by Sarah Harian
“Every fucking night.”
“We were going to die.”
“What?” I gasp.
His arms relax, and the sparks between us begin to fizzle out. “We were going to die. That’s why you were the first one I let in.”
I frown. “Well that hurts.”
“I mean, if it weren’t for the circumstances, I would have taken it more slowly with you.” As he leans forward, his lips barely brush mine. “I didn’t trust myself.”
“What about now?”
“Now . . . now I know how you fly away. I know how quickly you get up and leave. And if I hurt you . . .”
His strength gives out, and he rolls off of me, his chest rising and falling as he stares at the ceiling.
“But you wouldn’t hurt me.”
The argument is rapid, and he fires back, “I pinned you against the wall in the Compass Room lodge without thinking twice. What the fuck are you talking about?”
I wind up straddling him. I can see just enough of him in the dark. “Evalyn, the terrorist. What about Evalyn, the girl? Tell me. Tell me to my face that you can see your father coming out in you, hurting me.”
“I’d kill myself first.”
I press my hands against his bare chest. “You put aside your father and I’ll put aside the pain I’ve already caused you.”
“I already forgive you,” he says.
“Never forgive me. Let me feel like I always have to make it up to you.”
There’s some fussing and scrambling. I knee him in the pelvis as he tries to get me on my back again.
“You have an addiction to piling fault after fault inside of you and letting them sit and sink in until you’re so heavy that you can’t move.” He’s angry. His eyes are so furious, the whites of them nearly glow in the dark. “Give it up. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
“Make me.” It’s a challenge between two twisted, stubborn souls. Determination lingers in his features, and he begins to scoot himself backward until his face is level with my hips. He pulls down my sweatpants. “What is it going to take for you to finally accept that you’re not a villain?”
He pries my legs apart with his strong, warm hands, and bites me hard on the inside of my thigh. I’m so not expecting it. A cry escapes my throat.
“Give it up already.”
“No.”
Another bite. This time, pleasure surges through my stomach, and my cry is more of a moan. “You’re a son of a bitch.”
His hand slides up between my legs and he pushes aside my panties. “You’re acting like a child,” he says in an overtly serious, patronizing tone. I wonder if he means to come off as sexy as he does, but I don’t have time to ponder for long because I feel his tongue on me for the first time and I lose my mind.
He’s never done this before, and I feel like I should apologize for not coming on first contact. “You don’t have to,” I keep moaning over and over, like it’s an instinct to tell him or something. Like I need to express that it’s okay if he instead wants to experience pleasure alongside me.
He pulls away from me long enough to say, “Will you shut the fuck up already?”
He didn’t have to ask, because I can’t form words.Not like I’d want to. He doesn’t act like it’s his first time. He isn’t coy. He isn’t trying too hard. He moves his mouth like it’s as good for him as it is for me, sucking, biting, teasing. His hands grip my ass and keep me from writhing too much and I’m totally gone, totally helpless beneath him. My fingers weave through his hair when I get close, and I beg him not to stop, but he does—just to fuck with me.
“I hate you.”
He laughs. “How much?”
“So much. I hate you so damn much.”
He pushes two fingers into me and I cry out, digging my heels into his back.
“Still?”
“Yes,” I gasp. My eyes roll back as his fingers curl up. “I wish you were bad at this.”
“Why the hell would you wish that?”
So I wasn’t melting like butter beneath him because we are at war and I’m prideful. Emotions are easy to hide. Physical desire is another fickle bastard of a beast entirely.
My answer isn’t important. His tongue finds me again. This time, he doesn’t stop.
***
I’m exhausted, but I want more of him. I want him inside of me, I want him wrapped around me. I want to watch him come.
“Tomorrow,” he whispers into the back of my neck. “Tomorrow and the day after that. I have you until the storm passes.”
“Nuh uh.” Against the pillow, my voice is muffled. “I have you until the storm passes.”
“You’re supposed to be sleeping.”
