Revolution (23 page)

             
So why did I feel like someone had kicked me in the guts?

             
Supper was served up by Marissa and Ann. Rice and beans. It was beginning to be a running joke. Elli
e
kept her distance and kept quiet, too. I tried not to feel
guilty for what I had said,
sparing her seemed the best thing for her. But looking at her
now
…was it? She looked silently miserable and even though it hurt, it also was a eye opener. She was upset about me which made my stupid human heart beat for different reasons other than keeping me alive.

             
So it seemed that my little chat
to talk her out of falling for me was making
me
fall for
her
.

             
I tried to ignore her by filling my routine with Calvin and
Frank. Frank was still slow moving
around with Calvin practically his indent
ured servant. I
remembered actual indentured servants. Calvin was a pretty good one, but Frank was a horrible master. I smiled at them as they played cards.

             
"Uhuh, it's twenty one
,
not three card poker! Keep up, man!" Calvin complained at Frank dealing.

             
"Right. Ok, ready to get spanked?" he said as he re-dealt.

             
"Ha! Bro, they totally don't say 'spanked' anymore."

             
"Who doesn't?"

             
"Anybody!" Calvin said and laughed. "At least not the cool peeps."

             
"No one says 'peeps' anymore, I bet," Frank rebutted sullenly.

             
"I'll let you have that one 'cause you're cripple. Deal, man."

             
He flung the card across the small table at him. "I'm not a cripple! It's just my wrist." He
looked down and grinned. "Wicked
scar, right?"

             
"It's sick, dude."Calvin leaned back in his c
hair all cool like. "If there
were chicks here, they'd be impressed."

             
I shook my head as I tried to keep up with them.

             
"Can I join you?" I asked.

             
"Sure, Ry. Color the man up, Franky."

             
I asked quickly, "What does that mean?"

             
"It means
it don't matter 'cause we got no money anyway
," Frank explained….sort of. "Quit trying to be cool and show your cards, C."

             
He threw down a king and a
nine. "Booyah!
"
He yelled.

             
Frank grinned and laid out a king, then slowly revealed a queen. "Take that!"

             
"Dang, man! I sm
ell a cheater.
"

             
"You mean you smell a winner? Don't mind if I do," he said happily and grabbed all the
trinkets and string from the center. I looked at Calvin questionably and he explained that all they had were little objects to bet for. Whoever won the hand won whatever had been anted in the pot.

             
We played a few hands before they started yawning. Frank said he needed a nap, so we left him there to do just that. I went back into the main area to see Merrick pacing. His mind was filled with scenarios of Sherry not coming home. I sighed and went to his side. "She's fine."

             
"Every time she goes out without me, something happens," he explained loudly. "She's a magnet for trouble, always has been. I should never have let her go."

             
"It's only…" the quick look at the clock showed
it was almost six at night, "oh.
"

             
"Yeah, oh. I know Cain's with her, but…"

             
I looked over to see Lillian doing basically the same thing as Merrick on the other side of the bunker. Daniel was sitting on the floor, his head leaned back against i
t as he watched her every move with interest. I turned back to Merrick.

             
I focused on the fish bowl I was in. The answers to my internal fight had to be here somewhere, hidden in
silver linings and subliminal messages that people received in times like this. I just needed to pay attention.

             
I watched Merrick pace. I watched Lillian twist her hair over and over. I watched Daniel as he
pined over the girl he couldn't have and didn't really understand why. But all of them would do anything for the one they loved.

             
I just needed to figure out what was worth it.

             
Breaking her heart when I left for the one place I'd waited my entire existence to go to, or leaving her to her anger and hoping it was one day replaced with friendship.

             
Could I just be friends with her? That would have to be answered in time. I guess the real question was, would she always be so beautiful when she looked at me like she wanted to devour me on the spot?

A Need So Great

Daniel

             
It was the worst kind of torture to watch Lillian pine over her human male. She was making a thorough job of it, too. I felt a grimace touch my face at remembering how he'd gotten he
r
to marry him. The human tradition was apparently one of importance.

             
The look on her face as he said those words to her… I turned my face as if doing so would wipe it all from my mind. I turned back and saw that she'd stopped and was leaning on the crates as if exhausted.

             
We had all eaten long ago, except for Lillian who refused, but Lillian and I both had sat
t
here and waited for something. She was waiting for Cain to return, I was waiting for him to not. So harsh and evil, that thinking, but there it was. She couldn't be mine if he was here. He was the line in between us so the natural process would b
e to snub out the line with my
boot.

             
That's what I wanted to do.

             
But right then, as I looked at Lillian's hips and lower back as her shirt rode up, I saw an opportu
nity to offer her some authoritive
guidance.
She was rail thin these days, as were a lot of the humans, but from this angle, Lillian looked positively ghostly. And since s
he seemed to enjoy Cain's efforts to boss her around
…

             
I got up and too
k
cat-like steps to her. She
w
as in a daze and I didn't want to startle her. She saw me then and the reluctant smile that touched her full lips couldn't be coincidence. She had to feel something for me. Had to.

             
"You need to eat something," I told her gruffly. I realized that I hadn't spoken all day. "You haven't eaten all day."

             
She smiled in a distracted way. "How do you know that I haven't?"

             
"I've been watching you," I answered matter-of-factly.

             
"I know," she whispered and finally looked at me. "You shouldn't."
             
"I can't seem to stop."

             
"I used you," she said and straightened her back.
"Do you understand that? I knew you'd help me because you had a crush on me."

             
"I'm assuming that crush means that I have feelings for you?" She didn't answer, but I hadn't expected her to. "Then yes, I knew that and wanted to help you anyway."

             
"Why?" she said in true confusion as I stepped even closer. I was now in her personal space and could tell by the slight hitching of her breath that she realized that fact, too.

             
"I thought it was obvious," I said low, my chest rumbling. "Lillian…"

             
"Don't," she whispered and shook her head. "Ok, let's just get this out in the open. It'll take my mind off Cain anyway." She crossed her arms and let me have it. "I do feel something for you. What? I don't know. It feels like there's some connection there, but it's not a crush for me, or love, or anything along those lines. I just feel…like you should be here. Not for me, not for us, just…be here."

             
"Like I might serve a purpose?"

             
She nodded. "Exactly."

             
"A purpose to your human cause?"
             
She shrugged. "I have no idea. I can't imagine that that settles well with you. Just helping us and getting nothing in return."

             
I chuckled without human humor. "Oh, Lillian." I broke her unspoken boundary and touched her cheek lightly. "Just being here with you is worth anything and everything that has or could happen to me. I'll take what I can get."

             
"Then, please don't touch me anymore," she asked, but didn't swat me away. I took my hand back and she continued. "Friends, right?"

             
She held out a congenial hand to shake on it. Like it was a binding contract between us. "I can't shake on it."

             
"Why not?" she asked, but her eyes told me she already knew.

             
"Because I can't just be friends with you. Even if it's just one sided, even if nothing ever comes of the connection between us," I leaned and spoke into
her ear, "you'll always belong to me
in my mind."

             
"Daniel, you can't." She looked up, her face so close to mine. I was assaulted with the memory of what she tasted like. "
Why torture yourself? Why can't we just be friends and you accept that I'm with Cain?"