“No, Riley. Not done. What you did to me is nowhere near as bad as what you did to Brody, and I know you know that. But you’re taking all your guilt out on me. If you want him to forgive you, then bloody talk to him, and maybe he will. Maybe he already has. But this, what you’re doing, it’s wrong, Riley. It’s not fair to either of us, because it’s all based on a lie. I know I don’t own you any more than you own me and I would never presume to tell you what you can and can’t do. If you need to walk away from me, then do that, but it’ll be you walking away, not me. I won’t do that for you.”
She took a small step towards him and he froze. She didn’t even get a chance to touch him. He looked so hurt, she felt bad for saying all of this, but he needed to hear it. And she knew she meant it, all of it. She wasn’t trying to hurt him.
“I won’t touch you if you can’t bear it, Riley. And I am sorry for hurting you, I really am, but I can’t have any secrets with us. Even if we’re not together after this, I won’t ever lie to you… I’m done now.” She watched him turn around and run into the woods, not even on a trail, and after a while she heard strange, thumping sounds coming out of there, as if he were punching trees. And suddenly she could picture him doing just that, punching trees with his bare hands, probably breaking his hands on them. She couldn’t help going after him, hoping she could find him in the darkness. She did, by the awful sounds that made her flinch every time she heard one.
He was standing in a tiny clearing, his back to her, not hearing her come in, and punching a giant tree that wasn’t a birch, hard, over and over again, not even stopping to breathe. She ran up to him and threw her arms around his back, pulling him away from it, and he didn’t fight her, but he wouldn’t look at her either, hands in fists at his sides, and she couldn’t see what he did to them in the dark. She walked him back to the fire, and he let her, and she could see it all then, his bloody knuckles sticking out, skin torn in too many places, him not looking at any of it, staring at the flames, and breathing like his heart was going to explode.
“Please, don’t move, Riley. I’ll be right back,” she whispered and ran to the flier to get the med kit.
He was sitting just as she left him when she got back, bloodied hands still in fists, staring at the fire, not watching her. She put the kettle on to heat up some water, not saying anything, not quite knowing what to say to him now. She just wanted to fix the pain, even if she couldn’t fix anything else.
She crouched in front of him and took his hands gently by the wrists, “I need to get all the dirt and tree stuff out first,” and she put them into a bowl of steaming hot water, knowing it was hurting him, but he didn’t flinch, didn’t move at all, while she picked out all the pieces of dirt and wood splinters, watching the water turn pink. She looked at his hands, clean now, still bleeding hard.
“I have to stitch some of this up, Riley.”
She looked up at his face, trying to make him look at her. He was shaking his head. Some of the holes he made were definitely too deep to heal on their own. She made him look at his hands, and he was still shaking his head at her. He had to see that she needed to do this. It didn’t make any sense for him to not let her, and after what he just did to himself, she knew it wasn’t the pain of a few stitches.
“Riley, I have to, or it’s not going to heal,” she said softly.
He looked at her finally, eyes full of water, “I don’t want it to heal, Ams,” a pained whisper, and he put his head down, his hands shaking in hers.
She let his hands go and pulled his head into her chest, pressing him against her with everything she had.
“I’m not going anywhere, Riley, I promise you I’m not, not unless you really want me to, and I don’t think you do. But you do need to figure out you and Brody, so it’s not killing you like this; so you can live with yourself. You did hurt him worse than I ever saw anyone hurt before, but that boy loves you. I think he’s already forgiven you for all of it, only you wouldn’t know it because you are too scared to ask him, and I can’t help you with that… And he is not in the flier, so you can’t do anything about it now anyway. Please, let me stitch you up, and we can maybe catch what little sleep we have left. I plan on putting lots and lots of holes into trees with those guns you are all so fond of tomorrow, and I’d rather be awake enough for it, so I don’t accidentally shoot somebody.”
He put his hands out in front of him after a while, and nodded to her, closed his eyes, and didn’t move or saying anything after that.
He let her walk him to the flier afterwards, still not saying a word, and she went to sleep in the seat next to his, with her head on his chest, his bandaged hand around her shoulder, and she could tell he stayed up for a long time just looking at her, could feel him watching her. And when she came down to the fire the next morning, he and Brody were gone, and she hoped that whatever it was Riley was telling him would make it all right for them in the end, hoped that Brody wouldn’t punish him for it as much as Riley did last night.
That Brody was as good as Laurel and Ella and Drake thought he was, Riley good, even if he didn’t know it.
TAMED
Brody
[May 20, 2236, Woods Outside Waller]
“I need to show you something,” Laurel said, smiling, standing right next to him. He didn’t even hear her walking through the woods. She moved like Drake in that way, silent like a ghost. Nice skill to have, he thought, the soldier in him. She turned the ray on, holding it out in front of her, and took him by the hand. They walked on a tiny trail that looked brand new, the brush and the grass not nearly packed in enough, and after a while they were in a small clearing, no birches, just elms and oaks.
