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Excerpt:
What was I thinking, bringing him
here? I know
little about him, other than he’s new to the city, not one of the locals, and
he’s got a bio-mechanical hand that doesn’t work.
“So,
do you have a name, or should I just call you woman who stole my pack?”
Yeah, that. I brush his question off, not quite
ready to share more than I already have. “I did not steal it. You abandoned
it.”
I
will admit our first meeting went a little rough. I did grab his bag when he
left it unattended, and he gave chase. The raiders came, and I decided he was
the lesser of two evils. And here we are, standing in my home, tucked inside my
compound; the very one I’ve somehow managed to keep a secret until now.
“You
stole it.” This stranger I know next to nothing about stands across from me. He
tips his head slightly while he stares. A phantom chill chases across my skin.
I reach up and rub my arms. Something about my action speaks to him, because he
turns away, focusing on my space instead.
“I
gave it back,” I say, but he gives no indication he hears. I’m risking a lot
bringing him to my compound. Outside of a few questions, he’s said little to me
since we stepped inside my living area, nor has he given me any reason to trust
him.
Actually,
I have every reason not to. Yet here we are.
He
stops looking and starts exploring, walking around the room, running his hand
along the walls and furniture, then stopping in front of a gilded mirror.
Reaching out, he touches the glass where dark spots from the corroded silver
mar the surface. I can still view my reflection in the silver, but my image is
not as clear as it would’ve been when first made. He turns around, taking in
the rest of my space.
It
seems so irresponsible, allowing someone I don’t know into my home. Yet, I’m
not uncomfortable with his perusal of my space, as long as his attention
remains there and not on me. I keep my home spotless. It always has been, along
with my workspace. My mind will not function in disorganization. I’m not a fan
of dirt, and my home proves it.
The
tile floor, a terra cotta, has a couple of cracked sections, but they’re
covered with a large rug I found in a majestic home within the quarantine area.
It looks as though it’s never been used, still bright, with delicate,
hand-woven details. Little animals and flowers sit within geometric designs of
a balanced and repeating pattern. The exactness is a mathematical orgasm to my calculating
mind.
The
paintings on the walls also came from the same home. Bright contrasting colors
vibrate off one another, the images insinuating buildings and people but
falling short of enough detail to call them nothing more than a hint of a busy
street captured on canvas. Unlike the rug, there’s no method to their design.
I’ve stared at them for hours, guessing where the artist painted them and what
subject he’d chosen to render on their surface. They are the most chaotic thing
in my home, and perhaps that’s why I put them on my walls. Nothing in my world
is perfect anymore. Perfection is an illusion.
“I
like your home.”
“Thank
you,” I say and glance around. Piece by piece, I’ve put my home together, all
for comfort, because outside my walls, there isn’t any. Here, there is
sanctuary. But the stranger in my space changes it.
He
returns to studying me, as though my home isn’t as interesting. “So, are you
going to tell me your name?”
“Why
is it so important to you?” I take in his expression, doing my best to read his
intentions and failing. It’s been months since I’ve had any kind of
conversation. For reasons I can’t explain, I want to open up to him, tell him
about everything. I finally have someone to listen, and it’s intoxicating and
oh so tempting. However, I’ve already been burned for trusting someone, and I’m
in my current situation because of it. “Does it matter?”
“Yes,
it does. A name is a gift.”
“Right.
A name is something your parents put on your birth certificate.”
“No,
it’s more than that. It’s an identity. It says that you belong somewhere, to a
family. My name is Axel.” He holds my gaze. “And your name?”
“Iia
Danner.” It comes out easier than I expect. What I give him is my true birth
name, though I doubt he’d know I have gone by another or that Danner holds some
significance in another place. I cross my arms over my chest, not sure what to
do with them. I’ve never felt so on display. He’s examining me as intently as
my home, and I’ve no idea the information he’s gaining from it, just that he’s
learning something.
“It’s
nice to meet you, Iia Danner.”
“Do
you have a last name, Axel?”
He
reaches up and touches the chip in his face, and then drops his gaze to a pile
of books on the floor.
For
a second, I panic. It’s as though he’s opened my underwear drawer. I was going
through them when I heard the ships and left them there to sort through after
investigating. I didn’t know I would have a guest, or I’d have put them away. I
stare at the pile, as though it has flashing signs all over it: Look here. See
inside her head. Know her secrets. My brain twitches, not liking the violation
of my personal space.
“No,
I don’t have a last name,” he says, snapping me out of the beginning of a panic
attack.
“No?”
He
shrugs but doesn’t take his eyes from my mess on the floor. “Until a few years
ago, I didn’t even have a first name.” Then the man I only know as Axel stoops
down and picks up one of my romance novels. A smile creeps onto his face, and
he moves for my chair in the corner, sitting down and propping his feet up on
my workbench. He opens the book and starts to read.
He
dismisses me. Just like that.
“Excuse
me?” Irritation prickles at my scalp. My space. My book. I’ve never had to
share, didn’t plan on starting now, not in my home, most certainly not my
sanctuary. “What are you doing?”
