by Chele Cooke
They barely looked back as they disappeared down the tunnel, and though Georgianna knew most of them would barely think to check for her presence behind them, she waited a full ten minutes before she made her own way back into the city.
When she came to the place where the eastern tunnel intersected with the main line, Georgianna paused. She wasn’t sure what to do, whether to head south and find Taye to tell him what she knew about Nyah, or to go north and seek council from Beck or one of the other Belsa. In her heart, she knew that Taye deserved to know the truth as soon as possible, but the fear that he would try to do something was now stronger than ever. She knew that if Taye decided to try to free Nyah, there would be no words that could put him off finding out who had bought her.
Georgianna wondered if it might have been easier if Nyah was gone, if they’d never known what had happened to her. There wouldn’t be a chance of freeing her and Taye would have been able to move through his grief, like her father had done, like her brother had. Georgianna knew that the chance of merely seeing Nyah again was enough to fuel him, and there would be nothing she could do to stop it.
Unable to stand at the intersection all day deciding what to do, Georgianna made her turning and began a slow progression through the throngs of people.
The man standing guard was nobody Georgianna knew, and she was submitted to a search and a call-in before she was allowed passage. In the Belsa tunnels, her footsteps slowed the closer she came. Having lost friends, lost her mother; she knew the pain of not knowing what had happened to them and the devastation when the truth was revealed. It was torture, one that Taye would now feel sooner than Georgianna would ever have wanted for him.
Georgianna walked through the Belsa encampment, merely nodding to those who greeted her. She paused at the tunnel turning that led to Beck’s car, but while she knew the marshall would know what to do, Georgianna continued on without making the turn. She didn’t know what she would say to Taye, let alone explaining the situation to the head of the Belsa, a man who hadn’t known Taye or Nyah since their childhood within the Kahle. From the turning, her feet moved automatically through the tunnels, leading her onward until she reached the familiar canvas opening of Keiran’s shack.
She smacked her hand on the metal a few times and waited for a reply, but when none came, she frowned. She’d not thought about the chance that Keiran might not be available, that he may have had Belsa duty, or errands of his own. Tugging the canvas back, Georgianna lowered her head to look through. The lamp wasn’t lit, the shadows broken only by the low light that filtered through the gap she had opened up.
Slipping through the opening, Georgianna placed her bag down in the corner. Taking the grass joining ring and paper from her pocket, Georgianna looked down at them for a few moments before sighing. She tucked the ring and slip of paper back into the paper packet, carefully closing it and slipping it into one of the small pockets on the side of her bag. She stood for a moment, staring at the bag and the hole the ring was trying to burn through it into her mind.
Georgianna sighed and slipped off her boots, before climbing onto the bed and burying her face into the pillow. It smelled like Keiran, the soft clean smell of his hair, what little he hadn’t cut off. Curling her arms around the pillow, Georgianna stared at the darkness until she fell asleep.
The soft pressure of a hand in the small of her back, the gentle caress of lips against her cheek weren’t quite enough to rouse her from sleep. In her dreams, a butterfly found in the midst of the wash beat its wings against her cheek as it fluttered around her head. Georgianna turned to look for it, but was surprised with the sight of a southern coyote making its way towards her on all fours.
“George,” it whispered, its lips bared just enough for the sound to hiss past bared teeth.
It sounded too soft for the yote, and the curious way it looked at her was puzzling. In fact, as the yote held her gaze, Georgianna had to glance behind her to make sure there wasn’t something far more tempting that the animal was looking for.
“George, come on.”
Georgianna turned away from the yote, about to start running when the voice slipped through her dream again, rousing her a little more. The butterfly was back, its wings against her temple now, and as Georgianna’s eyes fluttered at the feeling, the butterfly was gone, replaced with the soft flickering of lamplight on an upturned crate in the shack.
Keiran sat on the side of the bed, his body bent low over her, lips right where the butterfly had beaten its wings. Georgianna reached up and rubbed the heel of her hand into her eyes.
“Hi,” she murmured, rolling a little further onto her side and looking sleepily up at him.
“Hi yourself.”
“Sorry,” Georgianna muttered. “I must’ve…”
“Hey, don’t apologise to me. Not every day I come back from orders to find a beautiful girl in my bed.”
Leaning closer to her, Keiran’s lips travelled in a series of kisses across her skin, finally pressing with soft pressure against the corner of Georgianna’s lips. She turned her head, capturing him in a gentle kiss as he used his thumb to push a lock of tangled hair from her cheek. Opening her eyes, Georgianna fixed her brown-eyed gaze onto Keiran’s blue and reached up, trailing a single finger along his jaw and grinning a soft smile up at him.
“Really? You should tell those other girls to step up their game then, they’re making it far too difficult for you.”
“Damn right.” Keiran chuckled and sat up. “You could give them lessons.”
Georgianna rolled onto her back and slowly pushed herself up from the mattress, drawing her knees up towards her and leaning over them, rubbing her hands across her eyes again.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Late,” he answered. “Wrench was late showing up, said he had errands.”
She nodded slowly, the memory of why she’d come here in the first place coming back to her like the first streams of the wash.
