“Well then, spit it out, so I can get moving. If we’re that close to Settlement B, maybe I can get there before morning.”
“You’re three days away from Settlement B,” Jai says.
“What?” I frown, trying to make sense of what he’s saying. “How is that possible? We’ve been walking for two and a half days.”
“Rayla, you crashed about a day’s hike from the settlement.” He swallows thickly, and I realize I’m seeing guilt play out behind his features. “Then I took you two days in the opposite direction.”
Rage swells inside me like the roar from a fire, and I lunge at him. “You son of a bitch!” I plant both hands on his chest and shove as hard as I can, but he grabs the door frame to keep himself from falling to the ground outside.
“I’m sorry, princess.”
“You’re sorry? I had seven days—at most—to find my mother, and now three of those are gone, and it’ll take us another two days to backtrack across the zone we crossed for no fucking reason, just to get back to where I started! If Station Alpha hasn’t already figured out Kenny stole that shuttle and that it crashed, they could any second. My dad’s men could already be on the ground looking for me, and if they are, I’m going to have to hike past them on my way across the zone again, all because…” I frown. “Because what? I get screwing me like that.” I toss a gesture at the mattress. “But like this? Why, Jai?”
He exhales slowly. “The simple answer is that I’m a criminal. And here, I’m a survivor. I knew that if I didn’t take that gun from you, someone else would, and I couldn’t let that happen.”
“But I was going to give it to you.”
“No, you weren’t. Or maybe you were, but you were going to do something to it first. Break the solar panels, or jam the trigger, or something. What was it you said the other night? Something about honoring the spirit of the rule, as opposed to the letter of it? Well, from the moment you promised that gun to me, it was obvious that even if you kept your word, you wouldn’t be honoring the spirit of the promise. There was never any way you were going to leave me here with a functioning pistol. So I decided to take it.”
I shake my head slowly, trying to hear the part he’s not saying. “You could have taken it any time. You could have just pinned me down and taken the damn thing. Why didn’t you? Why drag me all the way out here?”
“In part, because I was afraid you’d actually shoot me, if I tried. I needed you to trust me enough that you’d let down your guard, and I knew that wasn’t going to happen until we’d spent some time together. And in part, because…I like you. I wanted to touch you. I wanted you to want me to touch you.”
“So, you didn’t trust me with my own gun, and you were horny? That’s why you deliberately robbed me of the chance to find my mother.”
“You can still find her. I’ll help you. For real this time.”
“Fuck off, Jai,” I snap at him through clenched teeth. “I don’t need any more of your help.”
“I’m trying to apologize.”
“Don’t bother. Apologies are just words, and your actions speak much louder.”
“Hey.” His voice is a growl, and though I can’t see his eyes in the dark, I know they’re flashing with anger. “I’m not the only one who’s been lying. But I am the only one who’s apologized.”
“That’s not the same thing. I did what I had to do to—” I stop and take a deep breath. “I’m not going to argue with you, Jai. I misled you. You misled me. Let’s just agree to cut our losses and go separate ways. Let me out.”
“You can’t go out there alone, Rayla.”
“I’ll be fine. I have my gun, and after the lesson I’ve learned with you, the next time I fire it, I’ll aim to kill, rather than to scare.”
“That’s a start, but it’s not enough.”
“I’ve been here for two days and I’ve hardly seen anyone other than you. I’m probably not even going to get the chance to shoot anyone before I get to Settlement B—”
“You’ve hardly seen anyone because I’ve steered us away from places likely to attract other people. Which you don’t know enough about zone four to do on your own. You don’t know where Settlement B is either.”
“Damn it, Jai,” I breathe as I realize just how badly he’s screwed me over.
“I’m sorry, Rayla. I am really, truly sorry. But I’m going to make it up to you. I’m going to take you to Settlement B—directly to Settlement B—and if your mother’s there, I give you my word we will find her.”
“I don’t really have much choice, do I?”
Jai shrugs, still planted firmly in the doorway. “You could just stay here and let me teach you all the dirty things our bodies are capable of.” He grins, but I only scowl up at him.
“Will you please move so I can get my bag?” I ask. He hesitates, and I roll my eyes. “I’m not going to make a run for it. You may be an asshole, but at least you’re the devil I know.” Jai smiles, then opens his mouth, but I cut him off. “Don’t say something cute. This is not okay, and I’m only staying because you’ve left me no other choice.”
His smile dies. “Princess, I—”
“Move.”
Finally, he steps out of my way, but I can feel him watching me from the doorway as I head outside and grab my bag. “I’m reinstating the rules,” I say as I drop my bag next to the mattress and sit to pull my shoes off. “Don’t you dare touch me.”
8
JAI
“How long can the silent treatment possibly last?” I ask as I kneel at the edge of the stream and open my canteen. Rayla doesn’t answer, but that’s okay. I was talking to myself, as I have been for two and a half days. Since the first morning after our fight, when she got dressed, ate her breakfast, and relieved herself without even acknowledging my existence.
The answer, I now know, is forever. The silent treatment can last forever.
As if to punctuate that thought, Rayla squats next to me and fills her own water pouch. In silence.
