Silas (26 page)

“
Sorry,” she
said.

I took another drink. “What
else do you want? You want trail mix? You want beef
jerky?”

She held out her hand for the
Coke.

I gave it back to her.

She took another drink. Then
she shook the can. “Oops. I think there’s only like one drink
left.”

“
It’s okay,” I said. “We
deserved to drink it fast.” I finished the last drop of the sweet,
fizzy liquid. “We still have another whole can.”

She nodded. She wiped her
mouth.

“
Seriously,” I said. “We
should eat something.”

She bit her lip. “Oh my
god.”

“
What?” I said.

“
Oh my god, Silas, I killed
someone.” She put a hand to her mouth. She shook her head. “I
killed someone, and it didn’t even bother me.”

I got the jerky out of the
backpack and handed her a piece. “Here, eat some meat.”

She took the jerky. She
stared at it. “That’s what you have to say? Eat some
meat?”

I ran a hand through my
hair. “You had to kill him. He was trying to kill us.”

“
Like Griffin and Leigh,”
she said.

“
Yeah.”

“
So, it’s self defense, so I
should just get over it?”

I took out a piece of jerky
for myself. I took a bite. I chewed. “Kind of, yeah. When we get
out of this, you can go see a therapist or something, and you can
work out all of the terrible things that happened to you. But if
you spend too much time trying to think about it right now, you’re
going to lose focus, and you’re going to get yourself killed. The
most important thing is surviving right now.”

She took a bite of the meat.
She laughed helplessly. “Days ago, I couldn’t even imagine killing
someone. Since then, four people have died right in front of my
face. And I killed one of them.”

I wasn’t sure what to say or
do. Did she want comfort? Should I rub her shoulder or hug her or
something? No, I shouldn’t do that, because all of that touching
stuff was way awkward between us. I should definitely keep my hands
off of her.

She ate another bite of
jerky. “So, you’re saying that it’s okay to not think about
it?”

“
More than okay. It’s the
right way to go about it.”

Another little laugh. “I
guess you would know. How many people have you killed?”

“
I don’t know,” I said. “I
don’t keep track of that stuff.” I shrugged and shoved the rest of
the piece of jerky into my mouth.

“
Did it ever bother you?”
she asked. “At first, did it bother you?”

I bundled up the jerky, the
trail mix, and the other can of Coke into the backpack. I took it
further into the cave. “We can have some more later. But we should
try to make it last.”

She let out a frustrated
sound. “Look, obviously it bothered you if you’re avoiding the
topic.”

I came back to the front of
the cave. “I’m not avoiding anything.”

“
You avoid everything,” she
said. “You hide from everything you feel.”

“
Most of my feelings are not
exactly pleasant,” I said.

“
Oh?” she said. She
scrambled to her feet. She got up on tiptoe and pressed her lips
against mine. “What about that? Did that make you feel anything?
Was that unpleasant?”

I was too shocked to
respond.

“
Maybe you need me to do it
again.” Her lips were there again. Insistent, soft,
urgent.

She started to pull away.

But I caught her. I cupped
the back of her head with one hand, and I stopped her from moving.
I kissed her again. More thoroughly this time. I swept my tongue
into her mouth. She tasted like Coca-Cola and beef
jerky.

Right now, that was like the nectar of
the gods.

She responded, teasing my
tongue with her own, opening her mouth to me. Her arms came up
around my neck and she was against me, the heat of her whole body
searing into me—all her soft curves.

Abruptly, she wrenched herself
away.

“
Fuck,” she whispered. She
was crying.

I felt confused.
“Christa?”

“
Fuck
.”

“
Why did you do
that?”

“
I don’t know.” She
sounded angry. “I never know why I do that. Maybe it makes me feel
powerful. Maybe throwing that stick at that guy made me feel
powerful too. Maybe I just like thinking that I can…
do
something to other
people. Maybe it’s got nothing to do with anything except
that.”

I reached for her. “Look,
why don’t you calm—”

She shoved my hands away.
“Stop it. Don’t touch me.”

“
Okay.” I massaged the
bridge of my nose. I was getting more confused.

“
Do you like it,
Silas?”

“
Like what?”

“
Killing people.”

I hesitated.
“No.”

“
Really?”

“
What about fucking people?”
she said. “Do you like fucking girls? Fucking them
over?”

“
I don’t fuck girls
over.”

“
That’s not what everyone
else says about you. They say you use ‘em and lose ‘em.”

“
What does that have to do
with killing people?”

“
Simple, Silas. It’s power.”
She leaned close to me. She smiled, and I remembered that smile. It
was the same satisfied way she’d looked at me when her hand was on
my dick. “Do you like feeling powerful?”

I looked away.
“Maybe.”

She nodded. “Me too.” And
then she burst into tears. “Me too,” she repeated, her voice
thick.

I tried to touch her again.

But she slapped at my arms.
“Don’t.” She retreated to the edge of the cave and curled up in a
ball.

I went to her. I knelt down.
“Christa—”

“
Don’t,” she said. “Leave me
alone, Silas.”

I could not figure her out
for the life of me. I raised my hands in surrender. “Fine. That’s
what you want? Fine.”

* * *

That night, I woke up because she was
crying out in her sleep.

We were lying on opposite
sides of the cave. She was wrapped up in the jacket we’d taken from
the hunter. I got up and went to her.

