The Gender Fall (The Gender Game #5)(6)

Grass. It was the opposite of sky. I wanted to smile at my own cleverness.

Instead, I frowned as I was suddenly moved, gently lifted back into Viggo’s arms. I realized his hands had been on me the entire time I was vomiting. They had been holding me up, keeping me from falling face first into my own mess.

I sighed as my cheek once again came into contact with the familiar beveled curve that was Viggo’s shoulder. His hands held me tight against him, and I melted into him. He was so warm, and I shivered as a chill caught me unaware, causing me to burrow closer to his warmth. I stared at his face. He was so beautiful.

Frowning, I squinted and took a closer look. He was sweating. His breathing was ragged. There was strain around his mouth and eyes. His eyes were hard and burning with something. Anger? Desire? Determination.

That was it. He was determined. I struggled mentally, grasping at associations, and another face slid across my mind. It was the face of a young man. His hair was a dark brown mop of wavy curls, and his eyes were a familiar shade of glistening silver. He wore the same look as Viggo, but on him, I found it adorable and irritating at the same time. Like I didn’t know whether to hug him or shake him.

Tim. His name came to me with the force of a wrecking ball, bowling me over with a wave of love, guilt, responsibility, and… a keen sense of loss.

My brother, Tim.

I couldn’t see him. Was he with us? Of course he was… wasn’t he?

I hated interrupting Viggo when he looked this stressed, but I couldn’t trust my mind right now. My memories were jumbled and confusing, the headache caused by focusing so hard conflicting with my desire to know. Knowing won out.

“Tim,” I said, and frowned at the croaking noise that erupted from my throat. I shook it off and watched Viggo closely.

His mouth tightened into a thin line, but he didn’t respond. His face confused me—was he angry? Angry at Tim? No… he loved Tim. I was certain of that. Then what was it? I searched my memory—had I even asked the question I had wanted to?

I couldn’t remember. It would be best to repeat it, I decided. I had opened my mouth to ask Viggo about Tim again, when his lips moved. I zeroed in on them, studying them intently as he spoke.

“We don’t know,” he said.

That… That wasn’t right. Tim was… He was with two others… Thomas and Jay, right? That felt right, so I decided to trust it.

But then… why wouldn’t Viggo know? He must know. Or be mistaken. That was wrong—Viggo was never mistaken.

A wash of fear came over me as I tried to piece together the two concepts. I could only come up with two choices. Either Viggo was confused about where Tim was, or he didn’t know where Tim was… which meant something was incredibly wrong.

The fear grew in my mind, tearing it apart with images of the bulldog woman, plunging her knife into Tim over and over, and laughing at me.

I fled into the darkness, trying to hide from the returning panic, destroying any last trace of who I was.





4





Viggo





I bit off a curse as we ran through the forest that bordered Mr. Kaplan’s fields, my mind whirling furiously, the front of my shirt still damp from Violet’s vomit. The air was still cold, the sun struggling to chase away the chill of night as it rose overhead. Violet was heavy in my arms, but her limbs drooped again, slack. She had slipped back into unconsciousness, and I wasn’t sure whether that was good or bad, given the circumstances. The fact she kept passing out like this was alarming, spurring in me the desperate need to move faster. Despite the impulse, I forced myself to maintain my even pace. Racing blindly ahead would only get both of us hurt, and Violet was already suffering enough. I hated the idea that I was hurting her by moving her. Hated that I had to run with her through the forest in a mad dash to try to get her out of the area. But we couldn’t afford to get captured. Her least of all.

The circumstances filled me with an anger that was almost impossible to control. I felt feral and raw, more beast than man. And yet, I knew under that, deep down, I was afraid. My heart ached for the idea of life without the woman in my arms. It protested this possibility fiercely, rejecting any thought that she could die.

The world was a crueler place than the one my heart seemed to yearn for. If anyone needed evidence of that, they needed only to look at my past. At how I had failed as a husband. At how I had failed to keep my wife safe, which had culminated in her execution.

It was selfish and greedy, but I couldn’t go through that desolation again. If I lost Violet… I didn’t know what I would do. And I couldn’t trust luck, couldn’t trust the environment we now lived in to be safe for her. I couldn’t trust anyone with her but my own damn self.

So I ran, racing around trees, kicking up dirt and leaves, spurred on by my fear of a future without her jokes, her smile, her killer instinct, her charm, her eyes…

Owen ran beside me, his face red from exertion, his eyes wide. We knew it was only a matter of time before the Matrian patrol returned and started sweeping the edges of the woods. If we were caught out in the open like this, they would have us. They would have her.

I knew it was true because the patrol had taken Mr. Kaplan with them after they had torn apart his home looking for us. We’d waited far too long—for the silence that had reigned after the crashing and shouts. But nothing had happened. We’d had to push the painting off the secret entrance to our hiding place, and it had seemed sad to see it fall to the floor—until we’d seen the destruction wreaked by the Matrian wardens. As terrible as it sounded, I was glad Violet had passed out before the women came into the house. And I was glad she had stayed that way as we’d picked our way out of the overturned dressers and broken furniture in the hall, sneaking out into the fields, then to these woods, unsure whether the Matrians had truly moved on from the area yet.