Powerless (12 page)

He didn’t say anything else as I continued to eat.

“Maybe I don’t want to fight anymore,” I finally answered him.

Neveed let out a long breath and leaned his hip against the stove. “I figured you may have got to that point. We don’t have to talk about it now. Although I’m not going to be able to hold him off forever.”

I finished off Neveed’s bowl and popped my thumb into my mouth, sucking off the stickiness of the rice.

When I looked up at Neveed he was staring at my lips. My breath caught and I stopped moving.

It had been almost twenty years since I’d last let Neveed fuck me, but that look was unmistakable. As badly as Neveed and I communicated on a daily basis, we’d never had any problem discovering what the other person wanted when it came to sex. Neveed was skilled with his hands. That was something, no matter how deep I tried to bury it, that I could never forget.

I slid my thumb out and catalogued his reaction. He was deathly still. Those burnished brown eyes focused intently on me.

I put my finger in my mouth and licked it off. Neveed inhaled deeply, his chest expanding with the effort, straining his shirt tight across his shoulders.

I almost said something, then Neveed dragged his eyes off me and pushed away. “Come on. Let’s go work some of that frustration off with bullets.”

I licked my lips and watched him retreat.

Which kind of frustration he was talking about I didn’t know.

Either way, bullets were a safer option than the alternative.

* * * *

I woke up drenched in sweat, my teeth clenched so tightly I could feel the strain in the bones of my jaw and cheekbones, as my muscles spasmed and my body contorted against the pain. I had worked myself way beyond my limits during the day, but it was the only way I knew how to deal with the realisation that I was actually considering fucking Neveed again. Of course the dreams came that night, too. Burying me in the rubble of Armise’s memory, his presence still out of reach.

I bit back a cry as a wave of bone-searing agony tore through me.

Fuck. I wanted surge. I needed surge. Just one fucking hit. Just one and I could be at peace.

I gripped onto the headboard and curled up, knowing that trying to fight the spasms would just increase my levels of pain. The metal strained under the ferociousness of my grip, its ancient weldings screeching in protest, matching the tone of my internal screaming.

I heard the door to my room banging open, and felt the mattress sag beside me. Then Neveed’s hand was on my biceps. His touch was light, barely perceptible through the throbbing. But I could feel the heat of his fingers on my bare skin.

“How bad is it?”

When I opened my mouth to reply I could only drag in a desperate breath.

He began to massage the cramped muscles, his hands working over the curve of my arms tentatively at first then digging in as the attack began to ebb. I attempted to stretch out my legs and was met with another wave of splicing pain, but Neveed’s hands were there immediately, working against the kinks and coaxing blood back into the oxygen-starved muscles.

I panted, sucking in humid air, then forced myself to take deeper breaths.

This wasn’t the first time I’d woken up to sheer agony. It wasn’t the first time I’d contemplated that insanely impossible swim back to the mainland just to get my hands on surge. It wasn’t the first time Neveed had found me in bed naked, racked with pain. And it wasn’t the first time that Neveed’s hands had eased the tension. Bringing me back to sanity.

But this time was different.

I flopped onto my back and closed my eyes, letting him work.

There was nothing inappropriate in the way he touched me. Nothing suggestive or demanding. He wasn’t even asking.

He was leaving what happened next completely up to me, just as he always had.

I tried not to think. To let the moment pass. But each gentle curl of his fingertips into my skin reminded me of how long it had been since anyone had touched me like Armise had.

Fuck. Armise
.

The name swirled through my head, delving into every nerve set alight by Neveed’s hands. I couldn’t separate the thought of Armise’s battle-worn hands from the feeling of Neveed’s calloused fingers on my skin.

I arched into Neveed’s touch and slid down the bed, coaxing his hands farther up my thigh.

I heard a ragged inhalation of breath and Neveed’s hands stilled, but he didn’t pull away.

I opened my eyes. I licked my lips as I caught his questioning gaze. His face was cast in only the light coming from the moon through the window, but I could see the clenching of his jaw as he hesitated.

