Architect (Last Resistance Book 3), page 22
“It’ll be okay,” I tell him, though I’m really telling myself the same lie.
Camus starts to object again. “Rhona—”
“Jo?” I offer her my hand.
“Yes,” she says, “of course.”
“Stay here,” I tell Camus. “If we lose power and go manual, you may have to take the helm.”
“I hate this idea,” he says.
I press a kiss to his forehead. “Objection noted.”
The door jams against the few inches of water still on deck, and Jo has to wrestle it open. “Wait,” I say, before she’s gotten too far ahead of me, making a detour to the fire hose. My fingers slip off the case’s lock, but I manage to get it open with a little effort. “Here. Wrap this around your waist.” I do the same. It’s little insurance against falling overboard, but certainly better than nothing.
We proceed to the deck. The wind is hot and arid, full of a smell close to burning. The city would seem entirely too close if there were any buildings still standing, but there’s nothing but devastated countryside. Even the trees along the banks lay in rows, like they’ve been pushed over and squashed flat. I wonder if all those brainwashed prisoners made it to their destination. Is it possible the higher echelon prepared some kind of bunker?
I had expected to find bodies on deck, judging by the screams we heard, but instead there’s only a few survivors. Everyone else, I assume, must have been washed overboard when the wave hit. I risk moving to the low side of the ship to see if I spot anyone, but the waters are empty. Jo and I help those who did manage to cling to a railing or something else bolted to the deck, sending them to the stairs that lead below deck safely.
I feel the loss of the waves as the boat picks back up onto its foil. I’ve become so accustomed to the choppy waters that this smoother sailing feels stranger than not.
I’m just checking the water again for anyone who may have slipped overboard when I feel a hand on my arm.
It’s Jo. She looks rumpled but still far more put together than I imagine I do. “That’s everyone.” Her voice is somber, knowing.
“Where do we go from here?” I assume Jo has a plan beyond merely leaving Portland. I hope it’s a good one, because we need a good plan right about now.
“South,” she says. “We’ll stay at sea for a while to make sure the higher echelon hasn’t noticed our escape, and in that time I’ll reach out to some of my contacts for an assessment of what the situation is like out here.”
“You have contacts,” I say, a little surprised.
Her smile is tired but still somehow warm. “I do. We have people globally who share our cause, but there’s a group in Montana that we’ve been in close, albeit limited communication with.”
“Funny. I have friends in Montana too.” Thinking about Rash also makes me think about Snow. I wonder how they’re doing. I can’t imagine it’s any worse than our current predicament.
“Small world,” Jo says.
“Do you think the machines will follow us?” I ask after a moment, watching the shore shrink to a dark line, still hemorrhaging smoke.
“Glasgow is monitoring the situation. I think for now we’re as safe as we can be. When I know more, I’ll let you know.” I nod, and she squeezes my arm again. “I can take it from here. Get some dry clothes before you catch hypothermia. We’ll ultimately need to establish shifts, but we can afford to lose you for a few hours if you’d both like to rest.”
Both? I follow her gaze behind me, where Camus has emerged from the wheelhouse and is headed our way. I let him enfold me into an embrace, careless of Jo’s eyes on us. He squeezes me tight, and I can feel him shaking, or maybe I’m the one shaking, the tension finally leaving both our bodies. We made it. Somehow, we made it.
“Take any of the cabins downstairs on the right,” Jo offers. “There will be fresh clothes in the dresser and clean linens on the bed waiting for you.”
An entire cabin for just us sounds too good to be true. I’m also not convinced those clothes and linens won’t be ruined, soaked through from the wave that washed below deck, but if there’s a chance of getting dry and warm I’ll take it. Escaping the cold spray and taking the load off my feet for a while also sounds perfectly heavenly.
Doubly so because it means I’ll finally have a true moment alone with Camus.
My mind feels oddly hushed at this realization, almost calm, and with a drained nod I thank Jo and follow Camus below deck.
