“You don’t find that odd?”
Jareth continues in the lead position, but his conversation reaches my ears. “So? He’s alien, what do you expect?”
My furry companion trots to my side and tries to jump on my waist. He must think I’m performing a spider dance the way my body slips and slides.
I grab onto his paws like they’re lifelines.
“Good point.” I catch my footing with the dog’s help.
“You all right back there?”
“Yep. Fine—why?” Whew. Saved by the hound.
I pat Kodiak on the head and lower him to the ground. Leaning into his ear, I whisper, “Thanks, boy.”
His tongue sneaks out for a quick kiss. Damn, why is puppy breath tolerable, even pleasant, but adult dog breath odious?
Jareth slows his walk and twists to peer over his shoulder. His head dips down to my legs and then travels upward to rest on my face. “What’re you doing?”
My face breaks into a smile. “Walking a weed-choked road with my dog, an asshole, and an idiot—your guess who’s who. Get moving, pokey—I don’t have all day.”
A fingernail taps the crooked tooth in thought. His head tips back to look at me through half-hooded lids. “Careful, careful, Red. Teasing can be seen as a form of foreplay, and I love to play games.” His eyes travel from my hips to my feet. “You need new boots. That man-made crap isn’t for hiking.” Those peculiar eyes darken. “I should carry you, make sure you don’t hurt yourself.”
I gulp and duck my head, letting locks of hair fall to cover my face. Making a pointed effort to ensure the pistol is still safe and tucked away, I keep my mouth shut. The thought of his arms holding me makes my blood sizzle.
A small, wicked chuckle floats on the wind.
He’s an appalling oaf.
Once my face cools, I watch his backside moving again.
Sparky stays not more than a foot or two behind Jareth, obstructing my view of his trim, lean butt.
I’m not sure if Sparky’s strange motion is an alien thing, or if it has something to do with his gear. What’s under the suit? A flesh and blood humanoid, or something non-organic? Who knows?
I’m beginning to understand Jareth’s earlier curiosity at wondering about the alien’s appearance.
Do Earth’s conquerors have any similarities to humans beneath the weird, metallic material? “You think those suits are for protection from the atmosphere because they’re unable to breathe Earth’s air?” My internal thoughts continue to roll off the tip of my tongue. “Maybe their planet has more or less gravity, and the clothing mitigates or compensates their mass on Earth.”
No one responds to my external musings.
A distant plan takes shape in my mind. If we can figure out the suit’s purpose, it could give us an advantage. If it’s armor or some type of life support, wouldn’t that knowledge serve as a starting point on pinpointing a weakness? I make a mental note to talk to Jareth when we’re out of earshot.
My mysterious, pompous companion walks with a light grace in his steps, somehow conveying an unworried attitude with each long stride.
What’s his story? He said he lost loved ones, too. I feel bad—sort of—for not trying to reach out again, because getting to know him, or anyone, is risky. Attaching myself to another person leaves my heart open and exposed, and I don’t like being at the mercy of my emotions. Besides, last night, I tried to prod him into telling me about his past, but he shut down and deflected the conversation.
That’s right, Tilly, don’t make this personal. You don’t need to know anything about this guy. This is an acquaintance of convenience, nothing else. You have one purpose here, and what is it? Survive and find Sissy.
I think about my sister while we walk the road. How did she survive the EMPs and the virus? I’m sure she worried herself sick over my fate. She has no family, besides her boyfriend, and a knot of sorrow flares within. Sissy, I’m coming. Hang on a little longer. You won’t believe the stories I have to tell. A lighter feeling replaces the sadness. And—I can’t wait for you to see this guy I met. He’s a real piece of work, a royal jackass, but intriguing, too.
The bar ditches sway with tall Johnson grass. Yellowish-brown weeds fill the cracks in the road.
Twenty or thirty feet away, in the trees and brush, squirrels run up the trunk of the nearest tree and twitch their brown tails in irritation. Angry at our disturbance, they still try to meet their nut quota for the winter.
Kodiak, erect, veers off the road every few feet to tree the little varmints and bark. He doesn’t put a lot of effort into catching them, however.
