by April White
Ringo shot me a look as I glanced over at Archer, still so vulnerable. Then I turned back to Rachel and studied her as she picked up a broomstick and weighed it in her hand, maybe to find its balance, or to check on its usefulness as a weapon. We were possibly the same age, but she wasn’t as tall as me. Her short dark hair and lean, wiry frame were totally functional and gave her the tools to pass for male. But if someone looked close enough, her eyes would give her away. They were wide-set, framed with long black lashes mascara companies would pay top dollar to use in their ads, and they were currently focused on me.
“It is dangerous, what we need to do,” I told her.
Her gaze didn’t waver. “So is staying alive.”
I took a breath. “When I can, I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”
She turned to Ringo. “You’ll come with me to find places to sleep?”
“I don’t think—” I began, about to say I didn’t think it was a good idea to go wandering around a guy’s house in the middle of the night, but Rachel cut me off.
“The house is empty.”
“How do you know?” I asked, although a sneaking suspicion was winding its way up my spine.
“I just feel it,” she shrugged and pointed to her stomach, “here. I am never wrong.”
I stared at her for a long moment. “When did you build that false wall in your bedroom?”
She looked back at me without blinking, and finally said, “Three months ago.”
Right.
Ringo shot me a raised eyebrow and got up to leave with Rachel, and then I was alone for the first time in days. Archer’s presence didn’t count because he was unconscious, and I found an old blanket folded up on a dresser to spread over him.
I went to the window and looked out over the nighttime street. Southwark seemed deserted, and there were no streetlights on anywhere. There was a big pile of rubble directly below my window, and I realized that the little park I’d always assumed the city planners had left next to Guy’s Chapel was really the result of a direct hit from a German bomb. Down the street, as far as I could see under the moonlight, was the same landscape: Victorian and Georgian buildings standing singly or grouped two or three together, then an empty spot where a building had once stood. The haphazardly mixed architecture of modern London suddenly made perfect sense, and based on the number of ugly fifties and sixties-style buildings that would be built in Southwark, air raiders had hit this area really hard. The bombed-out landscape was eerie, and despite the pre-dawn hour, the neighborhood felt oddly deserted.
Ringo spoke quietly from the top of the stairs. “There’s a bedroom for ye one floor down. Do ye want ‘elp movin’ ‘Is Lordship to it?”
I looked at Archer, still curled under the blanket, and shook my head. “No. I’ll manage. Get some rest, and we’ll make a plan when we wake up.” I turned back to the window, more for what I couldn’t see than what I could.
Ringo hesitated, but I said nothing else, and finally he went back down the stairs. When the attic was mine again, I turned my back to the window and slid down the wall to huddle against it, drew my knees to my chest, and stared out across the room with unseeing eyes.
I started shaking.
It began with chattering teeth that had nothing to do with temperature, and then turned into a whole body tremor. I didn’t even bother to fight it, I was too tired. But the shaking was making it hard to breathe, and when I tried to get up, I stumbled back down twice. Tears of frustration rolled down my cheeks, and my breath came in gasps. My lungs were beginning to seize up, and I fought panic as I pushed myself to my knees and tried to stand a third time.
Strong arms lifted me, and I twisted around to find Archer helping me to my feet. I buried my face in his neck with a cry and he held me so tightly the tremors had no room to shake. He stroked my hair, and murmured nonsensical things until I could breathe again.
I kissed him then, to find the life in being alive. The last time we’d kissed was in our little walled garden, back in a time when all those people were still breathing, cuddling their children, thinking thoughts of what to plant, or clean, or build.
I kissed him for all those husbands and wives who would never kiss each other again, for the parents who couldn’t kiss their children, for the children who would never grow up to find someone to kiss. I kissed him to erase the horror from my eyes and my ears, to pull back the fear so it didn’t consume me, and to find a small bit of the peace that had fled the walled garden with the first scream.