She shined her ray around them, and then stuck it in the ground and turned it on high. He didn’t know what he was supposed to be looking at. There were just trees and grass. She walked over to one of the trees, and pointed, and he saw it: scorch marks and bullet holes inside circles drawn with a burn pen, and a few, very few marks and holes outside the circles. She was showing him a target.
“I can do this from 12 meters away with either gun, the old ones or the stunners. I know it’s not much, but Trelix told me it was pretty good for a beginner. I am getting much better with the knife, too, but I need a bit more time with that.”
He didn’t know what to say to this. Had no idea this girl was coming out here learning to shoot. It didn’t make sense for her to want to do that, not unless she planned on going into battle, and she couldn’t possibly be planning that. She walked back towards him, a smile on her face, “Well, what do you think? Trelix says we are not going anywhere for a few days yet, so I’ll get much better with the knife by then, and I’ll keep practicing with the guns too.” And he knew for sure she meant to come with them then, that she was indeed training for battle, and he suddenly wished he could do to her what Riley had done to him, grab her tiny wrists and put a band around them, keep her safe.
“Laurel, you can’t come. I am sorry, but you can’t,” he said softly, quietly.
The smile was gone now, eyes watchful.
“I don’t remember asking you that, Brody. I asked you how you thought I did on my shooting. Answer the question I asked, please.”
He knew she did well. Too well for someone who’d never used these weapons before. The girl was a great shot. He could tell how she compensated and her grouping got tighter. If it was one of his new recruits who did that he’d be thrilled for them. But it wasn’t. It was this tiny, blue-eyed girl, a girl he really wanted to keep safe.
“Trelix is the worst shot I’ve ever seen, so don’t take this the wrong way, but he doesn’t know what he is talking about. This wouldn’t get you into the worst crew. You couldn’t hit a person in a crowd right now. I am sorry,” he said and turned away from her, back to the trail.
“You really are terrible at this, Brody. I’ll make a deal with you. You can teach me to shoot better and I’ll teach you to lie better, so it’s not written all over your face like that.”
> He stopped, facing her again, feeling not a little embarrassed.
“I know what you are trying to do, but it won’t work. I have a feeling all of us are going, whether you like it or not. And if you think about this the way you are supposed to, you’d realize that Ams and I can get you right into the lab without anyone so much as putting their hands on any of us, and the last thing they’d expect is us being able to shoot at them. Ams and I might be the only chance all of you have of actually getting out of there alive.”
She walked back to the clearing to grab her ray. He didn’t know what to say to her now. She was right, and if it had been anyone else, someone he didn’t know, he’d be fine with it. He just wasn’t fine with it being her, or Ams, for that matter. Riley would never forgive him if he got his Ams hurt or killed, even if they were fighting now. He leaned against a tree trunk, waiting for her, watching her examine her targets again. She looked serious when she did that, tilting her head to the side, measuring the distance between the holes with her fingers. He closed his eyes, thinking of something he could say to her to make her not want to do this, anything at all he could swear on or promise her, and suddenly he felt her lips pressing against his, softly at first, and he couldn’t open his eyes to look at her, couldn’t even breathe. He felt her hands on his chest, making him freeze at the touch.
He was breathing now at least, breathing like there was not enough air in the world to keep his lungs going, and he couldn’t move away from her, couldn’t move a muscle. Her lips finally let go and he felt her hands on his back, and then on his sides, moving down, and he felt a small breeze tickle his skin where she lifted his shirt up, her hands brushing softly, warmly against his naked skin, and he couldn’t bear that touch. He looked at her, her face flushed, eyes throwing glitter at him. He gently put his hands on hers and moved them away from him, just holding them, this touch much more bearable than what she was doing before.
“I am sorry, Laurel… I can’t,” he whispered, and put his head down, letting her hands go, waiting for her to leave. Only she kept standing there in front of him, not moving.
“I know you can’t, Brody, but I also know you want to. I can feel it. I won’t touch you again if you don’t want me to. I just wish I knew why you find my touch so unbearable,” and she walked off onto the trail, silent as a ghost.
He couldn’t let her go like that, feeling sad and hurt; had to find a way of explaining it to her somehow so she wouldn’t feel bad for it. He caught up to her and took her by the shoulders. She jumped, so he quickly put his hands behind his back, scared that he really did hurt this girl.
“I am sorry, Laurel. Please, look at me. I won’t touch you.”
She did, and he could tell she’d been crying, eyes still wet, and he wanted to wrap his arms around her, tell her that it wasn’t her, that he just couldn’t get close to anyone like that, not after Trina, that he couldn’t stand to lose anybody again.
She stepped right up to him, looking at his face, “Just spill it, Brody. I promise I won’t get offended or hurt by it. I can take it, whatever it is. I just need to know, so I am not driving both of us crazy.” And he did, because there was no way out of it for him now. He liked this girl too much to want to hurt her again, so he told her how unbearably good it felt when she ran her hands through his hair that night, comforting him, how he didn’t want her to ever fall asleep, so she could keep doing it. How he hadn’t had anyone touch him like that in years, and he just finally got used to the idea that he didn’t miss it anymore, but how he knew even then that he shouldn’t have let her do it. That it was wrong of him to not stop her. Told her that it scared him more than anything to let anyone care about him in that way, and that he wasn’t lying to her when he said he was a coward when it came to this, that he couldn’t let himself get close to anyone like that, because it would either get them hurt or killed, and he didn’t have it in him to go through that again.
