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They scooted up against an intact wall, Valentine covering his head as well as he could, and he felt a wave of dust hit him in the dark.
"You okay?" he asked, hearing rubble fall somewhere up the stairs. It sounded strangely far-off and muffled.
They sat there as the air settled. Valentine thought he heard a shout from above, but there wasn't a hint of light.
"I'll be dead soon, I think. It works on the mind. I'm smelling food, growing plants, coffee being warmed up. Listening to everyone."
"There's still hope," he said.
"You tell yourself that? Or just the rest of us?"
"They haven't whipped us. They aren't even close."
"That's not an answer."
He didn't supply one.
She pressed his shoulder with hers in the darkness. "You're an odd duck, sir. You look so . . ."
"So what?"
"Never mind."
"I'd like to know what you think. Might as well talk about something."
"How about that bacon we had yesterday? Talk about the bottom of the lot," she said.
"You've got me curious. I look so what?"
"Well, you look so soft, I was going to say. You've got really gentle eyes. They're scared, too. Sometimes. Like that night they dropped the sappers."
"I was scared. Till I saw you with that bow. You looked like you were at target practice."
She didn't say anything. He broke the silence. "Speaking of setting an example-I should go up those stairs and see-"
"No. Give it another minute. We're here, it's dark, and you smell... comforting."
"Is that a soft smell?"
"See, you are hurt."
"No. Interesting to see yourself through another's eyes. What another person thinks."
"I want it to be over. I'm down here in the dark pretending there's no fighting, no Crocodile. No memories of Martinez and his gang. You can't imagine how good it feels, to have all that gone."
Actually he could. Valentine had sought oblivion in lust in the past...
They sat in the dark, feeding off each other's warmth, conducted through her hard-muscled shoulder.
"Sir, why are you what you are?" Styachowski asked.
"You mean a Cat? And it's 'David' or 'Val' when I'm off my feet."
"Okay, Val. Why?"
"Why don't you go first?"
"I took up soldiering because I knew I could fight. When I was little, about six, I got into a scrap with a boy two years older man me. I beat him. When I say 'beat him' I really mean 'beat'-he ended up in the hospital. After that my mom told me about my dad. He'd been a Bear, in a column marching back from some fight in Oklahoma. Caught Mom's eye somehow, and they had a night before he moved on. She said she wasn't thinking-just doing patriotic duty she called it; I showed up nine months later. She said the hunting-men were like wild animals and I had to control myself and never lose my temper. The doc said that was superstition, but I dunno."
