“No,” Case said. “And I didn’t blow up your other residence.”
“But you knew they were going to do it.” It wasn’t a question. I dropped my arms and reached in, turning on the lights, making my way to my cooling unit to grab some water. “Kind of makes you guilty all the same. That’s why you were trying to find me in The North, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” he answered, following me into the living area.
I poured myself a cup, then turned, bracing my hips against the counter. “How did they time it so perfectly?” I took a sip, not offering him any.
“I sent them a signal,” he said with absolutely zero shame in his voice.
“You cut it pretty close. The craft almost got caught up in it.” I glanced at him over the rim, conveying my disdain.
He nodded as he took a seat on the bench in front of my wall screen, still managing to make it seem like dropping by my residence was a common occurrence. He appeared tired and weary, just like me. I watched as his gaze found its way to my wall of batteries. His expression remained steady, but I saw his eyes go tight at the corners. He hadn’t expected me to have this many resources. The wall was pretty impressive. He found my gaze again, tugging his helmet off, running a gloved hand through his hair, making it stick up all over. “They wanted me to kill you. I refused.”
“If you’re expecting a thank-you, it’ll be a very long wait. Like, an eternity of waiting,” I grunted. “So long, in fact, you’ll perish first. So, instead of killing me, you blew up my house. Makes sense.” It made no sense.
“Yes. No.” He shook his head, frustrated. You’re not alone, Case. “If I hadn’t done it, they were going to kill you, then Daze.”
“Was that before or after I was slated to be their next Plush-addicted sex slave?” I pushed off the counter, grabbing the water jug. “You know…” I walked over to a direct water spigot hollowed out in the wall, twisted the cap of the jug off, and placed it under the faucet and lifted the lever. As water poured in, I continued, “Nothing you’ve said has ever really added up. You knew Tandor, you were cozy with Hutch, you have access to military locations and supplies. You tell one story, only to contradict it by another. You’ve managed to secure a place in our crew, having aided me more than three times, but that doesn’t mean we trust you. Trust is earned.”
“By aided, do you mean saved?”
I spun toward him, irritated, water sloshing to the floor. “Shit.” I turned off the spigot by twisting the valve and faced Case. “Do you really want to argue about what saving a life means?” A moment later, I spotted the edge of his mouth slightly turning up. His way of making a joke. “It’s nice you like to bait me. Blow up my home, push me out a two-story window, act like you rescued me—”
He stood suddenly, surprising me, almost causing me to drop the full jug. His face stayed angled toward the floor, his legs splayed, his expression tight.
“What?” I asked when he didn’t say anything. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not trying to bait you.” Very slowly, he lifted his head, gray eyes piercing mine. Emotion swirled just beneath the surface, something Case didn’t usually allow to penetrate his carefully constructed veneer. “What they did to Frankie was almost too much for me to bear. I wasn’t going to let that happen again, so I did what I thought was…” He trailed off, glancing around the room, appearing to have lost his thoughts for a moment.
I had a choice. I could continue to argue with him, trying to get him to admit to his mistakes—which were vast—or I could put him out of his misery. I wasn’t usually generous when it came to these things, but seeing that we’d spent so many days together in the last two weeks, I had a pretty good idea that he wasn’t out to get me and that his bad decisions weren’t always made with ill intent.
Plus, if I gave him some leeway now, I could use it against him later when I made him work to salvage all the things he’d blown up. “Do you want to spray off?” I asked, changing the subject. “Looks like you could use it. The cleaning stall is down the hall to the right.” I gestured toward my sleeping room.
His gaze shot to mine. He was startled by the direction the conversation had taken.
I had to admit—but not to him—I was, too.
CHAPTER FIVE
Since I’d allowed Case the use of my cleaning stall, which he’d taken advantage of, seemingly happy with the distraction I’d so graciously offered, I’d been relegated to staying in the living area.
All I really wanted to do was go to bed, but the sleeping pods were situated less than three meters from the cleaning stall. That wasn’t happening until he was out.
The only thing to do in this compact space was to eat and drink, which I’d already done, or sit back on my integrated seating and watch my wall screen, which was what I was doing. It was easy to get lost in the sky and the wispy clouds floating over the mysterious white building I would never see in person. The scene always calmed me in ways I didn’t understand, the vapor of the clouds so thin the crystalline-blue backdrop seeped through. I couldn’t believe our sky beyond the clouds was that color. It seemed like a sick joke that such beauty was hovering above us, but we’d never be able to see it.
I was so caught up in the video that I didn’t hear the door to the cleaning stall open. The first thing I noticed were footsteps coming toward me. I lifted my head off the crook of my elbow, where it had been lying comfortably.
Case was naked from the waist up.
As he walked, he rubbed his hair with a small cloth to help along the drying process. My stall wasn’t great at the drying part. The heater required more power to operate than I had connected, thusly it didn’t produce as much hot air as it would’ve back in the day, when the unit ran at full power.
