Deception

by C. J. Redwine

  As the rain lets up and the late afternoon sun begins baking the ground we travel, I pull Jeremiah’s map from my cloak pocket and begin planning tomorrow’s route, hoping that somehow I can deliver on everything I’ve promised.

  Chapter Fourteen

  RACHEL

  We make camp on the eastern edge of a small clearing. The rain stopped hours ago, but my cloak has yet to dry. Once we’ve erected our shelters and eaten a cold dinner—Logan refused to allow torches or cooking fires in case Carrington is following us already—I hang my cloak over the thick tree limb that props open the jagged canvas flap of the tent I share with Logan and crawl into my bedroll.

  I expect to lie awake, listening for threats. Thinking about the Commander. Trying to figure out how to make a plan to separate him from Carrington’s army so that I can honor Logan’s wishes if possible.

  But instead, the soft carpet of moss beneath my blanket cushions my body, and the sight of Logan hunched over his tech bag, muttering to himself while he tries to work by starlight, makes me feel safe. Before I know it, my eyelids drift closed, and I sink into the dark embrace of sleep.

  Blood surrounds me. It stains the sky with viscous swirls of crimson and snakes down tree trunks to drip from leaves. Thick garnet drops cling to me. I raise my hands above my head to ward it off, but it flows over me in a river of rust. Sticky trails of heat bite into my skin and burrow toward the bone. Tilting my face up, I stare in horror. The blood has drained from the sky and abandoned the trees. Instead, it leaks from my fingertips and gushes from my palms, an unending tide that covers me from head to toe.

  “Guilty,” it whispers, and Melkin lies beneath my blade, calling for his wife.

  “Alone,” it says, and Dad turns to dust beneath the shining white cross on his grave.

  “Broken,” it cries, and Oliver’s cold hands grasp mine while the bloody wound in his neck pours and pours and pours.

  Their voices waver, solidify, and then join together into one deafening stream of accusations. Guilty, alone, broken. Guilty, alone, broken.

  Worms, pale and wriggling, pour from Dad’s mouth, leak out of Melkin’s eyes, and squirm in the gaping wound at Oliver’s neck.

  I scream and the crimson crawling over me slides past my lips and coats my tongue with bitterness. I gasp for air, but the blood is there instead. Tearing at my throat and plunging down to fill my chest, my stomach, and my lungs. I can’t breathe.

  I can’t breathe.

  “Shh,” someone says.

  Another scream gathers at the back of my throat and claws its way through the blood filling my mouth.

  “It’s all right,” someone says.

  I stretch my lips wide, seeking air that refuses to come. Something warm and heavy presses against my cheek. Jerking my head to the side, I snatch a quick breath of blood-tainted air.

  “Rachel. Wake up.”

  My eyes fly open. A shadow looms over me, blotting out the faint light from the tent’s doorway. The shadow’s hand rests against my cheek, pressing close.

  I whip my knife up and aim for the throat. The shadow twists, water-quick. Grabbing my wrist with its free hand, it slams my arm to the ground with enough force to knock my weapon loose.

  I dig my heels in and wrench my body to the side. The shadow pins me and leans down.

  “Shh, it’s Logan,” he says quietly against my ear.

  It takes a moment for his words to penetrate the panic. My heart pounds against my chest, and my lungs are convinced I don’t have enough air. Not nearly enough air.

  “Rachel?”

  Slowly, the scent of blood fades, and I exhale, forcing my muscles to relax beneath him.

  He releases his grip on my wrist and slowly slides his hand over mine, tangling our fingers together. I press my palm to his, desperate to imprint his skin where seconds ago the slick heat of blood had poured.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  My body shakes, my teeth chattering like I’ve been left out in the cold for hours, but I say, “I’m fine.”

  It’s a lie, and we both know it, but I can’t bear to remember. I can’t bear to strip myself down to nothing but the blood that haunts my dreams. If I let it into my waking hours, I might drown in it.

