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It’s the most natural thing in the world to slide my arm around her and urge her little body behind me so I can protect her from an attack.
Humans are different from splicers in many ways, one of which is that they crash through their environment, taking no pains to be stealthy. Their path is easy to follow. Interesting, it leads directly to the lake, to the fallen log where Jenna and I sat the other day.
“Motherfucker.” Jenna’s voice is an angry hiss.
While I’ve been looking down at the footprints, she’s been peeking around me. When I stop moving and examine my surroundings, I see what she has spied.
“Motherfucking cameras.” She all but spits the words out.
Since we last visited, a crew has erected four cameras in the treetops. Their red lights are activated as they move on a continuous sweep of the area.
“Motherfucking cameras, indeed,” I whisper, though there’s no reason to be quiet. Whoever is surveilling us certainly knows we’re here.
Chapter Twenty
Jenna
What’s going on in my body is like what they show on weather maps when one high-pressure system slams into another. It’s like an energetic crash inside my skin.
Arousal has been building all day. It intensified the moment I turned toward him when he was chasing me in the kitchen and all I could see was the lust written plainly on his flour-covered face. It doubled and then tripled since we stepped into the cover of trees here in the woods.
All that spiraling desire has been annihilated by those damn cameras.
“This isn’t right, Noble. I know we’re both kind of military property, but hidden cameras at the lake? What the fuck?”
He shrugs. Suddenly I think I understand his life better than I have before. He’s been a prisoner since birth. Since before he was born, actually. He’s survived at the whim of others, taking orders from the people in charge. Forced from birth to never question or rebel.
Me? Not so much. My grandma’s old Chevy had a faded bumper sticker that said “Question Authority.” When I was old enough to inquire about it, she began to indoctrinate me in every conspiracy theory that could be found on the Internet, and a few I think she made up on her own.
All I need is one glance at the splicer next to me to realize at least some of those conspiracies must be true.
“They can’t prohibit us from being with each other. We’re both consenting adults.” My voice is vehement, even though I know they have every right to do so. Somewhere in that foot-high stack of papers I signed, there are probably ten different clauses written in perfect governmental legalese that prohibit carnal fraternization with other program participants.
“Colonel Slater has not heard the end of this.” Some of the fervor has faded from my voice as I realize maybe we’ve lost before we even begin to fight.
Noble tucks me against him and gently rocks us from side to side. It’s so reassuring to feel his soft pelt beneath my cheek, to hear the steady thrum of his heart, to feel his tail wrap around my waist as if he’ll never let me go.
“I’m going to walk you back to the facility, Jenna. When we leave the cover of trees, perhaps we shouldn’t hold hands. Tomorrow, you’re going to teach me how to bake. You promised to make it fun… but not too fun. Is it… is it too forward of me to say I feel like I’m your partner in the bake shop?”
He wants to be my partner? Is there anything I’ve wanted more in my life than this? To have a person who has my back? Who wants what I want and whose fondest wish is to help my dreams come true?
“No, Noble. It’s not too forward.”
“We’re going to bake and furnish the shop and create recipes and I’m going to help you every step along the way. We’re going to get your bakery up and running just how you want. In the meantime, I’ll get to know you better. And when the time is right, we’re going to find a way to be together.”
I thought he was done speaking, but he pulls back to see my face in the watery moonlight and asks, “If that’s what you want?”
Is that what I want? I’ve known him for less than two weeks, and most of that time we weren’t even exchanging eye contact. Perhaps I’m crazy when I answer, “Yes. That’s exactly what I want.”
“Good.” His chest expands fully for the first time since we spotted the cameras. “Until then, I refuse to sneak around. It’s not who I am. I’m not going to get acquainted with your lush body in the facility kitchen pantry or the far reaches of the bakery kitchen where the cameras don’t reach.”
I laugh at his backward admission that he’s not only thought about it, but strategized and found our enemy’s weak spots. Though we barely know each other, it’s clear we’re forming something precious.
“You’re right, Noble. I don’t want to consummate things standing up in the walk-in fridge, though I did have a brief fantasy about it the other night.”
“Mmm. If I were a better male, I wouldn’t ask you to tell me all about it. We have time, though, for you to give me all the details as I walk you back to the facility.”
Chapter Twenty-One
