by Stacey Mac
I watch him blink a few times. “Sure, Tess. We’ll go on a date.”
“That’s why I love you, you know,” I tell him earnestly, my eyes shutting. “Because you stop people from killing me and then take me fishing.”
“Is that all?”
“You’re also very attractive, and kind of mean.”
“Go to sleep, Tessa. I’ll be here.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
He sleeps with his mouth open.
It’s not the best look on him. Arms crossed over his chest, back arched against the tiled wall, his head lolling. Dean looks unkempt, but still, I can’t not look at him. Sleep makes him softer. Younger. I can’t see him like I did in the compound: a trainer, an adult, a leader. I only see a boy, playing grown-up games. Even the rifle across his lap looks like a pretend thing.
There’s a cut on his bottom lip and it has swollen a little throughout the night. Congealed blood sticks to it. His mouth twitches suddenly, and the frown lines come back to his face, his eyelids flutter twice and open, bloodshot, weary.
Those eyes are still that perfect combination of scary and bottomless, even with the sallow, darkened skin surrounding them. No, he’s not neat or tidy. But I’d gladly look at him if he were sick with near-death and be absorbed.
“What are you staring at?” he asks, stretching out his arms.
“You snore really loudly.”
“No, I don’t.”
I smile. “Whatever.”
His head falls back against the wall and he scrutinises me, his eyes jumping to different spots on my face. I don’t know what he sees, but it makes him fume. “You’ve looked better.”
I know that he’s trying to joke, but by the way my jaw and skull pulse in time with my heartbeats, and the feeling of skin stretched too tight along my cheek, I know that I must look monstrously shit.
“Do you remember what happened?” Dean asks then, standing slowly. He folds his arms across his chest and leans one shoulder against the wall, like he’s too tired to stand up without support.
“I was asleep,” I say, “and those guys…those men…they shoved me off the bed and pulled me outside.”
Dean nods at the floor. “What did they say to you?”
“The older man, the ugly one with the huge nose, he called me a bunch of names and then told me to leave Resolute. Trying to scare me, I guess.”
Dean looks up darkly. “And did it work?” but what he means is, are you going to leave?
“No,” I say, to both. But I lie. I was scared last night. I was as scared of those Resolute men as I am of Galore fronters, and I didn’t think that was possible. Still, being beaten up every other day is better than being shot in Galore, so I smile. “What they don’t know is that I am extremely adept at being trounced, so jokes’ on them.”
Dean doesn’t smile. “I’m sorry.”
But I shake my head. “I should have listened to you. You were worried that this would happen.”
“Since when have you ever listened to me?”
“Didn’t you see me head butt that guy? I’ve listened to you plenty.”
“Speaking of which,” he says, stepping forward. He places a hand gently on the back of my head, where it is raw and tender. “I’m proud of you. Four on one, and you didn’t panic. One of them has a busted kneecap. He spent the night in the room next to this one.”
The alarm that springs to life in my chest must show on my face, because Dean says, “Don’t worry, I talked to all of them last night, and they won’t come near you again.”
“You talked to them?”
“Sure,” he says. “I don’t know who told them about you, and that you were in that house, but I’ll find out. You stick with me from now on, okay?”
I sigh. I don’t really want to bring up what I’m about to, but I should. I don’t know what difference it will make, but it will come up eventually anyway. “Dean. Is it too much? To have me here, I mean.”
He rolls his eyes. “I asked you to come here, remember?”
“Things have happened since then.” Like that time when I broke your heart.
“What are you going to do otherwise, Tess? Head over to Scarce?”
He’s right. Even if Dean decided to end things with me, a broken heart wouldn’t overcome my survival instincts. We both know that I’m stuck here, that we are stuck together, whether we like it or not. The whiny-girl part of me wishes he wasn’t so blunt about it, though. She wishes that he’d panic a little at the thought of me leaving. He never coddles me. For once I just wish he would coddle me a little bit.