He slid his hands up my thigh, over my hips, thumbs just brushing my hardening cock. I sucked in a breath at the rush of heat from the soft touch. His fingers traced up my scarred torso and over my ribs. The pressure of his hands was gentle.

Nothing like how Armise would have ever touched me.

Then he was leaning down and pressing his lips to mine. Just a brush of hot skin.

I licked at his lips and lifted my head off the pillow, forcing him to kiss me harder. He opened his mouth, tongue snaking out to meet mine. He moaned into my mouth, placing his palm to my chest and sliding his leg between mine, moulding his body to my side.

I ran my hand over his shoulder blade and behind his neck, twisting my fingers in the curls at his nape, urging him forward.

His hand slid down my chest, following the line of my ribs, over my abs. But there was no fire behind it. No loss of control.

This was too slow. Too deliberate. Too gentle. Too fucking…wrong.

I let go of his neck and grabbed his hand as he went for my cock, thumping my head into the pillow with a frustrated exhalation. “I won’t do this.”

Neveed yanked his wrist out of my hold and sat up. His eyes were narrowed, brow furrowed. “Because of him.”

I considered lying to him, but what was the fucking point of that? I scrubbed my hands over my face, letting my fingers trail over my kiss-swollen lips. I licked them, tasting Neveed instead of hints of Singaporean balms, and answered, “Yeah. Because of him.”

Neveed flinched and got off the bed.

I got up and pulled on my pants, then faced him. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

I never apologised. I rarely had reason to. But allowing myself to step over the invisible lines Neveed and I had set up years ago was worthy of regret.

Neveed’s nostrils flared, his hands balling into fists as he came at me. “You’re sorry?”

I tipped my chin down to give him easier access for his fist to crash into my jaw. But his hands remained at his side as he stared me down.

“Fuck!” he yelled and turned on his heel, slamming his fist against the wall. He paced, eyes fevered, pulling harsh breaths into his lungs then huffing them back out. I watched the set of his shoulders ease as seconds passed, then he faced me, his eyes shining in the cut of the moonlight. “I won’t hold you back, Merq. I won’t attempt to change who you are. I won’t even ask you to continue fighting for the cause if you don’t want to. I remember a time when you were untouched by war, and I want to give you freedom. I want to see you smile and have genuine happiness go along with it.” Neveed stepped up to me, put his hand out then flinched back as if he wasn’t allowed that contact. “Fuck, Merq. I want to be the person that is the reason for that joy.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “What fucking planet are you on? Happiness? Joy? I wasn’t officially a Peacemaker when you and I first got together, Neveed. I’ve killed too many people for me to think that I am owed any measure of peace in this lifetime. In fact, I’m sure I’m going to be spending the next ten lifetimes working off the fucked up karma I’ve brought down on myself.”

“He doesn’t deserve your loyalty.”

“And you do?” I scoffed, even though he’d proven to me that he did.

“It was me that found you in that surge den, not the President. They’d all given up on you months ago. But I knew that if I was that first person to make contact with you, you would have killed me before you came in. I’ve never faltered from the cause or from you. I believe in the same things you do. I believe in the Revolution. And I believe in you.”

“I don’t even fucking recognise you. Who the fuck are you? You’ve barely said one kind thing to me in twenty years and now you’re handing me this? I don’t fucking buy it. So stop trying to manipulate me!”

“He isn’t coming back, Merq.”

“And what? You’re here? Really goddamn convenient if you ask me.”

Something inside Neveed appeared to snap, and his aura of patience shattered. He got in my face and grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at him. “I didn’t fucking ask you because I can’t expect any honest answers from you anymore. Fuck the surge. Fuck the damage done by that grenade. You’re better than this and you know it as well as all of us do. It’s not a secret that you’re smarter and stronger than any of us. But what you have to find a way to come to terms with is that you are stronger than him, too. Yes, it’s convenient that I’m here. And it’s not by accident either. I volunteered for this assignment because I know you. Because I’ve been in love with you for what feels like my whole damn life at this point. And you? I don’t think you’ve ever loved anyone. Until Armise came along. That emptiness in your gut? And the fucking need that could only be erased by surge? I know what that feels like. It’s betrayal and hurt. It’s longing for something that was never fucking yours to begin with. But I’m telling you right now it doesn’t have to be that way. I’ll never abandon you, Merq. I’ll fight with you and for you until I’m dead, because you deserve that level of loyalty.”

