Travelers (Stars Edge: Nel Bently Book 1)

by V. S. Holmes

  “Scotch, please.” Lin turned back to Nel. “You’ve got style.” She leaned forward, peering at the bolo. “Is that an artifact you’re wearing around your neck?”

  Nel lifted the point for the other woman to see better. “No, it’s something a friend of mine made. I had another friend who dabbles in jewelry wrap it for me.”

  Lin glanced up without pulling away. “It’s the same brown as your eyes.”

  “Munsungan chert, heat treated. It’s a paleo raw material from the north-eastern U.S. I’ve never encountered it myself, but the color went with my theme.”

  “Earth tones?” Lin’s hand was still nestled at Nel’s collarbone.

  “Dirt tones.” Nel pulled away. Lin confused her. She was strong and fun, but had the power to rip Nel’s work apart. I’ve had enough fucked-up shit the past two weeks to last me a lifetime. Mikey’s absence was a steady ache that sharpened each time Nel turned to talk to him. Lin was a fun distraction, but Nel guessed that was all she would be. “So what’s your dissertation on? Why’d you pick this?”

  “I’m studying the culture of modern archaeology in relation to other similar professions. I thought a site continuously in danger of vandalism was just the ticket.”

  “A site that is now part of a murder investigation?” The words were biting and Nel didn’t care.

  Lin looked down at her own drink with a soft sigh. “My timing wasn’t ideal. I’ve had some politics to wrestle.”

  Their drinks arrived and Nel took a long sip to hide the awkward silence. “You grew up here?”

  “No, little remote place. My brother and I learned Chilean Spanish young, so it comes easily to me.”

  “You’re close?”

  “Closest. I haven’t been home to see him in a long time though.”

  Nel stared at the swirls of mixing alcohol in her glass. “You must miss him.”

  Lin glanced up, her gaze heavy and clear on Nel’s face. “Tell me about your friend — Michael Servais.”

  “Mikey. Everyone called him Mikey. I’ve known him since undergrad. I drunkenly hit him up at a bar for a classmate that was too shy. She broke his heart and I got a best friend. Kindest heart I’ve ever met.”

  “He was a teacher too?”

  “Better than I could ever be. He has that gentle patience that’s so important. I think the school would rather he be head of the prehistorics department, but he won’t apply for it. He liked teaching, not bureaucracy.”

  “And you do?”

  Nel shrugged. “I’m not a fan of people in general.”

  Lin’s laugh was slow and easy. “I wish I’d met him.”

  Nel snorted. “He would have spent the whole time trying to set us up.”

  •

  Nel ghosted down the stairs. She couldn't sleep, even after two hours of drinking at the bar. She paused on the last landing, eyes narrowed. The dim light over the kitchen island was on. She padded into the hall and peered around the door.

  Lin sat with her back to Nel, peering at the blue glow of her laptop screen. Nel rolled her eyes. Lin may have been growing on her, but she still wanted the kitchen to herself in the morning. She slid onto the stool beside the other woman, glancing at the screen. Next to an x-ray of a clavicle and cervical vertebrae was an image of bloody asphalt. “What're you looking at?”

  Lin clicked the computer shut. “Dr. Servais' autopsy report was just filed. A colleague of mine got a hold of it for me.”

  Nel's stomach lurched. That was blood. That was Mikey's blood. “Let me see it.”

  “I really don't think that's a good idea.”

  “Let me fucking see it.” Her blood pounded in her ears. A chasm yawned in front of her thoughts, a dark pit of grief and uncertainty she was not ready to face.

  Lin sighed and slid the computer across the island before standing by the fridge. Nel pushed the laptop open. “What's your password?”

  “Starfall, capital 'S' and no spaces.”

  Nel flicked through the x-rays. Broken clavicle. Broken neck. Crushed temporal plate. Shattered knees and left tibia. She pressed her knuckles to her mouth, teeth digging purple crescents into the skin. Her stomach was a pit of snakes.

  The autopsy was standard. Stark lighting turned ligature into bloody purple blossoms. Mikey’s hair was too neat, the curls combed back against his head.