Sixteen
Camus warns me about a weak step and some low-hanging piping as we head down the stairs. He’s obviously visited the boat before in anticipation of its departure. I wonder how many times, because he seems to know his way around. There’s still so much about his last six months that I don’t know. It reminds me of when I first woke up, except I lived the drawn passage of time this time around day by miserable day. Yet now that we’re together again, it’s like we were barely apart.
Everything feels especially slow and dreamlike below deck, almost cozy. The corridors are lit by strings of battery-operated lights and hanging metal lanterns repurposed out of small decorative flower cages, mimicking something you’d see on an eighteenth-century pirate vessel. It takes me a moment to understand why everything is analog with little in the way of actual electronics. Stealth. I have no idea whether the higher echelon does frequent sweeps of the ocean for survivors, but it makes sense to operate with an abundance of caution. Guess that means a hot shower is out of the question, unless I plan on starting a fire and boiling the water myself.
Camus enters one of the cabins off the narrow hall and searches for the light with his hand. “I know it’s here somewhere.” I smile at his hasty movements and the hint of frustration in his grumble, because it suggests he’s as eager as I am to secure some privacy.
“Well,” he says after a moment. “I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I found the switch...”
“We’re still standing in the dark, so I think I can guess what the bad news is.”
“Yes. We’re still sailing dark, I suppose. Too close to shore.”
“I have an idea.” I reach up to retrieve one of the lanterns, but even on my tiptoes I’m not tall enough. I jump, trying for the clip that’s securing the lantern to its metal chain just out of reach.
“All you have to do is ask,” Camus says quietly into my ear, his previous irritation now replaced by gentle amusement. The warm tickle of his breath sends shivers through my body, and if my flesh weren’t already bracing against the cold, I’d have burst into goosebumps.
“I’m not good at that,” I mumble.
I’m worried he will ask me to clarify but he doesn’t, and then I feel foolish for even being worried. Camus understands me with all my sharp angles better than perhaps anyone else on this planet.
Except Samuel. But I quietly move away from thoughts of him, like a fire that is too hot. Ximena could still be alive in one of the higher echelon’s bunkers, but what if she’s not? What if the bunker failed or she never reached it? I’m afraid of what Samuel’s grief over Ximena will look like, what it will do to him. I know I’ll want to carry the burden and pain of it for him, even though I can’t. Maybe Camus can talk to him. He’s been through that long, dark tunnel before.
Camus’s tone shifts toward sympathy. “I know,” he says without judgment of my inability to admit weakness and ask for help. The lantern comes free, yet instead of going ahead he offers it to me. My idea, my prize.
I lead us into the cabin like a deep-sea cave explorer, holding the lantern ahead of me. The glow from the flame throws flickering shadows across the floor and onto the walls. Two bunks on opposite sides of the room materialize, long shadows gathering above their headboards. I spot candles on a desk between them and head over to light them, battling their damp wicks for only a moment. The candlelight burns a feathered halo into the dark, its soft perimeter defined by surrounding shadow, and makes the room feel warm and close. Intimate.
As I set the lantern down, a small round mirror on the wall catches me like a passing ghost. The glass is foggy, but still reflects enough for me to glimpse myself. My hair is a wreck, stiffened into awkward clumps, and my clothing not much better. All over my face are nicks and cuts, like ugly, unwanted freckles. Camus seems to have fared little better. He’s drenched from missing the boat and still working to escape the tight wet sleeves of his coat behind me. My heart clenches, recalling the moment right before our hands met, when that interminable distance seemed uncrossable. When it seemed like, after everything, I might still lose him.
“Here,” Camus says after watching me struggle for a minute with my own clothing, stiff and bloodied. He still has on his shirt, baggy with moisture, but I have his complete attention. “Allow me.”
Camus carefully helps me undress, mindful of any hidden injuries. I focus on his hands, rougher than I remember, more worn, as they liberate my shoulders of wet, heavy fabric, fingers brushing against my freckled skin. He is slow and methodical, and even once we reach the point where I’m confident I can manage I let him continue to strip me, answering each of his considerate pauses and inquiring looks with a small nod.
