Chapter 6: What She Wants

Winnie left a mug and a bag in the room and told me not to watch.

I watched.

He sat up against the headboard with his back half turned and drank from the bag.

It was quick, and quiet, and not pretty.

When he lowered it, he wouldn't look at me.

"You can go," he said.

"No."

The burned skin on his forearm was already changing under the wet cloth, going from black to angry red to pink as I watched.

"You asked me last night to let you say nothing," he said. "I'd like to say something now."

"Say it."

"I don't want you in the room when I'm like that. It frightens people. It should frighten you."

"It doesn't."

"Clem."

"You turned your back so I wouldn't see your face," I said. "Nobody scary does that."

He laughed once, hoarse, and put his head back against the wall.

He slept through the afternoon.

I sat on the floor beside the bed with my back against the mattress.

I dozed, and the quilt over the window went from gold to grey.

At dusk I felt him wake.

I knew it before I turned, because the scar on my wrist warmed.

He was watching me.

"I want to say something, and none of it's an order," I said. "I'll put it in a way you can't mistake."

"All right."

"This morning I told you to get in the van, and you went, and I felt it. I felt how easy it was."

I got to my knees on the bed.

"I don't want easy," I said. "I want something that's mine. Something you could say no to."

His face did something helpless.

"You told me the oath doesn't touch what you want."

"It doesn't."

"Then I don't need a speech. I want you."

I didn't say come here.

I didn't say anything he could mistake for a command.

I pulled the sheet down and put my hands on his chest, and I waited to see what he would do with his own.

He took a long, unsteady breath.

Then he caught my face in both hands, and kissed me.

I pushed him back into the pillows.

I took his shirt off over his head, careful of the bandage.

He was all white skin and lean muscle, with a scar low on his ribs.

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