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“It’s me,” I say to the crack. It takes everything in me not to barge through the door and throw myself into his arms. I spent my first night at Eagle Peak here in this camper, lying beside Grim in his bed with his scratchy wool blanket and his surprisingly soft carpet of chest hair. The morning hour we spent snuggling—after his initial shock at learning his Gift didn’t endanger me—was the best hour of my life. I felt comfort for the first time since Week Zero, and I’ve been longing for another chance to experience Grim’s tender, non-threatening brand of affection.
He swings the door wide, and I can’t hold back anymore. I launch myself at him. I’m not afraid of bowling him over with my enthusiasm. Grim is strong. He was a construction worker before, and he spends a lot of time on the weight machines at the back of Scrap’s shop.
Just like I knew he would, Grim stands firm and closes his arms around me. A sigh escapes him, like he’s been holding his breath the entire time we’ve been apart.
“What are you doing here?” he breathes into my hair. “You brought dessert with my dinner.”
A seductress would have a smart comeback about bringing something else sweet, but I’m too overwhelmed at being held tight in Grim’s embrace.
“I have an hour,” I say into his chest. “I wanted to spend it with you.”
One massive hand cups the entire side of my head. I nuzzle into it, and Grim looks into my eyes. “Then let’s not waste a single minute.”
He lets go of me long enough to shut and lock the camper door and strip out of his layered shirts. I shuck my hoodie so I’m in just a tank top and jean shorts. Once he’s reclining on his pillows, half sitting up in his narrow bed, I scamper onto his lap.
Instantly, his scent of crisp aftershave and hard-working man fills my lungs. It’s like his natural scent gets pent up under all his layers and it can’t wait to get out. I suck it in greedily as his arms fold around me. His skin is almost hot to the touch from being confined under all those clothes. He’s like a warm, fragrant, comforting furnace, and I never want to leave his warmth.
Grim holds me like that, my bare arms contacting his skin wherever we touch, my face nestled into his neck. It’s like cuddling with a rock that’s been collecting sunshine all day. I melt into him and squeeze him tight. I never want to let him go.
His breath ghosts over my face a moment before his lips claim mine. He’s recently showered and shaved. I can tell because his face is smooth. Most of the others wear beards, but Grim keeps his face shaved. I like rubbing my cheek on his and feeling the baby-soft skin. I like when he has stubble there, too. I like Grim any which way. We cling to each other and take long sips at each other’s mouths, and we breathe each other’s air, and it’s utterly perfect.
I hadn’t kissed many guys before Week Zero. I barely thought about things like kissing and dating. I mean, I felt attraction to a few guys over my teen years, but I always had other things going on. School, family, volunteering, summer jobs, friends. Exploring my sexuality was never a priority. Then, once the Virus came and Leon kidnapped me, my feminine body became something I hated. Leon used it against me to hurt me and to make himself feel good.
After Leon, I shouldn’t want sex with anyone. I should be broken. I am in some ways, but I also feel something young and alive trying to break through the cracked soil of my brokenness. It’s my sexuality. It’s not dead. It’s just back to its embryonic state. It needs nurturing. It needs time to grow.
I want Grim to be my first. I want him to be the first person I give myself to, body and soul. I think I can get there with the others—after all, that’s what Jud has asked of me in exchange for protecting me here at Eagle Peak. But I want Grim to be the one to nurture that tiny, green bud of my femininity.
Not tonight. I’m still not ready, and we don’t have enough time. But I’m determined to get ready. Because in just a few more nights, I will have spent the night with everyone here. I will be free to choose Grim, and of course, Iwillchoose him. I will always choose Grim first, I realize.
I love him.
After knowing him just a few days, I love him.
Too soon, our hour is up, and I force myself to climb off Grim’s lap. Just three more nights and I can be with him again. Three nights to make sure I won’t freak out when Grim enters my body.
Chapter 8
Scrap
Night 5: Scrap
I’m not gonna lie.I’m freaking out a little bit. I haven’t been alone with a girl in aminute,and by minute, I mean alonnnng-ass time. Not since before the pen. And back then, I was just a pipsqueak So-Cal gangbanger. I wasn’t exactly Rico Suave with the ladies. I was more interested in impressing myamigos—you know?—all “Bros before hos” and shit—than impressinglas rucas.
Rev slowed my roll, though. Helped me see things from Cora’s side of things. And didn’t that just chill me the fuck out? Made me feel like a shit to be all worried about impressing her and getting with her when she’s fresh out of every woman’s nightmare.
Rape.
Continual abuse for almost two years, according to Rev, and he got it from Jud. I guess she has scars, too. Her kidnapper’s name is spelled out in cigarette burns on her back. I know what cigarette burns feel like, and imagining her suffering that makes me want to commit slow, deliberate murder.
I mean, I’d heard about what she’s been through. Cora showing up in our territory is the most interesting thing to happen to any of us since we settled here, and it’s all anyone’s talking about. But Rev sat me down and made me reallyfeelit.
“You been raped in prison,” Rev said to me after dinner. We were alone behind my shop, like we often are. We have some pallets with old cushions set out like a futon under a corrugated metal roof. He took a drag off his minicig, blowing smoke into the darkening sky like a sexy motherfucker.
It wasn’t a question. He knows everything about me, the good, the bad, and the ugly. But I answered anyway. “Shit, yeah.” My fingers twitched with the urge to smoke, but I abstained. Didn’t want to smell like tobacco if I had a chance of getting my lips on Cora. Instead, I teased at a loose thread on a cushion. “Guy like me, in at nineteen, full of attitude. Yeah. My ass wasn’t getting outta there without getting nailed by every Chicano in sight. Some whites and blacks, too. Man, I’ve been tagged by every color you can imagine.” I shrugged it off with a laugh, even though there was nothing remotely funny about it.
Rev blew a smoke ring into the night sky without taking his gaze off me. He sat silent while his eyes drilled a hole through my soul. Like always.
“Make your point, old man,” I said. I wasn’t in the mood to read his mind. At that point, I had half an hour left to get my head right before spending the night with Cora. Alone. In her cabin. Just her, me, and my secrets.