“Not that I mind, but why are you camped out in my bed?” Keiran asked.
“I…”
Frowning, she covered her face with her hands and flopped backwards onto the mattress again. “I went to the compound,” she admitted through the gap between her hands.
He remained silent for a minute, and though she could feel him moving around, she didn’t move her hands from her face. As the pressure from the spot next to her on the bed disappeared, Georgianna finally spread her fingers and glanced at him.
Tugging his shirt over his head, Keiran threw it down into the corner and kicked off his boots before returning.
“If you tell me the sight of mangy inmates made you think of me, I might kick you out.”
He slipped down onto the bed, turning onto his side and lying so close that her arm pressed against his bare chest. Georgianna glanced down, quickly looking away and staring up at the ceiling through her fingers. By this point, she didn’t know why she was covering her face, it wasn’t shielding her from anything, but she kept them there just the same.
“I’m hiding,” she admitted.
Keiran chuckled and reached up to her face, poking the back of her hands.
“I can see that, and a good job you’re doing too. But why?”
She looked at him and rolled her eyes.
“I’m hiding from Taye,” she answered.
“Ah! Yes, of course! Taye!” Keiran murmured as if the answer was obvious to nobody but Georgianna, which most likely it wasn’t. He watched her curiously for a moment, but when Georgianna didn’t respond, his trademark smirk slipped back into place. “His girlfriend not like the present?”
“She wasn’t there.”
Keiran’s tongue darted out and swiped across his bottom lip before he spoke.
“Freed?” he asked carefully.
“Sold.”
Keiran’s frown was a little too measured for Georgianna. She knew he didn’t really care about Taye or Nyah. He didn’t know either of them that well and Georgianna was
sure that he was only trying to look worried for her sake. In some ways, she wished he’d not even tried, seeing as the result didn’t look sincere this close up.
“That sucks,” he answered finally.
“It’s a nightmare,” she almost cried, closing her fingers to cover her eyes. “I have to tell Taye, and he’ll… He’ll want to go after her. He’ll get himself killed!”
Silence settled like the first snowflakes of the freeze, slowly blanketing them. Neither moved, perhaps worried of what they would find beneath the beautifully perfect, glittering silence. So, for a while, they simply lay that way.
It was just as Georgianna was wondering if they would speak again before falling asleep in this position that the tips of Keiran’s fingers prised in between her hands, gently pulling back one and then the other.
“George,” he murmured. “If he wants to go after her, you can’t stop him. You shouldn’t try.”
“I shouldn’t try?”
“Try to stop him and he’ll hate you.”
“Maybe he should! Maybe he needs someone to hate for this, and if it’s me…”
“One more selfless act and I’m officially signing you up for martyrdom.” Keiran murmured mockingly.
“Ha ha!” she mumbled, moving to roll away from him.
He placed his hand on her shoulder and forced her to remain on her back. Looking down at her, he quirked an eyebrow, fixing her with an even stare.
“Seriously, George, you did the guy a favour. You tried delivering the thing.”
“Ring.”
“What?”
“It was a ring,” she said slowly. “Inside the packet he wanted me to give her. A joining ring.”
“Okay, but that doesn’t change the fact that she wasn’t there. Tell him. Then you can come hide in my bed when you’re not all guilt-ridden over something you had no hand in.”
“You know you’re an ass, right?”
Keiran nodded as his gaze left hers, watching his own fingers leading a winding trail over her collarbone and along her arm. He reached around her waist, the tips of his fingers just slipping in between her flesh and the mattress.
“I’m sure I am, but you wouldn’t be saying that if I wasn’t right.”
“Maybe.”
Leaning over her, he smiled just before he settled his lips against hers. For a moment, Georgianna considered not responding. She was still mad that he suggested she do nothing. However, his soft insistence overcame her and she found herself lifting her head to return the pressure.
“Are you ready to admit that I’m right?” he asked against her flesh, lips curving into a broad smirk.
Georgianna shook her head.
“I should try harder then.”
“Yes, you should,” she murmured.
His hand tightened on her waist, tugging her body up towards his, bringing a sigh from Georgianna. No doubt she would feel bad that she’d distracted herself from Taye and Nyah’s problems, but for now there was probably little she could do anyway. Her palms slid across his stomach, fingertips slipping under the waistband of his trousers, pushing them further down his hips. Keiran smiled a knowing, almost predatory grin as he grasped the edge of her shirt, leading it up her body, watching it reveal expanses of bare flesh.
As Keiran had suggested, she would tell Taye and try to push back the guilt. Now wasn’t a time to feel guilty. She couldn’t go looking for Taye at this time of night. So instead she lifted her shoulders, letting Keiran pull her shirt over her head before his lips returned to her body, following the same path as his fingertips. She arched her body up to meet him as his hands, then lips, soothed her flesh in smooth strokes followed by fluttering kisses, across her breasts and down her stomach. She reached between their bodies to undo his trousers, then slid her hands to the small of his back, using her foot to urge the material down his legs.
