Page 39 of Retrograde

“I didn’t think it would.” She shrugs, and my annoyance turns into a duller frustration.

She is too good at this dignity thing of hers. It’s hard to get a rise out of her. I now know that this vulnerable sincerity of hers is nothing but a camouflage. For nerves of fucking steel. It’s like she doesn’t know that everyone can be broken. Sooner or later, I will break her, too.

“Close your eyes. The light will be a lot at first.” I don’t know why I warn her before opening the door.

Lucky for her, she’s smart enough to obey me without fuss. I push the screeching door, and Riley lets out a choked noise when fresh air and sunlight reach her.

She’s doing as she was told and keeping her eyes shut, savouring each breath.

Impatient and strangely unsettled, I put my arm around her shoulders to lead her out. We step over the threshold, gravel giving in to the softer sand under our feet, and the smell of late spring all around us.

“You can open—” I don’t get to finish the sentence.

Riley slips from my hold and crashes to the ground, sobs racking her body. On her knees and bent forward, her forehead is nearly touching the ground, and she’s crying loudly into her hands.

It’s lucky that the courtyard is mostly empty. But Attila is near the roasting pit with a few other men, and he gives me a pointed look before returning his attention to the chickens slowly rotating over the fire.

“Come on, Hotshot. Get up,” I urge her. “Let’s go.”

I don’t really give a shit about the lengthening shadows and the dying light. I know she can work in any conditions. It doesn’t matter if it’s dark. But something fragile inside me is cracking at the sight of her monumental relief, knowing how temporary it is.

Mercy is nothing but a perversion of justice. The right thing to do is to give people what they deserve. But the thing about being fair is that sometimes you know you are being fair, but it doesn’t feel that way. I’ve learnt over the years to ignore all such stupid feelings. But fuck me, she is testing my resolve more than I’d like to admit.

“Hotshot.” I touch her shoulder, giving her a little shake. “Riley, let’s go.”

She doesn’t protest. With a final shudder, she rises slowly, wiping her face off. Her eyes are swollen and red-rimmed.

“Will you let me see Corrado? Please? Just to know he’s alive,” she pleads softly.

Her freckles stand out more in the bright light, and some of her tears are still caught in her lashes.

“No,” I reply automatically. “And don’t argue with me unless you want to go back inside.”

Her nostrils flare, but she lowers her eyes, not defying my will. I’m no longer surprised by her refusal to fight me. But sometimes I wish that she would. I resent the way she sees me: a heartless fanatic, not worth reasoning with. I usually have to go out of my way to prove to people that’s exactly what I am. None of them ever wants to believe it, begging and trying to appeal to whatever softer side they want to think I have. But she’s not even giving me a chance to reject her, to crush her last shred of hope. She’s not letting me defeat her.

15

ARON

Ilead Riley around the roasting pit, nodding to Attila and the others. We approach a tunnel-like opening, the only way out of the cave complex. My bike is already parked there, two helmets hanging from the bars, her camera and some necessities packed in the two leather saddlebags.

“Wait! We’re going on a motorbike?” Riley stops in her tracks, and her eyes go wide.

“What did you expect? A horse-drawn carriage?” I nudge her forward, but she digs her heels into the ground, resisting me, testing my patience like she doesn’t know what a bad fucking idea that is.

“You said nothing about going on a bike!” she protests, her voice frantic and her body rigid. “I don’t want to!”

She’s too loud. Attila and the men burst out laughing when they hear her.

“I don’t give a shit. You’re coming.”

Where the fuck does she think she is? If I say she’s going somewhere, she’s fucking going. Whether she wants to or not is irrelevant.

I grab her, but she’s refusing to budge.

“No! Let go of me!” she shrieks, and the onlookers come closer, enjoying themselves way too much.

Fuck’s sake.