I sat down next to her, and
I gently took her shoulders and shook her awake. “Shh,” I murmured.
“Shh, you’re dreaming.”

Her eyes snapped
open.

“
It’s okay,” I said. “You
were only dreaming.”

She sat up. She looked
around. Then she laughed. “Oh god. For a second I thought maybe
none of this was real. I thought maybe I was in my bed on campus.
Hell, I wouldn’t even have minded if my roommate had brought her
stupid boyfriend over to sleep with her in the bottom bunk. I
thought maybe I dreamed being chased by men who were trying to kill
me.”

“
Sorry,” I said.

“
It’s all real,” she said.
“This hell is my life right now.”

I sat back. “I really am
sorry.”

“
It’s not your
fault.”

“
I think it is.”

“
No.” She reached out and
touched my face. “You didn’t have a choice with Sylvia. And this is
hell for you too.”

“
What were you dreaming
about?”

“
Fuck my dream,” she said.
She crawled over me so that her body hovered over mine. Her face
was inches from my own. “You want me, don’t you? You wanted me
before. Nothing’s changed, has it?”

I sighed in frustration.
“Are you going to be like this again?”

Her hands ran over my chest.
My stomach. “I want to feel wanted,” she whispered. “I want to feel
something good right now. You want me, don’t you?”

The hell of it was that I did want her.
I could feel how close she was, and my body was responding to her
nearness.

Her hand went lower, sliding
under the band of my jeans.

“
Christa,” I
choked.

She wrapped her hand around my
dick.

I grunted.

“
Let’s fuck,” she
said.

“
What?”

Her hand started to move on
me, dragging up and down over my shaft. “Give me a second, and I’ll
get you hard, and then—”

I grabbed her wrist,
stopping her movement. I wasn’t entirely sure why I was stopping
her. After all, what she was doing felt really good.
“Wait.”

“
Silas, please. It’ll be
nice. I promise to make it nice for you.”

I yanked her hand out of my
jeans. “Why are you doing this? I thought you hated me.”

“
I don’t
hate
you,” she
said.

“
But you don’t like me
either, do you?”

“
I don’t know,” she said.
“What do you care? Since when does it matter if you like the person
that you’re fucking?”

“
It matters,” I
said.

“
No, it doesn’t,” she said.
“You said it yourself, you don’t believe in love.”

“
That doesn’t mean that I’d
fuck anything at all. I have to kind of like them.”

“
Don’t you like me?” She
kissed me.

Fuck. I did like her. She
was crazy and a little bit slutty. She was very possibly the only
person I knew who was weirder about sex than I was. But she was
confident and sexy and sure of herself. “Are you doing this because
you killed that guy? Is this some way for you to wipe all of that
out of your mind?”

“
Whatever,” she said again.
Her hands were at my crotch again, this time unzipping my
jeans.

“
Stop,” I said. But I didn’t
stop her. Despite everything, my cock was really hard now, and it
pointed straight up at the ceiling the minute it was
freed.

She stroked it again. “Mmm,
that’s more like it. Nice and big and stiff.” Her voice was a sexy
croon.

It went through me like a
jolt. Suddenly, I wanted her very badly. I didn’t think there was
anything on the face of the planet I wanted more. I
gasped.

She let go of me to shimmy
out of her pants.

Then she was straddling me.
She ran her hands over my chest. “I want to ride you, Silas. I want
to ride your big, hard cock.”

God, when had she started talking like
a porn star?

And why did I have this
feeling that I really shouldn’t let her do that?

But, fuck, I wanted her.

She had her hands on me again, guiding
me against her wet slit.

I moaned.

Stop her,
I thought.
She killed a
guy. She’s obviously freaked out about it. She’s not in a mental
position to consent to this. She’s doing this for all the wrong
reasons. A nice guy would never let her do something like
this.

Her tight pussy descended over my cock.
She was wet and hot and soft and slippery, and all thought in my
head went to white noise for a minute.

Good
, I thought. That was all I could think.
This feels good.

She moved on me, dragging herself up
and down against my cock.

Very fucking
good
, I thought.

“
How’s that, Silas?” she
murmured. “How’s that feel?”

I grabbed her by the hips. I
stopped her from moving. My voice came out strained. “You know, I
never even said that I wanted to do this.”

Her finger traced a line
from my belly button up my chest. “You’re not enjoying yourself?
You don’t like this?”

I let out a groan. “I don’t
think
you
like
this.”

“
Of course I do,” she said,
her voice breathy. “I love having your huge, thick cock rammed up
into me. I love riding you. Fuck me, Silas. Fuck me
hard.”

Okay, that was…
shit
. How was I supposed
to be the responsible nice guy when she was talking like
that?

I couldn’t.

After all, I wasn’t a nice
guy.

I was a jerk.

And she could make her own
decisions. She was a big girl. If she didn’t want to have sex with
me, she could have
not
put my dick into her pussy. So, you know, there was really no
reason for me to not screw her senseless.

I thrust up into her, still holding her
hips in place. I pushed deep into her sweet warmth.

She let out a little cry.
“That’s right. You want this.”

I grasped her by the front of her shirt
and tugged her down against me. I kissed her hard, pushing my
tongue into her mouth.

She pulled back. “Say it,
Silas. Tell me you want me.”