  The kettle's scream snapped her from the autopsy room to the house's kitchen.

  “Are you alright?”

  Nel swallowed hard, once, twice. She cleared emotions from her throat. “I don't know.”

  Lin slid a mug of coffee across the counter.

  Nel was suddenly grateful that the other woman refrained from an “I told you so.” She drew a shaking breath.

  “I think I'm going to file some of the artifacts.” She pushed away from the table and moved up the stairs. Her face may have been blank, but her thoughts whirled. She had seen those injuries before. She shut the door and briskly stowed the artifacts still on the desk. She ripped the sheet from the bed and draped it over the bare desk before retrieving the burial remains. The bones were soft, too light to be stone, too hard to be wood. She gathered the several bags that were flagged. The red tag denoted the bones within had peri- or ante-mortem damage. She laid them out anatomically, her hands shaking. She didn't see weathered, brown bones. She saw a ski-jump nose and the slight surprise of a scarred eyebrow. The worn remains before her didn't make a person. They were an echo of the space he or she had once occupied, but they weren't a human. The photos of Mikey were just as hollow. It was as if all the pieces of a favorite toy were reassembled without the stuffing.

  She pulled out her field book and sketched a roughly anatomical stick person. She mentally applauded herself for paying such close attention during her osteology courses. Double lines denoted a broken clavicle. Chipping on the C2 may have been from a blunt blow.

  She continued through all the bones that were clearly damaged. The injuries were uncannily similar to those on Mikey's autopsy report.

  Chad's patterned knock startled a gasp from her. “Hey, I’m throwing together some lunch, want any?”

  “I'm not hungry, thanks though.”

  He paused, the floor outside creaking as if he debated entering. “Lin said you might need a bit of time. I’ll call up when it’s done if you want some.”

  Nel hummed, not really hearing. She did not hear the stairs mutter under his retreat nor Lin’s polite call that dinner was ready hours later. By the time Nel looked up, it was fully dark and her eyes ached from squinting.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Nel wasn’t religious. Still, soul or no soul, whatever had been Mikey, her laughing, sweet, Mikey, was gone. She pressed a hand to the glass that separated her from the cold body on the other side.

  The door to the police precinct's viewing room clicked shut. “They said you were in here. Do you want to be alone?” When she jerked her head, Chad’s hand slid over hers, warm and dry. “I’m so sorry.”

  “His hair’s wrong.” It was a stupid thing to care about, but she was clinging desperately to the slivers of reality that still made sense. She had wanted so badly to see Mikey's body, to prove, somehow, that he wasn't really dead. “He was never afraid of dying, Chad. He told me once that if he had to believe in a traditional idea of afterlife, he would choose reincarnation. Said the atoms that made him were once a thousand different things, and when he was gone, they would become a thousand more. I can’t help but worry he was afraid at the end.”

  •

  “Chad said I could find you up here.”

  Nel glanced over her shoulder. With jeans and a tee, Lin could almost fit in. “Yeah, it’s kind of my spot. Quiet up here.”

  Lin faltered. “You want me to leave?”

  “Nah, you’re fine.” Nel slid over on the ledge. “You want a beer?”

  Lin plopped down beside her and held up a make-your-own sixer. I’m set.”

  “So yo
u don’t only drink scotch?” Nel peered through the choices. “These aren’t bad. A bit dark for my tastes, but the class is there.”

  “Class is always there.”

  Nel passed her the bottle opener, watching the long fingers pry the metal loose. The nudge in the back of her mind came again. “So why are you here? Really?”

  Lin pulled a strand of her dark hair from its bun and wove it absently through her fingers. “There are so many reasons. Tiny little choices that we don’t even realize we’ve made until we look back.”

  Nel glanced over. “Whoa there, Socrates. I meant, like, why did you come here?”

  Lin laughed softly, though the serious expression barely dimmed. “I know what you meant. It just occurred to me what really brings us places can be different from what we think.”

  “I think you had a few shower-beers.”

  She cocked her head. All the loose strands of hair drifted around her shoulders, the breeze curling them into tentative questions. “Shower-beer?”

