The Jerk

by V. K. Ludwig

  “Maybe he’s already on his way.” I caressed my stomach once more. Pregnant. We were expecting a child. “I’m sure he’ll be home any day now.”

  Chapter 21

  The Ash Zones

  Adair

  As good as coming here had felt, the premise of hauling my ass back home felt better. I missed my sister, my Clan, but most of all, I missed Ruth. Not that it was a good thing… the missing her. All I could hope was that things had settled down, and we could meet each other as friends — without benefits.

  I grabbed the red container with who-knows-how-many souls in it, shoved until it settled on the bottom of the saddlebag, and put the heavier items on top. Then I jumped into the shower and rubbed the soap deep into my pores, because who knew how long it would take until I got another.

  Everything inside me tingled, but not as much as the carbon acid raining from the showerhead. Bird said it kept the skin young-looking, but I called bullshit on it because if that was the case, it hadn’t worked on him.

  As I stepped out of the shower, a knock sounded against the metal door, and I wrapped the towel around my waist. I shouted a “come in” through the rectangular room, and Jack quickly squeezed himself through the gap.

  “You ain’t ready yet?” He threw himself onto the brown couch and crossed his feet atop the armrest, one arm resting behind his head.

  “Give me five, and we’ll be out of here.” I got dressed and put on the shirt another guy gave me, and tied my sweater around my waist, well knowing I’d need it a day into freedom ride. “Thanks for doing this, by the way.”

  “You’re making it sound as if I’m doing it for you.” He scoffed. “Knox pulls all the strings here. He points. I run. You’d never make it out of here by yourself, and a dead clansman would be bad for business.”

  “What kind of business?”

  He closed his eyes as if getting ready for a cat nap, and mumbled, “the one that isn’t any of yours.”

  Five minutes later, I locked the door behind me, hung the key by the nail, and draped the saddlebag carefully across the bike Bird had given me.

  Jack grabbed my handlebar and balled his hand inches away from my face. “Fist up, shift up. Fist down, shift down. Avoid wet ground because it’s slippery as shit, and always stay fifty feet away from me. Always.”

  “Got it.”

  I swung myself onto the bike, turned the key in the ignition, and teased a roar from the exhaust.

  Jack adjusted his mask once more and leaned in closer, yelling over the chatter of the engine. “Outpost said there’s a storm brewing, so you better pay attention and make sure your mask is sealed perfectly.”

  I gave him a thumbs-up and waited until he set his bike into motion, then I left the town behind with pastor William’s remains strapped behind me. Each time I shifted a gear higher, my heart shifted right with it. There was something exhilarating to this going-home thing, even though I understood I had nothing waiting for me.

  We rode across ridges and around potholes, the occasional clump of ash straining the suspension underneath my arms. Jack went about his fist-up, fist-down thing, helping to navigate through some more advanced terrain. With each mile I packed on the engine, the horizon seemed to change before my eyes. It was less jagged, less threatening, but also increasingly… yellow?

  An hour into our ride, the wind had picked up. Thirty minutes after that, ash and grit blew against my mask, scratching the clear plastic until Jack’s bike was nothing but a big, fat smudge a little over fifty feet in front of me.

  Particles pop-pop-popped against my ears, drumming away faster than my heart. The weather had gone from iffy to shit-my-pants scary, and Jack threw down his fist once more. I shifted down a gear and slowed down, making my way through a storm even more terrifying than living surrounded by oak trees during sixty-miles winds.

  Each time my bike cracked a clump underneath my tires, the handlebar swayed, and I clawed my fingers around it. Sweat formed inside my gloves and along my spine, making the ash particles cake against my back.

  Jack’s fist fanned down.

  Down again.

  Then he stopped.

  Less than a mile ahead of us, four gigantic columns twisted around themselves in all shades of gray. They sucked in streams of air and ash and dust, pulling the wind toward them and making it crack against my back like a sledgehammer.

  Jack’s fist rose and circled three times. Not a signal we had discussed, but it didn’t take a genius to figure that one out — he wanted to turn around.

  My focus detached from his arm and wandered back to the four pillars. They would have left a swathe of destruction if it wasn’t for the fact that there was nothing left out here to be destroyed.

  Except for us.

  Jack’s bike set back into motion, and he steered his front tire into a massive turn. Every clenched muscle inside my body told me to follow behind. But there was that noise. If it was the whistling of the wind or the howl of the four tornadoes I couldn’t tell, but it was almost as if they called out to me. Or something behind them. Asking me to get to the other side, as if something waited back there. Or someone.

  Jack’s bike suddenly circled around me. His head shook, and his lips formed large o’s and all sorts of open-mouthed vowels.

  His fist jumped up.

  Another circle.

  I gave him a nod and turned my bike around, following his black smudge toward the jagged horizon. All the while the wind whispered as if it wanted to lure me back. As if a treasure waited behind the storm. Can carbon dioxide cause you to hear voices? I didn’t know, but readjusted the seal on my mask, anyway. Just to be safe.

  Lightning tinted the horizon a poisonous yellow. A boom shattered through my ears less than a second later. It was scary as fuck. But it had nothing on how that first raindrop popped against my forehead and drove shivers across my body.