Fucking loyalty. The more I heard that word the more I realised that it was a mismatched set of letters that sounded nice but meant nothing.

But love? I had to keep my thoughts about Armise distinctly untethered to that notion.

And Neveed didn’t deserve to spend one more breath wondering if I would ever reciprocate what he felt for me.

He was too good a man for my fucked up version of love.

I had to end this here.

I didn’t pull out of his hold when I sneered and callously spat back at him, “If you’ve been waiting on me, then you’ve wasted your life.”

Neveed’s eyes went dark and I could see the moment he emotionally shut down. He turned his back on me.

Without facing me Neveed said, “I’ll aircomm the President and tell him you’re ready to come back to work.”

Chapter Eight

The Thunder took off in a gust of air that felled a couple of the oldest rotting out trees on the island.

It seemed fitting. There weren’t many places I departed without leaving destruction in my wake.

Neveed sat in the front of the heli with the pilot, leaving me in the back to my own thoughts. I still didn’t have a comm chip and they hadn’t outfitted me in a helmet with a microphone.

It had been only hours ago that Neveed had stalked out of my room and contacted the President. He hadn’t said one word to me since then. I wasn’t sure where we were headed. The Revolution had bases scattered across the States and on every continent. But as the heli tipped—giving me a flawless view of the rolling ocean before it righted itself again—I could tell we weren’t on course to go back to the mainland.

When we flew away from the sun setting rapidly in the west and the flight stretched into hours, I had to assume we were on our way to the DCR. I hadn’t had access to any of the press corps feeds on the island. I didn’t know the current status of Revolution troops or even the locations of the current front lines. The last report I’d seen in the medical facility, fighting had moved into the Outposts of Singapore and out of the deserts of the DCR, finally taking the fight to Opposition territory. But it only took minutes for entire battalions to relocate. Well, it did for the Opposition at least.

Last I knew, Revolution transporters were still down in the States. But whether that was still the case I wasn’t sure.

If I had been the one calling the shots after the attack on the bunker, I would have given priority to maintaining the shield and generator stations that protected our soldiers from sonic weapons. It only made sense at this point, since it was our only tactical advantage. Unless whatever shielding technology Ahriman and Grimshaw had used was now standard. But I was sure that development would have been something I would’ve heard about.

The heli dipped, crossing out of the blue expanse of ocean into the golden dust of the northern haunts of the DCR. It had been a long time since the DCR and the States were at odds—since the search for the infochip had ended and we’d realised belatedly that we were fighting for the same thing. Kariabba Tivy, the president of the DCR for nearly as long as our President had been in power, was now a staunch Revolutionary. Despite that, she and the President were not friends. But I didn’t think their lack of amity affected either of them. They were both headstrong figures and relentless in the ideal of a citizenry back in control of their lives. Some things were more important than whether or not they could share a meal at the same table. Without killing each other.

The Thunder hovered above a landing pad, the wind swirling the dust of the desert and whipping it against the simple, boxy stone structure that appeared to be the only oasis in miles of unending sand.

It looked hot on the ground. So I couldn’t imagine how sweltering it probably was. At least my hair was shaved down to stubble again.

I pushed through the door of the heli when it settled onto the concrete and followed Neveed, sweat popping up on my forehead almost immediately. Neveed still hadn’t acknowledged me and I didn’t push him to. Letting him hate me was the easiest way to tie off that loose end, as Jegs would have said.

I lost a step as her name flitted through my thoughts.

I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten about the abbreviated conversation with Jegs in the control room before the bunker had been attacked. But it wasn’t just time that had slipped past since that day. I had shifted, too.

I could feel myself slipping into the familiar skin of a soldier with each step I took. It didn’t hurt that the DCR was forever tied to strife and active combat. And that my hair was conspicuously absent—just as it had been during the standoff here so many years ago—propelled the transformation. I could feel the gait of my walk changing. My body tensing and eyes noticing the things only soldiers did.