Cheating Time (22 page)

I scooted inside the tent and leaned down
toward him. "Jayden, sweetie, I'm here. I'm with you. Go back to
sleep. It's not time for you to wake up…"

Before I could finish my sentence, Jayden
had me penned beneath him and was kissing me like he thought he was
about to lose me forever. My instincts at first were to push him
off and tell him he was sleeping, but his kiss was so warm and
wonderful. It was a million times better than using him as a
pillow.

I could tell by the way he fumbled around
that the normally graceful soldier was still asleep. I wasn't sure
how ethical the kissing of a sleeping man was, but the grip he had
on me, the way his hand snaked under my T-shirt and his palm
splayed open on my back, rubbing up and down, felt too good to
stop.

In a natural progression of things and
because I'd been egging him on by kissing him back and letting him
explore my body, Jayden rolled completely on top of me and slid
between my legs. This may have been my first time in this position
with a boy, but I knew exactly what Jayden wanted. I also knew he'd
hate himself if he knew things had gone this far. Asleep or
not.

I began gently waking him. "Jayden…
sweetie," I hummed while he pushed deeper into me and kissed my
neck near my ear.

I groaned because his every move was so
suggestive and so welcomed that I didn't want to stop. This time, I
shook him and whispered, "Jayden… sweetie."

At least, I did until he covered my mouth
with his and slipped in his tongue, exploring places no other
person ever had.

"Carlie," he whispered as if he were
worshiping a god, and when he began thrusting against me, I decided
for our best interests that I needed to definitely wake him.

I pushed him back and using a voice more
stern than I'd used before, I said, "Jayden… you're dreaming. Wake
up."

I fought his grip and knew the instant he
woke because he stopped moving… stopped breathing.

"Carlie… is that you?" he asked, looking
around like he was confused about where he was and what he was
doing.

When he realized he was positioned
strategically between my legs, he knew exactly what he'd been
trying to do and jerked away from me.

"
Jesus! What the
hell?
What the hell is going on, Carlie?" he asked in
rapid succession.

He didn't expect me to answer, and I was
glad because there was little I could offer.

"I-I'm sorry. If that was me… I-I'm sorry,"
he murmured.

"You… you were having a nightmare. I was
trying to wake you."

"Really? It doesn't seem like I was having a
bad dream. In fact, it seems to me it was anything
but
a bad dream," Jayden said in a
self-deprecating way that made me feel sorry for him.

"I wouldn't know. All I do know is you were
tossing and turning. Now you're not. Are you going back to sleep or
are you going to let me rest?" I asked, purposefully pretending I
had no idea what Jayden had been doing, what Jayden had wanted just
seconds ago.

"Be my guest," Jayden said, waving his hand
toward his bed. "I'm not sure I'm going to be able to go back to
sleep with you anywhere near."

I shrugged and crawled over to Jayden's bed,
curled into a ball, and closed my eyes. Like Jayden, I wasn't going
to sleep anytime soon, but there was no way for me to look Jayden
in the eyes after that make-out session—asleep or not.

Twenty minutes later, I was still awake and
Jayden was taking long, deep breaths periodically. There was no
mistaking the fact that he was beating himself up mentally. Unable
to take one more long-suffering sigh, I flipped toward Jayden and
said, "For God's sake, Jayden, you were dreaming. Get over it," I
whisper-shouted.

"Just go to sleep," he replied over his
shoulder.

I wanted to go over to him and make him talk
to me… make him realize I was no worse off than I was an hour ago.
Actually, I was worse off because an hour ago I had no idea what it
would be like to be with Jayden. Now I did, and I wanted more. I
needed him to kiss me deep, to hold me tight, and to crave me more
than his next breath. That was what I wanted.

That's all I
want,
I thought right before I drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Hours later, I woke and saw Jayden sitting
in the door of the tent. I sat up.

"How long did I sleep? Why didn't you wake
me so you could get some more rest?" I asked, stretching and moving
toward Jayden.

The closer I got to him, the stiffer his
back became and the more his muscles rolled. Everything about his
demeanor made me feel like I was approaching an injured animal, one
that had never been shown the first ounce of kindness.

"Jayden… do you want to try to get a little
more rest before we take off today?" I asked, tenderly.

I reached over and put my hand on his
shoulder, deciding a gentle touch might be the best remedy for a
lifetime of emotional neglect. If Jayden's back wasn't already as
rigid as it could be, he would have tensed more.

"I'm assuming I was the reason we were
cuddled together yesterday morning?" Jayden said incredulously.

"It doesn't matter. When you pulled me
close, it kept you from dreaming. It was the least I could do for
you since you are helping us so much," I said after resting my chin
on his shoulder.

"I don't want you… I don't want anyone to be
with me like that because she feels sorry for me. That's the last
thing I want, Carlie," Jayden replied.

"Good, because I don't feel sorry for you.
You are a godlike Surrogate Soldier. You have talents the rest of
us mere mortals can only imagine," I chided.

Jayden didn't say anything. Finally, I gave
him what he wanted. "Why can't you believe what I'm saying? Nothing
you did last night or tonight offended me." I stopped before taking
a loud gulp and closing my eyes. "And if you must know… I found
it…"

Jayden's stare jerked my way while he waited
for my last words.

