Preview of CROSS//Process #3
Sulim shuddered. How close was I to seeing that for myself?
She knew she had been about to feed the monster when Cairn appeared, helping herself into the chief’s chambers as if she knew it as well as she knew the inches of Ayna Aiya’s body.
I knew it was like that… but until you see it up close…
Sulim had formulated a game plan once she realized the chief wasn’t only after pleasant conversation.
She didn’t know what would happen once the adrenaline kicked into her system that told her to fight or fly, nor did she wish to become as nonchalant about it as most of the other girls had…
But she had to survive. She had been warned a hundred times about the chief’s interest in her. She was thankful for those warnings.
That didn’t mean she was thankful for the punishment Cairn had taken on her behalf.
“Anyway, you wanted something?”
Sulim was brought back from that moment when she wondered if her life was about to change in irreparable ways. “I wanted to say goodbye. Eyne and I are leaving tomorrow.”
“Ah. I don’t know if I’ll see you guys off. I have business. I’ve got another mission to head. Guess I’m in high demand with clients.”
“The chief lets you do that, huh?”
“Didn’t you hear the other night? She loves me.”
Cairn couldn’t have been more sarcastic if she tried. “I’m really sorry. For everything.”
“I told you I don’t want your pity.”
“Then what do you want?”
Cairn turned around from her bureau. A tired look had been on her face, but once she saw Sulim, something illuminated in one eye and flushed her cheeks a demure hue. “If I told you, we’d both be in big trouble with the chief.”
Sulim withheld the gasp threatening to strike her heart. “You don’t mean that.”
“Do I seem like the kind of person who says things she doesn’t mean?”
Cairn was claustrophobically close as she stepped forward to grab the last of her folded laundry.
“Honestly. How long have we known each other now? Have I ever made you think I am anything but what I say I am? I don’t play games. I’m fucking sick of mind games as it is. Fuck. That’s all I deal with all day. When the chief doesn’t own my ass,
I’ve got Kila telling me how straight she is while getting jealous over what I have with the chief, or Giselle trying to get me to introduce her to someone else, or for God’s sake, your roommate pining after me without outright owning it.
You’re the only one around here who doesn’t make me want to bash my head against the wall. Now, do you think I don’t mean that?”
This might be the most she’s ever said to me. Yet the more fired up Cairn became, the more Sulim was inclined to gape at her with reverence.
“You’re a passionate woman, that’s for sure.”
Cairn dropped her heavy demeanor. Sulim had a mind to laugh at that incredulous look.
“I’ve been called a lot of things, but that’s not one of them.”
Sulim absentmindedly scratched her arm while Cairn finished putting away her clothes. “You know that night that girl died? I kept thinking about her.”
Cairn’s movements slowed. “Yeah. That happens.”
“Because the chief couldn’t have her, she did that to her.”
“That wasn’t going to be you.”
“How do you know?”
A shake of the head brought Cairn back up to her feet. “Because you’re stronger than her. You do what has to be done to survive. You have that inside of you. She didn’t. I told you. She chose death. Ain’t nothing wrong with that. She wasn’t gonna make it here.”
“Were you the one who signed her name in the book?”
Cairn sighed. They were close enough to touch—something that was always true in these small, cramped rooms, but even truer now—and Sulim felt that energy radiating between them.
She always did. Tonight? On the eve of her possibly going to her death, no matter how much Ari reassured her that “such things probably weren’t going to be an issue?”
It was like Sulim wanted to live. At least a little.
That energy reminded her with every passing and aching second.
Was this what it meant to desire someone? Because Sulim had always suspected it might be her who awakened this from within.
Like Cairn, Sulim preferred people who didn’t play games. Any games of the mind—or heart.
“Yeah. It was me. She deserved it.”
Sulim nodded. “I’m not disagreeing.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“There’s no problem.”
“You sure?”
I have at least two problems. The first was the anxiety Sulim felt on the eve of her adulthood.
Because that’s what this was. She may have lost her childhood when she came to Cerilyn, but she had been in developmental purgatory ever since.
Puberty was kinder. Now? She was more certain of who she was—and what she wanted from her burgeoning life.
The second problem was standing right before her.
“Will you be waiting for me?”
Sulim blurted out those words before she had the foresight to keep them to herself.
Already she anticipated the rejection touching Cairn’s tongue.
It can’t happen. Even if she didn’t care, the chief would.
Besides, this was a woman who was beholden to no one.
Even if she deigned to entertain Sulim’s desires for a short while, who was to say it was good for them?
In all of her avoiding the inevitable, Sulim had not seen the fingers coming for the hair hanging loosely by her ear. Not until Cairn was already touching her—and startling her.
Cairn was not deterred, however. She went ahead and tucked that blond hair behind Sulim’s ear. Sulim expected her to quip about someone needing a haircut before she left. Instead, she said, “Sounds dangerous.”
“Because I might not come back?”
“Because I might drive myself crazy.”
Dare Sulim allow herself to give in to her beating heart?
Or the butterflies in her stomach battering their wings against her ribcage?
She’s only flirting with you because that’s what she does with every girl.
That was what she told herself. She even held one arm across her torso, as if to fend off the wishes that would never come true.
“Have you decided yet?”
“Have I decided what?”
Cairn retracted her hand and allowed one sly grin to escape her glowering visage. “Who you want to be your first. Because I’ll throw myself into the chasm if you let it be the chief.”
Sulim didn’t care how silly she looked clamping her teeth against her bottom lip. It was the only way to contain her girlish smile. “I think I have.”
“Good. Who is it? I’ll tell you what I think of them.”
Breaths increased. Sulim’s heartrate was almost too dangerous. The more she looked into that one uncovered eye, the more she saw someone who had never been given a fair chance to simply be human.
“You.”
Although Cairn’s face softened, she turned her torso away. Almost instantly, Sulim’s confidence deflated. Here it came. The rejection that would crush her worse than it had Eyne.
“I’m pretty good, if I say so,” Cairn wistfully began. “You could do better.”
“Who?”
“Someone who isn’t me right now. A better version of me.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you deserve someone who is an even match for that idealism of yours. Someone who can give you a future.”
“We’re talking about sex, not marriage.”
“You’re the kind of person who instantly links the two together.”
“How would you know? Are you me?”
Cairn backed her up against the door. Sulim’s palms slammed against it, but it was Cairn’s gangly arms that locked the handle and came up high above Sulim’s head. I feel so small next to her. That didn’t trouble her. In fact, she rather liked the sensation.
“I’m going to think about you every day you’re gone.”
Cairn’s low voice harbored a secret. One meant only for Sulim’s ear.
As her breath came closer, Sulim almost melted into the floor.
The only thing saving her sweating skin was the air conditioner that had kicked to life five minutes ago. “Do you know how I know that?”
“N… no.”
“Because I already think about you every single day. I’ve thought about you since the day I brought you here. It’s not the chief you’ve had to watch out for. It’s me.”
She’s lying. Sulim had seen Cairn with the chief. This was her seduction style.
“Is that why you took me? Because you wanted me?”
“Like some barbarian dragging you to her cave.”
“Guess I’ll have to stay alive then.” Sulim hated how she clung to her shirt above her chest. What she would give for her heart to sit still for one second! “I wouldn’t want you grieving me.”
Cairn lowered her arms. “You’re…”
The rest of that sentence was forever locked into her thoughts. For it was rather difficult for Sulim to share what she meant when someone’s mouth was on hers.