05-27-2020, 10:05 PM
They might not survive this.
That wasn’t a new thought; the crashing tides since the storm of their first meeting rarely calmed enough for softer waves, only brief lulls before greater storms. Still, it was the first time she had really confronted the possibility since Texas. She watched the shadows zip by the window, listening to the city's ominous night noises, not remotely convinced they were even safe in the car. It seemed a world away from the motel on the other side of the border, and even that had hardly been tasteful. Africa had had places like this; places steeped in darkness, especially for a woman. The sorts of ghosts the Jasiri compound was built on, and yet she still hadn't been prepared.
Jay was utterly silent, and gripping the wheel as though perhaps the power rippled his skin under the tracery of his scars. Maybe it did. Either way, Natalie did not disturb him.
She eased her fingers against her scalp, unfastening the knot of her hair and letting it fall loose. Grit and sand clung, and it was insufferably hot even with the windows rolled down. The jacket slipped from her shoulders with a nauseating tug against the wound there, blanching the edges of her vision for a slightly dizzying moment. Its throb was a consistent touchstone, but the shoulder moved fine. She didn’t test it against the seat by leaning back though, which was just as well considering the grim condition of the car. Jay wouldn't see the injury, not with the way his knuckles strained, nor with the angle she was sitting. She did not mean him to either. Meanwhile her hand flared against the stream of air from outside, dry as a furnace.
His silences didn’t usually bother her, but it cut now.
No small part of her wanted to curl her palm overtop his fingers until she felt the tension in them ease. It wasn’t from any particular desire to bestow forgiveness, though she was worried he might construe it as such -- and that the brittle blow of such a misunderstanding might only hasten the spread of cracks, until he shattered. He couldn't afford to break now, and Natalie wasn’t armoured for that kind of meaningless comfort. The desperate flash in Jay’s eyes, begging for understanding before his demeanour snapped, was not likely to relinquish the burn it left on her retina any time soon. Nor the bruising touch; that kind of pain left a legacy of its own, but not so painful as how the violence tightened in him, the blade of it trained on her. Even for artifice. It made her feel sick.
Yet Natalie wasn’t fragile. She did not follow blindly. And she’d chosen to be here, with all it might entail.
Sometimes she wondered if Jay ever allowed himself to consider just why she’d taken his hand at the facility when it was fresh from squeezing the trigger into the skulls of a schoolyard full of children. Though no, that wasn’t true. She knew he would not, for he only lied to himself.
She knew why, though, and she’d carry that reason for the both of them.
Her attention shifted as the apology tumbled raw from his throat. For a moment there was a very dry remark cut to the shape of her tongue; an instinctual flippancy, cruelly humoured. It was likely to be the least of his sins before they were through, after all, and he knew at least a little of the ghosts already trailing in her wake. This hardly numbered among them.
The absent nature of the gesture that followed quietened her though. The sadness in it. Her pale eyes followed it like she followed the pattern of his soul.
Of all the things he might have apologised for, this was one assuredly down the list. The horror he glimpsed of himself hurt him more than she ever could, and she didn’t choose to do that anyway, but her clemency might be but another shovelful of grave dirt on his chest, widening the crevice between them. It suggested blame she did not feel, not for this. Neither could she quite ignore his pain though, drifting unmoored and pulling her in its wake. “Jay.” The way she said his name had a softness of breath to it, like it echoed deeper. As he previously fought to yank her from the chaos of the sandstorm, hers was a softer search. She was curiously open, like the trail of his hand held wide a brief passageway, and she did reach out despite better judgement. To the fingers that grabbed her like meat, and tossed her aside. The same ones that soothed the hair at her temples and traced fire against her skin hours before. The ones that seemed to brush his heart now. “I know who you are.”
One act didn’t erase the other, not in one moment like that. She couldn’t offer absolution; wouldn’t even if she thought he would accept it. But her thumb traced the peaks and valleys of a familiar landscape like the first steps on a journey home, and what she did offer was surer than platitudes.