It must show. Usually I’m rather skilful at hiding my thoughts, but today, I’m mush. Dean’s hand trails down my hair, which hangs down long past my shoulders, and says, “If you tried to run off to Scarce, Tess, I’d find you.”
I grin uncomfortably. “Good.”
“Besides, we have a date to go on, right?”
I frown. “What?”
“Someone told me you wanted to go fishing with an attractive, mean guy.”
Blood swells in my face, and with a groan, I recall. “Out,” I say, pointing to the door. “Get out.”
“I’ll go find you something to eat,” he says, grinning widely, and then he leaves.
I groan into my hands as I lie down again. Voices resurface from what must have been the night before, after I awoke in a morphine-induced haze. And it slowly occurs to me that I mentioned something to Dean about loving him, and then I start wishing for a hasty death.
If that is what being high feels like, I’ll avoid it in the future, lest I propose marriage or something. Jesus.
Twice, now, I’ve screwed it up (the professing-of-one’s-love thing). The first time was intentional, though, which is worse. I wonder if Dean thinks about that night as much as I do. I wonder if he aches for it like I do, or has he gotten over it? Does he still feel the same way? Or did I ruin it for him, in the same way I’ve ruined myself? If so, then I know how he feels. I too, had thought I knew myself, thought that I had set standards that I could live up to, and I didn’t, I haven’t. If I feel dissatisfied with myself, then maybe he does, too. He hasn’t told me he loves me since we reunited. Maybe I don’t deserve it.
Or maybe my brain should shut up and just be grateful for what I do have.
Sometimes I really hate being a girl.
I look around the room, at the walls and ceiling and…that’s it. There is nothing else in here to look at. The walls are all white tiles and blackened grout and the ceiling is water-stained. Before Dean had woken, I’d listened to the sounds of footsteps and squeaking wheels and hushed voices that echoed from the outside, and deducted that this must be the Resolute infirmary.
The door opens inwards. “I hope you like oatmeal, because there was nothing else,” Dean says, passing me a steel bowl.
“It’s fine, thank you.”
He doesn’t sit beside me, but across from me on the floor, patiently watching me eat.
I feel self-conscious and frown at him, but he only raises his eyebrows and goes right on watching. When I’m done demolishing the oats, he stands again. “There’s a game plan.”
“A game plan for what?” I ask suspiciously.
“For today, obviously. I’ve talked to my roommates, and they’ve agreed to let you stay in our house-”
“-I’m sorry,” I shake my head, “your ‘house’?”
“Yeah, as I was saying-”
“That is not a house,” I grin, unable to help myself.
He frowns. “Okay, it’s a cabin, then.”
“It’s a mud hut.”
“Tessa, do you want to sleep outside from now on? Because it’s still pretty cold out, and I am graciously giving up half of my bed for you.”
I pause. “We’re going to share a bed now?”
His smile fades, and I get the distinct impression that he is realising what he overlooked. He clears his throat, and then says, “I hadn’t really thought about other options, to be honest. Supplies
are low. I didn’t think you would mind.”
“Do you?” I ask him nervously. “I mean, I don’t want you to think that you have to, you know, be all boyfriend-y. If you don’t want to.”
I expect him to laugh, and he doesn’t, and it’s worse. “Why don’t you spit out your real question, Tessa. Last night you were throwing yourself at me, and today you’re walking on egg shells.”
“Fine, fine. I’ll sleep in your troll house. I just wanted to make sure you actually wanted me to.”
Dean looks at me, annoyed, and shakes his head. “Sometimes, you’re really weird. Let’s go.”
He takes my hand and helps me off the bed.
Dean takes me first to a washroom. This place must have been a medical building in the free world, because the shower stalls are structurally sound with real showerheads, like the ones in the training compound back home.
Dean finds me a towel and a change of clean clothes and tells me that he’ll wait outside.