I sputtered as I sat up, swinging my feet to the cool floor, refusing to flinch as my bare feet came in contact with the ground. “Where are your clothes?” I asked. More like demanded. I’d rarely seen Case without his trench since the first night we met, when I’d broken his nose. That seemed like a lifetime ago. I stood. “I mean…where is your shirt?” I gestured at his bare chest, because it gave me something to do instead of stand there awkwardly. “Because, clearly, you have pants on.”
His pants were made of synthetic leather, like mine, and hugged every contour of his massive thighs. His chest rippled with strength, showing off his well-defined muscles, a set of broad shoulders, and a coating of brown curly hair that tapered into four solid, identifiable rows of abs, ending somewhere beneath his waistband.
I’d seen Bender without a shirt many times, and if I had to wager, Case might have him beat in sheer muscle definition, if not mass. There were lots of shadows happening.
He ignored my babbling as he continued to dry his hair, his eyes darting to the screen. “What’s that?”
With relief, I tore my eyes off his chest and repositioned them on the screen. It was just a human body, after all. People traditionally did take their clothes off when they entered a cleaning stall. The objective was to wash naked body parts, not parts covered by trench coats and other stuff. Case was still wet, hence the cloth in his hand and the leftover droplets on his chest.
“It’s a working wall screen.” I picked up the remote. “It has four different programmed settings.” I flicked through them slowly. Rolling green hills with grazing horses; colorful flowers with bees buzzing—my least favorite because of the noise; a large mountain crag with its clear-sky backdrop, swaying, lush green trees, and pristine snowcap; and the white building with the flittering white clouds. “It popped to life after I installed a sonic-wave monitor. I connected some loose wires, and it worked. Darby thinks it’s incredible because this kind of tech has a limited life-span. Something about the pixels drying up over time.”
Case came to a stop next to me, our shoulders almost touching. His bare skin radiated heat next to my soft-fabric-clad body. I resisted pulling away, but just barely. The turn of events in the last half hour had been bizarre.
He continued to dry his ne
ck and upper torso. “It is incredible,” he murmured. “I’ve never seen a working unit.”
“Yeah,” I said distractedly, handing him the remote. “Feel free to utilize it. I’m going to get some rest, which is what I came here for.” I moved around him and headed down the hall, careful not to seem like I was fleeing, which, if truth be told, I was. Over my shoulder, I called, “You can sleep on the bench seat. There’s a blanket in one of the drawers, or”—I considered not offering this option, but clearly he’d already seen it—“there’s another sleeping pod in here.” Sweat pooled under my arms as I walked. I was glad Maisie wasn’t here to tattle on me, which was one of her favorite things to do. She seemed to enjoy blaring my statistics to anyone who would listen, racing heart rates being a personal fave. Who knew what she would’ve said now, but I was relieved I didn’t have to find out.
As I climbed into my sleeping pod, it perturbed me that I’d allowed Case to have such an effect on me. All he’d done was come out of the cleaning stall with a bare chest, and suddenly air was having a hard time exiting my lungs.
Case entered the room, and I ignored him, busying myself getting organized. I’d picked up my Gem on the way, and I’d already had my taser in here. Most of the time, I slept with the lid up, but tonight I’d planned to close it because I was in desperate need of a dose of UV.
In this world, you died without enough UV. But I couldn’t close the lid with Case here. I needed to be able to hear any and all movements.
I’d have to deal with the UV in the morning.
After a few more moments of trying to find a comfortable position, I felt like hauling my ass out and putting on my leathers. I’d probably get more sleep on the seating bench in the living area. It was clear my stolen night of relaxation had been hijacked by the outskirt, and instead of feeling at peace, I felt exposed and uneasy.
My pod door was up, which blocked Case’s movements on the other side, but I heard him getting in. After that, everything quieted down. Case had doused the lights when he entered the room, so other than the soft glow of the control panel near my head, there was no light to see by.
If my heart rate slowed anytime soon, I might be able to get some rest.
After several more minutes, it was abundantly clear sleep would be evasive. I decided to break the silence, figuring the outskirt was awake as well. Talking was better than lying in silence. “What was Frankie like?”
“He was younger than Daze, around the same height.” Case’s voice came out in a soft growl, the kind of sound you made after a contented yawn. “He had dark hair and eyes. He was funny and full of empathy. He was the definition of what was still worth living for in this world.”
“Sounds like he had a big impact on you,” I said. After all, what happened to the kid had changed the entire course of Case’s life. If Case hadn’t chosen to seek his revenge on those who killed Frankie, he wouldn’t be here right now.
“He did.”
“If he hadn’t been murdered, do you think you would’ve stayed with your tribe?” I’d gotten a tiny glimpse of his old hometown when we’d dealt with Freedom, his sustainee brother, who was crazy insane, along with his three wives and a bunch of children living in a shack near the sea.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “I didn’t have a plan. Dixon died four months prior to my return there, so everything was up in the air.”
“Tell me about your time with Dixon,” I said. “It’s clear you guys covered a lot of ground during your travels. You were with him for a while, right?”
“Yes.” His voice was tight. “We were together seven years.”
When more didn’t come, I prodded, “He was your mentor, correct? He spared you alone that night when he took all those other militia men out. He had to have shared some of his past with you. After all, he showed you the barracks and that cave where we found the Eye Diffs.” I was surprised that communicating like this, separated by the darkness, was easier than talking to Case face-to-face. If Case was going to confide anything to me and finally open up about his past, it would be now.
