by Tracey Ward
Grayson takes a short, shallow breath. He glances at his brother, his jaw clenched tight.
“Stay here,” he mumbles to me. “I’ll be right back.”
I nod without a word.
He follows Fuller out of the room, turning so sharply that his heels squeak shrilly on the smooth floor. I listen to his footsteps march into nothing before risking a look in Easton’s direction.
His eyes are downcast, his hands flat on the cluttered surface of his small desk. There’s not much there but what’s present is chaos. A tube half stuffed with a roll of thick paper, wide booklets open and stacked on top of each other, their spines giving way under the weight of their brothers. An empty plate, a forgotten mug. A charcoal pencil worn to nearly nothing.
He’s been busy. I haven’t seen him other than in passing. He’s always on his way to or from something. During the latest earthquake a water line broke. It nearly flooded the tunnel leading to Porton, the one that intersects under the city with tunnels from all of the other towns surrounding it – Bale, Hafford, Damask, Aegon, and Thornbow. The same problem hit Hafford and Thornbow as well, creating a massive problem for everyone. I didn’t see it but Grayson and I heard horror stories from the second shifters who were on duty when it happened. It was a mess. It still is, and Easton spends every waking moment in meetings with engineers from the other cities trying to sort out how they’re going to fix it.
“You’re cold.”
I blink, my eyes snapping to his face. He’s been watching me. I have no idea for how long.
“I’m alright,” I lie, suppressing a shiver.
Easton isn’t buying it. He rounds his desk, pulling a jacket off the back of his chair. It’s shorter than the Forces one I wore when I first got here, but the material is the same. Heavy wool, dark in color. It scratches against my palms when he hands it to me.
“I’ll get it all wet,” I warn him, tugging at my damp hair.
He shrugs, heading back to his desk. “I’m not worried about it.”
The jacket is shorter, but Easton is definitely bigger than I am. I’m swimming inside the largeness of the coat. Floating in the warmth he’s left behind, in the scent that wafts up from the heavy wool. It’s apples, crisp and sweet like my sheets, and something else. Something richer, more human. Something so unexpectedly comforting and real that I slip my arms through the sleeves, bring the lapel to my nose, and breathe it in softly. It smells nothing like him but the scent reminds me of my brother. Of Gav. It brings a sharp sting to my eyes.
This happens every day. Every night. I wake up at odd hours to stare at the ceiling and wonder if he’s alive or dead. What if he isn’t one of the survivors in Ambrios or wherever they are? What if he’s washed ashore since the doors closed and in the morning I’ll see him lying there, paler than the Gaians, blue lipped and immobile? Stiff as a board and just as warm. Just as funny and irreverent.
What if I never see him smile again? What if I never hear his laugh?
A sob rips through my throat. I press the rough fabric of the coat hard against my mouth, trying to stifle it as I shudder silently inside its confines. My eyes close hard, trapping the tears inside. Begging them to retreat. To let me be strong. I can’t let this tide take me because I don’t know where it will go. I’m terrified of how deep it could run, and without Grayson in the room I start to panic. I start to doubt myself. To fear.
“Are you okay?” Easton asks gently.
I drop the fabric from my mouth, from my hand, turning my body toward the hall. Anything to hide this reaction from him. From everyone.
“I’m fine, yes.”
“Are you sure?”
I nod quickly, pulling the coat tighter around my waist.
“How’s Gray being?”
“Great.”
This time I can feel Easton watching me. His eyes are on my face, on my reaction, reaching deeper under my skin where I’m not sure I want him.
“If you ever need anything,” he offers slowly, knowingly, “you can ask me.”
I’m quick to cast him a grin, trying to reassure him. “Thanks, but I’m fine. Honestly.”
“Gray isn’t always the best at dealing with other people. I’d hate to think you’re suffering and afraid to rock his boat.”
“I’m really not. He’s not that bad. I actually like his company.”
Easton nods, running his hands over his face sluggishly. “Good. That’s good.”
He looks tired. I wonder if he’s having trouble sleeping too, but I don’t ask because I don’t want him to ask me.
“Why does Fuller dislike you much?” I ask instead.
Easton lowers his hands slowly, considering my question. “I used to be Forces. I didn’t listen very well. Fuller hated that about me. He and I were butting heads all the time and when Grayson turned fifteen he wanted to join. I didn’t want him to take any heat from Fuller that I was generating so I quit. Ironically, that made Fuller angrier than anything else I did, and as an added bonus I think he still comes down harder on Grayson than anyone else just to spite me.”
“Will Grayson get in trouble for this?”
“Probably.”
“But it’s not his fault,” I protest indignantly. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Fuller is petty like that.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have shouted at him.”
“No,” he sighs heavily. “I probably shouldn’t have.”
“Do you always do that? Step between your brother and the world?”
He freezes, stunned by my question. “Um, I don’t know. I guess maybe I do. I mean, that’s what big brothers do, right?”
“I guess so.”
“Your brother,” he begins delicately, his deep voice low and earnest, “he protected you?”
“He certainly tried.”
“From what?”
