by Sandra Bats
“What’s wrong?” I was scared I’d freaked her out somehow.
“Your heart is racing,” she whispered, sounding surprised. She pressed her ear against my chest and I laughed.
“What did you think? That this is leaving me completely cold?”
“Well, from what I’ve heard, this isn’t as new to you as it is to me. So I assumed it wouldn’t … affect you like this.”
I took a moment to gather my thoughts. “I promise, nothing could’ve prepared me for how you affect me. I’m nervous around you and I don’t know what to say sometimes. That’s never happened before.”
She smiled at me. Full blown, lighting up her whole face smiling. I couldn’t help but kiss her again. With Elin it felt like I couldn’t not kiss her. As if waiting another second would tear me apart.
◆◆◆
We laid on the couch kissing for some hours. Elin had fallen asleep draped across my chest a few times. Eventually, I decided it was time for bed. She was lightly snoring on the couch while I lay under my blanket wide-awake. Staring at the ceiling, I could still taste her on my lips. I’d never felt so alive and I couldn’t stop smiling, not even when I grew tired and fell asleep.
There’d been months after Elin had shot me where each night I relived the same moment over and over again. Every night I saw the girl run from her cell. I remembered her sunken cheeks, her hair cut so short you couldn’t recognize the color. Her eyes had almost been too big for her face. Eyes that revealed the pure horror and hopelessness that caused her to run.
All along I’d known I’d been able to move faster. I’d been the best of my group in training, quick to react. Although, when she escaped her cell, I hesitated for the tiniest moment.
I watched in awe as she pulled the trigger on me. Felt surprised as I fell. How long it took for the pain to register. The odd sensation of blood draining from my body had everything moving in slow motion at first. But the pain came, along with the sound of glass shattering. The pain had been agonizing enough it erased every thought of what had happened to the girl. After that, a cold, deadly fear had taken control of me and I clung onto life with all my might.
My old memories returned with vicious liveliness after having told Elin about them. They felt so real I could smell the stale air, could feel the hard concrete under my boots. The girl looked different this time, though. Long red curls and she wasn’t as starved as I remembered her being. In this version of my nightmare I didn’t pause. I was faster than I’d been in reality and I drew my gun and aimed. Then I watched myself pull the trigger.
I jolted awake. Cold sweat ran down my back. I was barely able to contain the rising panic. I watched as my bullet lodged in Elin’s head, knocking her over onto the floor. Even awake, I could see her lifeless body hitting the ground. I rolled over and swung my legs over the side of the bed. I was still shaking and I badly needed some fresh air.
I put my jeans on as silently as possible, not wanting to disturb Elin if she managed to sleep through the night. I was sure a quiet walk around the school would help calm my nerves. The party had ended a while ago, judging by the silence. The only sound that pierced my head was the low hum of the few lights we didn’t turn off at night.
I stepped outside, despite my bare feet. The soft crunch of boots on snow alerted me to Chris and Ray. They were doing their rounds, checking the perimeter.
“What are you doing out, Jayden?” Chris asked.
I blew out a breath, watching as it disappeared in a white cloud. “Couldn’t sleep. Thought some air might help me clear my mind.”
They didn’t need to ask, and I didn’t need to explain that I’d been having nightmares. Being one of society’s rejects usually went hand in hand with a troubled past. Each one of us had their share of nightmares. I was thankful they didn’t probe me with questions, instead made idle conversation with me until my feet grew cold and I returned to my room.
I wasn’t sure I’d calmed down enough get more sleep. I was about to lie down and try when sounds from the couch made me perk up. I needed a moment to place the sound. Sobbing. Elin was sobbing. Not the quiet whimpering or the violent screaming I had to listen to when she suffered a nightmare. This was full-blown crying. Muffled, maybe from one of the pillows, but definitely crying.
I rushed to the couch. Her back was towards me, her face buried in her pillows. Her hands clutched the fabric so hard her knuckles had turned white in the dim moonlight. I crouched beside her head and gently touched her shoulder.
“Elin, it’s ok. I’m here,” I whispered. “You’re safe. Whatever it is, you’re safe.”
She didn’t move but I knew she’d heard me by the way she stiffened. I awkwardly tried hugging her. Eventually, I sighed and slid my arms beneath her. I lifted her to my chest, carried her over to my bed. I asked her to not hate me for it later.
For minutes I just held her. She was wrapped in her blanket, crying, while I gently rubbed her back. I wished I could stop her awful, heartbreaking sobs. Her hands clutched my shirt, her face was buried against my neck, hot tears slipping down my collar. I whispered reassurances. Promising that her nightmare was just that. That she was safe. That I wouldn’t let anything happen to her.
“I’m in the labs … on a steel table … and I hear Maddy and Norah yell my name. But when I get up and run, I run away from them, just to save myself. I leave them behind. I left them behind!”
I’d been there the night she escaped. There hadn’t been any chance for her to get to her sisters. I told her that they likely hadn’t even been in the same building, let alone on the same floor. She wouldn’t have stood a chance. I wasn’t sure how much my words helped. Surely, she must’ve known she couldn’t have saved them. Knowledge alone didn’t lessen guilt, though.
