I saw her in my mind. Damn it all, but I saw what little Lillith must have looked like then, watching the beginning of a horror she couldn’t possibly understand.
“I watched you kill him and escape. After the commotion calmed, one of the guards helped me escape to the doctor’s. I had stolen enough for the surgery and then some. He fixed my legs, and I went off on my own. I never looked back. I suppose the guards told you I was a boy to throw you off. They always felt sorry for me.”
She released my face and sat back against the wall with me. The space broke the intense intimacy.
“Is that why you went with me on the Goliath? You wanted to make me feel something for you, so I would let you live?”
“No. I went with you on the Goliath because I never forgot you. Not once since that night. You were the man who released me. I was curious who you were, if it was in fact you. If I wanted to preserve my life, I would have sent you on your way without a word back on Artemis. The chances were good you’d never find out who I was.”
“It’s sound logic, Rabbit. You should listen.”
Chapter Twenty Two
We drifted for days, the motley crew that we were. The Goliath had in fact been destroyed. Tio had described it like someone squeezing a soda can to death. People flew from the wreckage like horrible confetti. The horror of all of those people dying in the process plagued my brain. Guilt consumed me. Surely, there was something more I could have done for them? My only consolation was the knowledge they were blissfully hypnotized the entire time instead of screaming in panicked agony. That and I hoped I had saved Trevor and his father.
Why had the dragons not come after us? It would have been like turning away from the fried chicken at a picnic to eat an ant. They concentrated on the big energy item, the Goliath, and they sucked it dry. No doubt the scientists would send more ships to their death after ours until someone finally wised up or the dragons left for another two hundred years. Which would come first? Who knows?
I barely spoke a word to either woman, especially Lillith. What was there to say? A part of me prayed no one would find us out here in the nothingness of space, and we would all die. At least then, the matter would be decided.
I had no such luck. The pod’s distress beacon found a moon nearby inhabited by humans. It was a safe, viable haven, so the pod’s autopilot navigated us for the moon. It was obvious the moment we reached the atmosphere. We had all strapped ourselves in the safety harnesses, but the burning rattle of an atmospheric entry was unmistakable. My teeth chattered together so hard I thought they might break. Lillith was afraid. I could feel her panic next to me, and she reached over to take my hand. I didn’t hold hers back but she squeezed all the same.
Once we broke through the outer atmosphere, the air smoothed, and Tio took control of the pod. We flew until she spotted a small village. It had been the source of the responding beacon our pod had detected. Lillith described it as small, but she had been used to cities like Palacides. I knew any village big enough to have a beacon tower, would have a decent size to it.
Tio landed the pod in their airfield without incident, and we breathed the first bit of fresh air we had had in weeks. It was clean, crisp and wonderful. I nearly broke my ribcage trying to breathe in more.
The locals greeted us with wary warmth, most seemed to be farmers. They didn’t care about what ship our pod was from. In fact, they didn’t even seem to notice that our vehicle was an escape pod. As far as they knew, we flew there in our tiny ship, and how much did we want for her? I quoted a price and split the money three ways. We had the suspicion they wanted to ship more for scrap metal than anything else. Limesteel was still a hot commodity.
We agreed to tell no one we had been on the Goliath or that we had seen the dragons. If the military ever caught on, we would never be left alone. Scientists would poke and prod us the way they had with Tio. Religious types would hound us and possibly call us profits. The three of us would never be safe. We denied any knowledge of the dragons, and just shook our heads solemnly when word the Goliath had been destroyed hit our moon. It was a shame, just a terrible shame.
Tio was an instant hit in the village. Her psychic abilities appealed to the people, and she was welcomed immediately. She opened her own place within weeks of our arrival. It had once been a tea shop that had gone out of business, and the wooden walls still smelled like green tea and lemongrass. Mainly, she foretold when rains were coming and whose son was interested in whose daughter. Simple fortunes were easy, and she made sure to keep bad fortunes to herself. The trivial moments of life were grand in their simplicity. The work seemed to make her happy, and the people liked her.
As for Lillith and I, we stayed in separate rooms in the same boarding house after we landed. We needed to get acclimated to the new place, and being as close to each other as we had been was not helping. She found a little work here and there, cutting women’s hair in Tio’s shop, but I mainly kept to myself. Most meals were taken in my room in silence, and I spent hours meditating by the window. It was painfully obvious I was avoiding her, but she never pushed me. She had always been good that way.
It was a hot day when I decided enough was enough. I walked across the hallway to her room and knocked on her door. She answered as though she had been expecting me.
“Hi, Jeremy.”
“Hi… Lillith. I would like you to pack your things.”
“Why?”
I swallowed hard and inhaled slowly through my nostrils.
