Page 46 of Condemned

Chapter Seventeen

Timin crooked a browand glared up at the female. She’d been standing over him since he started to recover, maybe since before that, looking like some sort of nanny guard, waving off traffic. He’d hauled his butt backward closer to the footpath and was now using it for back support but still she remained. Of course there was the chain linking them—his wrist to hers.

He snapped the chain, growled at her. “Stop doing that!”

“I’m only helping you!” The harshness in her voice said maybe her actions were involuntary.

“Who told you to?”

“No one.” She swept a hand through her long red hair, making it swish over her shoulders. The sun flickered through the outer strands. “I figured you needed help, even if you are an asshole.”

His glare faltered. Did this snippy huleon think he’d not punish her, if he cared to?

“Well, stop doing it. You’re making me look a fool. As if having fits isn’t bad enough, I’ve got you standing there like a fucking lighthouse.”

Avalon sniffed. “A lighthouse would have a light. Next time I’ll be sure to have one and wave it about. You do know that having fits is just an injury, not a declaration of mental incompetence? You got that in war. Fuck them, man. Just give them the finger if they think that. I would.”

That was some speech. The girl sounded as if she knew all about being targeted, being the underdog. Zo had said as much.

He made himself speak more quietly. “I’m not a man. I’m mauleon.”

“Where I come from we say man for mauleon too, sometimes. Just words.” Then she sat down next to him and looked around as if she regretted sitting, twisting up her mouth. “I did it because I owe you. I should never have almost shot you.”

She locked eyes with him.

Amused, he thought that through. “So now we are even?”

“Yes?”

“Promise you won’t be my lighthouse anymore?”

“Why?”

His sigh came out angry, because he was. Being forced to admit this out loud automatically made him angry. “It makes me look a lesser mauleon. Unfit.”

He could see her poking her tongue at the inside of her mouth while she thought. Quite the luscious rosy-red mouth, but he’d noticed that days ago, he’d just ignored her desirability. Because who would ever look at a male who had seizures like he did and think him worth getting in bed with?

Or worth being bent over and fucked by.

His anger leaked away and was replaced by sadness. Utter sadness. The bleak sort he had to contend with most days.

“No. I disagree. I think if you have a fit you should expect someone to help you. You know, your friends. Even if I’m not one,” she added hurriedly. “It doesn’t make you lesser.”

He rose to his feet and sat properly on the footpath edge.

Across the road was an ancient, beaten-down skyscraper. Over the centuries, most of the high buildings had collapsed or been demolished. This one must’ve been made well. The upper stories looked deserted. He looked up, and up. Fifteen stories, maybe?

Signs sat above the timber-reinforced doors that’d replaced the glass ones.

Hot baths from a natural spring. Open day & night

Fortunes told

Gunsmith

Jeweler

The shadow cast by the building fell way down the street to his right. It was huge. Without big machinery, no one built those anymore.