“Goddammit,” mutters Tarver, glancing at the advancing monsoon over my shoulder. “I’ll pay for this when you warm up enough to hate me again.”
What? I don’t have time to consider the words any further before he’s wrapping his hand around my wrist and jerking me forward, forcing me to break into a run before I’m yanked along after him like streamers on a parade car. I get my heavy legs moving somehow, reaching inside myself for one more effort.
My feet slide and skid in the mud behind him, and the bones in my wrist click under the tightness of his grip, but he doesn’t let go. He’s making for the dark smudge of the river on the horizon, and as we grow nearer, the darkness resolves into trees, and I don’t even care that we’re returning to forest again, because trees means wood and wood means fire and fire means warmth and I think I’ve forgotten what that feels like.
I open my mouth to say something, but before I find any words, the roar of oncoming rain overtakes us and the sky comes crashing down on our heads.
Tarver is cursing, swearing like I’ve never heard him do. The sudden torrent of water pries my wrist from his grip, my skin slipping free like wet rubber, and I go crashing to the ground. I’m more surprised than hurt, because I can’t really feel my legs, and I didn’t realize they weren’t working.
He scoops me up and carries me the last few meters to the shelter of the trees bordering the river, then dumps me unceremoniously on the ground.
“Stay there,” he shouts, putting his face close to mine until I push him away, because he’s dripping on me. The sound of the water hurling itself at the canopy is almost as deafening as the roar of the rainstorm outside, but the branches are thick, and they keep most of the water off us.
He throws his pack to the ground and rummages until he pulls out the mechanic’s suit, and shoves it at me. “Put that on,” he orders, retrieving the jacket he gave me earlier. Then he’s leaving again, pulling his gun out of its holster as he goes.
The mechanic’s suit stays where he put it, resting half in my lap, half draped over my folded arms. I’m too cold to take off my dress, wet as it is. I press myself against the tree trunk and wait for him to come back. Whispers rise at the edge of my hearing, somehow distinct from the sound of the rain on the trees overhead. The voices are no longer crying, but I still can’t make out the words. I stretch out my shaking hand in front of me, pale, clammy, smeared with dirt. I never knew madness came with such a physical toll.
I don’t know how much time has passed before I wake up to find Tarver gently tapping at my cheeks. “I’m going to try to get a fire going,” he says, and I realize he’s not shouting anymore. The rain must have lessened a little. “Get your dress off.”
“Why, Major,” I find myself whispering. “I never.”
“Lord help me,” he says, but this time he’s rolling his eyes, and I know he’d be laughing if he were a bit less cold. That is a triumph far more satisfying than annoying him ever was. “Just do it, okay? No arguing with me this time. I promise not to look. Dry off with the blanket, then put on the mechanic’s suit.”
I take the blanket he thrusts at me, and lean on the tree as I get to my feet, stiff and cold. The voices have stopped, but I’m still shivering. I’m working at the knotted laces for a full five minutes before I realize that I haven’t taken this dress off in five days, the laces are soaked and waterlogged, and my hands are so cold I can barely make them curl around the strings.
“Tarver,” I whisper. “I need help.”
There’s a spark of heat left in me, because I feel my cheeks beginning to burn as he turns to me, confused. Understanding dawns as his eyes fall to where my hands are fumbling at the neckline of my dress.
Muttering something foul-sounding in a language I don’t recognize, he closes the distance between us again and directs me to warm my hands under my arms while he tries to unknot the laces. Eventually he’s forced to pull out his knife and saw through them while I look away and try to think of something else. The dress was already so far past saving anyway. This is just one more tiny casualty in the name of survival.
I had the delicate purple flower that he gave me on the plains tucked down my bodice, and as I peel away the remains of the dress, I find it crushed against my skin, almost beyond recognition. I’m forced to let it go, drop it in the mud.
What does it say about how I’ve changed that I feel more for the loss of one tiny flower than for the loss of the dress?
He turns away to start finding kindling that isn’t soaked through, careful to keep his back to me, and I let the dress fall to the ground. Leaving it where it is, I grab the blanket and wrap it around myself, gasping in the cold. I drop to my knees so that the blanket will cover more of me as I huddle.
A tiny flicker of orange against my closed lids prompts me to open them to see Tarver nurturing a fledgling fire so carefully that his hands are shaking with the effort.
The trees above us have thick, broad leaves, but even so, it’s raining so hard that some water finds its way through. I can’t quite stop the inarticulate sound of relief that he was still able to find enough dry wood to burn. He looks up at the sound, eyes flickering down when he sees me in the blanket, then jerking away.
I must not be as covered as I think I am. Clearly I’m warming up, because suddenly I actually care, and hunch more carefully into my cocoon.
“On with the mechanic’s suit, Miss LaRoux. You’ll be the height of fashion, I promise. Then give me the blanket so I can dry off as much as I can.”
