Darr

by Theresa Beachman

  Finally, he was done. He stepped back and wiped his damp forehead with the back of his hand. “Ok, saved the worst till last. Let’s fix up that leg of yours.”

  The dressing was dark with blood, her knee marred with a muddy crust. Across the top of her leg, an elegant swallow swooped, its wings dipping toward the soft skin of her inner thigh.

  Darr tilted his head to one side. “I didn’t see you as one for tattoos.”

  “I’m not,” she replied.

  Damn, you’re hard work. Darr avoided her scorching gaze and motioned for her to scoot further up on the table. “This is going to hurt,” he said, unwinding the gauze.

  “Just do what needs to be done,” she muttered as he pulled the last of the dressing away, revealing a three-inch gash.

  It wasn’t as deep as he’d initially thought. “This should be fine with steri-strips.” He doused cotton wool with antiseptic and began to clean rusty streaks from the area surrounding the wound. He risked a glance up. Questions were written all over her face. She wasn’t going to let him off lightly. An unacknowledged part of him liked that. Her tenacity. Or stubbornness, he reminded himself. “What?” he asked.

  Her face was pale. “Why did you leave?”

  Darr stilled, excuses and truth fighting for dominance in his mind “I wasn’t needed.” He dropped his head and resumed his work.

  “That’s a crock. We were attacking a Chittrix nest, and you weren’t needed?”

  He stopped again. She shot him a dirty look laced with a fierceness that took his breath away.

  “You’re angry,” he said.

  “Of course, I’m angry. You abandoned us in the middle of an attack on a Chittrix nest.” A tiny muscle twitched high on her temple. “You even left your own people. Didn’t they need you? What about Meagan and Katie, the girls you helped bring back to the Command Base from Crossness?”

  Leaving Meagan and Katie had been one of the hardest things Darr had ever done. But he’d done it for them, to keep them safe. His fatigued brain stumbled, searching for the right words.

  “I knew the girls would be safe with you. I watched you with them, in the infirmary after we brought them back. You were brushing their hair, tying it with ribbons, and they were smiling. I knew then they’d be safe at the Command Base, and that you would protect them in a way I couldn’t.” He cut her a glance. “The Command Base was, and still is, the best place for them, and you know it.”

  Violet gave him a sidelong glance. “You were watching me?”

  Her question hung heavy in the air between them, trapping him. Darr worked his jaw. Finally, he turned away from her, collecting supplies and himself. “Don’t worry, it doesn’t mean we’re engaged or anything.”

  Violet hissed softly, and he realized she’d been holding her breath, waiting for his answer.

  “They needed you. Their parents were dead, then they saw Beth die. I think they saw you both as replacement parents, even though you and Beth weren’t, you know…a couple.” Her voice slid to a halt, and when he looked up, her throat was flushed. He considered telling her she’d gone pink, just to get her to stop asking questions.

  He’d protected the small community at Crossness. He’d stepped up then, able to handle anything required of him. But that had been before everything changed.

  “Beth’s dead. Crossness is gone. The girls are safe,” he said in a deadpan tone. He swabbed her wound with a clean cotton ball, pausing as she swore through clenched teeth. “We’re not going to do this. You don’t get to have everything explained to you on a platter.”

  “Sounds like a cop-out.”

  He shot her a warning glance and watched as she bit her lip in response, her small white teeth digging into the soft flesh. It would be so easy to share and set the record straight, to ask for her understanding. To ease the weight that dragged him further down every day. But to do that would put her at risk—the very reason he’d left the Command Base in the first place. He was a liability who put others’ lives in danger.

  He tore the seal on a packet of steri-strips. “You can think what you like. I’m not here for psychoanalysis. I’m helping you get your ass back to your brother and the rest of them. That’s it.” He applied the first strip to her torn flesh. “You’re going to need antibiotics—there’s already signs of infection. Injuries from Chittrix are the worst for going septic.” Without any preamble, he unsheathed a preloaded needle and jabbed clear liquid into her thigh.