He was a careless driver at the best of times, but she released his hand after a moment, a little reluctantly. He had her attention now; a better focus than tallying what might wait ahead, and her truest sense of north for all his doubt. A soft brush at his shoulder clouded a little of the sandstorm’s debris. She knew she didn’t look much better. “You seem to have been right about the bad luck,” she said, not accepting a lapse back to silence. Not that he could have prevented her presence even had he tried, but she recognised the complication she presented. Fearlessness did not make a soldier of her, and at worst she compromised him. The strange flare of his honour pulled at the endearment warming her chest, but she hated watching it chip and tarnish for the ways he couldn’t protect her. Just as she wouldn’t offer him forgiveness, though, she didn’t ask for his either: they pursued this path together.
She shifted a little, trying to find a comfortable way to rest her weight. The connection sought wasn’t relinquished easily now, nor did she want to let it loose as she usually might. They’d reach the next obstacle soon enough, but until then she would steady their passage. Her gaze travelled his profile. “Do you remember what you said to me back at the barn?” Probably not. But his words had held a weight of confession she hadn’t acknowledged at the time, too wrapped up in the sting of her own wounds to appreciate how difficult he found it to share his own. She’d misread him a thousand times, and been misread in return. Now she reflected on how many times and in how many ways she had seen him question himself; the good man he endlessly tried and failed to find in his reflection, because his was the well-intentioned march that probably ended in hell. And it was true he was rash. He did good things for bad reasons, and bad ones for good; not callous enough to shake off all the guilt and just enough of a decent man to think it meant him undeserving of good things in his life. Or at least the good things he really wanted.
The duality of him found no middle ground; it never had, not before he sipped under again.
She recognised the self-destructive nature of his path, and imagined he called it self-sacrifice instead, when he lied to himself about his reasons for letting things go. That had smarted, more than once. Yet its root familiarity curled tendrils through her own restless life, for different reasons. If Natalie was reckless it was because nothing pulled her back from it, or nothing she chose to honour. Not her family. Not Aaron. Certainly not the Custody. For her the void was vast, and in it she sought for something she never found. Or doubted when she did, until it burned to cinders in her grasp as this nearly had more times than she preferred to admit.
It burned sometimes still, if she was honest, but she’d discovered she could not let go either.
She didn’t much like the power he had to wound her, suspecting something eventually quite fatal in the way the promise of his grin always sparked like life inside her, tugging her in a direction that always led back to him. That was not a new thought either, but the burden of now finally weighed heavy enough for her to allow herself to feel it. There might not be a chance later, if Jay spent himself on this vengeance until the man who gripped the wheel and sought forgiveness was extinguished in the mountain of his guilt. Not that she ever meant to allow it to happen. She wasn’t sure when that decision had become a resolution, hard and stubborn as the steel of her spine. It seemed knotted to the ties of her own soul sometimes.
“About your life back then being too peaceful,” she clarified softly. It was something that resonated in her on a bone-sharp level, a life clawed ever short of fulfilment despite the rich things in it. The melody beat in him as strongly as she felt it pump the blood in her own aching chest. She’d shut him out at the time, angry that he’d shielded her from honesty she’d wanted to hear, and spitefully resistant to the truth he chose instead. She’d heard, though. How he’d confessed it like shame; the family abandoned, the life left behind. "Perhaps I'm your payment for that sin.” A bare smirk curved her lips. The morbid twist of her humour sought a twin flame in him, the same way she sometimes sought the briefest touch of his fingers against hers; both touchstones in their own way, and each footholds, too, in the cliff-face she had resolutely climbed down despite every attempt she had made to back away from the edge. No heady rush this time, no free fall like drifting back into the arms of the sea. Yet still, the same place.
There was a devilish glint in her eye, but more warmth than others ever got to see, if he cared to look. “For I think you must be mine.”
A brow rose, though by the way she said it, it did not seem he was punishment to her at all. Such was the manner of her affection that a seeming insult could be anything but. Her expression softened, a smile as rare and fleeting as shooting stars upon an ocean vista. She shot such confessions into the wind with irreverence, and it was reckless slivers of soul woven to the arrows. Foolish to give him another weapon, but he’d find his arsenal quite full already. And even at her truest, that wicked gleam was not far. Her gaze flickered to the bag of dirty money then. “Although it could have been a worse fate for you, I suppose. You could have ended up a Wall Street banker instead.”
