Page 87 of Freedom Mine
Chapter Nineteen
KAYO
Kayo caught Alli watching him from across the yard. She’d moved out of the house a week ago, and he didn’t even know where she slept or with whom. The growl left him before he could scold himself for having such thoughts about her. She had every right to sleep with whomever she wished, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept. He’d never stopped wanting her, loving her, but he’d given up any claim to her.
There were plenty of men here who weren’t as broken as him. And several men who’d use her. He couldn’t turn his back on her, not with the likes of Bawson around.
Bawson’s eyes followed Alli. Kayo didn’t like it. Hells, he didn’t like the fact that she slept somewhere other than his bed, but he’d left her no choice. He’d threatened her. Hells, he’d threatened tosellher! He deserved to be in a cage, somewhere where he couldn’t scare her as he had that day in the cemetery.
That damn cage at the magistrate’s office had unearthed memories and emotions he thought he’d buried long before he’d buried Mac.
Alli spoke with Ranth now as she hosed down one of the harkifa. Ranth placed a hand on her shoulder and massaged it as Alli stretched her neck. Hells, he didn’t need to watch this.
Kayo headed to the longhouse, to see who was off shift. The door slammed open. He’d lost his grip on the handle during a burst of wind, but the sound of the door slamming fit his mood. He couldn’t let go of the anger.
“Need something, Boss?” Diggs asked, putting his book down. Huh. Diggs was reading. “When did you learn how to read, Diggs?” Kayo asked.
“Still learning. Alli’s been teaching me.”
Alli? Of course. The woman thought she had no purpose here because she didn’t have an assigned job. She’d turned out to be more useful than him, but she didn’t know it. And he couldn’t tell her that, not now, not after everything he’d said.
He couldn’t even remember half of what he’d said, but it hadn’t been fair or true, at least not to dump it in her lap. She’d caught him at a low point, just out of the cage and standing there by Mac’s grave. He remembered going there to talk to Mac, and to curse him, as he often did. He didn’t want her hearing him, to know how broken he was. Well, he’d screwed that up too.
“Jace will be back soon, if you’re looking for him,” Runner said. “Or do you want me to deliver a message?”
The lean man had been lying on his bunk, his hands clasped behind his head. Now he sat with his legs over the side, as if he expected to be sent out.
“No. Thanks.”
Kayo couldn’t remember what he’d been looking for, so he left. Distracted and confused. That was the best way to describe his mind lately. Useless. That was another good word. He shouldn’t forget useless.
While his head was useless, his body still worked. Kayo headed up to Freedom. He could swing a pickaxe, maybe work off some of the angst that never seemed to leave him. If he were lucky, maybe another cave-in would end his miserable existence once and for all.
He reached the mine. Not much had changed up here except the lack of noise. No miners cracked jokes, no pickaxes struck rock. Nothing moved except the wind whistling through the trees. Jace had everyone working over at Sanctuary. Kayo appreciated the solitude. He needed to clear his head.
Five days past due.
The first late notice had arrived this morning. He’d get the second late notice by end of the week. Five more days to get his head on straight, though it wouldn’t matter much after the authorities came.
He’d tell the men how much he appreciated everything they’d done for him over the years. Alli. . . Kayo released a long-held breath and shook his head. Nothing he could say or do would change what he’d said to her, the damage he’d caused.
Kayo rummaged through the tools the men had packed up in crates but not carried down the mountain. He found light sticks, a pickaxe, and a laser cutter. He fired the laser cutter at a tree branch and nothing happened. Broken. No hard hats either. Splendid. Usually, there was at least one left at the mine. Maybe they’d left one inside the shack.
He pushed open the door and stared. The cot had been made up with the bedding from the attic, and on a small stool stood the stone vase he’d given Alli with the now-dried flowers in it. She’d moved everything she owned to this pitiful shack. Even the colorful rocks, assembled precisely as he’d left them on her dresser, stood next to the vase. This is where she’d been living, in a shack that had no heat or insulation, a shack located up a mountain, far away from everyone. No, not everyone. Him. She’d stayed away from him, just as he’d asked.
He was a fool. He’d gone from freeman to slave to freeman to owner to fool. Not a progression to be proud of.
“Kayo?”
He spun around to see Alli standing behind him, beautiful as ever, but cautious. That look in her eyes, the one of distrust had returned. He hated seeing that unease in her, especially when it was directed at him. He had destroyed her trust in him by threatening to sell her.
Hells, of all the things to say to her, he couldn’t have said anything worse. It was the one part of that day—had it been a full week already?—that he remembered clearly. Threatening her, scaring her. He hadn’t meant it, but he’d done it nonetheless.
Yeah, she was better off without him. But she didn’t belong here, alone on the mountain, where the temperature dropped at night, where she was vulnerable. Any of the men could come up here and attack her.
“Why are you here, Kayo?”
“The mine,” he said, holding up a pickaxe. Why couldn’t he say that he was sorry, that he was an ass, that just because he was messed up it didn’t justify what he’d said to her? That she was the best thing that had ever happened to him…
