“It’s under my clothes,” I admitted finally. He let go of me.
I tugged my shirt up, too conscious of his eyes on me as I bared the skin of my hips to reach the cloth wrapped around my waist to pad it out. My hand slipped between cloth and skin and closed around the cool metal and glass. I let my shirt fall back into place as I pulled it out. The compass was a battered brass thing. The glass was scratched and chipped on one edge. The needle swung back and forth over a background of a blue sky the same color as my eyes, dotted with painted yellow stars. I’d figured it might be of value.
His expression shifted as his hand closed over the compass, locking it between our hands. The tension fled his body and he leaned his forehead into mine, catching me off guard. I could smell the desert on him. “Thank you,” he said.
His eyes were closed, but mine were wide open. This close I could make out the smallest scar on his upper lip. I was keenly aware of our breathing mixing in the closeness. It would take almost nothing to lean forward and press my mouth to that scar.
There was a crash and a shout from the other end of the carriage. Jin’s eyes flew open. What I’d been saying about the soldiers seemed to register on his face at last. “Come on.” He started to lead me out from between the bunks. “Let’s—”
White and gold flashed across the carriage, out of place among the dingy third-class passengers.
Too late.
There was no time to run and even less time to think. We needed to hide. Only there was nowhere to hide—except exactly where we were standing. I yanked Jin back toward me. My knuckles skimmed over the edges of the sun tattooed over his heart. That was the last thing I noticed before I kissed him.
His jaw tensed in surprise for a moment; his hand gripped my arm hard enough to hurt. And then his body was flush against mine, pushing my back against the wall of the train.
I was a desert girl. I thought I knew heat.
I was wrong.
The contact sent a rush through me so sudden, I started to pull away before I caught fire. But Jin trapped my face in his hands. There was nowhere to run to. Nowhere to go.
Nowhere I wanted to go.
I hadn’t really thought this through, but now I didn’t have any thoughts left. Only the strength of his fingers against my neck.
His breath vibrated through me until I couldn’t feel anything anymore except want.
More than want.
Need.
His thumb struck the place where Naguib’s gun had hit me. An involuntary hiss escaped my lips.
Jin broke away and the moment cracked. Cold air rushed into the gap between our bodies, filling the place his hands had been on my skin a moment before. Now they were planted flat against the wall on either side of me.
His eyes weren’t on me anymore. They were on the gun at my hip. I saw a flash of a uniform through the space under his arm. His body wasn’t pressed to me. Wasn’t wanting me, I reminded myself, only hiding me.
I was breathing like someone who’d never had enough air. Somewhere at the bottom of my lungs I found words again. “They’re not out of sight yet.”
Jin didn’t look at me. “No.” His arms were planted on either side of my head, against the rattling carriage wall. He bent toward me just a little, and my body tugged toward him. “They’re not.”
Someone slapped him on the back and the world careened back in. “How much is she charging, friend?” One bunk over someone laughed.
At the other end of the carriage, a head that might’ve belonged to a soldier turned at the sound. Jin grabbed my hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
The door I’d come through was still open. I was about to tell him it was no good heading back that way, that we didn’t have anywhere to hide. Then his arms were around my waist.
I didn’t have time to say a thing before he jumped.
ten
For a sliver of an instant I was flying.
Then rails flashed in the edge of my vision, narrowly missing a chance to get better acquainted with my skull. My ribs and the ground weren’t so shy.
We hit the sand hard. Air burst out of my lungs. We rolled one over the other, Jin’s grip tight around me, the train screaming in my ears, drowning out everything I wanted to shout back. Finally we stopped in a bank of sand.
I shoved Jin off me, an ache spreading from my shoulder to my hips. He cursed, clutching his side, but I was ready to run as fast as the train until I caught up. I was on my feet just in time for night and black smoke to swallow the last of the gleaming metal carriages.
For one crazy second I thought about running behind and grabbing hold. Riding for days hooked onto the back of a train.
But the train was gone. Carrying hundreds of people away to Izman. Without me. And I felt something rupture inside. I wrapped my arms around my ribs to keep it in.
“You all right?” Jin was watching me, clutching his side. “Amani?”
The way he said my name on a long exhale set me off like a spark in a powder keg. I swung my fist, straight for his face.
Jin grabbed my wrist before my knuckles could get flirting distance from his nose. He pulled me into him, knocking me off balance.
“Here’s a tip for you.” He was close to me now, close as he had been when he kissed me, or when I kissed him. “Don’t try to hit a man in the face when he’s looking straight into your eyes. You’ve got traitor eyes, Bandit.”
I drove my other fist into his gut hard enough that my knuckles popped. Jin doubled over, coughing. “Thanks for the tip.” I wished victory didn’t feel so much like I’d sprained my hand.
“Any time.” He clutched his stomach where I’d hit him, but it looked like he was laughing. I had the wild urge to hit him again while he was down. Instead I drew my shirt up, pulling the gun out of where it was tied against my hip.
“We should start walking,” Jin said. “We’re probably less than a day out of Massil. We’ll have to follow the rails. We could be there before the sun gets too high if we start now.”
“What makes you think I’m going anywhere with you?” If it weren’t for his having an army on his tail, I’d still be on the way to Izman. Of course, if it weren’t for him I’d also still be in Dustwalk. But I wasn’t going to get into that just now. I shoved my gun back in my belt; no need to hide it here. Better for folks to know I was armed.
“You got a better plan?” Jin waved his arm at the empty desert like he was offering me a feast for fools. “Would you rather strike off across the desert and wind up food for buzzards than walk another day with me?”
He wasn’t wrong. It was open nothingness as far as the eye could see all around us. Except for the rails that ran like an iron scar through the sand. There were only two ways to go if I wanted to stay alive. Forward with him. Back to Juniper City.
I wasn’t going back.
“Don’t flatter yourself.” I riffled my fingers through my hair, pulling it loose from where it was trapped under my sheema as I started to walk. “You’re not near worth dying over.”