“He’s going soft because of you.” A handful of dried fruit from this morning disintegrates in my mouth.
“What? Who?”
“Your food bribery has the dog feeling fat and sassy.” I resist the urge to poke at the motionless form of the alien. Instead, I focus my anger on the man of the hour. “His half-hearted attempts at hunting are more for fun than survival now.”
Knowing Jareth is buying the dog’s loyalty irritates me, but I’m glad Kodiak’s getting the chance to be a care-free canine instead of a starving scavenger. Guilt chases this thought, and I try not to glare at Jareth’s back as we walk.
Under the shade of a tree, Kodiak cries out then growls a complaint.
“What’s wrong?” A faint bark overhead draws my attention.
One fluffy-tailed squirrel, the ringleader, leads a nut-wielding troop. A flying projectile bounces off Kodiak’s head, followed by another. One of them tags my arm.
“Damn it.” A closer glance reveals the object. “Pecans. Really? Get ‘em, Kodiak.”
My fearless canine companion dips his head and lowers his eyes, but he follows the road, tail slashing back and forth, not taking the bait yet.
“Oh, come on. You used to trap these little fuckers then eat them in one gulp. Don’t tell me you’ve lost your taste for squirrel meat.”
Jareth shakes his head and curls his lip.
A smile beams from my face. “Surely, even a refined man like you has had to eat whatever while surviving in the wilderness.” Why do I enjoy irritating him so much? “Ever tried possum? Get hungry enough and you might.” I smack my lips. “Spit ‘em over an open fire for an hour or two, and the meat falls right off the bone.”
“That’s so nasty. I’m never letting you cook for me.” One brow lifts, and he looks like he’s trying to determine if I’m pranking or not.
“Mmm mmm. Just the idea of smoked possum is making me hungry.”
His eyes widen, and the sneer rises higher.
He thinks I’m serious, and I want to laugh. With earnest effort, I resist the impulse. His discomfort causes immense pleasure to flutter in my chest.
There’s something innocent in his disgusted look of wonder that belies the bluster of his haughty personality—as if he’s never known someone of a lower class and is struggling to deal with the implications.
His face blanches, and his head shakes back and forth. The Adam’s apple of his throat works a couple of times while he swallows.
The urge to tease intensifies. If he thinks I’m uncouth, he should meet my cousins. My mood sobers. They’re all dead, and this realization is an effective buzzkill.
Another series of barks—in stereo, no less—chirp from the canopy.
“Face the facts, boy. You’re outnumbered, and they’ve got higher ground.”
Kodiak gives up the pathetic squirrel chase, circles around Jareth, sniffs the air near Sparky, then returns to my side.
He hasn’t tried to bite the space visitor yet, but he does sneak dirty glances when he thinks Sparky’s attention is elsewhere. When Kodiak decides my company is boring, he gives the black and silver legs a wide berth and meanders forward to Jareth.
The group continues, and the day passes in relative silence, which is a pleasant change. Between the trees, a small wheat field breaks up the monotony of forest. In the distance, over rolling hills, I can make out the s
hapes of a brown buck dashing into the safety of the forest.
My attention wanders from the wild fields to the untamed thoughts swirling in my mind. Humanity’s stumbling out of the grand old age of technology and treading the same paths of its ancestors. The pendulum swung back, and the momentum is wiping mankind off the map.
I think about my parents. What did they ever do to deserve such pain, such indignity? Remembering their deaths feels like ripping off a fresh scab. I didn’t just lose my family that day, I lost my own sense of self, alone and adrift in a menacing world full of decay no matter where I went.
The helmeted suit before me causes a fresh burst of hatred to spread. I despise him for what he represents.
“You doing all right back there, Red?”
A small growl issues from my throat. Why’d I get stuck with such a thorn in my side? “I wish you’d stop calling me that.”
He stops and the group catches up to his tall form.
When I’m an arm’s length away, my head barely reaches his shoulders.
“But you’re so cute when you’re all red and angry.”
