Chapter 26 #2
Needing something to grip, she dug her fingers into her thighs. His touch felt so good now that he was gentler. She was tempted to lay her other foot in his lap as well. “What if they find out that you touched me?”
“Pain,” he said quickly, as if anticipating the question. “So much of it, some die after getting the…punishment.”
Nora jerked back, her blood turning cold.
Airik squeezed her mid-calf, keeping her in his lap.
“But you said—”
“I am not touching you.”
Her gaze darted between his hands, wrapped around her leg, to his eyes that dared her to challenge him. He was serious. Maybe he didn’t know what touch meant.
“Why pain? What’s so bad about a touch between friends?” She forced herself to relax in his hold. Lucky slithered behind her, a cushion for her back.
“Friends?” Airik scoffed, moving a little further up her calf.
His fingers skimmed the edge of the cloth.
“Pain connects the body and mind. So you don’t forget.
They do it with a burn—a mark—on the body.
Of the promise that was broken. Filled with…
ink to stop it from healing. So you never forget it. ”
Nora’s mouth fell open as his finger slipped past the cloth and the tip of his middle finger grazed her skin.
“So they fucking brand you?” Airik stared back, as if Nora were overreacting. “And you say the Veynari aren’t evil?” A horrible thought struck her. “When I do something wrong, will I be branded?”
She winced as his hands squeezed her. “They will not touch you,” he said. “The brand is meant for people like me.”
The cloth fell away as he let her go. Thinking he was finished, she lifted her foot.
He pressed her foot down against his thigh with a bare hand, then cradled her other foot by the heel, bringing it into his lap. His fingers slipped under the cloth and began the motions again. “This one has worked twice to help the other. Needs help, too.”
“Right…that makes sense. Thank you.” Nora swallowed, her fingers curling into Lucky’s fur behind her. “Do you know anyone who has had a brand?”
Airik’s hands paused for a moment before continuing their work. “My…father”—he drew out the word—“had some. He made many mistakes.”
“Your father was a soldier, like you?”
He nodded. “Before I came into the world. The Veynari let him stop and changed his work. Not free—but he could keep us close.”
Lucky’s tail extended from behind her, resting on Airik’s right arm, which had begun to tremble. Airik took a deep breath, and it relaxed a little.
“What did your mom do?” Nora asked softly.
Airik went still.
Her heart sank. Why had she pressed him? “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about this. It was rude of me to ask—”
“She was…his. She wanted to do nothing but be…his,” Airik said. “What happened to her—to both of them—was his fault. He was hungry for something that should never have been his. And then they were taken. From each other and from me—”
His hand clenched her ankle, squeezing so tight it might have well been a bear trap. “Airik!” Nora cried out.
Instantly, Airik let go, backing away as if he’d been stung by a snake. “I—I am sorry,” he gasped. He looked up from her foot, his eyes filled with anguish. “Does it—did I hurt you?”
“No, Airik. You didn’t,” she said.
His dark brows drew together, unconvinced. Turmoil turned with him, evident in the quaking of his glowing eyes.
His mother had loved his father—she’d wanted to belong to him. Nora understood completely—she wanted to belong to someone, too. But something awful had happened to Airik’s parents, and its claws still held him down. She understood that, too.
“You didn’t hurt me,” Nora said again, needing to calm him. “I’m okay. See?”
She rolled her foot. It hurt like hell, but she could move it. “Fully operational. I think the massage helped.”
But he’d already returned to his spot on the other side of the fire. The light of his eyes pierced through the flames. “I am sorry. I won’t touch you again. Safer for both of us.” His expression morphed into something unreadable, then dropped to the boiling bucket. “Food is ready.”
Nora opened and closed her mouth, unable to find anything helpful or wise to say. She felt crushed to learn that this kind of grief occurred among the stars she used to wish upon in hopes of making things different.
But at the same time, it made her pain feel smaller.
She shut her eyes tight, the hot sting of tears building. Not now.
Thinking it would be more obvious if she tried to conceal them, Nora let the tears fall. Weeping for a man she didn’t really know but who forced her to keep living.
There was no gratitude for his efforts. But in this moment, she didn’t regret being here. With him.