“I have bought a small farm northeast of town. It’s small but not far from here.”
“And that involves me how?”
Damn her, she was going to make me ask.
“Will you come with me? I want… us to be together.”
There was a pregnant pause. My shoulders tensed.
“Really?”
She sounded skeptical.
“Yes.”
“What about the blood oath?”
I sighed. She was not going to let me off easily.
“I am not really Shadow Class anymore, as you once pointed out. Blood oaths are meaningless unless I assign them meaning. This one no longer has meaning.”
She paused. It was excruciating. The moments passed like years. Could I actually see her, maybe I would be able to measure what was going through her mind by the twitch of her eyes or manner of her mouth. As it were, I was as lost as I had been in the vacuum. This was just cruel of her, and I was sure she knew what she was doing.
“Please, come with me.”
Another long, horrid pause.
“So, you want me to be with you on a farm?”
“Yes… please.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do I get?”
Confusion filled me. What could she be getting at? This female game of hers was like swimming through soup. I was pushing back the little nagging feelings of hurt in my chest.
“Do you not want to be with me?”
“I didn’t say that, but the farm life? That means digging, plowing, cooking, that sort of thing?”
“Yes. We would work the place together, I thought. It would be quiet and peaceful. Honest.”
“Where’s the adventure?”
“Adventure?”
“Well, there’s obviously no one around here to thieve from, and I can’t be bothered with the domestic life. I’m surprised you could, being the way you are. Maybe getting back to the dirt appeals to you or something, but I need some life. I want to occasionally get thrown in a holding cell. I want to tango with you on a dance floor in front of terrified people. I want to make love like we might die in an hour. I want to live, Jeremy.”
I smiled, and then the thought of Salem working the earth somewhere made me smile wider. Her tattooed, scarred legs baking in the sun. What had I been thinking?
“What were you thinking?” I asked, knowing she had an answer ready.
“Well, there’s a big city south of here
. I’m sure there’s a lot of trouble to be had there, not to mention they have a star port. We could hitch a ride anywhere.”
I could practically feel the smile behind her words. The truth was I couldn’t picture her behind a plow, and the thought of pulling potatoes the rest of my life sounded so safe and dull I wanted to bash my brains in with my own fists.
The next day I sold my farm back to the man I bought it from, much to his dismay. He grumbled about wanting to retire and how young fellas are so fickle. I put it behind me as I took my money back. Someone else would be digging his dirt. It wasn’t a job for me or her. After telling him it was due to woman troubles, he cooled his head, having had five wives himself.
Tio knew it was me before the little bell she installed on the door had tinkled to signal a customer was there.
“It’s about time,” she said.
“I had to fix something stupid I did.”
“Yeah, did you really think she’d go for that? I mean, a farm?”
I didn’t ask how she knew of my plans. I told no one, but she knew the way she just knew things now. A forgetful silence filled the air. I forgot why I had come to see her in the first place.
“You came for these,” she said, grabbing my hand.
With heavy pressure she pressed a bundle of stems in my hand and closed my first around them. I felt a wide satin ribbon around the middle of the bundle and stroked the softness with my thumb.
“What are they?”
“Does it matter?”
“I guess not.”
I sniffed the bouquet and caught a hint of lilacs. Lillith’s smell.
“Yeah, I thought it was appropriate,” Tio said.
A smile spread its wings across my face and I nodded to her.
“Thank you.”
“You gonna tell me you’ll miss me now?”
“Would you believe me?”
“Not a word.” She laughed.
“I might miss you a little,” I said. “Easy to have conversations when I don’t have to do much talking.”
“That I do believe,” she said in a resolute fashion. “Go, and be well. Just beware the other rabbits.”
I nodded again before turning to walk out of her door. The thought occurred to me to ask her what she meant about the rabbits, or if she could see what would become of the dragons but thought better of it. What’s the point of knowing the story ahead of time? Nothing to look forward to that way.
I found myself back at Lillith’s door knocking the way I had before. The nerves were no longer in my stomach. The ribbon around the flowers was warm and smooth in my grasp as I thumbed it. She answered with a pause to take me in. Without a word, she reached out and grabbed the bundle in my hand. The slight sound of her inhaling the flowers’ fragrance caught my ear, and I knew she liked them.
“Lillith, I am walking to Cassandra today, and I would like you to come with me.”
There was no pausing this time.
“Now that’s a much better offer.”
She crossed the small distance in between us and hugged me. The scent of flowers surrounded me, but I could not be sure if it was her or the bouquet.
“I will follow you on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You call me Salem. Lillith Crane died a long time ago.”
Vacuum (The Cataclysm Series Book 1) Page 10
