Degrees of Wrong
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jellyfish.
I decided his playfulness was detrimental to my pulse. Even more so than
being over a mile below the ocean’s surface.
“Unless?” I asked, impatient for a variety of reasons.
“Unless you have a secret to tell me. You know, an exchange.”
I huffed. “I don’t have any secrets.” I could realistically be the most
uninteresting person on the planet.
“No?” He feigned disappointment. “That’s too bad. I know a secret about
you.”
“No, you don’t.” But Nicoli was always too sure of himself to be mistaken. It
was an annoying quality.
“Oh yes, I do. It’s about you and someone else.”
Good grief, the man was infuriating. I unbuckled and stretched out just as he
did, amid his snickers. I didn’t know how he made sitting like that appear
comfortable. The bench was hard and inhospitable, and I was too short to stretch
my legs out as far as he did.
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After I was a tolerable degree of uncomfortable, I said, “I already told you. I
don’t have any secrets. So I don’t have anything to exchange.”
He thought for a moment. “Well then, you can answer some questions, in
exchange for a secret.”
“Questions about what?”
“About you, of course.” He rolled his eyes.
I considered that. I didn’t have anything to hide really, so what he expected
to gain from this game seemed obscure. This game, however, would have rules.
“I will answer one question, in exchange for one secret.”
“Two for one,” he countered. “Secrets are more valuable than questions.”
“Deal. Ask away.” I needed to work on my negotiation skills.
“The reason you’ve spent so much time researching the virus. Is it because
your parents died from it?”
The question took me off guard. “Uh, yes. How—how did you know my
parents died from it?” I shouldn’t have been so shocked. Dr. Folsom probably
told him.
He shrugged. “I read it in your file.”
I shot erect in my seat. “I have a file?”
He nodded, seeming alarmed at the change in demeanor.
“What else is in this file?”
“Everything, actually. You shouldn’t be so angry about it. Everyone on board
has a file.”
“Do you have a file, Nicoli? Can I go rummage through it?”
“I do have a file, Elyse. My file is confidential. No files on my ship are
confidential to me,” he added when I raised my brow.
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The illumination around us faded to nothing, presumably because the pod
had stopped moving. He shut off the control panel so we sat in complete
darkness.
The pitch black enhanced my other senses. While I couldn’t see him, I could
definitely smell him—his clean, masculine scent almost intoxicated me from
across the cabin. Standard-issue soap couldn’t smell that good. Also, his body
emanated an appealing warmth considering the temperature in the pod had
plummeted the deeper we descended.
I leaned away from him, trying to remember that I had a file and that I was
upset about it. “Why bother with the questions then? You can just go read it in
my file.”
“I’ve read your file. Thoroughly. That’s why I have questions.”
I cringed internally. I had promised to answer his questions. True, he hadn’t disclosed that I had a file, but that didn’t preclude my agreement to answer. He
just had an advantage over me. The usual scenario, I admitted. “Fine. Next question.”
“How did they get it? The Black Death, I mean. You don’t have to answer
this one, if it’s too difficult.”
I could sense that he didn’t want any tears on his hands. I lifted my chin in
determination, wishing this information had been included in my file. “We were
on vacation. Well, I was on vacation, and my father was on business, a traveling
guest speaker at a seminar in Portugal. He was conducting a talk geared toward
undergraduates about multicellular parasites. My mother always joined him on
his travels. Anyway, after the seminar, they attended the reception, a chance for the audience to ask questions, a get-to-know-the-speakers type thing.
“I wasn’t there. I stayed at the hotel, but my mother went with him to hear
his talk. She always helped him write his lectures, and afterward she’d offer
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some positive criticism. He hated that.” I smiled. “A group of five terrorists
attended, posing as students. They had infected themselves with the virus the
day before. They worked the room, making contact with as many people as they
could. My father was the first to recognize something amiss. He spoke to one of
the young men and noticed a small drop of blood seeping from his nose, noticed
the sweat beading on his forehead, his nervous demeanor.
“He immediately called for help. The authorities sealed off the room, but
four of the young men escaped. Their bodies were found later after they
succumbed to the illness. The one they detained, the one who had spoken to my
father, wouldn’t give them any information.
“Efforts were made to treat everyone exposed, including my parents. They,
of course, wouldn’t let me near them. One of my father’s connections arranged
for them to stay together at the hospital in the city. The hospital quarantined an entire floor for the disease, and my parents secured a room with a plate-glass
wall separating me from them.