I hardly got any sleep the night of our fight, and in the morning, I woke to find her shivering on the other side of the narrow mattress, her knees and one arm hanging over the side, onto the cracked concrete floor. That’s when I got the first inkling that—pampered as she might have been on Station Alpha—Rayla Shaw is as hard in her own way as any inmate I’ve ever met.
Although, looking back, I probably should have clued into that fact a lot earlier. She hasn’t complained even once about the heat, or the bugs, or the long trek, or about food that must taste like absolute slop, compared to what she’s used to. She’s focused. She’s driven. She’s stubborn.
She hates my guts.
That’s no surprise, considering what I did to her. The surprising part, truth be told, is that I care that she hates my guts.
I’m not sure why. She’ll be gone in a few days, back to her own prison, where at least the food is good and the showers are hot. I should be ready to wash my hands of her and of the danger she represents.
Or, I should be trying to re-seduce her. The value of her gun has not changed, just because I’ve suddenly grown a conscience. When she vacates the planet—and she will get on that shuttle without even a glance back at me—if there’s even a chance that she’ll leave it behind, I should be working that angle with every ounce of charm I have left.
But I can’t.
Part of the problem is that she’ll see it coming, since I’ve already used her inexperience and my admittedly considerable sex appeal against her.
The other part is that I don’t want to manipulate her again. I want her to look at me with something other than hatred. I want her to see me as something other than a dirty criminal. I want her to smile. I want her to laugh when mud squishes between her toes, and not be mad at me for existing in that moment with her. I don’t just want her touch and her affection.
I want her respect.
Rayla stands and drops a purification tablet into her pouch, then screws the lid shut and shakes the who
le thing. She’s learned the ropes out here surprisingly quickly, and not just the part about purifying water. Her steps are quieter now, even in the woods, where there are twigs and leaves everywhere. When we see loners, she ducks without being told. And she appears to be saving her corn kernels for me, even though she’s not currently speaking to me.
“Do you want to rest while we’re here?” I ask. “Maybe take off your shoes and walk in the mud?” This is the same stream where she did that several days ago, just hours after her shuttle crashed. After I met her and decided to take her on a winding detour through zone four. We’re finally within a few hours of the crash site, and just a day away from Settlement B. Where she might find her mother.
Where she will definitely be done with me.
Rayla only shakes her head. What she approached like an exotic vacation when she first got here has become a chore. Something she simply endures because she has no other choice. And that’s my fault. But I don’t know how to fix it, if she won’t talk to me.
“Okay, this way.” I head toward the tree line, exactly where we entered the woods last time. And I have to admit that part of the reason for this mini-detour is my hope that if I piss her off, she’ll open her mouth, even if it’s just to yell at me.
I step into the woods, but before I get five feet in, I turn. Rayla’s not following me. She still standing by the stream with her arms crossed over her chest, her pack hanging from one shoulder, the broken strap dangling around her knee. “Come on, princess.”
She glares at me. Then, finally, she opens her mouth. “No.”
That’s the first sound I’ve heard out of her other than the gulp of water and the chewing of food in two days.
“We only have a few hours of daylight left, and I’m not going to waste it checking your damn turkey trap.”
She’s on to me. Just as well.
“We’re not going to find shelter before the sun goes down, so unless you want to sleep out in the open, where any patrol shuttle flying overhead could see us, we need to make camp in the woods. And while we’re here, we may as well check my trap.”
That’s all true. But I’m also stalling. I know she’s going to leave, and I know I shouldn’t care. We had one night together, after lying to each other for days. Those are not good building blocks for a friendship, much less anything more. But I can’t stand the thought of her leaving this planet hating me. If she’s going to go—and I know damn well she is—I want her to remember me as the best lover she ever had. And as the badass who fed her the best spit-roasted turkey in the world. In this world, anyway.
Tomorrow we’ll get to the women’s settlement. Tonight is my last chance to earn her forgiveness.
But she won’t budge.
“Fine. Sleep here if you want. I’m going to check my damn trap.” I stomp off into the woods, hoping she can’t hear the tense beating of my heart over the crash of my feet through the underbrush. I’m making a lot of noise on purpose, in case she decides to follow.
Please follow me. I can’t leave her on her own, and I’d rather not have to turn back and beg her to come with me.
And finally, I hear her footsteps. I slow down, and in minutes, she catches up. “You’re an asshole,” she snaps as she falls into step at my side.
“I’ll take it. An insult is better than silence, so if there are any other names you’d like to call me, feel free.”
“You’re also a liar. And a fucking…gigolo.”
I stop walking and stare at her for a second. “I’m a what?” Her cheeks redden, but her jaw clenches. “Do you know what a gigolo is?”
“Okay, I’m guessing from your expression that it’s not a man who seduces women as a means of humiliation and manipulation. So whatever the word for that is, you’re that.” She stomps past me, veering around a low-hanging branch.
“Prin—” I bite off the nickname she hates, then I start over. “Rayla. Wait.” But she doesn’t stop, so I jog after her and grab her arm to pull her to a halt. “Is that what—?”
She jerks her arm free. “Don’t touch me.”
“I’m sorry. But…is that what you think I was doing? Trying to manipulate and humiliate you?”
