This Shattered World (Starbound #2)(17)
I was expecting him to take a sip. Instead he gulps it down with a noisy glug glug of water. When he finally lowers it, he makes a show of squinting into the mouth of the canteen. “Oh, shoot, most of it’s gone now. You want what’s left?”
Only the pain in my shoulders keeps me from trying to pull free of my ropes again. “You’re kind of an *, aren’t you? The pretty ones always are.”
He makes a show of surprise. “You think I’m pretty? Why, Jubilee—I’m blushing. Look, you want this or not?”
He’s figured out his devil-may-care attitude pisses me off. My jaw’s clenched so tight I’m half afraid it’s about to break. “What, do you want me to beg for it? Did you come here to gloat?”
He raises an eyebrow, that smug smile turning wry. “I want you to promise me you’re not going to try to kick my pretty face in if I come any closer.”
He’s actually afraid I’m going to hurt him somehow. No wonder they’ve got me tied down so tightly I can’t even sit upright. “What would your buddies say? Scared of a girl tied to a post in the ground.”
“They’d say ‘Don’t go near her, that’s Lee Chase, she eats rebel babies for breakfast.’”
My throat closes a little. Be proud, I remind myself. You want them scared. Might make them think twice before they shoot at your platoon. I inhale sharply through my nose. Bracing. Cleansing. You want them to fear you.
“Don’t have enough leverage to kick you anyway,” I say eventually.
He takes me at my word, closing the gap between us. He’s moving carefully, though, watching me closely for signs I’m about to attack. Maybe I should take advantage somehow, but I was telling the truth when I said I didn’t have the right leverage. I can’t get him, the way I’m tied down.
“I’ll hold it for you,” he says quietly, dropping into a crouch at my side.
“My hero.” The words pop out, dripping with malice, before I can stop them. Mock the guy after you get your water, I remind myself.
He holds the canteen anyway, letting me gulp down the last dregs of the slightly muddy water inside. Their filters don’t work any better than ours do. It still tastes like swamp. When I’m done, he lowers the canteen and rests his elbows on his knees, watching me. Backlit as he is, I can’t make out his features very well. I can only see his eyes, glittering in the gloom, slightly narrowed.
He really doesn’t know what to do with me. And to be honest, I don’t really know what to make of him. If he were the kind of guy I’d expected him to be, I’d be dead right now. And he certainly wouldn’t be bringing me water.
“So does Romeo have a name?”
He snorts. “I’m going to have enough problems if you take my face back to your base with you. I don’t think I’m about to give you a name to go with it.”
“I’m not going back,” I reply, my voice quiet. It’s the first time I’ve said it aloud. It doesn’t make it any easier. “And if you don’t realize that yet, you’re a bigger idiot than I thought.”
“Well, you do think I’m a pretty high-grade moron.” There’s amusement in his voice, which, now that he’s speaking without the smugness, is actually gentler than I would’ve thought. “You’re their golden child, their prodigy. They’ll trade for you, I’m sure of it.”
“Trade what, exactly?” I shift, trying to get my weight under me, trying to feel a little less vulnerable. “Say we all did what you wanted, what Orla Cormac demanded during the last rebellion on Avon. Say the entire military left, tomorrow, and TerraDyn left you alone. What then?”
“We’re not asking for the military to go, not anymore. We just want to live our lives free of TerraDyn’s regulations. We want to be independent citizens.”
“What would you eat, without TerraDyn’s imports? Where would you get building materials for your houses? Avon can’t support life on its own, not yet. It’s too young; the ecosystems are too fragile. It’s not done being terraformed yet. If Orla Cormac had won a decade ago, you’d all be starving to death right now.”
“Orla was wrong.” I can see it costs him to say it. “And she was executed for it. We’re not asking for complete autonomy. All we want is medicine for our kids, food for our elderly. Schools. This is no kind of life, you must know that.”
“What I know is if the military weren’t here to keep order, TerraDyn would pull out and abandon the settlement, and then we’d see how far you got eating algae. Hate us all you like, but the military’s what’s keeping you alive.”
His jaw tightens as he looks at me, and I know I’ve scored a point. But he doesn’t give up, saying quietly, “Orla Cormac no longer leads us. Not all of us want you dead. I want to talk, not fight. I want someone to find out why Avon’s not progressing through the terraforming stages. This is my home, and it’s broken. There has to be a better way.”
I lean back, the ropes chafing at my skin. I have no quick reply to that—I’d expected him to snap something stupid and noble, like most idealistic young rebels. Logic is harder to dismiss. In some other place, not tied to the floor, I could’ve spent hours debating with this guy. I lift my chin, squaring my jaw. “If you wanted to talk, then kidnapping an officer off the military base probably wasn’t the best way to go about it.”