by Gaia Octavia
“I’m okay, Em,” I lied, “thank you for bringing me back.”
My words were wholly inadequate, but I knew I’d never find the right ones to say because they didn’t exist. How do you thank someone for saving you from a burning fire almost every night? From repelling into the hole of your very own hell to shine a light and call you back out? Even though it made no sense for him to be, Emit was my best friend and my savior.
I brushed the leaves and filth off my clothes as best I could and moved back toward our makeshift beds. As I grabbed my blanket off the ground, Emit reached out and tentatively took my hand.
“Do you need me tonight?”
Emit always seemed to know when my nightmares were worse than usual, though how he might know made me feel sick to my stomach to think about.
“No, I–”
I tried to tell him that I would be fine, not wanting to ask any more from him than I already took. But the words formed a hard, stubborn lump in my throat. As I struggled to finish my sentence, I felt shame start clawing its way up my spine. I always pictured my shame as a thick, rotting creature that dug its fingers and heels into each vertebra as it skittered up my spine from deep within–swinging and twisting around it in glee whenever it escaped to play.
“C’mon, Jade,” Emit said softly, gently leading me behind him with the soft grip of his hand, “I think I heard something earlier. I could use the company too.”
It was a lie, but I loved him for saying it.
I brought my blanket and he laid it on top of his. Then he slid under and held the thickened blanket up for me to follow. I turned my body toward him as I always did, so I could anchor myself to the shape of his face as I fell back asleep, feeling the familiar warmth of his left arm draped protectively over me. It was the only way I was able to have any semblance of restful sleep.
I had been trying for months to stop crawling into his bed. Not because Emit would have ever asked me to stop, but because as time passed, I’d started waiting for him to fall asleep, so I could stare at his face. Sometimes for hours. And the way my body began responding as I perused the sharp lines of his face–or at the feeling of the hardness of his body next to mine–terrified me.
It confused me. The thought of sex still filled me with sickening dread, but I still desperately wanted to feel Emit’s body pressed against mine, writhing in need. Still, I feared more than anything that he would wake up one night to discover me breathless and hard, and I’d lose him forever.
But tonight’s trip into the darkness had been so real. The touches, noises, smells, and tastes had all come back every bit as crisp as they had been that night. One of many, many nights. So, I gladly followed him. Having him there with me felt so good. Before long, I felt myself drifting into the soft black nothing of sleep with the image of Emit’s face holding me above the darkness like a lifeline.
CHAPTER TWELVE
⸙
EMIT
As Jade’s heavy lids slipped closed, I breathed a silent sigh of relief. It had taken so long to reach him this time, I hadn’t been sure he was going to come back to me at all. Tears swam in my eyes as I remembered Jade’s heaving exhalations, which had sounded as if he were being squeezed over and over until all the air rushed out of him in raspy whooshes.
I’d been thankful for the darkness when he came to. Because I hadn’t been able to hide the pain and worry that must have etched my face. I’d been able to keep my voice light and steady, but barely. The sounds that had been coming from Jade, the grunts and cries and endless moans of pain, had reached inside of me and pulled my heart out to rip and tear and stomp on. Even after so many months of traveling together, we never talked about what had happened to him during all those years he was in that camp.
But I knew.
It wasn’t just that Jade hadn’t opened up or didn’t seem strong enough to talk about the things he had seen and the things that had been done to him. It was also that I didn’t think my heart could take hearing about them. His nightmares and episodes were torturous enough to witness and if it hadn’t been for him–this beautiful, strong, insanely smart kid–then the same things would have been done to me. And I never would’ve survived it.
Not like him.
I reached up with the hand of the arm I had draped across him and tucked the piece of hair he referred to as his ‘fly away’ behind his ear. The bit of hair was just short enough to never stay tucked for long, but never seemed to grow longer, no matter what length the rest of his hair was. I loved that little scruff of hair since it reminded me of Jade. Because no matter how much he changed, it always felt like he remained a kid to me. Placing my arm back around him, I thought about how–despite Jade being almost two years older than me–I still thought of him as a kid.
I guessed it was because no matter how strong, smart, and brave he was, so much had happened to him for so many years that my fierce need to protect him still made me look at him that way. In some ways, it was like he was frozen at age 11, having been denied so many life experiences that allowed for growth and change. Yet in other ways, he was much more able than I was. I knew it wasn’t fair of me to continue thinking of him as a kid who needed me to look out for him, but I couldn’t help it. I knew Jade wanted room to grow. He’d stopped coming to my bed months ago after his attacks. He only came now when they were worse than usual. But even tonight, when I hadn’t seen him so completely lost to a nightmare in almost a year, he hadn’t wanted to come until I’d feigned the need for comfort as well.
Or had I?
In truth, it was as much for me as it was for him that I’d asked him to come tonight. The things he’d been saying before his eyes swam back into focus had been heartbreaking and gut-wrenchingly awful. My stomach protested as I tried to force the memory from my head.
“No, I like it.”