  “You’re shaking,” he says, but what he means is, “You’re lying.”

  “I’m cold.”

  He pulls me close, fits me against his side like a puzzle piece that was always meant to be there, and warmth seeps onto my skin.

  “Rachel, please talk to me,” he whispers, but the voices in my head are louder.

  Guilty. Alone. Broken.

  A chorus that sounds like the only truth I have left. I push it away from me with desperate strength. I refuse to feel it. I refuse. It sinks into the silence, but I still feel covered in blood and shame. Logan leans closer, his dark blue eyes filled with worry, and opens his mouth as if to ask me another question. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to sift through the nightmare and find the reasons behind it. I just want it all to go away.

  “What happened—”

  I raise my head to kiss him, swallowing the rest of his words.

  My lips are harsh. My hands grip his arms. Claw his shoulders. Pull him closer until I can’t taste the blood. I can’t suffocate from it. I can’t hear Oliver, Dad, or Melkin whispering in my head.

  This is what I need. This will make it better.

  I wrap my leg around his, and he makes a tortured noise at the back of his throat. I kiss him hard enough to hurt—a tiny bite of pain against my lips that feels real.

  “Rachel—”

  He pulls away, and I follow him. Clinging. Desperate to bring him back.

  “Wait,” he says, his voice breathless. “Just wait a minute.”

  “Why?” I curl my fingers around the back of his neck and tug him toward me. “We’re alone in our shelter. We can do whatever we want. There’s no one here to stop us.”

  He closes his eyes for a moment, and then looks at me. I can’t read his expression. “I’m stopping us.”

  I let go of the back of his neck and my hand falls to my side.

  “It’s not because I don’t want . . . um . . .” He gives me a look that is apparently supposed to suffice for the rest of his sentence.

  “Me?”

  “Yes. I want you, Rachel.” He lies back and wipes a hand over his face. “I really do. But I don’t think this is about wanting something between the two of us. At least, not for you.”

  My teeth start chattering again. “Fine.”

  “No, it isn’t fine. It is anything but fine.”

  I pull my blanket over my shoulders and wrap my arms around my chest. “Just forget it.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Well, I do.”

  He’s silent for a long moment. Long enough for me to realize my words might have hurt him. Long enough to feel regret.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, though I don’t know how to put into words everything I’m sorry for.

  He rolls onto his side, facing me. “When you kiss me, I want it to be because you’re thinking of me. Because you really want me. Not because you’re trying to distract me from something you don’t want to talk about.”

  I look away. At the silver wash of moonlight seeping in through the entrance of our tent. At the tufts of springy grass our bedrolls don’t cover. At anything but him.

  “I didn’t mean to use you. I didn’t really think it through.” I scrunch down into my blanket. “I just . . . I can’t . . . I wanted something real. Something to make the stuff inside of my head fade away. And what we have is the most solid thing in my life, so . . .”

  “I understand,” he says softly.

  “Do you?”

  “I am kind of irresistible.” He wiggles his brows at me.

  I laugh, and the lingering tension leaves my body. He grins at me, a funny, lopsided smile that wraps around me like comfort. He scoots closer to me and runs his fingers through my hair, gently tugging at the
knots he finds.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I just want to be here for you.”

  “I’m here for you, too,” I say. “I’m not the only one who lost family.”

  Pain brackets his mouth and fans out from his eyes, and I slide my arm out of the blanket to press it against his chest. My fingers curve over the flesh and bone that shelter his heart. A heart strong enough to keep moving forward even when he’s lost so much. Strong enough to lead even when he doesn’t want to.

  Strong enough to commit to me when I know I’m not an easy person to love.

  “You could kiss me now,” he says, his voice low.

  I smile. “Could I?”

  “Yes.” He sounds breathless.

  “Are you sure? Because I wouldn’t want to overstep or—”

  “Rachel—”

  “—make you uncomfortable, or—”

  “Just kiss me.”