My clutching grasp on Archer’s skin became the anchor to keep me sane and whole and alive, and his arms held me so tightly to his chest that my shirt became the barrier to where he ended and I began.
I didn’t want any barriers between us, and I stopped kissing him just long enough to tug off my shirt and camisole. The heat of his skin was like a balm to my shocked body, and I pressed myself into his chest.
“I love you,” he whispered into my hair. The words sent a wave of need through me that brought my Cat up to purr with desire. I still held control, but she rubbed against the inside of my skin in a way that made me want Archer to touch and pet and hold me.
I pulled back from him just enough to see desire in his eyes, and my Cat preened in it. “I need you,” I said simply.
The desire flared with heat and fire, and then he kissed me until there was nothing else in the world.
There were no visions or dreams after we made love. There was only the peace of being held by the man I knew to the depths of my soul. The room we had found to sleep in was furnished simply, but with an old, carved wood four-poster bed that had long thick curtains we drew around ourselves. We woke at sunset, in a cocoon of white linen that felt like a sanctuary, and we whispered to each other to let the peacefulness linger as long as it could.
“How do you feel?” he asked me.
“Alive.” I traced the last remnants of the exit wound in his shoulder, and I realized his skin didn’t yet carry the scars of the many wounds he would one day have. “How are you?”
“In love with my wife.”
My heart smiled and I laced my fingers through his.
“Are ye awake yet?” Ringo’s voice intruded on the cocoon and I scrunched up my face like a kid who doesn’t want to eat yucky spinach. Archer laughed and kissed me quickly.
“Yes, now go away and we’ll be out in a minute,” he said, grinning at me.
“Right-o. Saira, Rachel found a few tins of things in the kitchen. Come down for food before we eat it all.”
“Leave me anything you guys don’t like. I’m so hungry I could eat tinned peas and be happy.”
“You say that as if there’s anythin’ I wouldn’t eat. Street livin’ beats the picky right out of the boy.”
I was tempted to throw a pillow at him, but that would burst the cocoon wide open, so I made another face and got another laugh from Archer.
“Out!” he called to Ringo. A moment later the door closed and we could hear Ringo chuckle to himself as he walked down the hall.
Archer touched my cheek. “That thing you just did with your face is why you’ll win any fight we ever have.”
I did the scrunchy face again. “You mean this?” Archer’s laughter was infectious, and I was tempted to start a tickle fight just to prolong his playfulness.
He opened the curtains and pushed me up. “Go, or the rascal will eat all the food just to punish you.”
“You come too. I don’t want to face those two alone.”
Archer stilled and looked at me carefully. “Are you ashamed of our lovemaking?”
I stared at him. “What? No! I meant that I’m going to blush like crazy, and I need you next to me so I don’t turn into a complete idiot.” I pulled him up to stand in front of me and wrapped my arms around his neck.
“I love you, and I’m crazy in love with you. I just want the whole war to go away so we can spend all day together somewhere sunny and deserted.”
“Except for the day and sunny
bits, I’m with you.” Archer grinned.
My eyes opened wide. “Oh God, Archer, I’m sorry.”
He touched my face gently. “Not as sorry as I am, beautiful Saira. Nothing would make me happier than to see you with the sun shining on your skin.”
My stomach clenched with guilt, and I turned away to pull my clothes on. Archer watched me dress for a long moment before he finally moved to pick up his own clothes.
I went to the door. “I’ll see you downstairs?”
He smiled gently at me. “I’ll be down as soon as I find another shirt.”
I left the room and made my way to the stairs. I had lost my appetite and lingered in the staircase while guilt churned my stomach acid into something frothy and gross. What the hell was I doing, and what had I done? I was dreaming about spending time someplace sunny with Archer when a: I had basically told my modern Archer he couldn’t risk the cure to ever see the sun again, and b: I wanted to go somewhere to spend time alone with him? Which him? The one I had just married and shared the most intimate touch privileges with, or the one I would be going back to when this was all over?