He
looks up, peering at me over the top edge of the novel. “Reading.”
No,
no, no. My stomach has about a million knots tightening all at once. I’m not
used to people being around, especially those I can have a conversation with. I
don’t want him to stay, but I don’t want him to leave either. Until I know he
won’t bring an army back here to dismantle my compound, I can’t let him go. I
programmed my bees upon entering to prevent him from leaving, but I haven’t
told him so. He’s my prisoner.
A
too damn comfortable one. Who’s the warden here?
“Are
you going to stare, or sit?” He turns a page, and I shift from foot to foot.
I’ve been alone for so long I’m not certain I can carry on a comprehensible conversation
with anyone but myself. Nor do I have a clue what to say to him. I’d asked him
his last name, and the conversation went silent from there. Now he’s sitting in
my chair, reading my favorite book, using my workbench as a footstool and
looking at home in my space. I don’t like it a bit.
I
turn and walk to the other side of the room and pace back to where he sits.
“That’s my book.”
He
doesn’t bother to look up this time. “Kind of figured it was.” Using his thumb,
he flips to another page.
“I
mean that’s my book.”
He
sets it down. “Are you trying to tell me you don’t want me to read it?”
“No.”
I bite my lip. “Yes.” I feel intimate with the people in the story. I know
their habits, how they think, what they like and don’t. They are more real to
me than the man sitting across the room. I just don’t know how to interact
anymore, and by touching my book, it’s almost like he’s touching me, digging in
my head, dissecting my thoughts. The people in the book are all I have. How can
I explain my lame existence—my equally lame fictional relationship with people
who don’t exist, who never have?
“Do
you, or do you not?”
“I
don’t.”
“Want
me to read it, or put it down?”
“Why
would you want to read that particular book anyway?”
He
shrugs. “A friend of mine taught me to read with these. I guess they kind of
grew on me. It gave me a chance to live a life I could only dream of at the
time—through words. I know it sounds kind of weird, but when you are a slave
from the moment you take your first breath, even a fictional world provides an
escape.”
I
sink to the floor beside him, forgetting the book for the moment. “How were you
a slave?”
“I’m
a clone.”
If
he’d hit me with a sledgehammer, I wouldn’t have been more surprised. I move
away from him. A clone? I’ve known of rumors that the states experimented with
cloning before the war, but I hadn’t believed it. The only thing I’m familiar
with that was created artificially, like a clone, is a bio-mech. I shudder and
look down at his hand.
Nothing without a soul can be
trusted.
“Why
are you retreating?”
“Are
you alive—human?”
“I
am. Except for this.” He holds up his bio-mech limb. “I love. I hate. I hurt. I
bleed.”
“You
love?”
“Yes.”
“Who
is she?”
He
looks away. “It’s not important. She’s with another now.”
I
scoot toward him and wait until he makes eye contact. “What is it like—to love
someone?”
“You’ve
never loved?”
“I’ve
only had one experience with it, and I don’t know if it was real. It was
complicated.”
He
watches me, his eyes not missing anything. I get the feeling he’s figuring out
what my drives are, why I did what I did. I can tell him I’m not that complex,
but from the way he looks at me, I know he won’t believe me. “This man, is he
here?”
“No,
he’s dead, but he was never really with me, at least his heart wasn’t.”
“The
rejection hurts, doesn’t it? How do you get over it?”
Someone rejected him? Why? “I don’t know. I wish I did.”
He
nods. “May I read your book to you?”
“Read
it to me?”
“Yes,
it relaxes me.”
I
move closer until my hip is pressed against his ankle. “Okay, but skip chapter
twelve.”
“What’s
in chapter twelve?”
“Sex.”
My cheeks heat.
He
grins. “Is that why the cover is so worn?”
My
face grows hotter. “No, I’ve barely read it.” Liar. I likely can recite it line for line, but I won’t admit it.
“The
sex scenes are my favorite part,” he says.
I
laugh. “Duh, because you’re male.”
“No,
that’s not it. Relationships have always drawn me. For most of my life, I
watched people interact, never really understanding what drove human emotions.
The sex scenes are nothing but emotion, intimacy, something I’d never had or
experienced for a very long while. These scenes gave me that, a chance to feel
what it could be like to have someone care about you. What it was to love and
be loved. And then when I was—loved, I finally got the book, understood what
the author wrote.”
I
frown. “Just what kind of childhood did you have?”
“That’s
just it, I didn’t have one, or a family, or anyone until I met her.”
“The
one you love?”
“Yes.”
“I’m
sorry, but that is super depressing. And I thought I had it bad.”
“Tell
me about it. How you found yourself here.”
“It’s
a long story.”
“We
have time. It will be a while before the raiders give up their search.” He
places the book on a small table beside the chair and leans forward, resting
his elbows on his knees. “What brought you to this place, Iia Danner?”
A
peace settles over me. I can’t explain why I want to tell him, I just do. He
makes me feel safe, and the more I talk to him, the more I like him. He isn’t
demanding anything from me. He asks, and then he waits. I know if I say no, he
will drop it. But I don’t want to. “Where should I start?”
“The
beginning.”
