Chapter 7: Day of the Locusts, Pt. 2

Lily woke under both blankets, her coat rolled up under her head. The cloth on her forehead was dry. Her forearm and calf were bandaged. Her hands were bandaged, reminding her of…no. Not that.

Michael was gone. His gear was gone. She dragged herself to the flap and looked out, but saw only brown haze and ruins.

This was it. This was the day. Now she was alone again, as she’d always known she would be, and the dark and hungry thing that waited in the depths of her soul was readying its claws.

Lily slumped back, cradling her throbbing arm against her chest. It felt thick, boneless. Her mind splintered and reeled; she was in the tent, and she was down in the tunnel with the bugs swarming over her, and she was in her grave—

The light was different. It was dying. Michael bent over her, cautiously. When she lifted her good hand and poked his shoulder she found it solid.

Where did you go, she thought, but what came out was, “You left me.”

"I was looking for water.” He shook containers out of his pack. One of them was half-empty. “I tried to wake you, but--"

Lily hugged him. He flinched, then froze; she felt him draw in a breath and hold it.

Her strength gave out. She heard the scraping of a thousand awful wings as he lay her back down and covered her.

Then the tent flaps rustled, and her eyes shot open. "Michael?"

He'd turned up the collar of his coat. He was trying so hard to keep his face neutral, but something was there. “I’m going outside. So you can sleep."

“Don’t.” Her voice sounded like a stranger's.

She made space and waited, staring at the bellying canvas inches from her nose as he lay down behind her. His elbow bumped her shoulder and Lily’s stomach moved like a ball of wet laundry in response. The bites throbbed maddeningly.

Michael rolled onto his side, away from her, and she relaxed in increments. She hadn’t had to remind him.

“It surprised me,” Michael said, after a long time.

It had surprised Lily too. She couldn’t figure out what his point was; his voice was bland, no accusation or even curiosity in it. “Ok.”

“It wasn’t like you.”

“You don’t know what I’m like.”

He coughed. “No.”

A fist gripped her insides, twisting. Had that been a question? “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

Cold crept through the layers, but Lily arched her back away from his. Minutes passed, or hours. She was freezing.

She’d touched him before, obviously. They’d sparred almost daily for weeks. So she knew he was solid, warm, and posessed of self-control. And she was so cold.

Was he awake? Maybe she could explain, tell him everything. Then she could say, See? It isn’t you. It was never you. I’m cold and I’m tired and I hurt. Could you just put your arm around me?

Lily was immediately nauseated.

It had been so long since she’d cried. Years. Lifetimes. Whatever part of her had been capable of shedding tears had died in Castor’s house, but she curled tightly into herself, and she tried.

—

The dream had sprouted from a soft memory, one where Lily played in a basket of laundry by the potbellied stove while her mother worked in the next room. Only it wasn’t a man in there with her, not this time; it was a monster with a name and a uniform. He would come out soon. She would see his teeth.

Lily’s eyes flew open. Her mother had been dead for thirteen years. She was in the Wasteland, but she was warm. Why was she warm?

Then Michael moved, and her eyes flew open as she scrambled to rationalize it.

The pressure of his body against her back, the dead weight of his arm across her hip. His breath on her neck — he’d just rolled over in his sleep. That was all.

Her stomach soured. She pushed on his side but he murmured something indistinct and pulled her closer.

"Stop," she whispered. Then, louder, "Stop!"

Michael woke with a start and jerked back. For a moment he looked bewildered. Or maybe it was just the light. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

"Go." She pulled her knees to her chest, wishing she was smaller still.

He inclined his head and went.

Lily’s shoulders trembled. Bile rose in her throat. She hugged the scattergun to her chest, curling around it as a treacherous voice whispered that it was a poor, cold substitute.

When she crawled out into the pale morning Michael was still there. Like the coward she was she’d hoped that he would’ve faded away on his own, but instead he’d sat a watch.

He didn't move or look up at her, even as she said the words that had burned in her head all night. They tasted like ash.

"We had rules. We had an agreement." Her hoarse voice burned with hollow fear that Lily pretended was really anger. "You don't get to…"

She kept her head down, not knowing what would be worse: seeing emotion on his face, or seeing nothing at all.

“I trusted you. But you're like the rest of them, you're…" Her fingernails dug into her palms but her voice stayed quiet, rusty and tired. "I told you, I told you not to touch me.”

Finally she looked. Nothing moved behind Michael's eyes. The only thing on his face was dust.

Lily didn’t move either. She couldn’t, or she’d shatter into a million pieces.

“You need to go,” she said finally. “I don’t want you here anymore.”

He stood up and hefted his pack onto his shoulders. Without a word, without even looking at her, he walked off into the desert alone.