It wasn’t her fault that Nyah had been sold. She had not had a hand in Nyah’s capture. She had done nothing but try to help a friend make a delivery. She couldn’t be blamed for it.
Keiran slid her trousers from her hips, taking her underwear with them in a single, fluid motion. Slipping her hands over his shoulders, she pulled him against her, drawing in a desperate breath as his hand slipped between their bodies. Her body followed his fingers like a magnet drawn up to the softest touch, begging for more. He smiled down at her, his amusement painfully obvious when her hips rocked up to meet him, physical urge forgoing rational thought.
She hooked one leg around his hips, heel pressed into the back of his thigh as she pulled him more forcibly against her. Forgetting whether Taye would be angry or upset, she decided that, for now, she could do something that she would not feel bad about, and leave the guilt for tomorrow.
Georgianna woke before Keiran the next morning. She didn’t have any pressing business except for telling Taye what she had found out in the compound, which she didn’t want to do, but she still clambered carefully out of the bed without waking Keiran and dressed herself. No doubt, if she woke Keiran, he would try to convince her to stay longer and, with the knowledge of the pain she was about to bring down on Taye, she knew it wouldn’t take much convincing before she was back under the covers.
Tripping as she pulled on her boots, Georgianna turned and stared at Keiran for a moment, making sure he wasn’t stirring from the noise. It was easier to leave when Keiran was asleep, even when she wasn’t worried about him tempting her back to bed. There was an awkward moment in the mornings, whenever she was getting ready to leave, Keiran talking to her, when she realised that she would rather stay and spend time with him. So, whenever possible, she preferred to skip out while he was still asleep. She could tell herself that it was better this way.
She slipped through the canvas opening. After a quick check in at Medics’ Way to ensure that there were no emergencies, Georgianna left Belsa territory and walked slowly through the main tunnels.
Every time she saw a blonde head of hair, she glanced to make sure that she wasn’t wrong, that maybe Nyah had been let go. Each look held only disappointment, and before Georgianna had managed to come up with a reason why she shouldn’t tell Taye, she was inside the Carae tunnels, making her way carefully across the uneven tunnel ground.
“Stop there!”
The man walking towards her was not Taye. In fact, Georgianna didn’t think she’d ever met this particular Carae before. He didn’t look particularly happy about the fact he actually had to talk to someone either, looking her up and down with a scowl evident even through the gloom.
“Who’re you?” he asked.
“I’m looking for Taye,” Georgianna answered, trying for a polite smile, but the result a worried grimace.
“That’s who you’re looking for, not who you are.”
Georgianna blinked and shook her head quickly.
“Sorry, yeah, I’m George,” she answered. “Lennox.”
“Well, George Lennox, Taye ain’t here.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, Georgianna frowned and looked sceptically back at the man. He didn’t seem particularly believable at the moment, too quick to turn her away. She didn’t want to call him a liar, but she also didn’t want to walk away without proof that she wouldn’t be able to see Taye.
“Do you know where he is?” she asked.
“Where a man goes is his own business.”
“Okay, can you tell me who will know where he is?”
“I know,” the guard answered with a smirk. “It’s just none of my business.”
Georgianna was getting annoyed. She knew he was only doing his job, but she was already having trouble working out how she would tell Taye about Nyah, let alone having to argue with a guard to get the chance to try to actually do it.
“Will you stop with the fucking mind games?” Georgianna snapped. “It’s my business, alright?”
“What makes you think it’s your business?”
He pressed his fists against his hips, his elbows jutting out across the tu
nnel. Through the small gap, there would be no way for Georgianna to get past without knocking him. Though, chances were, the man was in a bad enough mood that he might try to shoot her just for trying it.
“Will you stop being a Vtensu and just tell me?” Georgianna demanded, glaring back at him. “It’s important I find him as soon as possible. It’s about Nyah.”
The guard’s smirk vanished and after a moment thinking about it, he nodded. Georgianna hadn’t wanted to use Nyah’s name that way, but she’d been a member of the Carae, and from what Georgianna knew, she’d been a relatively friendly face amongst them. From the guard’s instant drop in attitude, it seemed like Taye wasn’t the only one missing her presence around their section of the tunnels.
“He’s down Oprust,” the guard answered. “Had a deal with some guy.”
“Oppression City is a big place. Can you narrow it down?”
She tried to keep the annoyance at being jerked around out of her voice now that he was actually helping her.
“The Trade Inn, I think.”
“Thanks!”
She returned quickly to the main tunnel, taking the first exit she came to, out into the Oprust district.
The Oprust district in the south-west of the city had always been neutral, used as a trade centre between the different tribes, who would set up stalls of meat and skins from hunting kills they didn’t need themselves. Different herbs and plants people had gathered from the different areas of the trails were dried and crushed down into powders with different purposes. Blankets, clothes and household objects made with the people’s various skills were traded for necessities.
In the very south of the district, families brought livestock to trade. A single sheep wrangled for a flock of chickens saved from coyotes, or a horse foal for a couple of dog pups. Different tribes were known for their different skills and specialities, and while every tribe could get by on its own, Oprust trading was always an excitement because people knew that they could get the best.