I roll over to him. He pushes the hair from my eyes, and I snuggle up against his chest. “I don’t want to sleep.”
“You have to sleep. Even if it means that when you wake up, the storm will be gone.”
The storm will be gone tomorrow. But just because we’ll have to start focusing on freeing Valerie doesn’t mean that this has to end.
I will do anything to have him.
I will to anything to keep him safe.
***
Waking up is a heaven kind of perfect.
I’m naked. I don’t know how my shirt came off but it’s off, and I’m lying on my stomach in the middle of the bed. Natural light filters through the window. It’s snowing softly outside. The door is open, and downstairs smells like bacon and coffee.
Casey walks in with two plates of breakfast. He stalls, raising an eyebrow. “Awake yet, sleepyhead?”
“I . . . yes.”
“Good. Now get up and eat your damn food before it gets cold.”
I pull the sheet free and then roll around like a seal on the bed until it’s wrapped around me, which receives a laugh from Casey. When it’s tucked securely beneath my armpits, I join him for breakfast. He’s made eggs and bacon and homemade biscuits.
“It’s amazing how much fresh food they can actually sneak out here without anyone catching on,” I mumble around a mouthful of food.
“Do you like the eggs?”
“Ohmuhfugginggawd, they’re amazing.”
He grins. “Are you always this gross when you eat?”
I stab at my biscuit. “You tell me. You’ve seen me eat enough.”
He avoids the question flawlessly. “Just eat up. Wes wants to take us out snowshoeing today. Something about learning how to manipulate the nanotech in the CR.”
I frown. It looks cold enough outside to freeze my eyeballs in their sockets. “Ugh. Snowshoeing? For real?”
“You need to get back in shape anyway. When we’re in the CR, we’re going to want to hike to the wall fast.” I can tell he’s on the brink of laughter.
“Are you calling me fat?” I deadpan.
He rolls his eyes. “Give me a break.” He stands, still hunched over the table, and uses it to support himself as he leans over me. “Getting in shape doesn’t mean getting thin. Besides, I prefer this Evalyn to scrawny prison rat Evalyn any day.”
“Scrawny prison rat!?”
“I’m giving you a compliment.”
“You’re saying that you like me fat more than you like me scrawny. That’s hardly a compliment.” I crack a slight smile to let him know I’m kidding. “Isn’t there a happy medium?”
“Nope!”
“You sure do know how to win over a woman’s heart, Casey Hargrove.”
He grins and pats his lap. “Come here.”
I comply. When he pulls me onto him, his lips press against my bare shoulder and I bite back the urge to groan at such a simple gesture.
He breaks off a piece of his biscuit and dips it into a pile of strawberry jam.
“But this kind of breakfast every day will make me fat. Really.”
“Shame.” He lifts the pastry. “All of those curves for me to deal with.”
I open my mouth, tongue grazing his finger as he hand feeds me—strawberry bliss, Casey’s skin. Snow a
nd forest and a clean sheet wrapped around me. This should be every morning.
This will be every morning, once we enter the Compass Room as a team and extract Valerie. Once we escape and have nothing to worry about beneath the protection of Reprise.
It will happen. It must.
***
Snowshoeing isn’t like walking, rather like taking awkward lunges through the soft snow in duck feet. Casey keeps muttering and cursing and falling over. When I attempt to help him up, I fall over. Maliyah, Wes, and Piper walk fluidly through the snow—uphill—like they do this every damn day of their lives. Casey and I desperately cling to each other as snow pelts us in the face, slipping and dragging each other down. Near the top of the hill, our snowshoes cross. He falls to his knees and I tumble over him, landing face-first in the powder. It hurts like a bitch and the snow is freezing, but I can’t help but laugh.
When I do, he joins me. I fall back into the snow and he leans over me, kissing me on the mouth. I swear he melts the ground beneath me.
When we’ve finally scrambled back to our feet, I look up to catch Piper staring back at us, grinning madly like a giddy schoolgirl. She spins around and flounces to catch up with Wes and Maliyah.