I could taste bile at the back of my throat. What the fuck had those bastards done to him? How was he able to be here in my arms, sleeping and surviving each day with me? I would never understand how he could be so strong, for the both of us, after all that had been done to him.
After all he’d seen and lost.
I closed my eyes as I felt sleep begin to settle over me, but I was worried I would miss the first signs of distress if his memories began to overtake him again. And after what had happened tonight, there was no fucking way in hell I was going to let that happen. I forced my eyes back open and vowed not to sleep until we set camp again tomorrow. Well, later today. We had a long, treacherous walk to get through. But if Jade was able to get some sleep, then his knowledge and wit would be enough to get us both through it. Whether I was tired or not.
All I had to do was stay awake.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
⸙
JADE
I opened my eyes, surprised to find myself in Emit’s bed. At first, I was horrified, thinking I must have snuck over the night before. But all at once, the night came flooding back.
The darkness had come.
And it had come with a vengeance.
I laid still. Careful not to wake Emit. Even asleep, he looked tired. I’d stolen most of the blankets the night before, so I moved to cover him back up but stopped as soon as my eyes fell across his hard, defined abdomen. My eyes drank him in as he slept. Emit’s rich, auburn hair fell around his face, framing the sharp lines of his jaw. His fleshy lips were slightly parted as soft, warm breaths pulsed in and out. He had the quietest little snore that I had grown to love. It was almost like a purr and I loved it because it was all mine. He had no idea that he snored or how achingly cute it was.
My eyes traveled down his olive-toned neck, watching his pulse dance next to the cord of muscle that ran down to the hollow of his collar bone. I wanted to place my lips there and breathe him in. His chest hair was sparse, his smooth skin only interrupted by a stray freckle or two. Emit’s sternum was a mouth-watering valley between his slightly raised pectoral muscles, which served to frame his small, darkened nipples. At the sight of his nipples raised slightly in
the cool morning air, my breath caught. I imagined how sweet they would taste under my tongue as my dick jumped.
What the fuck, Jade? Get it together.
I tried to turn away, but my eyes caught on the defined lines of muscle that ran down alongside his hips and dipped under the waistband of his pants. They hadn’t always been there, but after all this time together, they were well-defined. When he stood shirtless, those lines formed a V-shape that seemed to flash and blink so that it was almost impossible for me not to sneak a look or two at them. As well as at the place they led to. The spattering of coarse hair at his pant line was enough to turn my breaths ragged and send blood rushing to my cock. What I wouldn’t give to run my fingers through that tiny little forest. To let my tongue taste him there.
I finally broke my gaze as shame washed over me. I moved to cover him so that I could at least think straight, but as I looked at his face once more, I was horrified to discover him looking at me with heat in his eyes. As if he were about to lash out at my obvious and predatory perusal of his sleeping body. I flew up and out of bed, my face reddening in humiliation, and stumbled away from him. I couldn’t believe what I’d just done.
What had I just done?
“Jade–” he began.
I cut him off, practically yelling an excuse of needing to piss as I ran out from under the overhang of rock we’d set our camp under and into the woods. Luckily, running was what I did best. Even with half a boner. As I hurried out of view, I contemplated just continuing until I was so far away, Emit wouldn’t ever be able to find me. But as soon as the idea formed, it vanished. I could never leave Emit on his own. Not only had I made him a promise, if anything ever happened to him, I would never forgive myself. It wasn’t that Emit couldn’t take care of himself. He took care of the both of us. But all those horrific years I spent under that man in his camp had taught me one thing–how to survive. After traveling with the raiders for so long, I could track, hunt, navigate, and spot danger much faster than Emit could. And a lot of times, being faster was the only thing between you and a miserable death out here.
I finally slowed down, chiding myself for not being careful about where I’d been placing my feet. Thankfully, Emit hadn’t been angry enough to follow me. The best thing I could probably do was give him time to cool down, then hang my head and walk back to camp. However long he’d been watching me, I’m sure it’d been long enough to see the hunger in my eyes.
Oh, gods.
My face burned. If I got back and Emit was gone, I wouldn’t blame him. I couldn’t. But I knew that I would never leave this spot if that were the case. There would be no reason to leave. There was no life out there for me without him. I had nowhere to go. I could settle alone anywhere and never leave that spot.
If I could just stop looking at him, stop thinking about him that way, then things would be okay. Emit had no interest in men. And even if he did, it wouldn’t be in the scrawny boy he’d spent the last eighteen months babysitting. All I had to do was get a grip and stop panting after him like some horny lystro.
Gods, how could I be so fucking stupid?
I didn’t even understand it. I’d never been with anyone before I was taken by those men to the camp. I’d been just a kid. So was I attracted to Emit simply because he made me feel safe and all I had ever known was men? It didn’t even make sense to me. The thought of someone–anyone–touching me that way sent horrific chills up my spine.
But then again, I hadn’t been thinking of him touching me, had I?
I shook my head to knock loose the images that were threatening to make me rock hard again. I needed to focus on something else. Now would be a good time to check the traps I set last night. Hopefully, I would have something more than just my shame to bring back to camp with me.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
⸙
EMIT
“Fuck,” I muttered for the hundredth time since watching Jade pull back in revulsion and run off.
