Page 59 of Soul on Fire
“Do you know what we call that war here in Africa?”
Mute, Elliot shook his head.
“The African World War. Almost all of sub-Saharan Africa fought in it. Over thirty rebel factions rose and fell. Everyone was killing everyone else. For hate. For diamonds. For gold. We were willing to destroy each other, annihilate each other from the planet. Terrible things happened in that war.” Ikolo went quiet, and he pressed his forehead to Elliot’s, rubbed their noses together. “It was five years before I wasn’t under constant watch. Before I was deemed a true soldier. The first night I could, I fled. I made my way east, all the way to Tanganyika, and paid a fisherman with the money and whiskey I’d stolen from the rebels.”
Hallowed silence cocooned them. Elliot ran his hands up and down Ikolo’s back, following the muscles, the lean, hard lines. “I’ve seen—and done—horrible things,” Ikolo breathed. “In Africa, the dead outnumber the living. Ghosts live side by side with the living. You can find human bones anywhere you look.Be careful where you walk in the forest, they say.You might cut your foot on the bones. Over a million people have been murdered. What if someone we killed—or someoneIkilled—was the leader the Congo needed? What if I murdered the boy or girl who could have saved our country?”
Death and decay had hollowed the Congo from the inside out, spread rage and rot and ruin into every anguished corner. The African World War, fought in the continent’s broken heart. And what had the world done?
They’ll never be more than Africans, fighting and killing each other. It’s what they do.
Discarded. Disregarded.
Elliot’s breath shook as he kissed Ikolo’s forehead, breathed in his scent. Woodsmoke and earth, dew and sunlight, fresh beams on a new day. Ikolo was in his arms, here and now. He’d lived. So many, many others hadn’t.
“I want to save a life for every one I was forced to take,” Ikolo whispered. “And then I want to keep going. I want to save a life for everyone who was murdered. I want to bring all of them back. I want to fill the Congo, and all of Africa, with all the brilliant minds and hearts and lives we lost. I want to bring so muchlifeback to this country and this continent.”
Ikolo’s heart and soul burned so bright it hurt, made Elliot ache in all his empty places, caverns where he’d carved out all the hurt and pain from every rejection the world had ever given him. He’d lived for years with echoes of himself and thought it was normal, had gotten used to the hollowed out places inside his soul where the dreams and memories of a boy who’d once imagined he was equal dwelt before the world told himno.
Now, there was a fire burning in his soul, flames ignited by Ikolo, and it was collecting those all broken pieces and filling up his hollowness. Those weren’t echoes, those were promises, and that boy was still becoming the man he wanted to be.
“I want to see the world like you do. I want to be the kind of man you are.” A man who lived through a holocaust of his country, the cataclysm of his soul, and came out the other side wanting to put his world and his people together again. A thousand different things could have broken Ikolo, but he never had.
Early in Elliot’s life, the world had given his identity to him—black boy, going nowhere, dangerous, useless, worthless, less than—and his heart and soul had bled out and atrophied. Racism was a corporeal thing that broke bodies, that killed men and women in both body and soul. Bones and hearts were broken together, airways and souls choked of life. Racism had dug its hands into his life and tried to break him, rip his body from his soul and destroy both halves of him.
No more. His soul was on fire and his heart was unbound. His questions were answered. He’d found them in the body, heart, and soul of the man he held. There was a twilight inside him, the end of something, a door closing as another one opened. He belonged here, in this moment, in this place. In these arms.
Elliot caressed Ikolo, ran his hands down his arms, up his chest, wrapped his hand around his head and held him, their breath shared, chests so close their hearts beat as one. Kisses traveled from lips to cheeks, moved down jawlines and pressed into necks. Elliot gasped, arched into Ikolo’s touch as Ikolo spread his hands around his waist, as he found Elliot’s nipple with his lips and his tongue and played over the nub until Elliot was shaking and grabbing for Ikolo.
His trembling hands roamed the expanse of Ikolo’s body, his taut, fire-hot skin. Ikolo fell into him at his touch, buried his head in Elliot’s neck and moaned. Ikolo’s hard length pushed into his hip.
He pulled Ikolo on top of him, wrapped his arms around Ikolo’s shoulders, and ran his hands down to Ikolo’s narrow hips. He held him there as he ground up, driving them together. Ikolo breathed his name like a prayer and kissed him, and his hand wrapped around their cocks and stroked them together.
Elliot jerked, gasped, felt the curl in his belly. He held Ikolo’s face and gripped his hip. Ikolo watched him, his eyes wild and staring into Elliot’s soul, panting as his fingers dug furrows in Elliot’s biceps.
He could love this man. He could love him until the end of time. Maybe he already did and was just uncovering a love that was already there and waiting for him.Did you fall in love with someone unknown, or did you find the person who completed you and paired your soul to theirs?
He breathed Ikolo’s name as he tipped over the edge, as Ikolo brought his body and his heart to the peak and then pushed him over, sent him flying as stars streaked in his vision and he screamed through clenched teeth, spilling across his abdomen. Ikolo followed, his heat mixing with Elliot’s on Elliot’s belly as he cried out and collapsed, falling into Elliot’s chest while he caught his breath.
They lay together, hearts beating as one, as they fell asleep.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Two
Kisangani
The Congo
He wantedto sleep the full four hours, but years of waking at dawn and popping to readiness at the first hint of an unfamiliar noise had Elliot wide awake as the sun rose. Ikolo lay pillowed on his shoulder, snoring softly with his mouth open and lips pressed against Elliot’s chest. He could feel the wet heat of his breath, the slow, steady exhale.
Smiling, Elliot pulled away slowly, laying Ikolo’s head on the bunched and lumpy pillow he’d had been using. Ikolo rolled into the empty space he vacated, his arms wrapping around Elliot’s shadow. He face-planted in Elliot’s scent and snored.
He grabbed a pair of faded khaki cargo pants and a t-shirt with a logo from a water science conference in 2007 and padded downstairs.
As promised, the CIA officers had headed out, locking the building up tight. Behind the main room, a tiny concrete kitchen held an ancient refrigerator, shelves of dry goods, and a two-plate gas burner. He found instant coffee and bottled water and put a pot on while he rummaged in the fridge. There were eggs and fresh fruit, and he scrambled a handful of eggs on a misshapen pan and sliced the remnants of a pineapple and a mango. He found bread and fresh guava jam, and a bunch of bananas.
There wasn’t much else in the kitchen, but he found a plate, a mug, and a fork and loaded everything up.
