Page 71 of Homebound
Simon was watching her intently.
Still, she wouldn’t come in.
“What’s it going to be?” That accent, that raspy, fluid tenor of his. “Come in or lock up the door.”
She pulled at the door and entered.
He slowly rose from his cot. “Are we going?”
“I didn’t bring yogurt today, I’m sorry. I had no way of knowing they’d put me back in with you.” She felt crappy for eating his yogurt this morning. “But we can go out anyway if you’d like.”
He kept watching her intently and his sunglasses-opaque gaze was making her uncomfortable. She knew her cheeks were reddening in the most obvious way, considering her post-illness waxy complexion.
“Why did you get moved out?”
“I can’t see your pupils. It’s weird, Simon.”
They spoke simultaneously and then fell silent.
“Why did they move you?” he repeated, unperturbed.
“Long story. Come on, here’s your chair. Can you get in on your own?” She busily pushed the chair in, gesturing for him to sit.
He hadn’t moved. “Gemma. I asked you a question.”
She stopped fidgeting and faced him, looking square into those black orbs. “It doesn’t matter.”
He acknowledged her answer with a slight twitch to his right brow. “What matters is how you came back. Did you trade in a favor?”
He was beginning to scare her with a rising wave of dark, angry energy.
“I have no favors to trade, Simon,” she shook her head slightly. “I bluffed my way back. I scared someone by pretending to possess information about them I don’t really have. But hey, it worked. Let’s go outside or we’ll run out of time.”
His energy subsided as he lowered himself into the chair. Gemma pushed him into the elevator and yanked the sticky mesh door closed, encapsulating them in the tight rumbling cabin.
“I have pupils,” he said out of the blue. “I have three in each eye.”
“Nuh-uh! You’re making it up. I can’t see any.”
“They’re black. You can’t see them now.”
“When can I see them?”
“When I get angry.”
Gemma laughed.
They cleared the exit checkpoint and went out. Now that the exhilaration of the morning was beginning to fade, Gemma’s body reminded her that only yesterday she had been prostrate in bed with a fever. She was far from her full strength, and pushing Simon up the street took all she had.
She got them as far as the church's crumbling wall and stopped.
“Here we go. I know you like it here better than inside the ruin. Again, I’m sorry about the yogurt.”
He surprised her by rising from the wheelchair and taking a few steps. He stopped gripping the edge of the wall for support.
“Don’t bring me any more of your milk brew. Don’t risk it.”
“But Simon, that’s the only thing you can eat!”