There weren’t many words between us in the dark of the night and eventually Elin cried herself to sleep again as I held her. I held her thinking about her fears and slowly everything fell into place. Though the guards had been tortured during training, we still had it good compared to the kidnapped girls. Surely she suffered physical scars, but it was the psychological ones I was more worried about. Bleeding hell, I would’ve done anything to turn back time and protect her. Pure, uncontrolled anger rushed over me. She didn’t deserved to suffer like that. Neither of us did.
◆◆◆
The next morning, I glanced over at Elin, still asleep next to me. The sun cast glistening reflections into her hair, making it sparkle all shades of red. She lay on her stomach, her face mostly hidden by her curls. Her shirt was hiked up a couple inches, revealing a width of the tender skin on her lower back. Pale porcelain skin — well, except for the red brands.
I shouldn’t have been surprised to see them. I knew girls in the labs were branded this way. Three parallel lines. One marked the kidnapping, the second the infection with Persephone’s virus and the third one stood for the first rape. Pregnant girls got another one, crossing through the first three.
Agonizing pain punched through me upon seeing those three lines on her delicate skin. I leaned closer, careful not to wake her. I held my breath as I gently ran my fingertips along the scars.
“They gave me the third one prematurely,” she murmured, her eyes still closed. “The day we were lined up for the … rape, the guard who did the brandings was in a hurry. They never expected anyone to run, so what did it matter whether we were marked before or after. So, I was labeled while still in line waiting. The first two I got legitimately, but the third one … they marked me as a rape victim, but I escaped before they managed to follow through.”
“So they didn’t …?” I broke off because the words tasted bitter in my mouth and I couldn’t speak them if they were about Elin.
She shook her head. “No. Not then and not after. There was enough other … stuff but not that. I wasn’t raped.”
I released a breath I hadn’t known I was holding. Pulled her closer to my chest, whispering into her hair how glad I was to hear that. Her question about why I cared
was unexpected and so surprising I pulled back to stare at her.
“In case you didn’t notice, I care about you! I want you safe and I’m happy about you not having to experience yet another horrible thing.”
“Oh.” She averted her eyes, her voice quiet. “I thought it was cause you … I don’t know, never mind.”
“What? Tell me.”
“I thought you wanted someone who hasn’t … A virgin, ok?”
I was flabbergasted. I stared at her. Opened my mouth, but no words came. Tried again. How could she be so smart but not grasp the simplest of concepts — that I liked her? Eventually I gathered enough thoughts to string a sentence together.
“Sweetheart,” I muttered, tilting her chin up to make her look at me. “I need you to finally understand it isn’t that way. Not with you. I don’t want anything from you you’re not willing to give. I’m happy that they didn’t hurt you any more than they did. That they didn’t take your innocence.”
She misunderstood me again. Grunted sarcastically that while she might be a virgin she surely wasn’t innocent, considering what she’d seen. I smiled as I ran my finger along the bridge of her nose.
“I sometimes wish you could see yourself through my eyes. Last night, when I kissed you and you pulled back, I saw the surprise in your eyes. I knew I was your first kiss before you told me. You can’t imagine what that feels like. It makes me happy, sure, but it also terrifies me. After all you’ve been through, after all the kisses and touches you had forced on you, you trust me enough to let me kiss you. Even if you don’t believe it, you are innocent. Innocent enough to trust someone like me after all that you know about me now. And I’m scared to death of ruining this, of hurting you and taking that away from you.”
Wow, those had been more words than I intended to say. There were so many more I was holding back from fear of scaring her. Instead, I whispered that I’d try my best to deserve her trust. I put everything I had into that promise, meaning it with every fiber of my being.
“You don’t have to sound so serious for my sake, you know. Just because we kissed doesn’t mean you have to make me promises or can’t still go into town and see other girls. I wouldn’t hold it against you. I know I’m broken and don’t even know how to make sense of any of this, so I surely don’t plan on tying you down.”
Her voice was casual, unflinching, but the hurt in her eyes might as well have been a tangible thing. I really needed to better spell it out for her. Instead of letting her keep talking I crushed my lips to hers. She gawked at me, eyes wide open. When our lips parted for the slightest second, the words spilled from me on their own.
“I don’t want to meet other women and you can tie me down all you want. Literally and figuratively if you want to,” I winked, making her giggle. “I wasn’t just saying that to give you a false sense of security. I don’t want to be with anyone else. I can shout it from the rooftops if that makes you believe it.”
Two steps forward, one step back. Elin stared at me like a deer in headlights. Her voice trembled as she asked me to slow down. That she needed time. It was the simplest thing I could give her. If she wanted time I was going to give her all the time she needed.
Part II
With Friends Like These
Eighteen
Elin
I was curled up in Jayden’s arms, my head rested on his chest. His body heat through the light fabric of his T-shirt warmed my skin as we dozed and occasionally kissed until the morning had long passed.
“I need to get up soon. Cam and I wanted to update inventory this morning.” Jayden yawned, reaching for his pocket watch.