She didn’t move through it all, still looking at him with those impossibly blue eyes.
“I am going to put my hands in your hair, Brody. Please don’t jump.”
He clasped his hands tighter behind his back, trying to stay calm, trying to not scare her, and nodded. And her hands were on his face then and running through his hair and he was breathing much too fast, but he couldn’t help it, and it didn’t feel comforting. It felt like she was melting his insides, but he felt he had to let her.
She moved her hands down to his back, watching his face, eyes serious, and then she pulled him down to the ground and made him lie on the grass and he let her, keeping his hands in fists at his sides. She leaned over him and unzipped his shirt, still looking at his face. He felt himself flinch. Her hands slowly tracked across his chest, making his flesh burn wherever she touched, and down his naked sides and he could feel himself shaking after a while, couldn’t stop it either. She was trying to tame him, trying to get it to not hurt so much anymore, trying to get him to not be so afraid.
She had tears in her eyes, and he wanted for this to be over. Wanted to just hug her to his chest and let her cry, so he could comfort her instead of whatever this was, but he promised not to touch her, and whatever she was was doing now it wasn’t his to stop. It was something she was doing for her. He closed his eyes and let her, and it didn’t get any easier for him, but he didn’t move, and finally she stood up and shook her head at him, sadly.
“I am sorry I hurt you, Brody. It won’t happen again,” she whispered through the tears, and ran from him, a full on run, and there wasn’t a thing he could think to do or say to make it all right for her after that. He couldn’t go after her, so he stayed where he was and finally fell asleep in the damp grass, hands still in fists at his sides.
Drake’s giant hands shaking him gently woke him up. The sun was beating through the branches as if it’d been up for a while. Almost noon, he gathered, judging by all the light. He finally registered words.
“Thought I’d find you here. Want to talk about it before we go back? I hate prying, Brody, but whatever happened with you and Laurel last night, I don’t think she stopped crying, and she wouldn’t say a word about it to nobody, not even Ams.”
He didn’t. He never wanted to talk about it.
She wouldn’t look at him when they made it to the fire, so he kept his head down, letting her be. He washed up in the stream and made himself a cup of that awful bitter stuff Riley drank on occasion, gulping it down without tasting it. He needed to start making plans for Crylo, needed his crew, only he couldn’t find them anywhere. Nobody was at the flier or at the fire when he got there. It felt as if they all deliberately left him alone and he couldn’t figure out why they’d need to do that. And then he saw her walking back into the clearing from the stream, face still splotchy from all the crying, and he knew why everybody was gone, and he hated them for doing this to him.
He walked over to her, slowly, carefully and stopped in front of her, hands behind his back.
“I wouldn’t blame you in the least if you wanted to hit me, Laurel. It would be a relief.”
But she just shook her head at him.
“I am going to try very hard to not like you from now on, Brody, because anything else will either hurt you or hurt me, and I don’t want that. I’ve never liked anybody before, but from everything I know, it’s not supposed to feel like that, how you felt… like I was hurting you. I never want to do that to you again, or to anybody. I still want to come with you, and I’ll do what I have to do when we get there, but I can’t like you anymore.”
And he felt like a total idiot then. He never even thought that she’d be blaming herself for this, that she wouldn’t know why he felt the way he felt when she touched him. He would have, of course, known it, if he just thought about her life for a bloody minute, but he was too damn busy with everything else. Too busy to learn anything about this girl.
“Laurel, what you did last night… It only felt like that to me because I like you. It wouldn’t have bothered me at all if I didn�
��t. I don’t know how to explain it right or anything, but you didn’t do anything wrong. I am sorry you left thinking that. It’s not like that. It’s the opposite of that. I know I am probably not making any sense, I am sorry for that… I can’t promise you that I won’t freeze or flinch next time you touch me, if you ever want to again. Can’t promise that I won’t be afraid of it anymore, but I’ll try, if you want me to,” and he dropped his head, embarrassment making his face hot.
He felt her arms around his neck, and he didn’t flinch, didn’t freeze either.
“Can I hug you back?”
She nodded, and he did. Hugged her for a long time, and it felt good to have this girl pressing against him, feeling her breathe into his chest. It didn’t feel like his insides were on fire or that his heart was going to explode. He lifted her face to his, looking at her eyes, and put a tiny, soft kiss on her lips, and he felt her shiver under his hands, so he kissed her again, harder now, and for the first time in years he wanted to keep kissing, wanted to not let go. Her hands were in his hair and on his back and it didn’t make him want to jump out of his skin. It made him want to keep pressing her closer and closer until there was no space between them at all, not even space for air to move.
The Cross (Alliance Book 2) Page 15