  “—take advantage of poor helpless Logan.”

  He leans down and covers my mouth with his. This time, I kiss him not to forget or to drown anything out, but because he’s Logan, and he’s mine. And then he holds me close as sleep overtakes him. I lie beside him, clinging to his warmth and desperately trying to stay awake as long as possible so that I can savor this before I’m once again plunged into a world of blood, loss, and unbearable guilt.

  Chapter Fifteen

  RACHEL

  Sunlight pours through the gap at our shelter’s entrance as I stretch my back and shove my blanket to my knees. Logan is gone, and by the sounds of the camp outside my shelter, I can tell most people are up and moving around. My stomach grumbles as I yank my fingers through my hair and splash my face with water I saved from last night’s ration.

  When I’ve finished, I shake the dust off my trousers and then consider which tunic to wear. We were lucky to recover enough clothing to give everyone two changes of clothes.

  We were less lucky in the recovery of laundry soap.

  Either that or the girls who are desperate to catch the eye of one of our few available boys are hiding the soap for themselves. I seem to recall that a few of our sparring participants smelled suspiciously like a spring meadow.

  I sniff the tunics, choose the cleanest, and decide to take Willow up on her offer to teach me how to make soap. Shoving my feet into my boots, I strap on my knife, lace up my travel pack, and exit the shelter.

  The camp is busy. The older men and women beat dust out of clothing and then place them into travel packs or on blankets that will be filled with light supplies, tied off with rope, and carried over the shoulder. The younger ones sharpen weapons, tear down shelters, and load the wagons.

  Hoping I’m still early enough to get a breakfast ration, I head toward the canteen wagon. When I get there, Adam, Elias, and Willow are packing up the last of the morning rations. Willow is laughing while Adam waves his hands around, telling a story in a voice free of the hostility I’m used to hearing from him. I beg a piece of oat bread and a healthy dollop of goat cheese from Elias, who stares at me like I’m up on the Claiming stage until I tell him if he can’t find something better to do with his eyes, I’ll remove them from his face.

  Turning from Elias, who suddenly finds the task of packing up the food far more interesting than looking at me, I jump when Quinn suddenly appears next to me. My bread goes flying out of my hand and nearly slaps him in the face.

  He leaps back and catches it before it hits the ground. “Throwing food at me?”

  “You startled me.” I grab my breakfast from him and take a bite.

  “Next time I’ll announce my intention to walk up to you at least three minutes before I actually arrive.” His face is as stoic as ever, but a gleam of sly laughter lurks in his dark eyes.

  Huh. Quinn has a sense of humor. Who knew?

  “I think you’d look good in goat cheese. Might be an improvement.” I poke his chest and take another bite.

  His left brow climbs toward his hairline. “Did you just insult me?”

  “Only if you disagree with my opinion.”

  He smiles slowly. “Do you have plans this morning?”

  I shrug.

  “I was hoping you could help me decide which weapons to assign to which trainees.”

  I look him up and down—battered leather pants, half-laced tunic, scuffed boots—and see no evidence of a weapon of his own. “And which weapon to assign to you, too, right?”

  The laughter disappears from his eyes, and he starts walking toward the wagons. “I don’t carry a weapon anymore. And I’m getting tired of making that clear to both you and Logan.”

  I hurry to catch up to him, stuffing the last of my breakfast in my mouth and swallowing quickly. “You need one. We have a lot of enemies—”

  He turns on his heel and stops directly in my path. I nearly plow into him, and manage to sidestep just in time.

  “No.” His voice is cold, but something burns in his eyes.

  “I know you’re good. I saw it for myself when you fought Carrington outside the gate.” I look away for a moment as I remember his promise to stay by my side and sacrifice himself with me so I could have my shot at the Commander. “But you’d be even better with a weapon.” And by better, I mean safer.

  “Do you really think I need a sword to destroy any threat that comes at me?”