  Violet squawked. “What was that?”

  “Local anesthetic. It’s good for forty-eight hours.”

  Darr shook antibiotics into her palm and handed her a bottle of water. Her skin brushed his as she took it, her hand delicate and impossibly small for such a fierce soldier. But he wasn’t going there. He’d made his choices for good reasons, and they still stood.

  “Thanks.”

  “Welcome,” he muttered back, his throat thick. The sooner he returned Violet to her brother, the better.

  7

  Violet scraped the last of the warm rice pudding out of the tin with her spoon. “It’s ironic. I hated this so much as a child, but now it tastes like manna from heaven.”

  Night had fallen in a thick blanket, and the office window was black. A layer of snow curled across the outside ledge, and wind whispered against the glass.

  Darr sat opposite, cross-legged on his folded sleeping bag. His hair hung dark across his forehead, partially concealing a slash of pale scar tissue. Candles burned between them, lighting up his face with a flickering glow. Surrounded by piles of books, it almost masqueraded as cozy.

  Almost.

  Violet tugged her coat tighter around herself. The small camp stove had provided a welcome blast of heat, but now, even with clean, dry clothes rolled up and cinched at the waist with doubled-up string, she was chilled to the bone. And she looked like a bag lady. She wasn’t sure why it mattered, but she was bothered by the tramp effect nonetheless.

  With a grunt, Darr reached behind him and passed her a thick pile of clothing.

  She unfolded a leather jacket and sank her fingers into its thick wool lining. “Thank you.” Air condensed in white puffs as she spoke.

  Darr’s scent enveloped her as she pulled the jacket on, playing havoc with her brain. “Not just for this.” She indicated her oversized clothes and pointed at her leg. “For earlier. The Chittrix. I was… rude. If you hadn’t come along…I’d have probably gone boom with the van.”

  He eyes were dark and serious. “You’re welcome.” He smiled suddenly, and the genuineness of it made Violet’s breath catch. It softened the harsh lines of his face and realization flooded her. This is what he looked like before the invasion. It was a face she would have liked. Before.

  Her hands twisted in her lap. That time was gone now. “So, no radio, how do you communicate with anyone?”

  Darr shook his head slowly like he was speaking to someone who was a bit slow. “I don’t.”

  “You don’t?”

  He grunted. “Nope.”

  “You live like this?. Alone?”

  “Yes.”

  She folded her arms as best she could while encased in his jacket and eyeballed the room. Self-imposed isolation. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Why would you choose this?”

  Darr froze, his hand reaching to light another candle from a guttering stub.

  She waited, but he didn’t answer her million-dollar question.

  He shot her a nerve-shredding glance as he finally lit the candle. He sat back, drawing a blanket around his shoulders. Clearly that was the end of that topic.

  She changed tactics. “You have a lot of books.”

  “It’s a library, Violet.” Even in the candlelight, was that amusement?

  “You don’t say much.”

  “No,” he conceded, frowning. “Not anymore.”

  He was keeping something from her, she was sure of it. His secretiveness was just another reminder of why she should keep him at arm’s length.

  Vio
let hugged her knees, bumping her nose against the soft fabric of the too-big cargos she wore. She was used to standing on her own feet and fighting in her own corner, but wearing Darr’s clothes was a physical reminder it wasn’t always that way. She thought of the others back at the Command Base who had taken a chance, risking a relationship in the aftermath of the Chittrix apocalypse: her brother, Garrick, and Anna, Julia, their explosives expert, and Sawyer, Garrick’s right-hand man. They were happy, but she’d never considered it an option for herself.

  She jabbed a finger at him. “I know why you left the Base. Foster made your brain melt with all his chat.” She laughed for the first time in days. “It’s okay. I won’t tell. I love him, but he even does my head in some days.”

  Darr’s reply was monotone. “I’m going to get you home safe, Violet, but that’s it. That’s where it stops.” His tone was final, shutting her down. “There’s nothing I need to know about you, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll understand you don’t want to get to know me either. It’s the only way to survive.”