I suddenly wanted to unzip my skin and step outside it, because being me was too hard. I had no business getting married – that’s what adults did, and frankly, I sucked at adulting.
Archer appeared at the top of the stairs, pulling on a simple linen shirt. The smile on his face faded when he saw me paralyzed on the stairs. “What’s wrong?” He said it as if he already knew the answer and was just waiting for me to figure it out. He came down and sat on the step, then patted the place next to him. I sat and leaned against him so I didn’t have to meet his eyes.
“I suck.”
I could feel him hold back a smile. “In general, or is there something in particular?”
I took a deep breath. I didn’t need to protect Archer from myself – he was great at seeing the real stuff through the murky crap. “What I said to you about sitting out the war someplace sunny so we could just hang out – everything about that statement is just so … loaded.”
He picked up my hand and laced his fingers through mine. “You don’t know how to feel about being married to me here, while I’m waiting for you in your time.”
My breath caught in my throat and I finally met his eyes. “It feels so disloyal and weird to want to spend time with you here … now. I should be doing everything possible to get back home to you, but this …” I gestured around me with my hand. “This feels like real life, and anything in my time is just … happening without me.”
Archer lifted my hand and kissed my fingers one by one. “I am me, no matter which time I’m in. And I’ll still be me, and still your husband, when you go back to your time. Whatever happens here and now between us will exist for me in seventy years, so if anything, you’re giving me more to sustain me through the years we’re apart.” He smiled at me, and his smile untangled some of the knots in my stomach. “And if you need to go back tomorrow, I’ll have your return to me then to look forward to as well.”
I shook my head. “I just don’t know how you can be the you that I met a year ago.”
He kissed my forehead. “I don’t either. But we’ll figure that out when we get there.”
I searched his eyes. “You promise I’m not screwing up?”
“Not with me, you’re not. Now, or then.”
My gaze was locked in his, and the last of the knots slipped free. “When the time comes, Archer …” I took a breath. “Do what you need to do about taking the cure. Whatever you choose, I trust you.”
He held my face in his hands. “I love you more than … I love chocolate.”
I barked a laugh and he grinned at me.
“That’s to the moon and back, in case you were wondering.”
I kissed him playfully. “Since chocolate is its own food group, I’ll take that compliment.”
He bit my lip. “Oh, you’re definitely your own food group.”
I shrieked and jumped down the rest of the stairs. “Ringo! Save me! I’m about to be dinner for a hungry Vmmph—” Archer managed to catch me and kiss me before the word came out, which was a good thing, considering the stare Rachel gave us when we came crashing into the kitchen.
Ringo looked rested. Rachel did not. She had deep circles under her eyes, and she wore sadness like a cloak wrapped around her shoulders. She picked at a bowl of tinned beans without much interest, while Ringo tucked into corn like it was his birthday and this was his favorite cake.
I sat down across from her, and Ringo shoved a bowl of peas in my direction. I stuck my tongue out at him and then took a spoonful of the grayish mush anyway.
“How much do you want to know?” I asked Rachel. She looked startled, and I shrugged casually. “We’re clearly not normal, and your life just got very strange. Do you want to know the whole story, or just roll with whatever happens?”
Ringo stopped eating and seemed interested in her answer. Archer just hung in the background so it wasn’t quite as obvious that he wasn’t eating.
Rachel put down her fork and leaned her chair back against the wall in a move I’d seen Connor and Ringo do a hundred times. “I knew you would come,” she said simply.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“You are not surprised.”
“Not if you knew to build that wall.”
“Why do I know things?” Rachel asked, in a tone that said she’d been wondering for a long time.
I shot a quick look at Archer. He stepped forward and spun a chair around to sit at the table. Rachel hadn’t really noticed that he was moving without evidence of his injury, and her eyes widened at the sight of him. He smiled. “I’m fine. Thank you for your help, and you …” He turned a pointed look at Ringo. “That was a huge risk you took with my blood.”
