripped him. “I don’t care that you play the lone wolf, Isaak. I want in on this. With all the danger it brings.”
He stared into her eyes. They were now so close she breathed in his scent, the mix of sweat and fading cologne lighting a fire in her deepest self.
He leaned forward and kissed her, and relief burst the prison around her heart.
Hands paved pathways down her back, the hairs on her skin rising to meet his fingers.
The kiss became multiple kisses – short, quick touches of the lips, and long, passionate entanglements, as he pushed his tongue onto hers, a wet caress, everlasting.
He encircled her wrist. “Your pulse is racing,” he whispered, his forehead against hers.
Fear of death, fear of losing him and Talia, fear of Astrid.
No. Fuck her.
It was time to take charge of her destiny, Isaak by her side.
Brown eyes locked onto hers, words on his lips. “I don’t want to be away from you ever again.”
She closed her eyes, his warm breath giving her strength. “I’ll follow you everywhere.” Her fingers interlaced on the small of his back, arms around him.
He shook his head, wrapping his arms around her above the shoulders. “No, I’ll follow you. Even a captain needs to be led.”
It was a comfortable place, a hopeful place, to hold each other.
Tape in and you could die. Put on the Crypterra Sleeper and you become a sleptigrade. Protest the Tech Kings and end up on a list of undesirables.
The life she knew before meeting him was gone. No turning back.
She leaned her head to one side, blonde-blue hair sliding off to expose her neck, and he leaned in to kiss it gently.
Electricity shot through her. Dylan grabbed his neck and pulled him in, kissing him again. Their tongues danced to the sound of gentle moans and breathless sighs.
She lowered herself onto the bed, her Dr. Martens kicked off to the side. She made space with her body for him to fill and he sidled up next to her with a coy smile.
Here, in this derelict building made into a power-broker’s headquarters… This was where she wanted to be most of all, out of all the places in the world. Because this was where he was.
He grabbed her shoulder and they resumed kissing. Eagerness took her over and she grabbed his bum, pulling his hips towards hers, a wry smile peeking out between kisses. She explored his upper body with her hands. He undid his belt and trousers.
Then, making sure she felt his hand on every inch of her legs, Isaak hiked her dress up to her waist, exposing her. Eyes locked on to hers, he peeled her white knickers down. Dylan kicked them away.
Isaak positioned himself over her, one hand between her legs, his lips exploring her neck.
Dylan grinned and pulled him closer, putting his waist at the same level as hers.
Isaak laid on top of her. He shifted the folds of her dress’s neckline to one side and kissed her breast, sucking it.
She groped at his black, silky-smooth underwear, trying to push it down.
Not needing any encouragement, Isaak got rid of it.
The sight of him, bare for her, threatened to send her into a daze.
She guided him inside her.
No words could describe the depth of sensation, to feel him inside her, hard as a rock.
His movements felt like one continuous motion, his body an eternal machine, filling her with so much purpose.
She couldn’t hold back her moans, her legs wrapping around him in an instinctual motion, her heels against his bare buttocks, pulling him in.
His lips prayed to the goddess while her hands gripped his back, scratching him as she got so close…
As he rammed himself into her, over and over, everything began to overwhelm her – the feeling of all of him, his skin, his muscles, her emotions all ran together, tumbling in one continuous amalgam, a wild, endless circle.
What felt like fate or destiny rushed towards her, a sucker punch with the roar of a lioness attacking its prey, she was always meant to be in this place—
She shouted, then he shouted, their voices becoming one for a mellifluous few seconds, as he flooded her with all of him.
He dropped to her side, chest glistening with sweat. He smiled at her, a tired, contented smile, eyes half shut.
Dylan grinned and took a deep breath, staring up at the ceiling, pleasure shaping her expressions.
Isaak shifted close to her on the bed, his head on her shoulder, breathing heavily.
“I love you, Dylan.”
She smiled, sweat sticking her hair to her temples.
“I love you, Isaak.”
The words came as easy to her lips as they’d come to him.
He kissed her, and she rolled to embrace him. He hugged her close.
She could taste his sweat, the saltiness a pleasant sensation on her tongue. Her breathing came back to normal, the rush of pleasure dispersed into a slow, comforting wave.
Right now, the world was her and him, and fuck anyone who got in their way.