  Pop… pop-pop-pop…

  The clouds ripped open, letting the rain drum against my skull. Within seconds, the ground underneath me turned shiny and slick, making the rubber on my bike slip in all directions but the one I intended. Jack’s fist shot up frantically. I shifted. Shifted again. When my tires got a grip again, my heartbeat eased into a somewhat steady rhythm once more, only falling out of line whenever thunder shook the ground.

  By the time we reached town, the red traffic light flashed, and the speakers above screeched the high pitches of a siren. We parked our bikes outside alpha-twenty-two and hurried inside, the cold of the AC immediately freezing me down to the bones.

  “That was a close call,” Jack said, his lips a blueish shade of purple and his hair smudged with grit and sand. “I’ll have to go and see Knox about it, check what the outposts reported.”

  I threw my mask into a corner of the room and stripped out of my soggy clothes, every square inch of fabric at least a quarter-pound heavy. “We can try again tomorrow. But if you want me to find someone else —”

  “Tomorrow?” He gave a pitiful laugh. “You ain’t leaving here anytime soon, brother.”

  Not sure what I hated more. That he said I wouldn’t be leaving, or that he called me brother. In any case, both things spelled out the same message — I was stuck here, and the thought of it made panic well up inside me.

  “How long?” I asked, my voice suddenly hoarse.

  “The shortest we had was two weeks.”

  I swallowed hard. “And the longest?”

  “Four months.” He grabbed a pillow from the couch and wiped the grime off his mask. “But I only saw that happening once. I get you wanna get the pastor back home, but ain’t nobody is gonna risk his life for it, brother.”

  Brother.

  He had repeated it as if this storm had made me one of them and I would be stuck here for the rest of my life.

  “Let me talk to Knox, and we’ll figure something out.”

  He put his mask back on and left, the rain pushing in through the gap and leaving a small puddle on the ground.

  I st
ripped down intending to take yet another shower, but that idea was quickly shut down by a gargle pushing up through the pipes and nothing but a dry burp sounding from the showerhead.

  The moment I stepped out of the shower and draped the towel from earlier back around me once more, another knock sounded on the door. I hollered my “come in,” hoping Jack had returned with good news or at least an idea of how to get the water running.

  But it wasn’t Jack. Nor any of the other brothers. Instead, I had a set of dark brown eyes staring at my naked torso, beautifully framed by straight, black hair.

  The girl I had met at the bar placed her mask onto the backrest of the couch, then hurried her hand back to the large bowl of water she slowly carried over to me.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, wrapping my towel tighter and letting my hands dart for the dirt-crusted shirt.

  “Drop that filthy thing. I brought you something clean to change into.” She placed the bowl on the small, square table next to me, grabbed the white cloth inside and squeezed in her fist. “Knox sent me. He says he’s sorry things didn’t work out as planned.”

  “Why didn’t he come to tell me himself?”

  She gave me a smile that seemed trained, the tug on the corners of her mouth not matching the dullness in her eyes. “Well, I guess he figured I’d do a much better job at cheering you up.”

  She pushed my wet hair aside.

  I shrunk back from her touch, and the soaked washcloth stalled inches from my cheek, each drip of water hitting the ground matching the beat of my heart.

  “What are you doing?”

  Another strained smile. “Washing you, of course. They shut down the water during storms, but by the looks of you I’d say you already figured that out.”

  I pulled the rag from her hands. “I’ll do it myself.”

  Her weight shifted away from me, and she cocked her head, her eyes mustering each pore of my skin. “Are all clansmen such prudes? Or do you want me to send in a guy? We have those too if —”

  “No guy,” I snarled. “Just… let me do it myself.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  She hopped onto the table and leaned back, her collarbone rising and falling with each breath as she stared at me.

  I dipped the washcloth back into the bowl and began washing myself down, starting at my face and down my arms, next the torso and the legs at the end.

  She pointed at my towel. “You forgot a spot. And one look at your frame tells me it’s probably not insignificant.”

  I said nothing and dropped the rag into the water.

  “I’d love to wash it for you…”

  She spread her legs and let her fingers trail along the inside of her thighs, glancing up at me from a lowered head. Not sure what pissed me off more. That Knox made her do this, or that I wanted none of it. There was no tingle. No desire. Just a bunch of pity for her pushing my mood lower than it already was.

  “I also have a message for you,” she whispered. “One of our guys, Arizona, made it to one of our outposts. Apparently, his truck got picked up in the storm and flipped upside down. Anyway, he said he had a message for you.”

  “A message?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  My heart kicked up a notch. “From whom?”

  “A girl… apparently. What was her name again?” She tapped her finger against her lips, the wickedness in her eyes telling me she loved dragging it out. “Was it… Ruth?”

  “What was the message?”

  She shoved herself closer to the edge of the table, dropping her voice down to a seductive whisper. “Kiss me, and I’ll tell you.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. But you need to kiss me as if you mean it. I promise you won’t regret it.”

  Everything on my body convulsed but I could tell by the way she clenched her lips together she wouldn’t budge. I took a step toward her, cradled the back of her head inside my palm and kissed her. I pulled her in and let my lips seek out hers, caressing them and letting her go limp against my arm.