  I cross my arms and stare him down. “How should I know what you’re capable of?”

  “Because I told you.”

  It takes a moment to realize he means the conversation we had in the Wasteland when he told me he’d once killed a man he wasn’t sure deserved it. “You told me you—” A woman walks by us, a large basket of dandelion greens cradled in her arms. I lower my voice. “You told me you killed a man, but that doesn’t mean you can constantly fight trained predators without a weapon in your hand and expect to live.” I gesture toward his leg. “You got cut the last time you fought. Next time, it could be much worse. You’re good, Quinn, but not good enough to keep taking on armed soldiers and expect to survive. Be reasonable.”

  “I can do damage enough with my bare hands. I’m not changing my mind on this.”

  Oh, how cute. He thinks he can out-stubborn me.

  “I’m not changing my mind, either,” I say, my voice a harsh whisper between us. “We have enemies. Real enemies. And a bunch of untrained people who will probably panic and forget which end of the sword to grab if we’re ever attacked. We need you to be able to help.”

  “You don’t think I helped yesterday? And the day before?”

  “You did. But how long could you have held out if they’d cornered you? It was only a matter of time.” I blow a wayward strand of hair out of my face. “Look, Willow told me you don’t like to even spar anymore, and now you’ve had to fight soldiers twice in two days. I get that it goes against your principles. I know I’m asking a lot, but—”

  “But you know best?”

  I jerk back as if he slapped me, but he isn’t finished.

  “You know what I need? You know better than me that I should change my decision to remain unarmed?”

  I open my mouth. Close it. Feel heat stain my cheeks.

  His expression softens a little. “If we’re under attack, I’ll help, Rachel. I won’t let anyone down. But I’m not going to pick up a blade again, and nothing you say will change that.”

  The heat in my face gushes through my body, and I grip my Switch as I step closer to him. “So you’ll just die, then? Just cling to your precious convictions and go up against men with swords to prove something to yourself? Fine. Go ahead. Die and be justified that you did it on your own terms. What do I care?”

  I turn before he can see the tremble in my lips. Before the image of yet another person I care about bleeding to death in front of me can bring my breakfast up the back of my throat. I’ve walked five steps in the opposite direction when his hand descends on my shoulder.

  I whirl and swing my Switch at him before I realize what I’m doing. He disappears. One second,
he was standing before me, about to be hit with the weighted end of my weapon. The next, he’s rolling across the grass and coming up to stand a yard to my left.

  My fingers tremble as I grip my weapon, and sick horror crawls up the back of my throat. I could’ve hurt him. But stronger than the horror is the rage that begs me to take another swing at him. To change his mind, through force if necessary. To make him see that he can’t make me care about him and then take risks like it’s nothing.

  “Want to take a swing at me?” he asks. “Will that cure the nightmares and let you feel alive again?”

  I throw my Switch to the ground and charge, my fists flying toward his chest. He blocks the blow with effortless grace, faster than I expected. Faster than I’ve ever seen.

  I swing again and again, but he parries every blow. His movements are controlled and powerful, and I realize he could hurt me. He could hurt me badly, and I’d never be able to stop it.

  He catches my fist as I take one more halfhearted swing, his grip gentle. My lips are salty, and it takes a moment to realize I’m crying.

  “Do you feel better?” he asks, and the compassion in his voice makes me want to hit him again.

  I don’t need his understanding and his sympathy. I just need to be left alone to pick up the pieces of my life, deliver the survivors to safety, and then kill the man who ruined me.

  My tears dry slowly, and the rage disappears with them. The silence within me absorbs them both. Stepping back from Quinn, I wipe my hands on my pants and refuse to look at him.

  “You don’t have to worry about me.” His voice is still gentle. “I can handle myself.”

  I want to hurt him for making me worry. For making me cry when I have to be strong. I want to, but he doesn’t deserve it, and I’ve had enough of hurting those who haven’t earned it to last me for the rest of my life.