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Three people lost their lives over it.
And now, fate is wrecking two more lives.
It’s poetic, to be honest. A true beautiful disaster.
“Tell me about your world,” Lock says suddenly.
“Huh?” I mumble, pulled from my thoughts.
“Your home,” he adds. “I want to know what it’s like.”
“Oh … well, it’s a house. Made of bricks.” I laugh awkwardly because I honestly don’t know how to describe something so normal to someone who … doesn’t think it’s normal.
“Do you live alone there?” he asks.
“Yeah. But I have family and … co-workers.” I don’t really have friends, actually. I don’t have the time. I’m a workaholic.
“Co-workers?”
Holy shit. He really doesn’t know a thing, does he?
I take a deep breath. “We work together, but I like them too. Like a big family but not related in any way except for the work we do.”
“Okay …” He seems to struggle with it. “Do you have a father too?”
“Yeah.”
“But he didn’t lock you up?”
“No.”
He looks away and bites his lip.
“I have a mother too,” I add, trying to connect again.
He smiles. “Is she nice?”
I nod vehemently. “Yeah … but I definitely got my stubbornness from her.” I laugh even though he doesn’t.
“You’re definitely stubborn. But you’re also nice, Jules,” he says.
Now, I’m blushing like crazy. “Not really. But thanks.”
“I mean it.”
“I haven’t been very … nice to you,” I say, clearing my throat.
“I don’t care. I like you the way you are.” The smile that follows fills my body with butterflies.
I normally don’t care about compliments, but when they come from him … they feel so much more important. Like it matters to me what he thinks of me.
Maybe I’ve started to care more than I’ve let on.
Too much, in fact.
“Please … stay,” he says, grabbing my hand to kiss the top. “For me.”
I sigh and rub my lips together.
“Just stay for a couple of more days. Maybe you’ll like it,” he says.
“All right. Fine,” I reply, smiling and shaking my head. “But … if I still want to go after that, will you help me?”
“Okay.”
I hold out my hand. “Deal?”
The grin on his face is infectious. “Deal.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Accompanying Song: “Hungry Faces” by Mogwai
Lock
A week later
“All right, all right. Enough,” I say, pushing the small knife away.
“But I’m not done yet. Your beard is half-shaved now,” she says.
“I don’t care.”
“But I do,” she says, putting her hands on her hips. “It stings my face.”
I raise a brow. “Tell me you don’t like the tickling between your legs.”
She blushes and chucks the small knife into the warm water. “Lock. Stop it.”
I laugh. “Sorry, I can’t help it. I just don’t like sharp objects that close to my face.”
She washes her hands and grabs a piece of fur, using it to swipe the leftover hair off my face. “There.”
“Does it look good?” I ask.
She smiles. “Yeah …”
“So nothing’s changed.”
She rolls her eyes, which makes me grin. “So … you ready?” I ask.
“For what?” she asks.
“The fish, remember? I would let you shave me, and you’d cut up the fish.”
“But I haven’t even shaven you completely.”
I shrug. “So? Half is enough.” I run my hand along my chin to feel it. It’s quite stubbly now, but there’s still hair, so that’s good.
“Besides, you’ll have to learn how to prepare food other than just stuff you plucked off the plants,” I say.
“Fine.” She sighs, cleaning up. “You go grab the fish; I’ll go grab the tools.”
I do what she asks and set everything up for her. Then I get to work on my arrowheads.
“I’m sorry, little fishy,” Jules mumbles as she cuts off its head.
I can’t help but let out a laugh.
I taught her how to catch a fish with my spear, and now she has to clean it and prepare it for eating. It’s difficult, but she’ll get the hang of it. Once she throws aside her guilt, of course.
“It’s not funny,” she says.
“Yeah, it is,” I say.
She’s struggling with it, and I get it, but she’ll get used to it in no time if she keeps practicing.
“I’m just saying sorry because I’m killing it,” she says.
“I know,” I say. “But it’s already dead. It can’t feel anything.”
“Well, it could … a minute ago.”
I shrug and chug down my water before I continue grinding away at the stones to form perfect arrow shapes.
“It’s … cruel,” she mumbles, cutting off the scales.
“No, it’s not,” I reply.
“We’re killing animals,” she scoffs, gazing up at me.
“So?” I shrug again. I don’t understand why she hates doing it so much.
I mean, I love animals too … but a man’s gotta eat.
“It just feels wrong, okay?” she adds.
“So you don’t eat anything but leaves at home?” I ask.
She frowns. “No.”
“Fish too?”
She nods.
“How do you get it then?” I ask.
“From the store.”
“Right. But there’s no store here. If you want to eat, you have to hunt.”
She sighs as she slices the fish and takes out the insides like I showed her. “I know …” She still cringes and makes weird faces as she does it, as if she’s about to pass out. “I feel guilty.”