That wasn’t a new thought; the crashing tides since the storm of their first meeting rarely calmed enough for softer waves, only brief lulls before greater storms. Still, it was the first time she had really confronted the possibility since Texas. She watched the shadows zip by the window, listening to the city's ominous night noises, not remotely convinced they were even safe in the car. It seemed a world away from the motel on the other side of the border, and even that had hardly been tasteful. Africa had had places like this; places steeped in darkness, especially for a woman. The sorts of ghosts the Jasiri compound was built on, and yet she still hadn't been prepared.
Jay was utterly silent, and gripping the wheel as though perhaps the power rippled his skin under the tracery of his scars. Maybe it did. Either way, Natalie did not disturb him.
She eased her fingers against her scalp, unfastening the knot of her hair and letting it fall loose. Grit and sand clung, and it was insufferably hot even with the windows rolled down. The jacket slipped from her shoulders with a nauseating tug against the wound there, blanching the edges of her vision for a slightly dizzying moment. Its throb was a consistent touchstone, but the shoulder moved fine. She didn’t test it against the seat by leaning back though, which was just as well considering the grim condition of the car. Jay wouldn't see the injury, not with the way his knuckles strained, nor with the angle she was sitting. She did not mean him to either. Meanwhile her hand flared against the stream of air from outside, dry as a furnace.
His silences didn’t usually bother her, but it cut now.
No small part of her wanted to curl her palm overtop his fingers until she felt the tension in them ease. It wasn’t from any particular desire to bestow forgiveness, though she was worried he might construe it as such -- and that the brittle blow of such a misunderstanding might only hasten the spread of cracks, until he shattered. He couldn't afford to break now, and Natalie wasn’t armoured for that kind of meaningless comfort. The desperate flash in Jay’s eyes, begging for understanding before his demeanour snapped, was not likely to relinquish the burn it left on her retina any time soon. Nor the bruising touch; that kind of pain left a legacy of its own, but not so painful as how the violence tightened in him, the blade of it trained on her. Even for artifice. It made her feel sick.
Yet Natalie wasn’t fragile. She did not follow blindly. And she’d chosen to be here, with all it might entail.
Sometimes she wondered if Jay ever allowed himself to consider just why she’d taken his hand at the facility when it was fresh from squeezing the trigger into the skulls of a schoolyard full of children. Though no, that wasn’t true. She knew he would not, for he only lied to himself.
She knew why, though, and she’d carry that reason for the both of them.
Her attention shifted as the apology tumbled raw from his throat. For a moment there was a very dry remark cut to the shape of her tongue; an instinctual flippancy, cruelly humoured. It was likely to be the least of his sins before they were through, after all, and he knew at least a little of the ghosts already trailing in her wake. This hardly numbered among them.
The absent nature of the gesture that followed quietened her though. The sadness in it. Her pale eyes followed it like she followed the pattern of his soul.
Of all the things he might have apologised for, this was one assuredly down the list. The horror he glimpsed of himself hurt him more than she ever could, and she didn’t choose to do that anyway, but her clemency might be but another shovelful of grave dirt on his chest, widening the crevice between them. It suggested blame she did not feel, not for this. Neither could she quite ignore his pain though, drifting unmoored and pulling her in its wake. “Jay.” The way she said his name had a softness of breath to it, like it echoed deeper. As he previously fought to yank her from the chaos of the sandstorm, hers was a softer search. She was curiously open, like the trail of his hand held wide a brief passageway, and she did reach out despite better judgement. To the fingers that grabbed her like meat, and tossed her aside. The same ones that soothed the hair at her temples and traced fire against her skin hours before. The ones that seemed to brush his heart now. “I know who you are.”
One act didn’t erase the other, not in one moment like that. She couldn’t offer absolution; wouldn’t even if she thought he would accept it. But her thumb traced the peaks and valleys of a familiar landscape like the first steps on a journey home, and what she did offer was surer than platitudes.