What the fuck was wrong with me? The last thing Jade needed was to be startled by a leering man after he’d been lost in thought.
Had I been leering?
I had woken up to see Jade propped up on his left arm while seemingly lost in thought. It hadn’t helped that I’d woken with my dick at half-mast, but I couldn’t blame it all on morning wood. There’d been something in his eyes that had twisted my insides, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was.
Gods above!
So much for thinking of him as just a kid. I needed to get control of myself. What must he be thinking? First, I asked him to come to bed last night, and then this. I shook my head as I finished packing up camp while waiting for him to return. What was happening to me? My body had reacted without me giving a thought or care as to what I was actually doing.
What if he didn’t come back?
The stray thought sucked the air from my lungs and almost had me running into the woods after him, but I knew there was no way I would find him if he didn’t want to be found. Jade was like a ghost when he was in those woods. It was amazing to watch him track our next meal or stop me just before I stepped into a predator’s waiting trap. Jade had saved me countless times from being hurt. Or worse.
Much worse.
I couldn’t keep doing this to him. It was only because it’d just been us for so long. And my dick seemed to jump at the littlest thought of contact. At least, that’s what I had been telling myself. I was lonely, horny, and Jade was the only person around for my hormones to focus their attention on. I would never touch him. Never hurt him. Not after everything he’d been through.
Besides, I wasn’t into men. Granted, I’d never gone all the way with anyone, but I’d had a girlfriend in camp–might still have her–and had never been attracted to another boy in my entire life. Gods, I had thought I was so grown-up back then.
It had been almost an hour since Jade had run off. I finished stuffing the blankets into the pack, grabbing Jade’s thin sweater to put on top, in case he wanted to wear it later. As I fingered the cloth in my hands, I raised it to my face before I even registered what I was doing.
My eyes fluttered closed as I buried my face in the sweater and inhaled the tangy scent of Jade that’d been left behind after a few days use. My dick nodded its approval as I savored the scent. It was a spicy, nutty scent mixed with the smell of wood and crisp air.
It was amazing.
I lost myself in the scent for what could have been seconds, minutes, or a lifetime. Not wanting to let it go, I reluctantly opened my eyes. Only to see Jade holding a couple of limp, green lizards in one hand while rubbing the palm of his other on his thigh, a deeply questioning look plastered across his face. I almost choked as I jerked my hands away from my face.
“Smells like we need to do laundry sooner rather than later,” I said lamely as I resumed stuffing the sweater on top of everything else inside his pack.
What in the actual fuck, Emit?
There were easily twelve other things I could have said to pass off my creepy behavior, but I had panicked and gone with the worst possible explanation. I cursed myself for what had to be the fifth time already this morning.
I was never going to live this down.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
⸙
JADE
“Hungry?” I muttered, walking red-faced toward the fire pit we’d dug the previous night.
“We should cook these before we go.”
And just like that, the humiliation of being caught red-dicked, enjoying the sight of his magnificent body this morning, was overshadowed by the horror of Emit announcing that I smelled.
Gods. Could this get any worse?
I threw kindling into the pit and started striking the flint to start a fire. The kindling was dry and the sparks were falling into it, but nothing was happening. Emit had always been better at this than I was. He was better at everything.
At fires. At talking. At smelling.
Tears pricked the backs of my eyes as his han
ds came from behind me and gently took the flint, striking it once and sending the kindling up in smoke, which he stoked into a fire in just a few short moments. I wiped at my eyes, my childish reaction already painfully obvious anyway.
Ask, and you shall receive an answer.
Yes. It could always, always get worse.
I tried my best to ignore Emit and pretend I hadn’t just started crying because I smelled and couldn’t light a fire. Cutting into the slim bodies I’d found in the traps made it easy to avoid eye contact. It wouldn’t be much to eat, and the tough, chewy meat wasn’t either of our favorites, but it was something.
My mind, as it often did when I was upset, turned to my father. I remembered the day he showed me how to gut and butcher the little reptiles. They were fast little fuckers, he’d said, but once you trapped them, they were easy prey. I had vomited when my father first cut into one, but he hadn’t scolded me or laughed.
When it was my turn, I cried as I felt the knife slip into the belly of the already-dead beast. It wasn’t that I had any feelings toward the creature, but I’d known that the small lizards were juveniles and had thought that somewhere, they had a family who would be missing them.
I hadn’t known at the time that in less than a year, I would know exactly how it felt to watch your family be ripped away and butchered. And even after almost ten years, the memory of the night I lost my family still haunted me and left me feeling as wounded and exposed as the little gutted bodies lying before me.
Emit sat down next to the fire and began setting up a thin stone platform for me to place the meat on. He had yet to mention anything about my betrayal this morning. At this point, I didn’t think I could handle the conversation if he did. I decided to pretend it hadn’t happened and just hope beyond hope that he wasn’t upset enough to bring it up.
