32.
I couldn’t sleep with all the growling in my gut. Just when I’d drift off, my insides ached as if they were about to collapse.
I finally couldn’t take it anymore. I sat up, feeling weak. I had to eat. Across from me, Jag slept. I slipped over the rocky surface, cringing when the grating sounds of my movement echoed off the cave walls.
Jag’s backpack unzipped easily, quietly. The silver protein packets glinted underneath the orange rope. I reached for them, cursing silently when they slid further into the pack.
I had just managed to trap a packet between my fingers when Jag muttered in his sleep. I jumped and backpedaled away. The lines on his face smoothed as he settled back into his dream. I wondered which one it was this time. Part of me longed to be asleep so I could experience his memories with him. Another part hated that I could enter his mind at all. And still another part wanted nothing more than to eat. Now.
Tucking the lone protein packet in my back pocket, I pulled on my backpack and stumbled in the direction of the river. I twisted through the canyon down to the water’s edge. My head felt detached and everything was turning white.
I drank greedily, not caring that the water needed to be purified. A few brush trees and scraggly bushes grew nearby, but nothing like the bulbs I’d eaten in the Badlands. I dumped out the contents of my first aid kit so I could mix the protein packet. Nothing had ever tasted so good as that putrid drink.
But I was still starving. One packet wasn’t going to sustain me for very long.
I dug through the clothes and tech supplies, laying them on the ground to see them better. The three tech-phones were incapable of making food. That seemed like a good feature to have. The stupid phone could do everything else.
I had a dozen bio-cylinders. Two round platters lay next to them. After picking one up, I felt the tech twitch inside the sliver of metal. My fingers shook at the same time.
The now-familiar insignia of the two square knots snaking around each other adorned the back. Maybe this was another weapon. Maybe you could throw it and it would grow nasty edges and cut enemies down. Who knew?
Jag, probably.
I pushed the plates away along with the annoying thought of Jag. I turned my attention to the two cubes of pure silver. They didn’t bear the double square knot. I picked one up and the techtricity infiltrated my mind, almost whispering instructions. I pressed with my thumb on one side and my forefinger on the other.
The cube shook and started to unfold. I dropped it and watched as it flopped into a square big enough to stand on. I didn’t think it was a teleporter pad, though it looked like one.
The tray looked familiar . . . like the one my hot chocolate had arrived on at the tech facility.
“Pink birthday cake with purple frosting,” I said. It appeared on the square. I smiled, picked it up, and stuffed it in my mouth.
“Happy Birthday to me,” I sang softly to myself. “Scalloped potatoes.” A large plate of potatoes and onions with cheese sauce appeared. I ate it in about two minutes even though it burned my mouth.
“Milk,” I said next, but the square remained empty. “Fine. Whole milk.” With the clarification, a large glass of creamy white milk appeared. Nothing had ever tasted so good as that milk.
I sighed happily and wiped my mouth. A flicker of light beamed in my mind, a signal that someone with power was drawing near. I started stuffing everything back into the pack.
I glanced behind me to the path through the canyon—the only way out. Pulling on my pack, I ran parallel to the river, toward the safety of a small cluster of rocks. Just as I crouched behind them, Jag emerged from the canyon and crossed to the water. He bent down and drank from the stream.
Then he moved toward me slowly, his eyes trained on the ground. He stopped in the exact spot I’d been eating my solitary birthday meal. Today was his birthday too. I wondered if he felt as alone as I did, if he also longed to have a party with his sister—the way it should have been.
“I don’t have a sister,” he whispered. I hadn’t seen him approach. Hadn’t heard him, he was just suddenly there. “I only want you.”
The stupid tears pricked the back of my throat. When had I become such a baby? Anyway, now I knew why I hadn’t seen him: everything swam in my vision, including his perfect smile and caring eyes. But he wouldn’t trick me again.
“Liar.” I pushed past him and retraced my steps to the cave. Jag followed me, and I knew him, felt him, almost became one with him. Not in a physical way, but emotional.
Our connection. This was what he thought I should have sensed last night before tasing him.
“Vi, wait,” he called.
I paused just outside the cave, the swirl of emotions threatening to engulf me.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Whatever.”
“Why are you so mad?”
“Why am I so mad? Why am I—? Look, if you don’t know, I’m not going to fill you in.”
“Because I said we couldn’t sleep?”
“Because of everything! You act like it’s no big deal to raid my thoughts. You think I’m something special, but you don’t tell me anything. You say you love me, but you don’t trust me.” I paused, not wanting to get too carried away and spill everything I’d been hiding from him.
His shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry. There’s so much I want to tell you, but I need you to make your own decisions.”
I put one hand on my hip. “Whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep at night, Barque.” I turned toward the cave.
He touched my shoulder. “I don’t want to influence you with my voice.”
Damn him. He always always knew the perfect thing to say. I adjusted my backpack and lay down. He climbed into the cavity with me, and I was crying (yeah, again) before his strong arms encircled me and his velvety voice whispered in my ear.
“Shh, I love you. Happy birthday, babe.” He could influence me with that voice any day. “And I can’t hear your thoughts. Just what you feel. I didn’t know what your plan was, just that it felt good, it felt like it—whatever it was—would work.”
“What plan?”
Jag chuckled, and the tension between us disappeared. I lay in his arms, finally feeling safe. I shivered and he pulled me closer, only for me to push him away a few minutes later when I got too hot.
Finally, when I’d kept us both awake for an hour, he got up and retrieved the ointment from his first aid kit.
“Take off that shirt,” he said. “I mean, if you want my help.”
“Shut up. I won’t die from a sunburn.” At least I thought I wouldn’t. I’d always been told there was nothing worse than a sunburn, but now that I’d seen so many Baddies, I wasn’t so sure.
“Okay, then.” He lay back down, stretching his hands behind his head and studying the ceiling of the cave like it held the secret to living an uncontrolled life.
“But I—want your help.”
He grinned as he sat up. “Take off your shirt.”
I peeled off the prison shirt. Because of the tee I still wore, only my arms glowed pink. But, damn, they hurt.
“No wonder you can’t sleep.” He gently rubbed the cream into my arms, neck, and face.
I flinched. “Cold,” I murmured.
When he finished, he helped me put the long-sleeved shirt back on. “You’ll have to get it wet to take it off, okay? Don’t rip it. It’ll hurt.”
I nodded, so tired I couldn’t speak. I simply curled into his embrace again, wishing sleep would take me so I wouldn’t have to think anymore.
“Vi?”
“Hmm?”
“Will your dad give up?”
I didn’t answer right away, even though I knew. Surely Jag knew too. He’d obviously had more experience with my dad—with Thane—than I had. Just as I was about to answer, Jag said, “I’ll protect you. I promise.”
Yeah, he knew. And I did too.
My dad was not the giving-up type.