"I found it… exciting," I said, burying my
burning face in my hands while resting my forehead against his
bicep.

He palmed the back of my head and squeezed
me into him. "Yeah… that's what it was for me, too. Exciting," he
murmured wistfully. "I wish I could remember more of it."

I laughed quietly.

* * *

Later that afternoon, our tiny expedition
was making its way over a small hill covered with early spring's
ground cover, the kind that, according to Jayden, provided perfect
hiding places for poisonous snakes.

By Dad's and Jayden's own admission, I had a
keen eye when it came to picking out the most dangerous
copperheads, cottonmouths, coral snakes, diamondbacks, and
rattlesnakes. It was as if I were the snake whisperer because I
knew where they were before anyone else.

As the appointed snake whisper, I was
leading the team. Jayden was following behind us, gauging Tawney's
and Gran's progress and deciding when rest periods were required in
order to prevent complete collapse and the loss of hours rather
than minutes.

"All right, everyone, let's take a few
minutes to rest and hydrate," Jayden yelled from behind us.

Instinctively, I glanced around to see who
required the rest, Tawney or Gran. It only took a second to see
that both looked like they were about to fold in on themselves. I
dashed back toward them. While Jayden ushered Gran, only because he
was a tiny bit worse off than Tawney, over to a log where he could
sit and rest, I grabbed a pale and shaky Tawney's elbow.

"Tawney, you need to come over here and sit
down," I suggested, leading her to a log on the opposite side of
the trail, since the log Gran was resting against was too small for
the two of them and possibly even too far away from Tawney to walk
given her current condition.

Tawney nodded, and like Gran had with
Jayden, she allowed me to guide her. She tripped and stumbled a
couple of times, and with each, I became more confident that
neither Tawney nor Gran would be leaving the spots they dropped
down into for the next hour.
If
then.

After she was situated, I strolled over to
Jayden and held out my hand for a bottle of water for Tawney. I
caught it when he tossed one over and headed back over to where my
cousin was sitting. I was just about to drop down next to her and
give her the water when I saw something slithering behind her
head.

My heart stopped, and before Tawney made any
sort of movement that would cause the coppery snake to strike, I
jerked her away from the log while blocking her from the snake's
face. As suspected, the sudden movement startled the serpent, and
it lashed out, biting the closest moving target, which just
happened to be my forearm.

As soon as the fangs sank in and the poison
shot into me, I dropped to my knees. I felt as if I'd been stabbed
right before having boiling water injected into my veins.

"
GODDAMMIT!
"
I shouted.

When I looked down at the ground around me,
I realized there was something worse than the bite I'd just gotten,
and that was the fact that I was suddenly surrounded by at least a
dozen more copperheads.

Leave it to me to stir up
an entire den of poisonous snakes.

I was shaking like a leaf, and no matter how
still I tried to be, it wasn't enough for the snakes that were
coiling themselves around my arms and legs, biting me with every
last shiver.

I was too focused on being their prisoner,
on the scalding poison pumping through my veins, to give any
thought to anything going on around me. In a distant way, I
realized Tawney had escaped clean and free of bites and Jayden was
cursing viciously behind me.

"
Don't move,
Carlie!
" he ordered.

Does he really think I'm
moving on purpose?

Deciding it would be better for me if I
closed my eyes and pretended to be anywhere but here, I did just
that. The next thing I knew, Jayden was in the middle of the
snakes' den with me. The difference was Jayden was grabbing them by
the tails and slinging them far away from me as fast as I've ever
seen him do anything.

I'm sure I was bitten a few more times as
the snakes showed me just how much they hated the way Jayden was
man-handling them. Fortunately, there was a point when there just
wasn't much more they could do to me. As soon as Jayden had the
last snake off me, he had me in his arms and was carrying me in the
direction opposite the den.

A few minutes later, the venom pumping its
way through me was beginning to cause other effects. Dizziness.
Nausea. Blurred vision. Slow heart rate. Low blood pressure.
Increased swelling every place I'd been bitten.

MicroPharm or not, there wasn't enough
medication to instantly—if ever—act as an antidote to all of the
venom pulsing through me and killing off every cell it seeped its
way into.

When an ache in my chest that made me feel
as if an elephant were sitting on it made every other throb and
burn pale in comparison, I knew things were bad. Within seconds, I
was gasping for a long, deep breath of air, but nothing I did made
me feel like I was getting it.

Hysterical, I began jerking and thrashing. I
needed to stand up… I needed to see if I could catch my breath. I
fought Jayden until he finally and very carefully put me down. I
may have naïvely thought I could stand and do what I needed to,
that I'd be fine if he put me down, but I'd been wrong.

My legs were so wobbly that I dropped to my
knees and fell forward, face planting into the forest's floor.

"DAMMIT! DO SOMETHING! YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE
WHO CAN HELP HER! DO SOMETHING… PLEASE!" Jayden yelled, and I just
assumed he was directing his anger at my scientist
great-grandfather.

Taking short, wheezing breaths and drifting
in and out of consciousness, I heard the dumping of our backpacks'
contents, the shuffling of feet, and the ripping of material. After
that, I felt another sting. This one was in my thigh, and I
wondered if a final, malevolent snake had come back to finish the
job.

By then, I didn't care. A heartbeat later,
the blurring greens and browns of the forest turned into complete
and utter blackness.