After (72 page)

She touched the knife in her pocket.

Near the fireplace, heat still radiating from a few fading embers, a voice, thick and male, said, “I promise you don't need that. I'm only hiding, not lying in wait.” The wick of a lantern flared and pale, slender fingers and sharp eyes appeared. The major.

On the table at his elbow, a bottle, empty except for a few remaining inches of an amber liquid, and beside it, a half-full glass.

Nix pulled her hand from her pocket, but her heart kept hammering at her ribs.

“Trouble sleeping?” he asked.

“You wanted to be alone.”

She turned to leave, but he said, “The marks on your neck, on your wrists.

They're recent.”

Her throat closed around a “Yes.”

“There was a time when I thought human beings were better than animals.”

A shudder rippled down her back as Smith swallowed a mouthful of amber liquid.

“Given the way you're looking at me, I gather you've read Eva's notebooks,” he said.

A little of her rage, some of the fear that had welled as he entered the room ebbed behind her surprise. “Yes.”

“I suppose history will judge me no better than Riggs.”

Nix wondered if he'd have said that if Gareth were in the room. Or John.

“Should it?” she asked.

Smith smiled. His smile was nothing like Gareth's, nothing like John's. Their smiles ranged from sad to warm, but were always earnest. The major's always seemed wry. Like he was laughing silently at some secret joke. “I think so, yes.”

She did, too. And so had Eva. What had she said in the journal? That his worst sin was trying so hard to make the world right, at the expense of making himself horribly wrong.

But none of his reasons, none of what he'd done after, dissolved Nix's anger at what he'd done to Eva before she turned the tables.

“I regret every second of fear, every moment of pain Eva endured as a result of decisions I made. Orders I gave. But after twenty years, not one of which has passed without my reflecting on my choices, I am at a loss to think what I ought to have done differently. And, even if it's due entirely to Eva and to luck, I can hardly wish to undo the outcome those choices ultimately wrought. The one thing I would undo was not a choice, but an accident. One unfortunate slip, which destroyed six lives. Or perhaps only five. I haven't decided yet, about Gareth.”

Nix caught herself smiling, cynical and resigned. Gareth wasn't even his, and he'd trade.

“Please, tell me,” he said, that ironic grin bending his lips.

“You mean Nadia.”

The ironic smile changed subtly. “Yes. It's another of my unpardonable sins that I'd undo her birth if it would put things back the way they were.”

“So you and John could have Gareth back.”

Smith laughed. It was awful. Heart-breaking.

In a sad, quiet voice, then, he said, “No. No, so I could have Eva back. Others, too, of course. But Eva especially.”

His wistful expression altered, registered whatever he saw in Nix's eyes.

“Yes, I know how awful I am, saying that. Even under the auspices of a truth commission, a man who admits he'd sacrifice his daughter to have his lover back is a monster. All other sins must be confessed, but that one should always, always stay hidden. But how many men wouldn't choose the life of their beloved over their unborn child, if her death could be foretold?”

He took a deep drought of the amber liquid in his glass.

“But it's not entirely selfish, I assure you, this hypothetical devil's bargain of mine.

If Eva had lived, if Riggs hadn't stolen Gareth, others who suffered would have stayed safe. The pure could have stayed innocent.”

He seemed to float away on the fumes rising from the glass in his grip, drift off into reverie. But he pulled in, solidified, focused.

“We'd have accomplished more by now. Our dark swath of the world would be less awful. Eva's death, Gareth's disappearance...well, I wasn't much for action, for strategy, after that. Not for a long time. We'd have done more by now, with Eva at our side.”

Nix said, “Maybe you wouldn't have done as much.”

Smith nursed his drink, and after a few seconds, arched an eyebrow.

“Perhaps. Perhaps you're right. All that, putting her plans in motion, pulling the women we've found from their chains, metaphorically speaking—usually, at least—

integrating the men willing to adapt to this way of life, forging the safe zone, town by town, it's all been my way of keeping her close. Of letting her vision, her work, live, even though she died. Yes, perhaps you're right. Possibly I'm as bad as Riggs, then, after all.”

Another deep swallow of the pungent liquid.

“I'm being rude. Can I offer you a glass?”