He shrugged with a grin. “What’s the worst that could ‘ave ‘appened?”
“Excruciating pain and wasting death.”
Ringo raised an eyebrow, still grinning. “Well, when ye put it that way, ye should probably not be getting’ shot again.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.” Archer turned his smile toward Rachel. “If I had to guess, I’d say you and I belong to the same Family.”
She sent him a completely disbelieving look, and he then proceeded to give her the scholar’s rundown of the Immortal Descendants, much the same way he had educated me when we first met. I watched Rachel go through the same emotions I remembered having. Fortunately, she seemed inclined to believe things she’d already experienced, like Clocking locations and Seeing the future. Having witnessed Archer’s injury and miraculous recovery, she didn’t fight the idea of his lineage either.
Whatever food had been opened was gone by the time we wrapped up our crash course in Descendants lore, and the sadness seemed to have temporarily lifted from Rachel’s shoulders. She was intrigued and fully engaged in the conversation, and it was clear from her questions that she was not only fluent in English, but had the same kind of inquisitive intelligence Connor and Ringo had.
“Can I ask you some questions about yourself?” I said finally.
“Yes, of course.” Her accent wasn’t just French. There was something else underneath it.
“Why do you speak fluent English?”
She smiled. “My father taught me English and German so I could read auto repair manuals.”
“Were you raised in France?”
Her expression didn’t change, but her voice got a little tighter. “My mother died when I was born, and my father took me to France because my grandparents tried to buy me from him. When he refused, they threatened to take me by legal force, so he left Poland.”
I stared at her. What was wrong with people? Archer asked the next question. “Is that a Polish accent beneath the French?”
She shrugged. “Possibly. My father also taught me Hebrew so he could read to me from the Torah, because the only time we could ever go to temple was on once-a-year trips to Paris. I haven’t been for three years, ever since the
y sent him to Drancy.”
“Where’s Drancy?” I asked.
“Just outside Paris. But they moved him two years ago.”
“Where?”
“To a camp in Poland.”
“Do you know which one?” My expression must have given away the sinking in my gut, because Rachel’s expression tightened even further.
“Auschwitz.”
“Oh.” There was no part of me that could force lightness into my voice.
“That’s bad, isn’t it.” It wasn’t a question, but I answered it anyway.
“It’s not good.”
Ringo stood up suddenly. “Ye know, I think we should go for a run.” He looked at Rachel. “I know a place ye might like to see.”
I pushed back my chair. “Do you mind if we come? I feel like I need to see what’s happened to this city.”
“To be honest, I’m feelin’ a need to make sure London’s still standin’ too.” His eyes returned to Rachel’s. “Can I give ye the whirlwind tour of my town?”
She nodded. “Yes, please.”
“Ye look strong enough, but can ye run?”
She arched an eyebrow at him, and I liked her a little more just because of that. “When you are a girl dressed as a boy, and you don’t want to fight – you learn to run.”
Ringo liked her for it too. “Sounds about right.” He looked at us. “Ye ready? Let’s go.”
The run down the deserted streets of Southwark felt like something from a post-apocalyptic movie, and it wasn’t until we crossed London Bridge that we saw any signs of life on the streets. There wasn’t a block that hadn’t been damaged in an air raid, and some areas had more rubble than upright buildings.
The worst was a bookstore, still filled with a jumbled pile of books, missing its front wall. I decided to make a game of it so I didn’t cry. Every pile of rubble was a new jungle gym to be climbed, flipped over, or jumped off. Of course, Ringo took to it immediately, and turned every new pile into a challenge for me to match his moves.
Rachel had kept up with us easily, and about five rubble piles in, she began to try some of Ringo’s moves. His competitiveness switched on and off depending on whom he was talking to. With me, it was all challenges, but with Rachel, he took time to correct mistakes and give shortcuts. I hadn’t seen him be a teacher before, and he was very good at it. He was also leading us toward Aldgate, and when he finally stopped, it was in front of an old, dark brick, square building.
