Page 12 of The Explorer
Without ever setting foot on the ground, we finished our assignment in the first red zone and continued to the next. After three stops where we collected tests from the air, we landed in a yellow zone where the level of radiation had already been deemed safe enough for us to walk around, but not yet ready for human habitation.
“Indiana and Alex, you’ll prepare lunch. Aubri, you’ll come with me and Val to collect water samples from the river.”
Indiana frowned at Banni. “I prefer that Aubri stays with me.”
“Why?” Banni straightened up and widened his shoulders. He wasn’t a traditional leader like my father or Khan, who were intimidating by nature, but there was still a strong authority to his presence.
“Because I’m Aubri’s protector.”
“Stop it, Indy. I’ve told you that I don’t need a protector,” I pointed out for the hundredth time.
“In this squad we’re all each other’s protectors. Aubri can’t do her job if you have to watch her every second. Do you not trust her to be capable of collecting water samples?”
“Sure, but I don’t fully trust you two, yet.”
Banni looked to Val, who shrugged. “Then consider this an exercise of trust. We’re taking Aubri to the river while you’re preparing lunch with Alex.”
I could tell how conflicted Indiana was and patted his shoulder when I walked past him. “Don’t worry, I’ve got this.”
There was something freeing in walking away from Indiana and being alone with two strangers.
Banni and I exchanged small talk as we walked to the river and once we were there, we all helped take the water samples.
“Could we drink this water?”
Val didn’t answer me. He was busy labeling the bottles we’d filled, his tongue sticking out a little bit.
I wondered for a second how old he was and gathered that he could be anywhere from late twenties to mid-thirties. He was clean-shaven but like so many of the French, he had colored both his eyebrows and his long hair, which was gathered in a bun. Since he was brown-skinned like Banni, I guessed his natural hair color to be black, but I couldn’t see any trace of it with the way he had split his hair into four equal sections with different colors. In the top right corner, his hair was blue. The top left part was green, and the two lower sections were red and purple. I wondered if Val had chosen the green color for his eyebrows to match the uniform.
As if he felt me watching him, Val lifted his head and met my eyes for a second before he mumbled something to Banni.
“Val wants to know if it bothers you that Indiana tries to control your every movement?”
I chuckled. “Indiana is nothing compared to my brother and father. He has good intentions.” I squatted down next to the river and filled the bottle that Banni handed me. “Aren’t you French men protective of women?”
They exchanged glances but didn’t seem to know what to make of my question.
“Belle told me that you don’t grow up in families and that you don’t marry, so I guess it’s different here, but you and Belle were friends... didn't you feel protective of her?”
“Protective how? I’m not sure what I would protect her from…”
“Men who might harm her.”
Banni looked thoughtful. “Hmm, I don’t think I ever had a situation like that with Belle, but I got in a fight once to protect a woman. Not that she appreciated it.”
“What happened?”
“We had just finished our encounter when one of her former sex partners came to see her. He was upset to see me there, half naked and in her bed, so he said some unkind things to her that I didn’t like. We argued at first and when she repeatedly asked him to leave and he refused, I made him.”
“Oh wow, my respect for you just grew, Banni. I love a strong man who protects his woman.”
Banni smiled. “You’re funny, Aubri. The woman I helped got furious at me for manhandling her previous sex partner. She called me primitive and violent and threatened to report both her ex-lover and me.”
I huffed. “What would she have you do? Stand by and let him verbally abuse her?”
Banni shrugged. “Could be. I never stuck around to have a conversation about how she wanted me to behave. It wasn't a great loss as she wasn’t a good sex partner anyway.”
Curiosity made me walk over to squat down in front of Banni and Val, who were kneeling on the ground while handling the water samples we had collected. “What makes for a good sex partner?”