  Right. Her toes curled in her boots. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

  His face was emotionless. “There’s no need for apologies. It’s just where we are. At war.”

  With each other or the Chittrix? she wanted to ask, but she let it drop.

  He stood abruptly, hooked the empty cans with his fingers, and put them neatly in a box near the door. “You should get some rest. It’s been a long day, and your body needs to heal. We’ll sort out transport in the morning and get you home. I’m going to do a final check outside.”

  She shifted to stand, but he gripped her shoulder with strong fingers. “Not you. Put that leg up.”

  Then he was gone.

  Violet rubbed her arms. She could move more freely now that anesthetic had fully kicked in. She stared at the locked cupboard that Darr had unloaded his backpack into when they’d first arrived.

  She rattled the handle. Locked as she expected.

  Giving up on the secured cupboard, Violet left Darr’s room and found the restroom downstairs, just as he’d described, complete with a bucket of water. She washed her hands and face, sluicing off the dirt with skin-numbing splashes and a bar of soap. She patted her face dry on a threadbare towel and checked herself out in the mirror.

  Escaped tendrils framed her face in a crazy tangle and oil from the van still smeared her forehead. She scrubbed it off with the edge of the towel, doing her best not to think about Bailey dead and burned on the street. She should have insisted on driving—then perhaps he would still be alive, and they would be home safe.

  And she wouldn’t be here with this man with the dark, guarded eyes who was spinning magic around her.

  She hung over the basin and stared at the white porcelain. Darr unsettled her. Even though he’d dragged her from the van and brought her to safety, something wasn’t adding up. She couldn’t put her finger on it. Yet.

  She raised her head. The bathroom mirror was the front of a small medicine cabinet.

  Her conscience wavered and then capitulated. Societal norms no longer apply in the aftermath of an alien invasion. She yanked the cabinet open, expecting to laugh at empty shelves or a half-eaten packet of antacids. Instead, every square inch of the unit was rammed with medication. And not any sort of medication she’d ever seen before. Most of the names she couldn’t even pronounce.

  Her head spun as she ran her fingertips across the packs from different pharmacies all over the city. This was heavy-duty shit. She mouthed the unfamiliar names until she finally found one she recognized. Diazepam. That was the same as Valium, wasn’t it? Violet remembered a friend taking Valium when her marriage had gone through a rough patch.

  Violet pressed the cabinet door shut. Did this all belong to Darr? And why?

  She stepped out of the restroom and hurried along the aisles, searching for the dictionaries. Her heart raced, and adrenaline heated her veins as she flipped pages, desperate to know before he came looking for her. Her fingers stopped. They were heavy-duty tranquilizers. She slid the dictionary back on the shelf and rested her forehead against the cold wood. Was this how he was managing the apocalypse? Shutting it out with a medicated blanket?

  Every shred of safety dissipated, leaving the rice pudding a solid mass in her stomach. She gripped the shelf, her mind whirling, and made her choice.

  She swiftly limped upstairs. On the hook next to Darr’s crossbow was a car key attached to an electronic fob. She slipped it off the hook into her pocket.

  I’ll bring it back tomorrow. It’s less than fifty miles to the CB. I can be home in less than an hour and a half. But I can’t stay here.

  Violet glanced at the cupboard Darr had filled earlier. She rattled the handle again. She was pretty damn sure she knew what was in there—more of what was downstairs.

  Either way, she wasn’t going to spend the night with a man dosing up on mind-subduing drugs while eight-foot-tall insectoid aliens roamed the south of England. She grabbed a pulse rifle and SIG from his small armory. “Just borrowing,” she mumbled, stuffing the SIG into the back of her waistband.

  It was bone-jarringly cold outside, and her breath came in thick, foggy clouds. The moon was full, casting a surreal, milky glow over the street. A thin smattering of snow dusted the ground—less than an inch, but enough to mask the industrial, ravaged-by-aliens look that pervaded the world. Instead, everything was pristine and white, unsullied for a moment. It could almost be a freezing winter night before the invasion, and she was heading out to meet friends at the pub.