Footsteps are hurrying heavily down the hall. I cast Easton a tight smile, stepping up against the wall out of the way.
“Life,” I answer vaguely.
Grayson reappears, his face cut of stone. He looks at his brother dispassionately before turning to me. “Come on,” he says, his voice surprisingly soft. “The building’s been swept. It’s all clear. We can go back.”
“Did he come down on you?” Easton asks.
“No.”
“You can tell me if he did.”
“Why?” Grayson asks sharply. “So you can question how he does his job again? How I do mine?”
“Gray, I’m sorry,” Easton implores. “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”
“What would it look like if you tried?”
“What’d he say to you? Is he punishing you for what I said, because I’ll—“
“Nothing!” Grayson shouts, rounding on his brother.
I blink hard, taken aback by his tone.
“Don’t do anything,” Grayson continues emphatically. “For once let me handle my life myself.”
“What do you mean ‘for once’?”
“You treat me like I’m still seven years old and Dad just died. Like I’m crying in the corner and you have to protect me. I’m a grown man, Easton. I can take care of myself.”
“I know you’re a man.”
“Then act like it. Stay out of my business.”
His hand is firm on the small of my back, leading me through the doorway ahead of him.
He bangs it shut angrily behind him.
We stalk silently through the building, out the doors, and into the streets. Grayson hesitates, eyeing the alleyway and the road. Back and forth. Uncertain. Too angry to decide.
“Did he agree with you?” I ask gently. “About Holster?”
He rubs his hands together briskly. “Yeah. He thinks it’s someone else. But he’s going to bring Holster in to have a talk with him about you. About laying off. Keeping his distance.”
“Do you think it will help?”
“Either that or make it worse,” he mutters, searching the streets again. He’s
jittery. Strung too tight to stand still.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m great.”
I nervously run my tongue over my teeth. “I’m sorry about your dad.”
His eyes dart to mine, flashing hot for a split second before simmering. “Thanks.”
“How did he die?”
“Suddenly. My mom too.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You said that already.”
I look away, put off by his anger. He obviously doesn’t want to talk to me about any of this.
“Cancer.”
Or maybe he does.
“That was my dad when I was seven. Easton was eleven,” he continues numbly, his eyes unfocused on some distant spot. “My mom died having my sister. She died too, eight days later. I was five that time.”
“That’s horrible. I’m… I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s nothing anyone can say.”
“It’s been just you and Easton for a long time,” I comment cautiously.
“He basically raised me.” He runs his hand through his hair, tugging on the strands. “He doesn’t get that it’s time to stop.”
“You don’t want him to watch out for you?”
“I want him to let me fight my own battles. To think for myself, make my own choices. If he’s always looking over my shoulder or telling me what to do, how am I supposed to trust myself? Every choice I make I’ll always be wondering ‘Is this what Easton would do?’ I’ll never know what I want to do, or what I can do. Not if I don’t tell him to back off.”
How am I supposed to trust myself?
I always thought Gav was my solution. My savior. Not until now did I consider for one second that he could part of my problem. That he was making me weak by being my strength.
I feel like I’m falling. Like I’m flying. I feel the fear that finds me when I’m alone. That asks me if I’m sad. How sad? How scared? Enough to end it all, because we’ve knocked on that door once before. We never got an answer. Maybe this time we will. This time there’s no one left to lead us back home. To catch us when we fall.
I clear my throat, blinking rapidly against the sudden sting in my eyes. “So what do we do now?” I ask.
Grayson pauses, thinking. “We go to work. Act like everything is fine.”
“Wait for someone to strike again?”
“Yeah. It’s all we can do.” He looks down at me, his eyes searching mine. Looking for frailty. I’m sure he finds it in spades. “Are you gonna be okay?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
I force a laugh. “I’m not made of glass. I won’t break.”
“I’m not gonna let anything happen to you,” he promises earnestly.
That should comfort me. Ten minutes ago it would have. But now? Now it makes me feel small, smaller even than the feel of his huge hand wrapping around mine, encompassing it, dwarfing it. Pulling me forward.
Chapter Twenty-Three
ONE MONTH LATER
Gray
“Be honest. Are you trying to let me hit you?”
“Maybe,” Liv pants, hunching over. “I thought your ego could use a break after what I did to you yesterday.”
“It was one good hit, Liv. A stray one. Don’t get cocky.”
She straightens up indignantly. “It was a great hit. Admit it.”
I shrug. “It may have rung my bell a little.”
“It was Carol of the Bells. I put Christmas between your ears.”
“Wow,” I chuckle, shaking out my arm. There’s a stitch in my side, my weak side, that I can’t get past today. It’s almost healed, but every now and then it likes to remind me that it’s mad. “How are you still this bad at trash talk?”
“It will surprise you to know that my mother never encouraged me to take part in anything with ‘trash’ in the title.”
“Well, she screwed you on that because you’re terrible at it.”
“How is it so bad?”
“It’s too nice. It always sounds like you’re wishing me a happy holiday.”
She snorts derisively. “That’s not true at all.”
“Last week you said you were going to knock my teeth out, that I should put them under my pillow, and that you’d bring me ‘pretty presents’ for them.”