  “You really aren’t from around here. Shower-beer is when you drink a cold beer in a hot shower. Best after a long, hot sweaty day in the dirt and sun.” Nel leaned back against the plaster roof. It was rough through the thin cotton of her tank, but still warm from the sun. Her head flopped as she turned to look at Lin. The other woman’s eyes were fathomless and dark, the irises dotted with grey and brown like galaxies in the night sky.

  “Sounds a bit delicious.”

  “More than a bit.” Nel’s mouth was suddenly dry, and the bottle in her hand was empty. She really didn’t want to sit up. Instead, she lifted her chin a bit, as if imparting a secret. “Why are you really here? What myriad unknown choices did you make to wind up on a rooftop in Chile, drinking with me?”

  Lin’s thin mouth curled into a smile, her eyes lidding. “You’d never believe me if I told you. What about your choices?”

  “I’m really not sure. Could have been one, could have been a thousand.” She swallowed carefully, chewing thoughtfully on her lower lip. “Really, the only choice on my mind is whether or not I should kiss you.”

  Lin’s smile deepened and glass ground on plaster as she pushed her bottle away. “Sometimes I think those are the most important choices.”

  “Well you’re not running for the hills.”

  “Nope.”

  There was such a thing as grief sex, Nel assumed -- touch that was a terrified attempt at filling a sudden yawning chasm in the chest. The chasm in Nel’s was raw and rocks still rattled into the abyss. She wondered if this would only hurt her more. She licked her lips nervously and leaned forward. Lin’s mouth was hungry and careful at once.

  Nel’s calluses caught on cotton as she slid her hand up Lin’s waist, pulling her closer. Her head whirled as thoughts spun down some mental drain. There was no such thing as seeing stars, but kissing came close. Nel pulled away and pressed her brow to Lin’s. Her panting breath was loud against the distant sounds of nightlife. The chasm in her chest roared, the emptiness swallowed anxiety and inhibition. “Thank you. I needed that.”

  Lin cocked her head. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes over-bright. The corner of her shirt had rolled up over her ribs, exposing an odd tattoo up her waist. She tucked a lock of Nel’s hair behind an ear. “You’re beautiful.”

  “I don’t ever make promises. I don’t know what tomorrow will be like.”

  “Neither do I.” Lin grinned. “No one ever does.”

  Her mouth was more searching against Nel’s this time, her tongue questioning. Nel’s arms wrapped around the other woman, hands dragging up her back, learning the dips and curves of a new body, an alien landscape under the cartographer of her palms. Her lips parted, answering with every vulnerability. Her nerves sang. Lin slid a hand into Nel’s Carhartts. Her hand was slender, a perfect balance of delicate and deft. Nel’s body burned, tiny bolts of electricity radiating across her skin from Lin’s curling fingers.

  She fumbled with the three buttons on Lin’s jeans, breathless. “What the fuck, even your jeans have to be classy.”

  Lin’s laugh was a soft puff of air in the hollow of Nel’s shoulder. It was followed a moment later by a low gasp as Nel pressed her muscled palm against Lin’s clit. Nel pulled away just enough to watch her face. Her cheeks flushed peach, lips parted, breath hitching at each press of Nel’s rough fingers. Lin’s eyes opened, hazed from darkness and sex. “I want you.”

  Nel shimmied out of her shorts, kicking them aside with dismissing ease. Another minute of work and laughter later, Lin’s pants were tossed away. Lin pulled Nel on top of her, hands ghosting over her hips to grab her ass. Nel tucked a leg up under Lin’s until their bodies pressed together, her hand pinned between them. Lin’s skin shone under the starlight, pale gold against Nel’s tan, smooth against rough concrete. Heat rolled across Nel’s body at the sight. This woman couldn’t be more fucking beautiful. She hooked an arm around Lin’s waist, lifting the other woman’s hips against her own.

  Lin reached up, gripping the back of Nel’s neck. “I love how strong you are.” She dragged Nel’s mouth down to hers and whispered against her lips, “Fuck me.” She bucked her hips, capturing Nel’s gasp with her own.

