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“I want to know where he is.”
“I’m sure he’ll show up.”
Cal’s voice was in her head. It’s easier for them to fuck with you if you’re alone. “Tell me where he is right now.”
The woman stood up and wagged a finger at her. “You can fuss all you like, honey. That’s not how we work around here. You need to learn that things have their own timing and reason and it does you no damn good to fight against that. That’s the stink of the decay on you, that is. Thinking you can control things. There’s no place for that here.”
Being cooperative wasn’t going to get her anywhere. It was squeaky wheel time because why was Zeke’s suitcase shut in a cupboard? Why didn’t they want her seeing that? And how hard was it simply to tell her he was out cutting trees or planting yams or wrestling bears?
Sticking together didn’t mean they’d be joined at the hip. She knew they’d have their own paths to forge, but none of that logic meant anything if Zeke was in danger like Cal had once been.
Cal was nineteen and Zeke seventeen when they infiltrated a religious cult. The two of them had nearly starved as part of their punishment for being ungodly. Cal was beaten to within an inch of his life before he and Zeke were able to escape and bring the authorities in, stopping the cult leaders from going ahead with a suicide pact.
Zeke had to fight with Cal to get this job approved and Cal had grilled her mercilessly about signing on for it, wanting to make sure of her resolve. There was no moment where listening to her fear and rage and speaking out was inappropriate.
“Orrin,” she’d shouted. “Orrin Epcot. I need to speak to you. Come out from wherever you’re hiding and answer my question.”
Her shouting had gotten her escorted none too gently outside between the grip of two armed men who’d come running and treated her to advice to quit caterwauling.
Orrin had been watching from an upstairs balcony, staring impassively at her as she fought her way out of the grip of his henchmen. It took all her willpower not to give him the finger.
So here she was, in her corner, at her window, where no one would speak to her, with nothing to read, glaring at the looky-loos and sick to the stomach worried about Zeke. She’d barely slept since her assault on HQ, taking her frustration out on long runs around the town center and its rows of cabins, as far as the sports field and the greenhouses and the barns.
She took her dinner break, in the lull between the two seatings when fewer people were in the dining room. Filling her plate and finding an empty table to sit at. The whole week no one had made any attempt to sit with her or introduce themselves, and people had actively turned away when she’d tried to engage them. Apart from Cadence, Macy, and Clary, the guy who did afternoon shift in the bakery, she hadn’t formally met anyone else. It was clearly by design and tonight it suited her well; she wasn’t in the mood for company.
But she did want to know what the commotion at the back of the hall was about. Heavy footfalls, male voices, uproarious laughter, someone boo
ming, “City boy wants his mommy.”
She stood and turned to the sound. A troupe of filthy-looking men coming into the dining hall, shouting and shoving each other like they were ten-year-old’s. She checked their faces; big smiles, beards and greasy hair, looking for her city slicker, her stomach rioting.
He came in last, eyes up, scanning the room. He was suntanned and his T-shirt was torn at the shoulder, the rest of it molded to him. He was dusty and scruffy and very much alive and someone behind her said, “Sweet Jesus. I’ll be his momma,” the sheer thirst of that comment making her groan.
She was moving towards Zeke when his gaze lit on hers and caused a chemical reaction in her body. Sent it soaring like she was an untamed thing, made of heat, relief and gratitude and nothing could hold her back.
The men separated as she pushed through them and Zeke dumped his pack.
“Hey Rosie.”
He looked like he’d been wrestling bears and the bears lost. She put her hands to his chest and shoved him and his hey Rosie hard enough to make him take a step backwards. “I thought you were dead.”
The words were out and the reality of the them nearly buckled her knees. Anything could’ve happened to him here, where they didn’t control the game. He was one man and not invincible, and damn, she’d not done enough to find him. And she couldn’t ever lose him. Not now that she had him as her wingman again.
“I only smell dead.”
The laughter, deep and hearty, around them should’ve grounded her, but she was mad at herself, furious at this place for making her feel this out of control, even knowing it was being done on purpose, and thrilled to see Zeke, her skin sizzling with it, her body shaking.
She went to shove him again, needing to touch him, not knowing how, but consumed with the desire to hold his safety in her hands. She caught a hold of his shirt instead and pulled herself into his chest, felt his breath come fast and stilted against the thud of her heart, smelled the earth, sweat, grime and exhaustion in him, and looked up into his eyes, the deepest blue with shots of gold. Eyes that had always seen her clearly and never judged.
“You stink.” She twisted his shirt in her fist, forcing him to bend closer.
His lips brushing her ear when he whispered, amused, “Aurora Rae, you worried about me.”
She let go and took a half a step back to take him in, filthy, messed up, one hand bandaged, command in his shoulders and strength carved into his handsome face. He was the dearest person to her and yet foreign, like someone she’d never met before. Mysterious for all the ways he was familiar and yet right now, a complete stranger.
He lowered his chin and laughed at her.
Now he was hers again. She’d waited all week to hear that chesty rumble. She jumped, secure he’d catch her and he did, sliding his arms around her back as she cinched her legs around his hips and wrapped her arms around his neck.