Her flush deepens, but she holds my gaze. “You had sex with me—deigning to help the frigid freak offload her virginity—so that I’d be too lust-drunk and exhausted to remember to sleep with my gun. So you could steal it.”
“I—” Shit. “Rayla, there are so many inaccuracies in that statement that I don’t even know where to begin. I didn’t deign to do anything. And you’re definitely not frigid. And I swear to you that by the time I had my hands on you, my goal was neither to embarrass you nor to manipulate you.”
“Then what was your goal?”
“To make you come.”
“That’s it?” She frowns, skepticism rolling off her like smoke from a fire.
“Well, I was also hoping for an orgasm of my own. But yeah. That’s it. You’re funny, and strong, and stubborn, and you’re easily the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. I wanted to touch you. I—” I swallow, then I make myself say the rest of it, because she deserves the truth from me, for once. “I wanted to be your first. I wanted to be the face that pops into your head every time you touch yourself up in your sterile little space bubble.
“I wanted all other men to leave you disappointed, in comparison to the memory of your first time. With me.”
She blinks at me, eyes narrowed, brow furrowed. “A disappointing sex life is a horrible thing to wish on someone, Jai.”
“I know. You were right; I’m an asshole. But I can’t help it. I don’t want you to sleep with anyone else. And if you do, I don’t want it to be as good as it was with me.”
“How do you know it was good?”
“I can still hear you moan, Rayla. When I close my eyes, I can still feel your tight little body clench around me.” And now I’m rock hard. But I can tell just from looking at her that if a woman’s arousal were as obvious as a man’s she’d have a bulge in her pants right now too.
“What I’m trying to say is that I’m sorry. And I’m really sorry if I left you with the impression that sleeping with you that night was about anything more than mutual pleasure.”
She blinks at me. “I don’t forgive you,” she says at last. Yet her gaze no longer looks cold.
“But you’re talking to me.” That’s enough, for now. “Let’s go check the trap.”
“Holy shit.” Rayla peers down into the ditch. “You really caught one. And it’s huge.”
“I feel like I should tell you that’s a pretty normal size for a turkey, but my long-standing policy is never to correct a woman when she tells me it’s huge.”
She almost smiles at me across the ditch. “How do you know that’s a normal size?”
“The same way I know how to kill and pluck this thing.” I set my pack on the ground and fish out a rope made of torn strips of a worn-out tee shirt I donated to the turkey cause a couple of weeks ago. “We used to spend holidays at my grandparents’ farm, and we always had to get there really early, because my grandfather insisted on killing and plucking our own turkey for dinner.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. My grandmother liked having the fresh meat, but I’m pretty sure that if he’d asked her to pluck it, she would have developed a taste for the frozen variety.”
“I’ve only ever seen it sliced and drizzled in gravy.”
I laugh as I lower myself into the ditch and squat next to the bird. It squawks and flaps large wings in response to my presence. “Well then, princess, I’m afraid this part might come as a bit of a shock to you…”
I grab the bird by the feet and flip it over, and she laughs while I try to dodge huge, flapping wings long enough to get the loop of rope around the turkey’s legs. Admittedly, I’m a bit out of practice, and I’ve only ever really played assistant to my grandfather in the realm of turkey slaughter. But as stupid as I feel, wrestling with a huge, loud, angry bird, I’d do it agai
n every day of the week if that meant Rayla would keep smiling.
Finally, I get the loop tightened, then I throw the other end of the rope over a tree branch, praying that my homemade rope holds up to the burden.
Rayla ties the rope off on another branch for me, then she peeks through the fingers covering her eyes as I use an edge of my makeshift sheet metal shovel to slice the bird’s throat. “That’s so gross,” she says, her words muffled by the palms covering her mouth.
“Every piece of meat you’ve ever eaten was once alive. The turkey can’t go from the ditch to your stomach without this part.”
“Fair enough.” She uncovers her eyes. “What can I do?”
I show her how to help me pluck the bird, and as we work, I realize how unprepared I really am for this task. “I feel like we should be collecting the feathers, or something,” she says. “Kind of feels like a waste to just let them rot on the ground.”
“I know.” I step over a thick pile of them. “If I’d thought it through, I would have made something to collect them in. Like, maybe to make a feather pillow.”
“I’m pretty sure those are made with goose down. Not turkey feathers.”
“Maybe up there in your gilded cage. Here on the surface, we make do with what we have, and a feather pillow would be worth a fucking fortune.” I frown as I pull another few feathers out. I wish I had something in which to cook the innards for a soup. Tyson did that in Settlement A, right on the grill, but I don’t have an empty can. Or, for that matter, a grill. “I think I rushed headfirst into the idea of catching a turkey without really giving much thought to what would come next.”
“I did that with this whole…trip.” Rayla stops plucking for a second, and the way she’s staring at the turkey tells me she seeing something far different. “I put so much planning into getting here. Timing, transportation, supplies, a bodyguard… Not that any of that did me much good after the crash. But after all that planning, I still have no idea where I’m going or what I’m going to do or say when I find my mother. Assuming I ever do.”
Dirty Lies Page 10