That’s what finally convinces me to give up my claim to the blanket. He’s still dripping, forced to lean away from the fire as he works so that he doesn’t swamp it. We’ll never be completely dry with the rain that makes its way past the canopy, but damp is better than soaked. I get to my feet and let the blanket fall so I can shove my legs into the bottom half of the suit and zip it up. It’s made for a man, and I draw my arms inside the loose material to cradle them against my chest, letting the sleeves hang empty. The material’s so rough that when it comes time to move out, I’ll have to wear the dress underneath or risk rubbing my skin raw. But for now, it’s comparatively dry, and that’s enough.
It isn’t until I crouch down next to the tiny fire that Tarver looks up again, cautiously. He adds another stick to the flames before standing to retrieve the blanket and start stripping off his own wet clothes. I am not as honorable as he is. My mind goes blessedly blank as I watch him drop his jacket and his shirt to the ground. His dog tags leap and gleam in the meager glow from the fire. His skin is taut with cold and covered with goose bumps, reddening as he scrubs at it briskly with a fistful of the blanket.
The jacket goes back on, and he lays his shirt out on the other side of the fire to dry before retrieving the blanket from the ground. He wraps this around me, and I don’t even care anymore about its coarseness—it’s warm despite being damp, and though all I can feel right now is the chill of my own body radiating back at me, I know in a few moments I’ll be better. My eyes follow Tarver as he goes through the motions of setting up camp, jerky and quick. It’s not until he’s got the canteen set to boil over the fire that he joins me, ducking abruptly inside my cocoon of blankets and wrapping an arm around me before I can react.
The fire’s still too young to give off much heat, hissing unhappily at the drops that squeeze past the sheltering trees overhead. After a time I stop shivering, but he keeps his arm around me nonetheless. There are no voices to be heard above the popping fire and the splat of raindrops on the canopy above, and in a rush my sleepless nights catch up to me with all the force of a mag-lev train. I ought to disentangle myself from Tarver, go to sleep properly on my own. I ought to wait for dinner to boil. I ought to let him rest without having to take care of me.
But I’m warm now, and for once there’s no one calling to me in words I can’t understand, and for reasons I don’t care to examine, the thought of pushing Tarver Merendsen’s arms away makes my stomach twist unhappily. And so I stay still, and let my head drop onto his shoulder, and if he minds the way my wet hair drips on him, he says nothing, and lets me sleep.
“You told us that Miss LaRoux suffered some minor head injuries as a result of the crash.”
“That’s right.”
“There were no side effects? She was able to travel without difficulty?”
“I’d like to see you hike across a planet in a ball gown and the type of shoes those girls wear. I don’t think I’d say the walk was without difficulty.”
“It’s a relevant question, Major Merendsen.”
“And?”
“And I’d be obliged if you’d answer it.”
“I’m not aware of any difficulties she had that were a result of the knock to her head.”
“What about you?”
“It was a walk in the park. What do you think?”
NINETEEN
TARVER
SHE WAKES EARLY, this girl who probably used to sleep until noon and lie abed until three. I roll over into the warm spot she leaves behind, eyes closed, but I can feel her watching me. She pushes away the dirt I used to bank the fire, stirring up the coals. Warmth flickers against my face as she builds the fire up again with the kindling I gathered last night.
Moving slowly, probably stiff and sore from our drowning dash last night, she crouches down beside me and rests a hand on my shoulder. When I crack open an eyelid to peer up at her, she looks tired. Both her eyes are marked underneath with dark smears of blue and purple, and one is still marbled black and yellow as her magnificent black eye starts to fade. She’s pale, with new freckles from the sun overhead standing out like punctuation on a page.
But she’s captivating too, maybe more than she was before, with the tale of our survival written on her features.
“I’m going to get us some water.” Her whisper’s barely audible—she wants to let me sleep. “I won’t be long.”
I clear my throat a little, and she takes that as a sign that I’ve heard her. I wonder for a moment if I should let her go alone, but she’s not the girl who crashed with me. She’ll be careful.
I didn’t see any paw prints while I was gathering the kindling last night. I don’t think there’s anything big living around here. It’s an isolated clump of trees by the bank of the river, surrounded by open plains. A predator wouldn’t make the trip this far, or be able to live on what could survive here.
As I watch her through my lashes, she straightens and turns away, and I let myself drift again. Apparently I’m not going to be punished for the fact that she woke up wrapped around me. The cold shoulder would have been worth it, but it seems she’s accepted our sleeping arrangements as a necessary evil. Sleep reaches for me, and I let it take me for a little longer.
When I wake, I have no sense of how much time has passed—seconds or minutes, or longer. The thing in orbit around the planet has set, which means at least an hour or two has passed since dawn, but how long ago did Lilac leave?