Page 22 of Obliterated
Something shifted a couple days ago, though. He wasn’t in his bed, and for one brutal second my chest locked up, panic slicing clean before I could stop it. Then I heard him retching in his shoebox bathroom, emptying his guts like he was about to tear himself in half.
Yeah… not all the food here’s fresh. Happens more than you’d think. Still, didn’t stop my pulse from slamming in my ears as I pushed the door open.
I crouched down behind him, rubbed his back with a hand that didn’t know what the hell it was doing, shoved a cup of water into his shaking grip. When he was drained and couldn’t even lift his head anymore, I half-carried, half-dragged him back to the bed and tucked him under the thin blanket.
He caught my wrist when I tried to leave the bed, fingers locking hard, knuckles pale against my tattooed skin.
And I stayed right there, right the fuck next to him, until his breathing evened out and those curls of his spread over the pillow like he didn’t have a single care in the world.
So close.Too close.My heart was hammering against my ribs until it felt like it might crack them, springing, twisting, dragging me in circles until I was driving myself insane.
I bolted before I could do something even more stupid, fled the room like it was on fire.
I don’t do this.I don’t sit at bedsides, I don’t tuck people in, I don’t let their warmth crawl under my skin. That’s not me. I watch, I fight, I bleed. I don’t… care. Not like this. And yet there I was, heart racing like I’d just come out of the Pit, over a kid who doesn’t even know which way is up on this island.
I told myself it was just the job. Just keeping him steady so he’d keep talking, keep helping. Just making sure my investment didn’t burn out too soon. But the lie tasted sour even as I swallowed it.
Still, I have to admit, he’s good at helping me. Like right now, in the marketplace, where he just stepped out of another store.
It’s a mess of voices and smells outside. Wooden stalls thrown together from scrap metal and driftwood line the streets. Fish, half-rotten fruit, cloth that’s been stitched and restitched so many times it looks more patch than fabric. The air tastes of smoke and frying oil. Kids dart through the crowd, and traders bark over each other until the whole place is one chaotic chorus.
Today we’re finally working outside the brothel, making the rounds in the market and in the shops lining the square.
“Well, I now understand why you make me tag along,” Kieran says as he steps out of the little shop of a former brothel employee. The poor girl went pale as a ghost the second she saw me on her doorstep, so I hung back and let him handle it, did my own rounds.
He’s quicker with the questions anyway, smoother. People like him. He’s sunshine smiles and easy laughs… so answers just fall out. When I ask, it’s like pulling teeth with pliers, their fear thick in the air. My reputation rattles behind me like chains.
“That was quick,” I say.
“Didn’t know much,” he shrugs, fiddling with the dagger at his hip. Another gift I left for him after he said he lost his own right before he boarded the boat. “But she was way chattier without you scowling in the corner. Less scared. Maybe you should try smiling once in a while.’
I huff a laugh through my nose, the corners of my mouth pulling up involuntarily. He’s got some fucking nerve.
“Scratch that,” he adds with a sly glance up at me. “It might make them run harder. That’s downright terrifying.”
I scowl, and he doesn’t miss it.
“Tass was right about you,” he says, like it’s a private joke he’s just remembering. “You don’t even have to open your mouth to ruin the mood.”
“Don’t make me come ruin yours,” I shoot back, letting it hang there long enough to make him blink before I push the subject away.
Tass. His new best friend. When he’s not stuck on shift, he gravitates to her. They laugh, they talk, they fill silences in ways I never could. We moved from the booth to the bar weeks ago, and they hit it off. I tell myself I’m fine with it, and most of the time I am. But I still find my attention snapping her way when she catches me watching him, her mouth pulling into one of those smirks that knows too much, elbowing me like the nuisance she is.
I glare. She grins wider. We do it all over again.
“What do we have so far? What did you stitch together at the stalls?” Kieran asks after a little while, interrupting my thoughts.
“Not much. Just the same old about people vanishing. People rumored to have become Walkers while they weren’t Touched to begin with. But again, it’s all rumors,” I confess. My voice drops as we push through the market. “But rumors aren’t enough to dethrone a council member. I need facts. Paperwork. Proof of illegal passage.”
“Everyone knows if you’ve got enough coin, you can buy passage,” he says. “The deals and whispers are mostly made on the mainland.”
“You’re sure about this?”
He nods, jaw tight. “Positive. I didn’t have any, and… you know what happened.”
I look at him, then past him, the crowd shifting around us, parting like it always does when I get too close. “People don’t whisper those things at me usually. They whisperaboutme, nottome.”
“That’s why you’ve got me,” he says, and the smile tugging at his lips pulls my eyes there before I can stop myself. Dammit. “Ihear the things you can’t scare out of people. It helps, you know. Beingnice.”
