Three (Article 5 #3)(3)

“I don’t suppose you could tell us if anyone survived,” I said. “Guess that would be cheating.”

I opened my eyes and tilted my chin skyward in search of any sign of the bombs that had destroyed our sanctuary. But the stars were silent.

Before the War, I’d been so used to the noise I hadn’t even heard it. Cars, lights, the hum of the refrigerator. People. People everywhere—passing by in the street, talking on their phones, calling for their friends. When the Reformation Act decreed that the power be shut off for curfew, the nights got quiet. So quiet you could hear thieves breaking into houses two streets over, hear the sirens and the soldiers that came to arrest them. So quiet you could hear your heart pound and every creak in the floor as you hid under your bed hoping they didn’t come get you, too.

The silence didn’t scare me anymore. I welcomed it because it had strengthened me, made me more aware. But times like this I would have given anything to bring back the noise. To shout at the top of my lungs, I am still here, you haven’t beaten me! To tell everyone who could still sleep soundly because they were convinced the MM was at best our saving grace, and at worst a necessary evil, what had happened to me, and what they’d done to my mother.

A compression in the sand behind me pulled me from my thoughts. I spun toward the tree to my left, and strained my eyes into the darkness, gripping a fork in my pocket that I’d picked up in the street earlier.

“Who’s there?” I called after a moment.

A familiar shape emerged from under the canopy of dew-soaked leaves. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Relief rose within me, right along with the heat in my cheeks. I should have made sure no one was listening before launching into a one-sided conversation.

“Are you spying on me, Chase Jennings?” I planted my fists on my hips.

He chuckled. “Never.”

The sand shifted with each step that brought him closer, and for an instant the night behind Chase wavered, and he was back in the ruined remains of the safe house, digging through piles of broken wood and bent metal with his bare hands. Destroyed, just as the safe house had been destroyed, because his uncle was gone, because his last hope for our shelter was gone. But as quickly as it had come, the vision dissolved, leaving my throat swollen and my hairline damp.

I shook it off.

I couldn’t see him clearly until he was even on the embankment an arm’s length away. The black hair that grew so quickly was already fringing over his ears, and his jaw was scruffy from days of not shaving. He wore just a white T-shirt that seemed to glow in the moonlight and soot-stained jeans, torn through the knees, that frayed at his bare feet. His boots were tied together by their laces, and hung from one hand.

And just like that, I forgot the images that had clouded my mind. I forgot how I’d woken or what I’d dreamed. Something stirred inside of me, simmering with each moment his dark, glassy gaze held mine.

“Hi,” he said.

I smiled. “Hi.”

We hadn’t been alone much in the last three days, and when we had, Chase had been consumed by the search. He’d been a million miles away.

He didn’t feel so far away now.

I reached for his waistband, threaded a finger through the belt loop, and pulled him closer.

His shoes made a muted clunk as they dropped to the ground. His fingertips rose to my face and brushed along my cheekbones, his skin rough but his touch soft. They inched down the nape of my neck, down my spine, drawing me in as they came to rest around my waist.

I held my breath, aware of his hips against my stomach and the fluid way his shoulders rounded beneath my palms as he lowered his face to mine. I arched into the space between us so there was no longer him and I, but one. One form in the darkness. One breath, in and out.

His lips skimmed over my lips, side to side, as if memorizing their shape, innocent at first, but then something more, until the world beyond us dropped away. His eyes drifted closed and his embrace grew tighter and stronger, as if he could gather me inside of him.

My hands slid up the back of his shirt and traced the puckered skin from a scar on his lower back. He tensed in that way he did when he remembered things he didn’t want to.

The cloud that crawled over the moon hid his face. Sometimes it felt like the past was pulling Chase one way while I was pulling him the other.

Sometimes the past won.

I found the spot where the strong cords of his neck met his shoulder and kissed him there, in the place I knew would always distract him. His breath expelled in one hard rasp.

“You taste like salt.” I tried to make my voice steady, to give him something to hold on to. “You need a bath.”

His muscles loosened by the slightest degree. “Maybe you should take one with me.” I felt his grin against my neck. “Make sure I don’t cut any corners.”

My stomach fluttered. “Maybe I will.”

He went still. I giggled. But the thought of us together, like that, made my mouth dry.

“What are you doing out here?” I asked after a moment.

He straightened, and my cheek found its place on his chest.

“Couldn’t sleep.” He paused. “My head’s not right.” I heard his sigh, and the scraping sound of knuckles dragging along his unshaven jaw. My fingers laced behind his waist to lock him against me.

“You could tell me about it,” I tried.