“For two days, I watched them die. Occasionally, one or both of them would
look up and smile at me, probably to reassure me. They couldn’t have known
how horrible they looked, that their fragile smiles and pale faces almost gutted
me. I just hope that when they did make the effort to look up, they saw what
they needed to. That I was strong or brave or sad. Whatever they needed me to
be, I hope that’s what they saw.”
I paused to take an unsteady breath. Irrational as it was, I wanted to make
Nicoli care about my parents. I wanted him to know them, to respect them. To
tell him more than any file ever could, to show him who they were, who I was. I
swallowed.
“You don’t have to say any more,” Nicoli said softly. “I can hear how painful
it is for you.”
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“It’s okay. I’m fine. Anyway, I heard later that everyone who attended the
seminar eventually died. I took my parents home to bury them. And that’s where
I stayed, trying to find a cure.”
Nicoli didn’t speak. What could he say to that, anyway? What could anyone
say? I waited a few moments before busting up the settled silence. “So.”
“So,” he mimicked, unwilling to change the subject himself.
“Don’t you have a secret to tell me?” I asked, trying to absorb the
awkwardness from the cabin.
He laughed. “Ah, yes. Which one would you like to know first?”
I contemplated for a moment. I really wanted to know both of them, but after
my mor
bid storytelling, he may not ask me any more questions—I might get a
chance at just one. Still, my self-importance won out. “I want to know the secret about me.”
“Are you sure? The other one is interesting too.” I could hear him smile in
the dark.
“I’ll admit, it’s tempting. But do you promise to ask me more questions?”
“Absolutely.”
I believed him. “Good. Then I want to know the one about me first.”
“Frank Horan is in love with you.”
“Wh-what?”
“He’s in love with you. Categorically smitten.”
“Be serious, please. I answer all your questions honestly, and then you go
and make up some ridiculous story.”
“Oh, but I am. Dead serious. He’s enamored, obsessed, what have you.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. How could this be? Frank Horan was no
more capable of affection than one of the parasites in my father’s lecture.
“Why?” Why?
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“Why?” He snorted. “I thought you’d be more interested in when.”
I grinded my teeth. “Fine, Nicoli. When? I suppose you’ll tell me it’s when I
punched his pressure point in front of a class full of cadets.” I clamped my teeth together again.
“You’re going to sand down to the gums if you don’t stop grinding—”
“When?”
“The first day he met you.” He could barely suppress his amusement.
“The first day he met me, he made me clean the bathroom with a
toothbrush.”
“You didn’t clean it. Admit it.”
“Of course I didn’t clean it.” I laughed. “Well, I did clean a spot for me to
sit.”
He snickered into the darkness. “I knew it.”
I grew sober. “How do you know this? Did he tell you? Directly?”
“Oh, he doesn’t have to tell me. He doesn’t have to tell anyone, in fact. It’s
obvious to all of us how he feels.”
“All of us?” The usage of the plural alarmed me. The heat of a blush seared
my cheeks, despite not knowing the devastating numbers of us.
“Yes. All of us officers. Every single day since then, he’s shared with us
every smart remark, dirty look. He brags when you make good on your pushup
quota. And when you knocked him out cold, well…we all thought we’d be
getting wedding invitations—”
“Oh, knock it off.” I heard him laugh softly and wondered if he was close
enough to pinch. I wagged a finger at him in the dark. “I hope for your sake I
don’t find out that you encouraged his behavior, Nicoli Marek.” I made it as
threatening as I knew how—and was rewarded with an unsettling guffaw of
laughter. “You’re a special kind of hypocrite, you know that, Captain?”
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“What do you mean?” he said, not as serious as he should be, given the
gravity of the accusation.
“I mean, everyone knows how Lt. Sheldon throws herself at you all the time.
You’re just happy to be out of the spotlight,” I accused. “Even though your
situation is a little more scandalous.”
“It is? How?”
“Because you’re engaged,” I informed him with an uppity tone.
“Oh. That.” He paused for a moment. “That brings me to the next set of
questions. Are you ready?”
I huffed, trying to make him doubt himself just this once. But I was ready.
“Go ahead.”
“Are you…? Do you…have feelings for someone? Do you have a significant
other?”
“What?”
“What do you mean what? I’m asking you if your affections are—”
“Am I to believe this particular bit of information is not in my file?” And,
was I to believe that he looked for it? My pulse sputtered with the thought.
“No, it’s not.” By now I knew him well enough to know his tone coincided
with a frown.
“Is this question in any way reconnaissance for Frank Horan?” Because my
answer depended on knowing. I could conjure up a romance if Pretty Princess
needed some discouragement.