When we reach the top of the hill, Maliyah pulls from her jacket a piece of folded-up leather. She drops it on the snow and unwraps it, revealing a set of four knives. Piper slides her backpack from her shoulders and opens it, pulling out her tablet.
“The technology in these knives only works once it’s calibrated with the chip inside of your head.” Her words are muffled behind her scarf. “Give me a moment.” A few minutes later, she says, “Alright, Evalyn’s and Casey’s chips are registering. We should be good to go.”
Maliyah picks up a blade from the bunch.
“The nanotechnology has yet to be programmed to succumb to the flesh of those with active chips.”
I take off my glove and Maliyah hands me the knife. When I press the tip of my finger against it, I feel the top layer of my skin slicing apart.
“Oww.”
“Okay, one moment . . . try now,” Wes orders.
I press my finger into the blade again, and this time it dissolves, the tip giving in to form a crescent in the metal.
“Piper, reset the knife,” says Wes.
“Righto.” Piper taps her tablet a few times, and the knife reforms right in front of my eyes.
Maliyah picks up another knife, pivots and throws the blade so it spirals in the air right past me. I cower in shock, listening as it sinks into something sturdy. I turn to find it sticking out of a near trunk.
Casey gapes at her. “Who are you?”
Maliyah smirks. “Mountain girl, born and raised.”
“What I want you to try and do, Evalyn, is see if you can communicate with the nanotechnology since I’ve reprogrammed your chip,” says Wes.
“How?”
“Like I told you last night, it’s all about reimagining. The reason why creative people are capable of grasping this is because this technology is . . . well . . . almost intuitive. People like me just want to input a formula to control the Compass Room, but it’s not as one dimensional as that. The Compass Room is linked to our immediate thoughts this way. Engineers can act upon quick decisions.”
I blink. “So what you’re telling me is that I have to feel the reimagining.”
“Yes, essentially.”
“What a load of crap.”
Wes sighs. “Just try.”
So I try.
Over and over again, Maliyah throws the blade into the tree. I’m supposed to somehow—with my mind—dull the end of the blade so it can’t stick. I find myself trying to control the technology the same way that I control the illusions.
I am the one throwing the blade instead of Maliyah.
No.
I am the blade, my tip breaking off.
Nope.
I am the tree and I don’t want to be fucking stabbed.
I gasp in shock when the knife doesn’t stick into the tree, but that’s only because Maliyah gave a wonky throw and it struck the bark at the wrong end. I groan and step back, tripping over my snowshoes and falling onto my ass. Casey gives me an apologetic grimace and helps me back up.
Each time, I fail just as hard as the last. Finally, when I can’t feel my nose and my legs are sore as all hell from trying to balance on the shoes, I cry, “I give up! I’m cold and hungry and just want a goddamn glass of wine. Can we please go back?”
Casey frowns. Wes takes off his gloves and rubs at his eyes. “Maybe we should let Casey try.”
“One more time,” says Maliyah.
“But—”
“Just one. Casey, come here for a sec.”
Setting her tablet down on her bag, Casey looks intrigued by Maliyah’s sudden interest in him. That is, until he realizes why he’s being summoned.
“Go stand by the tree.”
Casey gapes, horrified, but I can’t help but scoff at the joke. “Alright, alright. Come on, let’s go back.”
“I’m serious, Evalyn.”
“You can’t be serious. You wouldn’t risk his life just to try and make me concentrate.”
Flatly, she says, “You have five seconds.”
Holy shit, she’s serious.
“Evalyn,” Casey warns lowly.
“Five, four, three . . .”
“Evalyn!” Piper cries behind me.
I shut my eyes.
“Two, one . . .”
Maliyah throws the knife. Piper screams.
I feel it in the back of my mind, a ribbon wrapping around the top of my spine. I’m connected, like the particles are inside of me, shattering into a million tiny fragments, and then slipping like a tongue back into the mouth of the hilt.
