Page 11 of Storm Caller

“Vess used some stuff from her kit to keep you unconscious.” My eyes widen, my stomach twists, and Rook rushes to add, “It was that, or Cal was going to keep knocking you on the head.”

“Oh.”

I shiver and wrap my arms around my waist. Anything could have happened to me, and I would never have known.

“And you . . . walked?”

“I did. They took turns carrying you. Vess took care of me, too.”

While Rook cleans and bandages my cut, he’s so close that I feel the softness of his breath on my lips. Note the dusting of freckles over the bridge of his nose. The way the green and gold melt with the copper flecks in his eyes.

He’d become my safe place at Amery. The calm in the storm of my life. My protector. My friend. And I thought maybe something more, too.

Now I don’t know whether to lean closer or shove him away.

His fingertips graze the edge of my jaw. My breath quickens, my pulse hammering at his nearness. I hate that my body still trusts him when I’m not sure the rest of me can.

When I can’t stand it a moment longer, I sit back, severing the moment. “I’m fine now.”

“Sorry,” he says, though I’m not sure either one of us really knows what he’s apologizing for. He’s still kneeling in front of me, like he can’t bear the idea of being too far away.

“Rook, who are these people?” I ask. “Why do you know them? Why are they locking us up?”

His gaze jumps to the tent entrance, where Safira is no doubt keeping guard. He’s friendly with her but doesn’t trust her completely, and the canvas walls of our bunkhouse don’t offer much privacy.

Rook balances a hand on the edge of the bed frame.

“There are numerous pockets like this scattered across the Wastes,” he says, voice low. “Encampments where people live and spend their time hunting these lands for resources and signs of life.” He pauses, and I get the sense that while that is the truth, it’s not the entire picture. “I lived in an encampment for a few years. Not this one, but a different one, though you get to know each other when you’re living in the same quadrants. People often travel between camps, switching groups depending on where they’re headed. So that’s how I know Cole and Safira and a few of the others.”

He’s saying a lot of things I can’t quite keep up with.

Quadrants. Where they’re headed.

“And Commander Sterling?” I ask. “Fisher? Is that how you know him, too?”

“Ah.” Rook rubs his chin. “That’s a little more complicated.”

He glances back at the doorway and then at me, lowering his head.

“He’s my brother. Well, my half brother.” He snort-laughs before adding, “Same mom. Vastly different moods.”

Oh. That explains a few things. I think.

“And is that a secret?” I whisper, also looking at the door and back at Rook.

“No, it’s not.”

“Then why are we whispering?”

Rook grunts, nearly laughing again, but quickly tamps it down.

“I can’t say anything else here,” he says. “About why I was inside New Manhattan. There are too many ears, and I know it’s asking a lot, but I need you to keep quiet about everything you know.”

“But I don’t know what you were doing there, either. Not really.”

“I know, I just—” He exhales a sound of frustration. “I promise that once we get out of here, I’ll tell you everything.”

“Knock, knock,” comes Cole’s cheerful voice a moment later. “Got your bags.” He dumps the packs hanging from each shoulder onto the end of my bed. “You can also grab showers in the bathhouse. I’ve had it cleared out for you for the next twenty minutes or so. Safira will escort you.”