  Except she wasn’t.

  She hesitated, glancing back over her shoulder at the relative warmth of the library behind her. The windows were dark. Darr hadn’t returned yet.

  Violet held out the key and clicked the fob. She doubted the car was locked, but she needed the lights to guide her.

  There, at the far end of the street. The very last car, dumped at a crazy angle—half on the curb, half on the road. Crazy fucker couldn’t even park.

  She jogged through the softly falling snow, her footsteps crunching lightly and the cold air scouring the back of her throat. Her ribs ached with a low stabbing pain, and her thigh throbbed with every footfall, but she kept going, intent on reaching the car.

  Out of breath, she hooked the passenger-side door open and threw her pulse rifle onto the seat before hobbling around to the driver’s side. She grasped the door handle, but before she could open it, warm fingers secured her wrist in an iron grip, and hot breath brushed against her ear.

  “Want to tell me where the fuck you’re going with my car?”

  8

  Darr grabbed Violet’s free hand, locking his body to hers. He wasn’t going to be so gullible second time around. He prized his car keys from her reluctant fingers and dropped them into his coat pocket.

  She wrestled against his grasp. But he held her firm, his jaw tight, the tendons in his neck taut and aching.

  “I brought you to my home, cleaned you up, and this is how you repay me,” he growled against the smooth skin of her neck.

  Violet jerked, trying to break free, but Darr’s grip was unforgiving. He twisted her around so she faced him, the swell of her chest rising and falling against the muscles of his abdomen.

  Her eyes flashed with defiance. “I was only borrowing the car. I would have brought it back.”

  He snorted in disgust. “Oh, well, that’s okay then.”

  She wrenched futilely at his restraining hands. “Stop being an ass.”

  “I’m being an ass?” he asked, his voice rising.

  She stopped fighting him. “I’m sorry. I freaked out.”

  Words formed on the tip of his tongue, but he stalled, suddenly unsure if he wanted to go down this route. There was plenty for Violet to be freaked out about, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear it. It was one thing being aware of his own weaknesses, but another to have them laid out before him on a platter. He released her wrists, and she sidled away, rubbing
her skin.

  “I looked in your bathroom cabinet.” She held up her hands. “Before you say anything, I shouldn’t have, I know that. I’m sorry.”

  Darr hissed through clenched teeth as he focused on the top of Violet’s head, not trusting himself to look her in the eye. Snowflakes landed on the edge of her hat, their crystalline shapes perfectly balanced on loose strands of wool. They were so beautiful, and the rest of the world was so fucking ugly. How was that?

  This was why he should have listened to the tiny voice of reason in the back of his head, the one that told him that no good would come of protecting anyone and allowing them access to his life. The voice he’d ignored. However tiny a glimpse he’d restricted her to, it was too much.

  “Darr?”

  He grunted, his attention lasering back on her.

  Her eyes were cloudy with confusion. “You have all those drugs. What’s going on?”

  A scream ripped across the air between them. A woman’s scream. Fuck. He scraped his hand across his face. “What is it with today? Can’t everyone just stay home, drink hot chocolate, and read a book?”

  Violet yanked the car door open and snatched the pulse rifle she’d stolen from him. “You can shout at me later. I’m not ignoring that.” Her face burned with indignation. “You coming? Or are you going to stay here and look after your car?”

  Darr pounded the roof of the vehicle denting the roof but Violet was already walking, automatically checking the charge on her rifle and heading in the direction of the scream. She grimaced over her shoulder, her eyebrows almost connecting with her hairline. “It’s a Micra, Darr. Come on.” Then she disappeared around the corner into the next street.

  Darr swiped snow from his vision. He’d done nothing but avoid the human race for three months, and he’d been doing a pretty fine job of it too. Now within hours of finding Violet, he had to get involved with even more people. Shit. He patted his pockets.

  What? She’d taken his fucking car keys. Again.