“He told me bits and pieces.” His tone was modulated.
Maybe not.
“Things you aren’t willing to share?” I asked.
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
No response.
“How do you expect us to trust you—”
“I can’t tell you.” A hint of desperation echoed there, but I chose to ignore it. “For the same reason you keep your information secure from your crew. Some things are just…too personal.”
I snorted. I couldn’t help it. “Personal like my E-unit? You’re here, in my home, uninvited, telling me you can’t confess certain parts of your life after you blabbed my secrets to the group?” With the uptick in my voice and the sudden feeling of vulnerability, my arms sprang apart, striking the sides of the pod, making an echoing noise around the room.
Clutching them back together, I reclasped them across my stomach so they would stay put. Dammit. My heart rate had slowed, but now it was back to pulsing in my ears.
“I didn’t mean to expose your secrets,” he answered softly, almost too quietly for me to hear. “I figured something like that was known to the group. It’s a valuable asset.”
“I know what it’s worth,” I retorted, a little mollified, heart rate slowing. I paused, thinking about how things had played out tonight. “Why didn’t you call me on the tech phone and tell me you were here? The handle excuse was bullshit. We both know it. I would’ve recognized your voice.”
An eternity seemed to pass before he spoke again. “Because you would’ve told me no.”
Breath caught in my chest right in the middle of exhaling, my heart pounding again. I had to focus on taking in a regular breath so I didn’t start coughing or sputtering like I was having some sort of seizure. I gripped my hands even tighter to keep them still.
Just hearing Case’s voice, not being able to see his expressions, I began to understand his cadence and his word choices like I never had before. When he was evasive or didn’t want to answer my questions, his tone was matter-of-fact, sometimes—many times—ending on a steely note. When he was genuinely concerned, or responded in a manner I would consider sincere, his voice dropped and his words became infused with something mimicking emotion.
I assumed the outskirt was mimicking, because I wasn’t sure he actually experienced true emotions. I’d yet to see them.
He had answered my last question quietly, with feeling.
After a few moments of careful breathing, I said, “So, you didn’t use the tech phone because you thought I was heartless enough to make you spend the night in your craft on the roof next door?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t tell him I’d considered it. He already knew. “Well, you’re here. I let you in when I could’ve left you to rot on my balcony, shivering in the rain, likely to blow yourself up. And you’re clean”—almost naked—“and in my state-of-the-art sleeping pod from seventy-ish years ago, with programmable features like an ultraviolet automated wake-up. I don’t think that qualifies as heartless.”
“I didn’t say heartless. You did. I simply said you would’ve said no.”
“You not sharing your past makes me uneasy. That’s why I would’ve said no.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know everything.”
“That’s true.”
“Dammit, Case. Quit doing that. You’re being agreeable but evasive. It’s something you’re very skilled at, but it gets us nowhere.”
“Where are we trying to get?”
I paused, my palms wet, my fingers twisted, pockets of sweat in the creases. I pulled my hands apart. He’d spoken quietly, which distracted me. “To trust,” I replied firmly, chastising my heart for being too erratic, slowing down only to speed up again a second later.
Trust was something I valued above most everything else.
Without trust, there was nothing. Our world was volatile and harsh
. If you couldn’t count on the person who was supposed to have your back, there was no one.
“Trust.”
“Yep,” I replied. “After trust, everything else falls into place.”
“And in order to earn that, in your opinion, I have to expose every single detail about my past?” His voice held resentment mixed with sadness.
“No…not exactly,” I hedged.
“You require more than I can give. I think that means we’re at an impasse,” he said.
I pondered. “We might be. Though trust can also be earned through actions, as well, which is why you’re here and not out on my balcony or shot through the temple with my Gem.” I paused. “But even though your actions in the past have gained you access to the group, it’s not enough for me. There are too many missing links with you, too many dark corners I can’t see around. Too many times you had me second-guessing your motive and then backed it up with a weak excuse.” This conversation was slowly morphing into something else, but I wasn’t sure exactly what.
“Then I guess I’ll have to work a little harder to convince you.”
“I guess you will.” I blew out a long breath, suddenly exhausted by absolutely everything. “Good night, Case.”
He didn’t answer. A short time later, rhythmic breathing filtered through the room, the shallow intake and outtake of breaths. The bastard had fallen asleep before I could.
I lay awake for a long time, trying to figure out what our words had meant.
CHAPTER SIX
I awoke with a start, which was normal. It took me a moment to get my bearings, and when I did, I was pissed off. My muscles were tight, my back sore, my hands cramped from clutching my guns for ten hours straight.
Hardly the night of relaxation I’d intended.
That might be the lesson in itself. Never let your guard down, and never pretend you have downtime.
The lid to my sleeping pod was open. I hadn’t awoken with a simulated sunrise, but I needed UV. Case walked out of the waste room as I reached up to close the top. He was fully dressed, his face tinted pink.
Danger's Cure: (Holly Danger Book 4) Page 4