He got up abruptly and left the shed. Moments later, he returned with several large leaves from the forest, dripping wet but clean, presumably to set the steaming carrots on.
He made a pointed effort not to look at her, focused on the leaves, rearranging them in a way that made no sense. Distracting himself, she realized.
Suddenly, he sighed and looked to her, finally acknowledging what had just happened. “No crying. Not for them. They both chose—together—to make mistakes.”
“I’m not crying,” she said. Lucky offered her another sock, waving it in front of her face. She huffed but took it and wiped her eyes.
Airik pulled the knife from his boot, wiped it clean, then passed it through the flame twice. He cut up the blue carrots into tiny, uniform cubes. “Someone told me humans do not feel,” he said as he worked. “Are you broken?”
She laughed at his odd but accurate statement. “I guess I am.” What was this—from tears to chuckles within a few words—if not broken? “Totally fucked. Irreparable.”
“The Veynari will fix you.”
“Can they? Are they that amazing?”
“They control everything.” He finished cutting the last carrot. “Powerful. Final. They will watch you. Learn about you. And then, they will fix you. You will never cry again.”
She snorted. “Well, as long as they don’t inject an alien baby into me, I’m okay being fixed up—”
Airik drove his knife into the ground, letting out a harsh noise that had to be a curse. “The Veynari do not have permission to breed you.”
“O-Okay,” she said, believing him completely.
Airik held out the leaf, now loaded with cut-up carrots.
“For Lucky?”
“Lucky can feed himself. This is for…you.”
He pushed the sturdy leaf over, around the fire to her. When had been the last time anyone cut up her food for her? Or massaged her feet, for that matter?
She met him halfway, pulling the serving leaf to herself, then popped a tiny, perfectly cube-shaped piece into her mouth. It tasted like dirt and hot-dog-flavored water. But not so bad that she couldn’t keep eating.
They ate, the sounds of the forest and the crackle of the flame growing louder, filling the space between them. They looked at one another over the flames, not speaking.
When they finished, he came to the second bedroll he’d laid out beside her, only a narrow strip of ground between them. “Are you…allowed to be this close?”
“Better than far and you die because I could not reach you.”
She couldn’t argue with that. “What if I kill you in your sleep?”
“Then you will save me from suffering more of your asking.”
She smiled, watching him as he removed the harness that he sometimes attached his sword to.
He sat back on his bedroll, using his bags as a cushion, hands behind his head. He wore his gun in a thigh holster, and his sword lay beside him. In his boot, the black handle of his knife gleamed.
“Are you going to sleep?” Nora asked.
“No.”
“Is that…okay? For you not to sleep?”
“It will be.”
“But…is it okay? Maybe we should switch off—”
Airik shot up, eyes a bright hurricane of color.
She shrank back, lying flat on her own bedroll.
“Nothing is okay.” He leaned over her, his hair falling toward her, and she saw thin striations in his eyes—black, just like hers. “If I had done what I was supposed to do with you, I would be at peace. Alone. With no life to carry except my own.”
She wouldn’t cry. Not here. He was upset. He was still thinking of his parents, and she had pushed with too many questions. There was no other explanation for the shift in his demeanor.
“What were you supposed to do with me?”
Airik pushed the hair out of his eyes, his gaze darting between her eyes and mouth. His nose flared as he breathed.
Then, just as suddenly as his anger had come, calm fell over his features.
He drew the gun from his thigh holster and tapped something on it.
When the light dimmed, he shoved the grip into her hand.
“Use it. It knows not to kill you. Just press the blue button. Hard. With all your strength.” He tapped the spot where a trigger would be on a human-designed gun.
“I don’t know how to shoot—”
He growled, pressing it harder into her hand, forcing her to take it. “If something happens and I’m not…okay, stop me.” He sat back on his bedroll. “Stop talking. Heal. We need to get to the city. I will call for help, and they will come and take you away from me.”
Nora turned away, setting the gun as far as she could reach without leaving the safety of the bedroll. She held up the blanket so Lucky could jump in beside her. She pulled it over both of their heads, then pressed her face into her hands, finally able to cry.