Shivering, I quickly dress after I’ve washed. I try to comb my fingers through the knots in my hair, leaving it to drip down my back as it dries. There are mirrors along one wall, and I see myself for the first time since I became a traitorous jumper. If I don’t look at my bruised and swollen face, it’s not so bad. It’s just a pair of black jeans and an over-sized green shirt, both worn and fraying, but the feel of clean clothes, clean skin, clean hair, is wondrous. As I walk back to where Dean waits outside the washroom door, there is an actual smile on my face, and he seems to notice.
Actually, he seems to notice all of me, his eyes travelling freely.
“That’s better,” he says. “You look like you again.”
“And what did I look like before?”
“Like a cave-woman.”
I hit him.
“Like a hot cave-woman.” He takes my hand and holds it firmly, walking me away again. “Are you ready?”
I shrug. Since I’ve arrived I’ve been either comatose or beaten up, so it can only look up from here. And with Dean’s fingers rubbing warmth into mine, I don’t quite care.
*
Dean’s sector is much smaller than the one I ran from. He leads me first away from the infirmary, which seems to be part of a small strip mall. Most of it has crumbled towards the ground, but the rest is clearly accommodated. Dean calls it the Base, and points out the kitchen beside the infirmary, and the weapons storeroom next to that. Strewn across the ground are blackened fire pits and collections of wooden benches or stumps gathered around them, and a few of them are occupied, though no fires burn.
The Resolutes stare at me a little as we near them. A woman with long, silver hair is washing carrots in a large bucket of water, and she leans over to her companion as we pass, and they both sneer. We weave through the seating, towards a much larger fire pit, centred amongst a border of stones. This must be where the Resolutes hold their celebrations.
We walk towards a collection of huts beyond that, there are curved rows of them. People are milling together or trodding purposefully through, and I find that I don’t really care about them. I grip Dean’s hand a little more tightly.
Above the steeped tops of the huts, I can see several other crumbling structures, no bigger than my family’s home, the chapel, and the fence that separates us from the fields beyond.
That’s it. An entire militia encompassed within a couple of acres. Less land than what my family and I grazed.
“Dean, how many people live here?” I ask him as we approach the second row of huts.
He shrugs. “Five hundred. Six, maybe.”
Five hundred. I frown at him, though he doesn’t see. What possible threat could five hundred people hold against an army of four thousand?
Dean takes my elbow suddenly, and pulls me towards what must be his hut, but doesn’t let me enter.
He turns to me. “Breakfast isn’t for another half-hour, so everyone should still be inside.” His eyes flick towards the cloth that obscures the opening. “And probably really hung-over, or still drunk.”
I nod. “Any tips?”
He grins, and then leans in to kiss me lightly on the cheek. “Don’t leave your chin open.” He pulls back the cloth, and ducks to step inside. And I follow.
My eyes take a second to adjust. There is no artificial light to help me see. But I hear them.
Swearing, the sound of someone falling, laughter, and then, “What the hell, Dean? Ever thought of knocking first?”
I blink away the darkness, and see a tall figure sprawled on the ground, his jeans still around his ankles, trying and failing to pull them up around his underwear. Which, by the way, have an unfortunately placed hole in them.
I laugh.
A boy, this one fully clothed, sits on his camp bed behind the semi-naked one. He laughs also, his cheeks, round with youth, glow brightly. He looks to be no older than thirteen.
“This is Bryce,” Dean says, pointing to the boy. “And this embarrassment, is Omar.” Without looking at me, he says, “This is Tessa.”
Bryce stays seated and waves a hand towards me, still chuckling.
Omar, now successfully dressed, stands and zips up his pants, and holds out a hand to me. I shake it. “I would apologise, but we hear you’re a filthy traitor.”
I feel Dean tense up beside me, but honestly, this guy couldn’t be taken seriously if he was holding a gun to my head. His dark eyebrows put Snare’s to shame. They dance over his eyes, which are huge and bright. His narrow face was not built to support his wide smile, which seems to overwhelm every other feature. Except for the eyebrows, obviously. Those eyebrows are fire hazards.
I’ve been called worse things, so I say indifferently, “You haven’t got much to be sorry for.”