“I’m not kidding. Stop calling me that. How would you like it if I called you names all the time?”
He bumps his shoulder into my own, causing me to stumble. “I’m certain a few choice nicknames have already slid between those pretty lips. In answer to your question, though, I’ve never had a nickname, so I might like it.”
For some reason, his compliment pisses me off even more, because it’s a ploy to get a rise out of me. It works. “Okay, fine. How does Prick sound?”
His jovial face drops. “Man, you cut to the bone.”
My eyes roll and I flap a hand in dismissal. Our other humanoid companion follows the movement of my hand with his head.
I shift closer to Jareth and narrow my stare on Sparky. “Doesn’t he give you the damn creeps? I bet he thinks of us as annoying mosquitoes, or less, something he can crush underfoot without a second thought, like ants.”
Jareth leans in, mouth grazing my ear. Warm breath slides through my hair, and a shiver races down my neck, causing goosebumps. “But even bugs bite. Mosquitoes have killed more people than any other animal or insect on the planet.”
The hope in his statement pulls me out of my dark thoughts. I stuff the hate back down, swallowing its bitter taste. Now’s not the time to lose focus or give in to emotions. Jareth’s information feeds a spark of optimism inside my heart. Even little bugs can bring down those much stronger, and right now, I want to be an insect.
Kodiak, Jareth, and I stand in the middle of the road. Moving away from Sparky’s approaching form, I keep an eye on the black helmet.
One of Jareth’s fingers points to a beige, two-story home set back from the road. “We should go ahead and camp while there’s daylight. That should be a solid place to spend the night.”
“An actual house?” The idea of staying in a real structure is exciting. I haven’t slept on a mattress since Abilene. The drawback of staying in a such a personal space means I’ll come across reminders of families, long dead and gone. Corpses are sometimes an unpleasant surprise, too. But with Kodiak and Jareth, the usual fear recedes because I won’t be alone if I do come face to face with the dead.
The sun kisses the horizon. “Damn, I didn’t even realize it was near evening.” I turn my attention to my dog. “You tired, boy?”
Kodiak pants, tongue hanging out of his muzzle. He lies in soft dirt next to the road’s shoulder. ““Need a rest, huh?” I bend down and stroke his head.
He nuzzles my wrist with his nose.
From this distance, the windows of the house are dark. A gate swings back and forth in the wind, creating a soft squeak. The lawn’s overgrown with tall grass and brownish-green shrubs that point to the sky. The paint on the house is still fresh and unblemished, the wooden siding straight. A metal roof gleams copper in the sunlight. Leading to the home is a gravel path that stops at a white picket fence. The house sits far enough from the road that it’s not visible until in direct line of sight.
“Shouldn’t we stay off the roads? The pods are coming out more often, day or night, and using roadways in their search for whatever it is they’re looking for. What if they they’re using ‘em like a grid to follow since they interconnect?”
His face tilts to the sky for a moment, hair loose and wild from the exertion of today’s hike. He scans the wide-open space for a moment longer, then tilts those curls in my direction.
“Aw, don’t worry, Red. I won’t let the big, bad aliens get you.”
Sighing, I close my eyes and focus on breathing. “God, you’re such a—”
“A what?”
I open my eyelids and leave the sentence hanging. Egotistic maniac is what I want to say, but I refuse to give in to the urge. He wants me to stoop to his level—nope, won’t do it.
His feet carry him closer, and he leans a leather-clad shoulder near my arm. That adorable dimple pokes a hole in his cheek. The sight irritates and fascinates me.
Nothing about this man should be adorable or fascinating. Yet I can’t deny what I feel. This conundrum named Jareth has me looking at the world as if I’m standing on the top of my head, never quite knowing which way is right-side up.
“Come on, say it, Red. Might as well. If you keep it bottled up inside, it’s going to spill out eventually.” His cocky grin returns. “And then the explosion might force you to say something that hurts my feelings. And you know what happens after that.”
My head tilts to the side, and I try to feign boredom. Don’t do it, Tilly. It’s not worth the trouble. Keep your mouth shut. I’m learning to play his games by keeping quiet.