“The Tooth Fairy is not a holiday.”
“A fairy has no place in trash talk.”
She chuckles, slowly circling the room. Weaving in and out of stacks of boxes and storage containers. Cement pillars reaching to the ceiling, holding the building up over our heads.
We’re in the basement of the Forces dormitory. It’s a storage space, something of an armory. The crates in the back have guns. Bullets. There are even grenades in the safe. They’re expensive and hard to replace so we use them as a last resort and never inside the cave. I’ve had one of those guns in hand three times in my life, always for training. I showed Liv how to hold one. How to dismantle it, clean it. How to stand when you’re firing it. Everything short of actually pulling the trigger. Hopefully she’ll never have to use one, but I wanted her to learn, just in case.
“How’s your side?” she asks suddenly.
I press my hand to it without thinking, testing it. “Almost a hundred percent. How about your shoulder?”
“I told you, it’s been fine for weeks.”
“Are you sure?”
She stops moving, turning toward me. Her face is determined. Fierce. “I want to start training. Really training.”
I push my hair off my sweat soaked forehead with a sigh. “We have been training.”
“We’ve been sparring and exercising. That’s it.”
“Building your strength and endurance is important. Just because you’re thin doesn’t mean you’re in shape. If you want to outrun anyone with those tiny little legs you have to be fast, and to be fast you have to be strong.”
“I don’t want to run from anyone. I want to learn to defend myself.”
I put my hands on my hips, lowering my head to hide my frustration. She’s been pushing like this for weeks. Ever since the day her door was painted red. Nothing else has happened since then, not even a run in with Holster, but still she’s anxious. Still she comes at me every day asking me to come down here and train her to fight. She’s obsessed with fending for herself and no matter how many times I tell her I’m not going to let anyone hurt her, she still freaks about taking care of herself. If anything, my assurances make it worse.
“Grayson.”
I lift my head, drawn by her soft tone. By the silver sound of her voice when she’s unguarded. In the low light of the room she glows golden. From her skin to her hair, to the color of her eyes that hold me steady with a strength I wouldn’t have thought her capable of when she first crashed here. It stuns me how human she looks. How much she’s grown on me. She’s not the annoyance she used to be. I don’t look at her and see the summation of all my shortcomings anymore. I look at her and see a person. One who would be dead if it weren’t for Fate. One that has no idea how close my cowardice came to costing her life.
“I’m asking you,” she pleads. “As a friend. Teach me to defend myself.”
“We’re friends now? When did this happen?”
“Don’t do that.”
“Friends don’t wake friends up at four-thirty in the morning to pee.”
“Grayson.”
“Every single morning, without fail. I could set a clock to your baby bladder. It’s incredible.”
She doesn’t laugh and she doesn’t falter. Her eyes hold me hard, forcing me to get serious.
“Okay, yes. You win,” I relent. “We’ll train for real tomorrow.”
“You’ll teach me to land a punch? You promise?”
“Are you that eager to hit me again?”
I’m relieved when she grins. “You have no idea.”
Twenty minutes later after I’ve made her run sprints with me until my own legs are burning, we head upstairs. She’s get
ting better in the dark. She doesn’t have to hold onto me in the stairwell like she used to but she stays close, her shoulder brushing against my arm. She says I’m a black blob against a black sky, but she can make out my shape and that’s an improvement on the nothing she was working with before.
“How much longer do you think Fuller will keep me with you?” she asks suddenly.
I shrug, her body so close I jostle her with the movement. “I don’t know. He hasn’t said. Probably not much longer.”
“Will he make me move out?”
“If he did it would be to the rooms over the hospital. You’d be closer to work. And Abby.”
“I think I’d be more uncomfortable living next door to her than in the same room with Holster.”
“I won’t argue with that.”
“Will you miss me?”
I laugh. “Not likely.”
“Careful, Grayson. You’ll hurt my feelings.”
I nudge her on purpose, her stance holding strong against my battery. “Not likely, Liv.”
“Grayson!” Fren calls from the bottom of the stairs. “Liv!”
We turn to wait for him on the first landing as he takes the steps two at a time. He’s smiling and flushed when he reaches us, a small bag in his hand that he passes off to Liv. She fumbles for it, her blindness making it tough for her to find it.
“What is this?” she asks curiously.
“A surprise from Karina.”
“Really?” she asks suspiciously. “From Karina?”
“Yep. And you’re gonna need it. We’re going swimming.”
Liv’s face fades. “Oh.”
“Right now?” I ask.
Fren nods. “Yeah. The entire first shift is going down to the hot springs. Karina and her girls from the L are off too. They’re meeting us down there in half an hour.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know if I can go.”
“Come on. You don’t have a post to stick to. Well, except for wherever she goes. But if she’s going then that means you’re going.”
I look at Liv, trying to hide my eagerness. The idea of an evening off, even if I’m still technically ‘on’, is too good to pass up. I could use the break from the monotony of wake up, work at the hospital, train Liv, eat an awkward dinner while the entire city stares at her, and sleep. Wash. Rinse. Relive. Over and over again.