“Keep going,” I say when his hands stop at my waist. I’m not quite thinking about what I’m asking until the words are out of my mouth, misting the cool air between us.
Camus doesn’t frown or smile. His expression is darkly serious. “Are you sure?”
I press myself close to him, wrapping my arms around his neck. He smells like brackish seawater now more than smoke, like the feral ocean, and his shirt clings as my stomach meets it. “I’ve spent my life putting off what I want for what I think others need,” I say. “I told myself that I was waiting for the right time. But I wasn’t waiting. I was stalling. And I’m not going to do that anymore. I’m done missing moments of joy because I’m waiting for the universe to give me permission to be happy.”
I lean up, probing his mouth with mine, gently at first and then with desperate ferocity.
“Is that a yes?” Camus smiles against my lips.
“Yes,” I smile. “God, yes. Are you? Ready, I mean.” He wasn’t before. For as close as we’d become, the ghost of another woman had always been lying in bed with us. “It’s all right if you aren’t,” I add, suddenly full of doubt. It’s been nearly half a year since we saw each other last. A lot can happen in that amount of time. I know from experience.
Camus doesn’t answer me in word, but in action. His hands cover my waist, thumb sliding underneath the band of my underwear to loosen it over my hips as his mouth finds purchase on my neck. He blankets me in kiss after slow kiss, and my eyes flutter shut of their own accord, savoring this long sought-after sensation.
Fabric slides past my thighs, and then I’m grabbing his shirt, wrestling it over his head, and he’s tugging at my sports bra, its stubborn elastic forcing our mouths to pause long enough for me to get free. We come back together almost immediately, never breaking contact elsewhere. The fire that’s been building between us since my resurrection is now a wild, untamed flame, spreading down into the valley of skin between us.
I loosen Camus’s belt, allowing him to step out of his pants. I’m not sure whether he steps forward or if I step back, but suddenly we’re moving backwards toward one of the beds. The backs of my legs hit the edge of the mattress and I lose my balance, bringing Camus down with me. His chuckle starts as a delighted rumble in his chest, and it isn’t long before I’m laughing too.
Our humor fades quickly, replaced by more serious emotion. He stares down at me with so much tenderness I’m surprised my heart doesn’t fly out of my chest. “I love you,” I tell him without reservation or qualification, because even though it should be obvious by now, some feelings are too important not to say out loud.
Camus smiles so unselfconsciously that I almost don’t recognize him for a moment in his joy. A shadow has lain over him for so long. He moves my hair back from my face, dropping his mouth to mine between his words. “How fortunate for me…” Each taste of him sparks lightning under my skin, conducting heat to every nerve. “That I’ve been given the chance to fall in love with you twice.”
The candlelight glints off the engagement ring lying against my chest. Maybe it would’ve been smarter to leave it back with the Canadians but that seemed like bad luck. Like it would be admitting how much I feared losing myself on the mission to Portland. As much as I wish the idea of death didn’t startle me, it does. All I recall of the time between when Rhona perished outside Anchorage and when I woke up is a gap filled with unthinking darkness. Maybe her soul went somewhere after her body quit and maybe it didn’t. I’m not in any hurry to find out which religion, if any, is right.
Camus’s hot mouth coasts down the length of my throat and I close my eyes, letting him work out my existential dread like a knot in sore muscle. I make an involuntary sound of pleasure which only encourages him to touch me more. His fingers ultimately move lower, gracing the soft mound between my legs and causing my hips to buck, desperate for more intimate friction.
What happens next is private and intense, mine and Camus’s alone. Ours. We retire from the world in panting splendor, becoming more than what my expectations shaped us into. Fitting together inside love in our own unique way. After so long trying to remember, I am relieved to be lost in the wilderness of him, finally made to forget for a time where I am. The slap of our bodies is like the ancient rhythm of a primal drum. We are old made new.
And I am not alone. Not anymore. Hopefully never again.