  I pulled away. “The message!”

  She took a deep inhale.

  “The girl said she’s sorry, and that there’s no rush for you to come back.”

  My heart punched against my eardrum, making the hum of the AC above us fade away. I was such a fucking idiot. Nothing was waiting for me behind that storm. Whatever I thought I’d heard was nothing but an illusion, conjured up by whatever fucking hope I still had in me.

  “Told you, you wouldn’t regret it.” The girl opened her legs once more, brushing against my thighs because of how close I had allowed myself to stand.

  Knox might have sent her, yes, but the way she licked her lips and rotated her pelvis told me she didn’t mind. She wanted me. Maybe only for tonight but fuck… she wanted me. And I hated myself for not wanting her back.

  Not even now.

  Not even ever.

  I took a generous step back. “What’s your name?”

  “Lily.”

  “Bullshit.” I planted my hands against my hips to line up with my statement. “Your real name.”

  “You can call me Lily.”

  “I don’t wanna fucking call you by your occupation, I wanna know your name.”

  A jerk went through her body. Then all her movements stalled, and she sat there found out and paralyzed. “You… you know nothing about me.”

  “I get you’re a whore.”

  However much she seemed paralyzed before, my harsh words had now turned her to stone. Her skin paled, her eyes turned back to the dull expression they came in with, calling me out as the jerk everyone told me I was.

  “I’m sorry that didn’t come out right.” I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose as if I could somehow squeeze a better apology out of it. “I meant that I understand what they make you do. What he makes you do. And I… um… I… I just wanna know your name.”

  “My name? That’s all?” she stammered.

  I nodded.

  “Shit.” She blinked back a few tears and covered her sniffles with a finger pressed against her nostrils. “Now I totally want you to kiss me.”

  She let out a laugh, and I joined her with a smile.

  “I would marry you, you know.” She had said it in a whisper, but her tone left no doubt she had meant it. “Her loss if she doesn’t want you. I would be forever grateful if I scored a husband like you.”

  I let out a sharp breath. “I’m already spoiled. I always feared I might never marry, and now I’m certain it’s not in the cards for me. It’s her or none. I’m sure you can find a nice guy here.”

  “He won’t let me.” She slipped off the table and pulled a shirt from her back pocket, which she flung at me. “I’ll have to finish my contract until I can marry. Or run away, but I wouldn’t know where to…”

  Her voice had trailed off, but the words she didn’t speak resonated inside my head: she wouldn’t know where to unless I showed her. Problem was, I was stuck here myself.

  Chapter 22

  The Woodlands

  Ruth

  Oriel scratched a thumb across his temple, his chin tugged against his chest, and his eyes drifted off for going on five minutes now. Then he repeated his question.

  For the third time.

  “You want me to do what?”

  Hazel, who sat astride a chair, let her forehead bang against the backrest with a thump. “You need me to draw a picture of it?” came dulled, her frustration now hiding behind a curtain of tousled hair and wooden slants. “Marry, Oriel. We need you to marry Ruth.”

  He stood against the window of his dining room, the tea in his mug long cold. With his veins lining his forearm and his fingers frozen in the same position, he was nothing but a bundle of questions and confusion. I felt sorry for him. But not nearly as much as I did for myself. Or the child I carried.

  Meltwater fell in big, fat drops from the roof overhang outside, and the ground had turned from white to light green and muddy. But mos
tly muddy.

  Over the last ten weeks, I had gone from shock to excitement to clinging to the toilet bowl. Hazel called it morning sickness, but I belonged to the lucky two percent that called it all-day-sickness.

  But with each week without a word from Adair, the excitement wore off. Now there was nothing left but desperation. And a deep sadness over the fact that he might never return. Hazel was convinced he was dead. She never said it, but I could tell by the way she had removed all his things from the living room.

  But I knew better. Adair wasn’t dead. He didn’t want to come back to that heartless bitch that took everything he offered without giving him anything in return. Not really.

  Oriel placed the mug on the table. “Why?”

  His one-word question cut through my thoughts like a hot knife through butter, making Hazel and I exchange a quick glance.

  I put my hands onto the table, fumbling them as I searched for the right words. Not that there were any…

  “I’m pregnant.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ.” Oriel flung his hands onto his face and tossed his head back, rubbing his fingertips deep into his long, blond strands. He pulled them as hard as his scalp would let him. “It’s Adair’s, isn’t it?”

  I gave several quick nods.

  “Motherfucker. Please tell me this was consensual. He didn’t force you, did he?”

  “Of course not!” Hazel hissed, the chair-legs screeching underneath the strain of her fury. “Come on, you know him better than that. He didn’t force her. And he doesn’t know she’s pregnant either.”

  The table went slick beneath my fingertips. Both of them stared at me now, feeding that shame inside me. That guilt.

  After a couple of minutes, Oriel broke the embarrassing silence which had formed over untouched tea mugs and a plate of brittle sugar cookies. “Why don’t you tell Rowan and let him decide? Let her move back in with you, Hazel, and help her raise that kid.”