Page 29 of Spread Me
She turns to regard Jacques. Locks her eyes onto his. Wets her lips. “Jacques,” she says softly, almost under her breath, hoping that only he can hear. “What do you want?”
He looks at her with stark incomprehension. “What?”
“What do you want?” she asks again. Takes a step toward him. She tries to look at him the way she looked at Domino, the way she looked at Saskia. “You can tell me.”
“I—I don’t know,” he says, shaking his head, his eyes filling with bewildered tears. “I don’t know. What do you mean?”
“I mean,” she says in a whisper so soft she can barely hear herself, “do you want me?” She’s asking him but she’s also asking herself:Do I want him?Kinsey has never looked at Jacques with desire, nothing even close to it, but she looks at him now and tries to call it up: the way she’d been unable to take her eyes off Domino, the way she’d been unable toresist Saskia’s touch. Looking at Jacques, Kinsey tries to see the virus in him, the same way she saw it in them.
Jacques gives his head a fractional shake, more like an involuntary twitch than an expression of preference. “I don’t want anything right now. Except maybe a drink,” he adds with a half laugh.
Kinsey stares at him for a few more seconds. “He’s not infected,” she calls over her shoulder, not taking her eyes off Jacques.
“How do you know?” Mads sounds genuinely curious.
“I… can tell,” Kinsey replies. “Domino and Saskia both made me feel a certain way. Jacques doesn’t.”
Mads looks at her exactly the way she deserves to be looked at for saying something like that.
Nkrumah shakes her head, unconvinced. “I don’t buy it. We can’t take one person’s word for this. If you’re infected, you could be covering for him.”
“Oh, but we can take one person’s word that Iaminfected?” Jacques says icily, leaning around Kinsey to glare at Nkrumah.
“It doesn’t matter either way,” Mads insists. “We’re not killing Jacques. Not if we’re not completely sure.”
Nkrumah folds her arms across her chest, tilts her head. On her, this posture is a rattling tail, Kinsey knows. It’s a red-dawn sky, a cocked pistol. It’s a warning. “Well,” she says, “fine.”
“Fine?” Jacques whispers.
Nkrumah nods. “We won’t kill him.”
Ten minutes later, Jacques stands in the airlock, a half-empty bottle of white rum in one hand, a liter of water inthe other. Nkrumah holds a keycard in her hand, and she’s waiting next to the interior airlock door, ready to scan it.
“You can’t do this,” Jacques says for the twentieth time. He shuffles his feet in the several inches of sand that coat the airlock floor. Sweat is already beading on his brow. “Please. I’ll die out there. You know I will. Kinsey, you’re the team lead. You can stop this. You can make a different decision.”
Kinsey feels like the underside of her skin is erupting in hidden hives. Because he’s right. She could stop this. But stopping this would mean admitting the reason why she thinks he’s not infected. It would mean letting her team—what’s left of them—know the most urgent desire of her secret heart. It would mean letting them know how deeply she wants the virus to stay.
So she loads her voice with authority, even as she doesn’t meet Jacques’s eye. “Thisismy decision. It’s just for a few hours,” she says. “Just until we figure out what’s going on. The storm died down already. You’ll be perfectly safe.”
That, at least, doesn’t feel like a lie. The wind isn’t tearing at the walls of the base anymore. The sky is probably clear by now. It’ll be as blue as a butterfly wing out there, Kinsey figures. Hopes.
Jacques takes a halting step toward the inner door. “You’re not going to figure out what’s going on. You’re going to kill each other. Please, just—at least lock me in one of the rooms inside, like you did with Domino and Saskia.”
Nkrumah shakes her head. “The only other door to shut you behind is a bedroom door. That’s too close to where we’ll be sleeping. It’s not safe.”
Jacques looks ready to cry. His eyes jump from face to face, desperately seeking an ally. “Shut me in the airlock, then. You can lock the inner door and I’ll stay here. Please,”he says again. “It’s hot in here, but you know it’s hotter out there. And another sandstorm could pick up. Or even just a rainstorm. Anything might happen. I won’t make it.”
Mads crosses their arms. “What if we have to leave, though? The airlock is the only exit route. We’d be trapped.”
Kinsey makes herself look right at Jacques. When he meets her eyes, she feels something, but she can’t be sure if it’s attraction or exhaustion. She hasn’t eaten since—she tries to remember, can’t. Her head swims. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I really am. But my decision is final. You have to go.”
He looks into each of their eyes one last time before giving a slow nod. “Okay,” he finally says. “Just for a few hours. Right? Come get me. I’ll wait in the shade on the southeast side of the station.” His voice breaks. “I don’t suppose I can have my keycard, can I?”
Mads looks at their feet, shakes their head. Nkrumah looks at the ceiling, scrubs her cheek with the heel of one hand while scanning his keycard with the other. Kinsey forces herself to keep her eyes on Jacques. She watches as he bows his head, watches as he turns away, watches every step he takes toward the exterior door. Nkrumah follows him, a few paces behind, ready to lock him out.
When the door opens, the light outside is deep red. It’s quiet out there. A soft wind blows eddies of sand across the threshold. Not even a sliver of blue sky is visible.
“What is this?” Jacques says softly, stepping out into the red desert. “No. Wait, don’t send me out there. The storm isn’t—”