He takes his hands and shoves them in his back pockets. The movement forces his chest outward, stretching the material of his shirt and jacket. “Well, considering where you come from, you may not know what happens next, so let me educate you, my little cowgirl. When two people have a fight and then forgive each other, they have what’s called make-up sex. We should try it.”
Smashing my foot to the ground, a hot rush of blood floods my face. “You listen here, you—you . . .”
“This should be good.” One corner of his mouth curls. “Spit it out, Red. You can do it. I bet you’ve never even been with a guy, have you?” His leering face rakes my body from head to toe.
My mind is on fire. “The business of my virginity is not something I’m about to discuss with you.”
The knowing look on his face makes me realize I’ve answered his question with my heated response. Words and curses flood my brain along with images of beating him to a bloody pulp. How could I have ever thought that dimple was cute?
“You swine. You’re a revolting, disgusting, and conceited man. I wouldn’t have sex with you even if you were the last human on the planet.”
His sure-of-himself grin drops a fraction, but enough is still in place to make me want to smack him in the nose.
When he moves in closer, hot breath caresses my chin and carries the faint scent of the forest. “You sure about that?” His pink lips, inches from mine, draw me to his mouth. One part of me wants to crash my fist into them, but the other wonders how they feel, taste.
Feet on the ground, as if rooted like twin tree trucks, keep me in place. “I’m sick of your swagger, the sexual innuendos, and most of all, I’m done with your head games.”
He studies my face for a moment, then lifts a hand and tips my chin back.
I freeze. The pads of his thumb and index finger are warm and firm on my skin. My lips, in anticipation of a kiss, betray me and open. What the fuck, body?
Those dark browns glue themselves to my mouth. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing I’m not the last human on the planet.” His voice trails off into a whisper and he takes a step back. A look of regret, or something like it, clouds his face before he pivots on his heels.
I reach out and grab a wrist before he takes a step away.
“What? You change your mind?” Quick su
rprise flashes in his eyes, but then he slams the door on it, as if the emotion was never there in the first place.
“Why do you act like such a pompous ass? No one can be this obnoxious all the time.”
He twists his hand from my grip, all traces of good humor and teasing gone. “Think you know me? Well, you don’t have a damned clue.” His voice is thick with pain, or remorse.
“I’d like to get to know the real Jareth. Not this chauvinistic ass who hides behind an overinflated ego. You try to exude some kind of bad boy facade, but I see glimpses of decency and kindness when you think no one’s watching. That’s the Jareth I want to meet, not this shallow, distasteful version on display.”
His arm rises, and his body goes rigid. He pushes an accusing index finger into the area below the center of my collarbone. “I already told you I’m not good, not decent, and certainly not kind.”
With a jerk of his chin, he looks at Kodiak. “I wasn’t lying when I told you I was going to leave you on the road. This dog of yours, though, wouldn’t leave me alone until I checked on your sprawled body. After that, my curiosity got the best of me, and here I am, having a stupid discussion about my character with a girl who can barely get by on her own without falling down.”
I stamp my foot on the ground. “Just you listen here, you—”
He raises the finger from my sternum to sit on my lips. That’s all it takes for the words to die in my mouth. I’m still pissed, though, and can feel my face scrunched up in anger.
The irritation in his voice disappears, but a quiet fury simmers underneath his words. “Be glad you don’t know the real Jareth and thank your lucky stars. What you see right now is what you get, Tilly. I think you bring out some less flawed parts in me, I don’t know, but don’t count on it. There’s a reason I was living alone. I don’t like people, and I don’t like myself.”
There’s anger in his eyes, a deep fury that blackens the brown irises to onyx with a few faint flecks of gold.
I swat his hand away.
My words ring in my ears. I’d like to get to know the real Jareth. Damn it, this is the truth. For some strange reason, even with all his machismo and swagger, I’m drawn to some force or charisma he exudes. Even him stating he’s not a good person and he hates people isn’t enough to scare me away. How stupid can I be?
The Descendant: Baltin Trilogy (Book 1) Page 14