  Nel gripped the low wall of the roof, a wicked grin blossoming as Lin reached up to brace herself. She fucked her grief away, erasing every second of pain with each rock of her hips. Her eyes were lidded, unfocused with pleasure. She pulled each gasp and moan from the other woman with desperate tenderness.

  A shiver unfurled up Nel’s body, pleasure following it a moment later as her muscles tap-danced their way through orgasm.

  Lin’s eyes flew open a moment later, pupils blown as she came.

  Nel lowered her carefully, breath gasping through passion and laughter. “I’m sorry I just fucked you on a rooftop. Not my classiest of moments.” She rested her forehead on Lin’s chest

  Lin laughed. “Perhaps not. It was hot, though.” She glanced up at the sky. “It’s almost eight.”

  “How do you do that?” Nel sat back, still entangled, to look at the stars. “You have somewhere you need to be?”

  “No, I just thought we could shower and move this party down to your bed.”

  Nel’s smile broadened, easing across her face. “I wouldn’t mind tasting you.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  “What do you think the meaning of life is?” Nel stared at her ceiling, body blissfully loose and sore on a level only sex could reach.

  “Seriously? What kind of question is that?” Lin shifted and Nel was aware of the other woman’s deep brown eyes on her. Lin scoffed. “You’re serious.”

  “I met someone a while ago — not anyone I’d like to meet again, but he had a point. Said life was all about searching for home, all about roots and finding where we belonged.”

  “You disagreed?”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “I guess I thought archaeologists were all searching for something. Who we are, where we came from.”

  “We’re searching, sure, but I think it’s more complex than that. I think we’re looking for where we’re going. We see where we were and where we are. Next step is the future.”

  “I doubt many in this field share your thoughts.”

  “I rarely do.” She allowed herself a grin at the poor joke. “So what about you?”

  “I think life is about finding our place — dreaming big and finding ourselves settled in those dreams. Where we belong, so to speak, but not where we’ve been.”

  “Where we’re going.”

  “Yeah.” Lin’s eyes narrowed. “Are you disappointed?”

  “In?”

  “Yourself. For having the same idea about life as a suited-up broad from the big city.”

  “I never said that.”

  “Your eyes did.” Lin laughed softly. “I think you would have been disappointed then, had you realized we’re searching for the same thing.”

  “Yeah, m
aybe. I also realized that guy had a point though. We’re sums of where we’ve been. Great or small, each piece becomes a part of us.”

  “Who was he?”

  “The head of Los Pobladores.”

  “You had drinks with the man who organized the vandalism of your life’s work. Shit, you’re more complicated than I realized.”

  Nel’s smile curled wickedly and she rolled over to straddle Lin’s hips. “Too complicated for a suited-up broad from the big city?”

  Lin’s laugh rolled like distant thunder in summer, her head tilted back. “Nel, the myriad tiny things that brought me here, made me this, are far more complicated than you realize.”

  Lin was unconsciously graceful, like a runner, the kind of steady strength that outlasted the sun. She traced a finger down the tattoo on Lin’s arm. She had seen earlier that it reached around her shoulder and up her spine. The awareness nudged at her thoughts again, persistent, but still able to be pushed away. “It’s like nerves. Halfway between spider-web natural and wires. It’s cool.”

  “Thanks. You have any ink?”

  “None. No piercings, nothing. By the time I realized earrings didn’t make me girly, I was twenty and it seemed pointless. Tattoos are gorgeous as long as the needle isn’t anywhere near my skin.”

  Lin snorted. “Baby.”

  “Did it hurt?”

  “Of course, but what you’re really asking is how much. It burned, it stung, it tickled even at times. It was worth it, though. My brother has one just like it.”

  “Where’d you get it done?”

  “Back home.”

  “Where’s home?”

  Lin rolled her eyes. “That’s a conversation for later. I’m hungry — wanna grab a bite to eat?”

  Nel allowed the subject to change without protest. She had enough secrets too, ones that would come out later, maybe, but not tonight. “Yeah, I’d like something to drink, too.”