Her stomach turned at the thought. Just the smell made her gut clench.

“No. Thanks.” Her throat was tight.

“You have an aversion to alcohol.” He grinned. “Or is it an aversion to me?”

He stood, the bottle in one hand, his glass in the other, and took a step toward her. She'd cringed back, she realized when he froze in place, then stepped back again.

“I'm sorry. I didn't intend to startle you,” he said.

“It's not you. When I was young, my husband, my owner, he drank a lot. The smell reminds me of him.”

“In that case, since you have unhappy associations with my vice, I'll put it away.”

He squatted down with surprising agility, given how much he'd drunk even just since she'd arrived, and a panel in the side table swung open, revealing a concealed cabinet. He stashed the bottle inside. The glass, too. He straightened and rose to his feet like a man of fewer years and fewer vices, turned to her and smiled.

“Will you sit with me for a few minutes longer?”

“Alright.”

He gestured to the chair nearest the dying embers of the fire, and when she'd sat, he sank into the chair opposite.

“Please,” he said, smiling a disarming, charming smile unlike the smile of any man Nix had ever known, “tell me about my son.”

When she went back to their room, Gareth was awake. Sitting in a chair by the window, the moon's cool, pale light pulling a swath of him from the dark, he smiled, and the magnet at her center pulled her. She went to him. Touched his naked shoulder.

Pulled him to her, cradled his head against her belly. His arms wound around her.

Strange, so impossible, that strong arms could feel so warm, so safe. That his heat, the feel of his soft hair under her fingers, the warmth of his breath seeping into her shirt could stir that ache of want.

In bed, she touched him. That hot, heavy want swelling and seeping, she felt the shape of his jaw in the cradle of her hand, felt his soft lips give under the faint pressure of her thumb as she traced their shape, felt his hot belly sink and rise, felt his nipples stiffen. He was already hard when she slid her hand down and curved her fingers over him, firm and warm under his snug underwear. As she cupped him in her hand, followed the hard length of him down between his thighs, he sighed and pulled her closer.

Strange. Impossible. She wanted, needed him inside her.

“Touch me.”

His fingertip lit on her shoulder and feathered down the length of her arm, traced the outline of her fingers, tickled up the inside of her wrist and the crease of her elbow.

With the softest touch, he sketched the features of her face, the whorl of her ear. From a faint touch of lips, she coaxed a deep, urgent kiss from him. Hot. Wet. Curving her fingers around his wrist, she brought his hand down and pressed it to her bare belly, then guided it up, under her tank top, to her breast.

“I don't want to hurt you,” he breathed.

“You won't.”

His breath hitching, his fingertips brushed over her delicate skin, circumnavigating the base of her breast.

“So soft,” he sighed.

When he touched her nipple, sudden sensation gripped her breast and radiated down her torso. Her nerves sang out, cried out with a sundering pleasure laced with a dozen years of pain. His warm touch slid away.

“I'm alright,” she whispered.

“I'm scared. I'm scared of hurting you.”

“You won't, Gareth. You can't.”

In the faint moonlight, she smiled, then slid out of her top and underwear. When she coaxed him, he stripped out of his briefs, then lay down beside her. Under the hand she pressed to his chest, she felt his heart thumping fast and heavy. Down lower, he was still perfectly hard.

She kissed him, deep, on and on. When they broke apart, panting, she coaxed him atop her, cradled him between her thighs. It was all new, the want so strong it hurt, the warmth that came from his body, enveloping her, but felt like joy coming from inside herself, rising to her skin, singing all her raw nerves. Needing, seeking, she pulled him down against her, rocked her hips, rubbed her cunt along the length of his hard cock, felt him shudder, heard him gasp. Whispered, “Please.”

Between her legs, he shifted, the hot skin of his sleek hips slid against the insides of her thighs, and his sex glided over hers, brushed over a million nerves with startling pleasure. Pleasure. A miracle. His body touched, nuzzled against her, seeking to enter.

Against him, she felt how wet, how open she was. Her body's “yes.”

Against her, his body flexed and her heart pumped a surge of hot adrenaline through all her veins. His body flexed. He shuddered and sighed but she was empty.