After, we lay beneath the covers facing each other as our breathing softens and the candles burn down. The almost unbearable heat of my skin from before slowly fades to a pleasant warmth. I never realized the amount of tension I normally carry until now, fully relaxed, I know how it feels to be weightless.
Camus strokes my shoulder with his thumb while I watch him, trying to memorize every detail of this moment. I’m not sure when we’ll have another opportunity to be together like this. Maybe not for a long time after we finally make landfall. I want to hold onto this, onto us, for as long as I can.
Part of me wants to say something but another part advises silence. Not every moment needs words. Talking is how I make sense of my thoughts and feelings. But I don’t need to make sense of my thoughts right now. I understand this feeling perfectly. This is the man I love. The man I defeated death to return to. And he loves me. I am loved.
My heart beats with steady confidence. I am loved.
The cabin never falls to complete darkness again. The candles burn lower and lower but never wink out, and even from beneath shuttered eyes the bright hope of my lover beside me keeps me warm. It is enough.
For now.
PRIM
DENALI NATIONAL PARK, ALASKA
I can’t find Hanna. Zelda struggles up through the snow as I begin throwing aside board after board, digging desperately for my lost friend. The avalanche came so quickly there was no time to shelter in place. The Visitor Center never stood a chance. Its old wooden frame gave beneath the onslaught of snow and ice and earth. Hanna must have felt the rumble, because she looked up seconds before the windows broke in, and in those split seconds I scrambled out from under her, clambering toward my gun in case of an incoming attack by machines. I didn’t reach it before ice closed over me in place of Hanna’s body.
“Hanna!” I cry out before remembering the obvious. She can’t hear me.
The landslide of snow is dense, packed with sharp rocks and branches, and several times pieces of debris slit my glove, causing a sting like a snake bite. I don’t let it stop me. My hands have seen enough trauma that a little more isn’t going to make a difference, and I’m afraid stopping will allow the visions to come back, blocking out my senses and rendering me useless in this recovery effort.
Zelda’s gaze meets mine over the hump of snow. A request for help lays on the tip of my tongue, but she makes her way to me and begins shoveling before I have to ask. She shoves her whole arms into the unnatural drift, searching like a lifeguard, stopping just short of pressing her face to the snow.
Minutes pass. And then my hand closes around something solid, with fingers and a wrist. I issue a relieved cry. “I think I have her!” I shout, tugging. Zelda moves over to help me excavate Hanna, but what emerges isn’t soft flesh but an exoskeleton and the face of my enemy.
I jerk backwards, releasing the machine’s hand. Its illuminated face casts a dull, flickering glow on the snow as Zelda frees the rest of its buried body.
My gun, I think. No. Hanna first. The machine can wait.
I search a different section nearby and soon find another hand. This one gives like skin and muscle should, even within a glove. My heart trips over itself in an unnatural rhythm as I battle the elements to bring Hanna up from the ice. Please, I think, clearing the snow from around her head. Be alive.
Her eyes are closed, lashes crusted with tiny crystals. I lean my cheek next to her mouth, but I can’t feel any breath.
“No,” I murmur, “Come on, Hanna. Zelda!”
Zelda materializes immediately and together we pull Hanna out of the snow. She’s freezing, and while neither of us is particularly warm, we hold her close, her body draped between us like the crucified Christ. But only for a moment, while the shock of what’s happened fades.
Zelda tears off her glove and searches for a pulse, her own teeth chattering. The sun is finally starting to come up, but it’s barely visible through the cracks of the crumpled Visitor Center structure.
“She’s alive,” Zelda says after what feels like a lifetime.
“She is?” I squeak. My cheeks are damp, my eyes hot. Thank god.
I help Zelda lay her down on the flattest surface we can manage and then supervise as Zelda performs CPR, giving her back the breath I hadn’t felt.
I look up briefly and catch the machine staring. Its projected face is broken by patches of dead pixels, but from what is visible it shows what could almost be mistaken as concern. Like it cares. Like it even could.