I wrapped my arms tighter around him, refusing to let him go.
“He’ll come knocking, wondering where I am.” Jayden kissed my temple. I pouted and told him if he really wanted to get up, I’d let him. He grinned, gently bit my lower lip and tugged on it.
“Maybe I can stay for another five minutes or so,” he muttered.
He rolled us over so I was straddling his hips.
“You know, I could totally get used to waking up next to you; kissing you first thing in the morning.”
I didn’t tell him, but I could imagine getting used to it too.
As we got dressed I filled him in on the day’s agenda for the atrium. He remarked that I shouldn’t stay in the cold too long, prompting me to tell him I was an adult, completely able to judge how long I could be outside. He snatched my hand and pulled me closer, kissing right under my ear before he whispered that I should visit him in his office every now and then. I raised an eyebrow.
“Should I now? Why’s that?”
“You just stop by and I’ll think of something. Heating you up when you get too cold or something like that.”
The sparkling mischief in his eyes and the rasping of his voice were enough to give me goosebumps. I bit my lip, in turn making him groan lowly.
“Damn, you’re adorable when you look at me like that. Makes me want to get back in bed and just stare at you forever.”
Forever. That word sounded pretty serious. Somehow, it felt like putting a label on what we had, and I wasn’t ready for that. Jayden grabbed my wrist and spun me back around to face him, placing a soft, gentle kiss to my lips.
“One for the road.”
◆◆◆
Jayden was right: temperatures had dropped yet again. When Kathy, Jonah and I stepped outside, snow fell in heavy flakes. We were still busy removing the floor tiles and with the weather being as it was we had to rush digging over the soil beneath before it froze to one solid block. I sent Nigel back inside, because I worried he’d get sick again in the cold. The heavy flakes turned to ice pellets soon after, stinging our faces.
“This is getting crazy! Head inside, I’ll make sure the chickens are safe then I’ll finish up as well. We won’t get anything done anyway.”
I put enough food and water inside the den for a day, then shooed the chickens inside and secured the den against the wind and snow. By the time I returned inside, my fingers were stiff from the cold and streaks of my hair seemed to have frozen.
I shrugged my jacket off, knocked against the open door of Jayden’s office, he and Cam both looking up as I entered.
“Do you know there’s a freaking blizzard going on out there?”
I dropped into one of the chairs at the desk and Jayden just groaned, laying his head down on the desk in a defeated gesture. Cam filled me in that I wasn’t the first to inform them of the weather, and they were reorganizing shifts to shorten the time people spent in the cold.
“Did the others tell you the wind is so harsh the ice literally hurts your skin?” I asked.
“Mhm.” Jayden finally looked up. “Your hair is frozen.”
“Well, I did say it’s cold,” I responded, earning me a sympathetic smile before he and Cam finalized their shift plans.
He assigned us both to the same shift and I hid a smile at that, pretending to blow warm air into my hands. Doing rounds with him seemed to be both awesome and unproductive as we’d likely get distracted. Cam whirled out of the room to bring the guards up to speed. Jayden closed the door and sat down in the chair next to me, taking my hands in his, gently rubbing some warmth back into them.
“Heck, you’re freezing.”
I pulled a face, telling him I could barely feel my toes. There was no hint of a warning before he bent down to untie my shoes, lifting my feet onto his lap and gently massaging them. I squeaked when he tickled the soles of my feet.
“Well, I gotta heat you up like I promised.” His fingers snuck around my ankles and then he pulled a little, until I was close enough for him to lean in for a kiss, his fingers already brushing through my hair. “Even your lips are icy.”
His whispers made me giggle. Humming softly, he pulled me onto his lap and let his hands wander over my back, making my skin heat up quickly. His thumbs caressed my skin and I instinctively tensed when he touched my burn marks but relaxed after reassuring myself that this was Ja
yden, that I trusted him enough to let him touch that part of my past. He didn’t know though and pulled back to look me in the eye.
“Does it hurt when I touch them?”
“No, it doesn’t. It’s just odd. You know, nobody has ever touched them before, even I avoid them mostly.”
He pulled his hands away from my marks, but that wasn’t at all what I’d intended. “No, please don’t stop. I like you touching me … I just … need to get used to it.”
“Ok. I like touching you.” Jayden grinned before his face grew more serious and he looked back into my eyes. “If I ever do something you’re not comfortable with, just say so. No hurt feelings.”
Warmth flooded me at his caring tone and he seemed satisfied with my brief nod, leaning forward and softly kissing the tip of my nose. I was about to kiss him back when the lights went out. Although the office had a tiny window, it was always dim, even on a good day, and with that day’s heavy snowstorm, the room was almost black. I fumbled in the dark to put my shoes back on while Jayden muttered that this wasn’t good.
Cam opened the door and leaned into the room. “Betcha twenty bucks the diesel tank’s empty.”
“You don’t even have twenty bucks to bet with,” Jayden uttered. “I hope it’s just the generator. It’d be a heck of a lot easier to repair that than to get our hands on more diesel in the middle of winter.” Jayden grabbed a pair of gloves as well as a flashlight from his desk. “You want to come along?”