Still waiting. He shuddered and groaned and sank down on her, still apart from her, her still empty body. Warm, wet, his face, warm, wet fell, drop by drop, wet her lashes, her brow, her cheek, her lips. His tears.

“What?” she breathed. “Gareth?”

“I can't. Please. I can't do it.”

He sank down on top of her, wrapped his arms around her, pulled her so tight to his hot, hard body she felt she was being crushed but it was almost a comfort, a consolation for that painful emptiness. Against her breasts, her belly, even her sex, she felt his body shuddering. His tears wet the side of her face and slid down into her hair where his hot breath rushed and gathered. While he cried, she stroked and kissed and cradled and regretted choosing this night, when he was flayed raw from finding his family, his past.

She whispered, “It's alright. It's alright,” and went on caressing his neck, his shoulders, his back.

“I never want to hurt you.”

“I know.”

“Every time I've been inside someone, I hurt them. Every time I've seen a woman with a man, he was hurting her.”

He'd seen the ceremony, but maybe that didn't count, for Gareth. It hadn't counted for her, either. That pair, it didn't feel real. Not like sex. Not like the pair of men in the woods.

“Even though you're my friend, even though I love you, Nix, even with my heart full of love, when I tried to move, to go inside you, my body, my brain, they keep tricking me. It feels like the second I'm inside you, moving inside you, I'll be... I don't want to feel like I'm raping you. I don't want it to feel that way to you.”

“It didn't feel like that to me,” she said gently. “Not even a little.”

In the dim night, he lifted his head and gave her his sad smile. “I'm glad.”

“If it feels bad, being like this, we can get up. Get dressed and talk.”

“I like this,” he whispered, his gravel voice rougher than usual. “Lying here with you. Like this.”

“Me too. I like how your body feels against mine.”

“You do?” He sounded like it couldn't be true.

“Yes. You're so warm.” That sounded stupid. It wasn't what she meant. “I mean, it feels, you feel...like life. Like a part of me that isn't always there, like I need to get closer.” Like she needed him inside her. Still. Painfully.

He said, “All my life, all I've done with this body is hurt people. It's strange to think of it feeling good to you.”

“Do I feel good to you?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“Maybe it's the same. You feel as good to me as I do to you.”

“I worry...”

“What?” she asked when the silence stretched out, second after second.

“I worry that when you touch me, when you hold me while we sleep, you're doing it only for me. Not because it's something you want for yourself. I've felt it from the beginning, from that first night you came into my bed and held me while I...”

“No. Back then, maybe. You're right. I wanted to be kind. To give you something you needed. But now, no. I never thought I could, I thought I never would, but I want. I want you.”

“Whatever happens between you and me, Nix, I don't want it to be like it would have been with that woman in Sewanee. I want everything between us to be for you, for both of us. Please. Promise me you won't give anything, do anything only to be kind.

Please.”

“Alright, Gareth. I promise.”

She kissed his palm, the inside of his wrist. Sensing his warm flesh against her lips, her want welled up under the sadness wrapped tight around her, squeezing her. So bad, so much, her need, this sudden overwhelming want. But beside her, in her arms, against her body, Gareth was more hurt, more scared than needful, so she wrapped him in her warmth and held him until he fell asleep.

* * * *

It was a rush, fucking exhilarating, feeling tons of metal surge to life at the turn of a key, feeling it thrust forward when she put a little pressure on the fuel pedal under her foot. Like the first time she'd ridden a horse and felt how the kick of her heel, the tug of the reins in her hand made the animal respond. But this truck was imbued with a power, a magic she felt in her blood, in every muscle and nerve. This army, her army, had it.

The men of the west didn't.

In the afternoon, the big guns she and Gareth trained on, along with the other resistance people in the afternoon felt the same way. Like pure, intoxicating power.

Sure, weapons like those had been found, horded, traded on the black markets over the line, but in the average town, the men had nothing bigger than their private caches of shotguns, rifles and pistols. When they saw that one shell from the big artillery could blow a granary to burning bits in a single blast, when they realized that the bullets from their sidearms couldn't penetrate the armored vehicles of their enemy, the townsmen would be wetting their pants. The thought made Nix smile.