The blade smacks into the trunk above Casey’s right shoulder.
“I was never going to hit him.” Maliyah turns to me. “Trust me when I say I know what I’m doing.”
Casey picks up the knife from the ground. Except it isn’t a knife. He raises it into the air.
Nothing but a hilt.
***
Four hours in the snow and I’m colder and stiffer than an ice carving. Sore too—usually the soreness after physical exertion comes the next day, but I feel like I’ve been repeatedly hit by a truck.
It took Casey a couple of hours to learn to control the nanotechnology in the blade. Whether that really has to do with me being more creative, I’m not sure, but all that matters is that we’ve both successfully taken the first step.
Casey’s made chicken and mushrooms and melt-in-your mouth potatoes. I kind of wish he made dessert so he could force me to wear it for him.
My mind is clear from the cold and the exercise. Everyone seems to be in a good mood since the success with the knife. The plan to retrieve Valerie is no longer fogged over by a dismal sense of doubt. We may actually be able to do this.
For the first time since I’ve been here I’m not craving a drink. I’m craving a beating heart.
I hop in the shower after dinner. It’s more painful than comforting. My feet are still numb and the hot water scalds my toes so much that I have to continuously cling to the shower walls to stay upright. I need someone to help me stand up straight.
I’ll think that part through next time.
When I’m finished, I wrap myself in a fluffy towel, comb through my hair, and dig through my stockpile of clothes that I keep in the bathroom linen closet. The sexiest thing I brought was a black push-up bra and a pair of lacelined panties. But Casey’s seen me covered in blood and sweat. He’s smelled me after weeks of not showering. He slept with me on the cusp of our mortal danger, when we were both exhausted and ragged. Compared to that, lace panties are so fucking meaningless.
I put them on anyway. And the bra. I put on the bra too.
Whipping my hair over my shoulder, I exit the bathroom, towel drying it off.
He’s sitting in the window seat watching the snow when I enter the bedroom, an
d has the audacity to frown when he sees me. “Why did you put clothes on?”
I stall, looking down at my body. “Clothes? These are clothes to you?”
“Yeah, those things. You’ve never needed them before. I mean, it was either you in a sweaty T-shirt and jeans or nothing at all.” He waves his hand in the air like an old man. “None of this frilly bullshit.”
I scoff and shake out my towel, hanging it on the doorknob. “Sometimes, frilly bullshit is necessary. You know, to make my boobs look great while I seduce you.”
He looks like he’s about to laugh. “Seduce me? Is that the game we’re playing tonight?”
“It isn’t a game.” I fall serious, walking to the bed and crawling on top of it. “I want to forget about all of this—everything we’ve found ourselves in again.”
His shoulders sag. “We wouldn’t have to think about the CR if . . .”
“Casey . . .”
“I know. I know you love her. I love her too. The best thing that could happen is that everything goes according to plan. The worst is that I lose both of you.”
I kneel and shake my head, my damp hair falling loose all around my shoulders. “I won’t let that happen.”
“You can’t promise anything.”
“Stop.” I sigh. “Please stop and come here. I’m getting cold.”
He doesn’t come. He crosses his arms and leans back against the window. “You think Wes was serious when he said he could figure out what we liked to get off to?”
I roll my eyes. “Absolutely not. Please don’t tell me you believed him for one second.”
The corners of his mouth perk up. “Well, if I can’t ask Wes, I guess you’ll just have to tell me.”
I look him squarely in the eyes. “You want me to tell you what I touch myself to? How about you—”
“Asked you first.”
After a brief stare down, I begin to study him. I could use easily use this situation to my advantage. I’ve imagined sex with Casey, desired scenarios with him. They were ones I couldn’t experience with Liam. Liam was slender and all lips and tongue and touching—all gentle, all romantic.
Casey is romantic, but more of an aggressive romantic. The kind that would bite the inside of your thigh when you pissed him off so much that you actually turned him on. He fought to love, not loved to love.