He laughed. “The man can do his own recon. This is something I am
personally curious about.”
Thankful the dark concealed my widened eyes, I answered, “Then, no. The
answer is no. There isn’t anyone who might have been waiting for me, if I
weren’t dead.”
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“Unbelievable.”
“What’s unbelievable is the direction in which this interrogation is going.
Let’s move on, shall we?” Before I go into shock, preferably.
“Actually, I’d like to continue along those lines, if you don’t mind. Unless, of
course, you wouldn’t like to know any more secrets?”
He had me there. And despite the awkwardness of the questions, I was
curious to see how far he would take them. “Yes, regardless of their believability, I would like to know more secrets.”
“Why are you put off by my engagement? No one else has ever thought
twice about it.”
I believed him. Lt. Sheldon was living, salivating proof of that. How many
women had thrown themselves at this man sitting mere feet from me?
“Because, Captain Marek,” I began, but he interrupted with, “Don’t call me
that. It’s Nicoli, when we’re alone.”
And we had never been more alone than right at this moment, I realized.
Suddenly, the intimacy of the conversation, the lack of space between us and his
smell— always his smell—took its toll on my nerves.
“Okay, Nicoli,” I ground out. “My morals are not influenced by the people around me. If you’re engaged, you’re off-limits, in my book. You’ve committed
yourself to a flesh-and-blood woman, someone with feelings, thoughts,
passions,” I continued on, ignoring him as he tried to interrupt between every
word.
“Elyse. Elyse. ELYSE,” he almost shouted. I stopped.
“Yes?”
“Are you—? Can it really be possible that—? Are you saying you’re not
aware of the circumstances surrounding my engagement?”
“Circumstances?” My question confirmed my ignorance.
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“Yes. That my father’s political…endeavors…greatly influenced my decision
to marry?” he said delicately.
The information didn’t absorb. It just wouldn’t take. Had to be mistaken.
“What are you saying? Are you saying you’re in an arranged marriage?” I almost couldn’t say it—it was that outrageous.
“Yes. Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.” He seemed relieved of the burden
of explaining it. “More or less.” Then, after a few moments, “Elyse?” He even
reached out, scooted over to me.
I jettisoned away from him, pressing myself against the cool wall of the pod.
I didn’t need him muddling my thoughts with his arms, or his soft voice, or his
devastating scent.
“Say something,” he said. “Anything.”
The pause wasn’t on purpose—I just didn’t know what to say. I decided on,
“People do not enter into arranged marriages anymore, Nicoli. It do
esn’t
happen.”
Silence followed. He was probably trying to figure out how to make it sound
better. He was wasting his time. “We come from very different worlds, Elyse. In
my world, it happens. It happens every day.”
“What world do you come from, Nicoli? What kind of world still forces
people into marrying someone they’ve never even met?”
“We’ve met. We meet on scheduled occasions to be seen by the public.”
“And you agreed to this? You agreed to marry someone you hardly know, to
advance your father’s political agenda? That doesn’t sound like you, Nicoli. Not
at all.” Well, at least it didn’t sound like my idea of him.
“I was fulfilling my duty to my family, Elyse. It’s just not as uncommon as you make it out to be. In the political arena, it happens more than you think. You don’t know what happens behind closed doors. In fact, you’d be surprised
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whose marriages were actually arranged and whose were not. Even in the
western nations, even in the United States, it happens all the time. Ever wonder
why the wife always decides to stand by her errant husband when his affair goes
public? Because she knew about it in the first place, that’s why. It’s an accepted part of the arrangement. Marriages based on political convenience are as old as
government itself.”
In view of my near ignorance in politics in general, I admitted that could be
true. And the fact that he felt he was fulfilling an obligation to his family did agree with what little I’d learned about his character. It was, by any measure, an act of great self-sacrifice.
Still, the idea of binding himself to a complete stranger repulsed me so much
that I fought against it. “Western nations? Where are you from, Nicoli? That’s a secret I’d very much like to know.”
He exhaled in a gust, maybe in exasperation. “That’s not a secret either. My
family is Egyptian. My father is, anyway. My mother is an American. They live
in Egypt. How can you not know this?”
“Well, I’m very sorry, Nicoli, but I don’t have access to your file, remember?
And if you’re referring to the fact that it’s public knowledge because your
father’s some Egyptian politician, well then you must be forgetting that life on
Peleliu—that’s my island, but of course you already knew that—forged on
without the need to know of such inconsequential things. And, since you issued