Bryce breaks into peals of laughter again, clutching his stomach. “Suck it, Omar.”
Omar turns to Dean. “She’s a charmer.”
Dean shrugs, smiling. “She’s got a point.”
Omar punches Dean in the shoulder and then turns away.
“Where’s Arlo?” Dean asks now.
Bryce shrugs. “Took off before we woke up.”
“I’d better go intercept him before breakfast. Would you two mind staying here with Tessa until I come back? She tends to be kidnapped when left alone.”
I scowl at the thought of requiring fulltime baby-sitting. But the last time I didn’t listen to Dean I had the shit beaten out of me, so I say nothing.
“Sure,” Omar says indifferently.
Dean turns to leave, saying over his shoulder. “Try not to show her anymore of your genitals, alright?”
And before I can stop him, he’s gone, and I’m alone in the same hut I was dragged from last night, with two new strangers.
I stand awkwardly for a second, putting my hands in my pockets, and eventually decide to sit on Dean’s bed. There are spots of blood in the dirt.
“So, who kidnapped you?” Bryce asks suddenly. He now lies on his stomach, his legs hanging over the side of his bed.
“An asshole,” I tell him, “and his asshole friends.”
“That doesn’t really narrow it down,” says Bryce.
I sigh, I don’t actually want to think of them. “There was an older, uglier guy. Huge nose.”
Omar nods, still collecting pieces of clothing off the ground. “Zachariah.”
I shrug my ignorance, but Bryce nods in agreement. “He is an asshole. But in his defence, so it your entire militia.”
“Former militia,” I correct him. “And I don’t disagree with you.”
This seems to warm Bryce up a little, but Omar is giving me furtive glances, covering up his tension with meaningless tasks. Right now he is plumping a pillow, and it looks so odd coming from someone in combat boots that I smirk.
Omar notices. “What? Still thinking about the peep show earlier? I wouldn’t blame you.”
I roll my eyes. “Sure.”
The eyebrows perk up and he smiles hugely, “Happens a lot.”
Now Bryce
rolls his eyes. “You’re still a virgin, idiot.”
Omar’s smile swallows his chin, and he promptly begins suffocating Bryce with the recently plumped pillow.
The cloth-cum-door is moved aside, and for a moment, the hut is blanketed in light, and then someone small steps inside, and the boys wrestling on the ground stop and look around.
The girl, a small child, hesitates when she sees me. Her black hair reaches her chin, framing her round face. Her cracked lips part, her pale skin floods with colour, and I recognise her. I know her.
The last time I saw this face, it was falling, falling. The life wiped from it as quickly as the hole in her was carved. And I’m there, again. Doing nothing. Watching and doing nothing. Letting her die.
But no, this isn’t her.
It’s a piece of her.
“Julie?”
She looks nervously to Omar and Bryce, and then back to me. Of course she’s confused. She doesn’t know me.
But I know her. I rise from the bed and go to her. My arms wrap around her tiny frame before I remember not to scare her.
I step back, and say, “I’m sorry, I’m just really, really happy to see you.” I think there are tears in my eyes, but a smile, too. The tears are for Tilly, and the smile is for her.
“That’s Tessa, remember the one Dean told us about?” Bryce tells her.
Julie nods a little, looks at me. “Hello.”
I laugh incredulously. I thought she was dead, or thrown into Galore’s orphanage.
“You were my sister’s friend.” She says in a small way, the way children do when they’re merely repeating facts they’ve learnt.
I smile again, “Yes, I was.”
“She died, though.” She says, matter-of-factly. “Dean told me so.”
My smile fades. Children learn to carry death like they learn to walk, and Julie has had to carry a lot of death. “She did. I’m sorry.”
She sighs, and smiles back at me, content that I am who I say I am. I stare back, seeing in her every ounce of fragility that I saw in that quiet Snow White for the first time, and I wonder how Dean managed to carry something so breakable across fifty miles of mutinous terrain.