He was a careless driver at the best of times, but she released his hand after a moment, a little reluctantly. He had her attention now; a better focus than tallying what might wait ahead, and her truest sense of north for all his doubt. A soft brush at his shoulder clouded a little of the sandstorm’s debris. She knew she didn’t look much better. “You seem to have been right about the bad luck,” she said, not accepting a lapse back to silence. Not that he could have prevented her presence even had he tried, but she recognised the complication she presented. Fearlessness did not make a soldier of her, and at worst she compromised him. The strange flare of his honour pulled at the endearment warming her chest, but she hated watching it chip and tarnish for the ways he couldn’t protect her. Just as she wouldn’t offer him forgiveness, though, she didn’t ask for his either: they pursued this path together.
She shifted a little, trying to find a comfortable way to rest her weight. The connection sought wasn’t relinquished easily now, nor did she want to let it loose as she usually might. They’d reach the next obstacle soon enough, but until then she would steady their passage. Her gaze travelled his profile. “Do you remember what you said to me back at the barn?” Probably not. But his words had held a weight of confession she hadn’t acknowledged at the time, too wrapped up in the sting of her own wounds to appreciate how difficult he found it to share his own. She’d misread him a thousand times, and been misread in return. Now she reflected on how many times and in how many ways she had seen him question himself; the good man he endlessly tried and failed to find in his reflection, because his was the well-intentioned march that probably ended in hell. And it was true he was rash. He did good things for bad reasons, and bad ones for good; not callous enough to shake off all the guilt and just enough of a decent man to think it meant him undeserving of good things in his life. Or at least the good things he really wanted.
The duality of him found no middle ground; it never had, not before he sipped under again.
She recognised the self-destructive nature of his path, and imagined he called it self-sacrifice instead, when he lied to himself about his reasons for letting things go. That had smarted, more than once. Yet its root familiarity curled tendrils through her own restless life, for different reasons. If Natalie was reckless it was because nothing pulled her back from it, or nothing she chose to honour. Not her family. Not Aaron. Certainly not the Custody. For her the void was vast, and in it she sought for something she never found. Or doubted when she did, until it burned to cinders in her grasp as this nearly had more times than she preferred to admit.
It burned sometimes still, if she was honest, but she’d discovered she could not let go either.
She didn’t much like the power he had to wound her, suspecting something eventually quite fatal in the way the promise of his grin always sparked like life inside her, tugging her in a direction that always led back to him. That was not a new thought either, but the burden of now finally weighed heavy enough for her to allow herself to feel it. There might not be a chance later, if Jay spent himself on this vengeance until the man who gripped the wheel and sought forgiveness was extinguished in the mountain of his guilt. Not that she ever meant to allow it to happen. She wasn’t sure when that decision had become a resolution, hard and stubborn as the steel of her spine. It seemed knotted to the ties of her own soul sometimes.
“About your life back then being too peaceful,” she clarified softly. It was something that resonated in her on a bone-sharp level, a life clawed ever short of fulfilment despite the rich things in it. The melody beat in him as strongly as she felt it pump the blood in her own aching chest. She’d shut him out at the time, angry that he’d shielded her from honesty she’d wanted to hear, and spitefully resistant to the truth he chose instead. She’d heard, though. How he’d confessed it like shame; the family abandoned, the life left behind. "Perhaps I'm your payment for that sin.” A bare smirk curved her lips. The morbid twist of her humour sought a twin flame in him, the same way she sometimes sought the briefest touch of his fingers against hers; both touchstones in their own way, and each footholds, too, in the cliff-face she had resolutely climbed down despite every attempt she had made to back away from the edge. No heady rush this time, no free fall like drifting back into the arms of the sea. Yet still, the same place.
There was a devilish glint in her eye, but more warmth than others ever got to see, if he cared to look. “For I think you must be mine.”
A brow rose, though by the way she said it, it did not seem he was punishment to her at all. Such was the manner of her affection that a seeming insult could be anything but. Her expression softened, a smile as rare and fleeting as shooting stars upon an ocean vista. She shot such confessions into the wind with irreverence, and it was reckless slivers of soul woven to the arrows. Foolish to give him another weapon, but he’d find his arsenal quite full already. And even at her truest, that wicked gleam was not far. Her gaze flickered to the bag of dirty money then. “Although it could have been a worse fate for you, I suppose. You could have ended up a Wall Street banker instead.”