The Grand Ballast (38 page)

Valen stroked him tentatively, then harder.
Bode moaned, tensing his thighs. Felt Valen’s finger skim his
balls.

Shadows brushed the edges of his mind. He
panted, thrusting into Valen’s loose fist, but he couldn’t come.
Couldn’t get Valen to come either.

They both stopped after a moment. Bode
squeezed his eyes shut then forced them open again. What the hell
was the big deal about fucking anyway? It meant nothing, just
another way people tore into one another.

“
I’m goddamn sick of sex,”
Bode said.

Valen nodded. He was still hard, and Bode
resisted the urge to offer to do something for him.

I do want to. So fucking beautiful, and I
don’t know how else to…to…

To what?

To not feel alone?

The light wilted as the minutes passed, and
a breeze drifted through the open window. “They had volunteers.”
Valen snorted. “We called them Bone Collectors. They pretended to
be members in training, like us. We’d get to know them. Start a
little something with them.”

“
Then what?” Bode asked,
when Valen didn’t go on.

“
There was one I liked.
Mitch. He and I would fuck sometimes. It was the one thing there I
could count on to always be good.”

Bode waited. “What happened?”

“
They had him make it bad
for me. Once was all it took.”

“
How long ago was
that?”

“
Don’t
remember.”

Bode touched his shoulder. “So let’s make
it…” Bode took a deep breath. “Make it something else.”

Valen leaned in and pecked the corner of his
mouth. “What do you mean?”

Bode kissed Valen roughly on the lips. Dug
his nails into Valen’s shoulders and rolled on top of him. He
leaned back slightly to see Valen’s face. Valen’s mouth opened,
twisted. Bode straddled him and kissed him again,

pushing him hard against the mattress.

Valen’s eyes rolled back like they had in
the Aqua Arena as Bode tangled his fingers in the thatch of pubic
hair he’d seen on screen that day—a dark interruption in bright
blue water.

Valen bit Bode’s tongue. The sting
contracted Bode’s whole body, collected all of his loathing and
fury, his terror and his rough dreams. Every kiss and every failure
that had come before, every sleepless night and every need drowned
by the Haze. Those pieces collided and combined, then fractured in
different places and shot out through his limbs, until he felt like
a torched branch, a violent, crackling victory emblem.

He shoved Valen until they both toppled off
the mattress and onto the floor, and there they both went, pushing
bruises onto each other, using their teeth, offering to slash each
other’s skin and spill whatever was protected within.

You can make me feel. You. You have what I
need, and you’re keeping it from me.

Bode tilted his head back and closing his
eyes. Drew one hand slowly down his own chest. They moved together,
hips sliding, legs tangling. Their breathing was out of sync, harsh
gasps on both sides.

Valen was physically stronger, but he was no
match for the violence in Bode, who saw LJ’s bruised, unmoving
body, still wearing a slick of fever. Who craved a physical pain
that would flush his guilt from hiding and then shoot it through
the skull. Break its neck, force its eyes from its sockets, gag it
with its own tongue. He belly-crawled under Valen and spread his
legs, shoving his ass up. Wrapped his legs backward around Valen
and dug his heels into Valen’s hips.

He struggled, and Valen shoved him back down
with a hand between his shoulder blades. He slid his cock between
Bode’s cheeks. Bode tossed his head back and forth, but kept saying
yes, kept begging for it as he imagined Valen inside him. Imagined
the pain ripping through him. The agony and the fear turning to
power as he fell deeper into a savage fantasy, until he felt like
he was holding his breath under miles of black ocean.

Their breathing joined suddenly, and the
motion of Bode’s hips matched Valen’s. Bode gave a soft sigh.

He counted each thrust, gasping. The world
flared red around him, and Valen’s grunts made him ache, made him
smile. He rubbed his own cock against the floor, and after a
moment, all the heat left his body. He felt cold and far away.
Dizzy. Grit scraped his chin. A piece of hay jabbed him in the eye,
and that eye watered for the next few seconds.

He began to shiver. And shiver and shiver,
with an animal intensity. He no longer felt in control, just a
sprawled, cracked open thing. Years’ worth of regret left him in a
flood, and he didn’t know if he was glad or empty.

Life was so much of this. A swing and a miss
at miracles. Missteps that cracked bones.

“
Bode?”

The back of Bode’s leg was streaked with
dampness. Valen’s breath hit him between the shoulders, and then
Valen shifted his weight off him. Bode closed his eyes and let
Valen pull him sideways. Stiffened as Valen’s arms tightened around
him.

“
It helps to be a little
scared. Doesn’t it?”

“
It’s okay,” Valen
whispered. “It’s okay.”

No. It’s really, really
not.

WALKING THE WIRE

Valen talking with Hedda
and Finley in the saloon, and Bode was playing cards with Horse
Leg, when a woman walked in. She wore a high-collared gray lace
dress and her dark hair curled under a straw hat. Bode watched her,
trying to glimpse her face.

Horse Leg was already
creaking toward the door. “Sorry, Miss, sorry. No tourists in here
past six p.m.”

“
I need a drink,” the woman
replied. She turned, and Bode froze.

It was Dee.

She tilted her head
slightly, looking neither surprised nor alarmed. “Bode.”

Bode’s heart pounded. What
was she doing here? Who was with her? “Dee.”

“
Oh dear; oh my,” Horse Leg
said softly, staring at Dee. “You’re from Ballast’s show. Who let
you in?”

“
I’m here as a tourist,”
Dee said coolly. “I’m no longer with Ballast’s show. Ballast’s show
no longer exists.”

“
You shouldn’t be here. You
absolutely shouldn’t be here—”

“
Horse Leg, it’s okay.”
Bode was unable to take his gaze from Dee. It was deeply unsettling
to see her here, in a place he’d almost started to believe was
safe. And he wanted to ask her questions. “Let her have a
drink.”

Horse Leg strode toward the
door, muttering about skinning Zane alive.

Dee and Bode walked to the
bar.

“
Why are you here?” he
demanded. He glanced back to see if Valen had noticed Dee’s
presence, but Valen was still deep in conversation.

Dee ordered a glass of wine
and smoothed her dress. “I came here for a vacation. My parents
used to bring me here quite often as a child.”

Bode wasn’t sure whether to
believe her or not.

The bartender handed Dee
her wine.

“
So you’re not here looking
for me?”

Dee wrinkled her nose and
took a sip. “What would I want with you?”

“
Kilroy’s offered a reward
for me.” Bode stared at her hard.

Dee pulled out a stool and
sat on it. “I wouldn’t know. I fled two days after the fire. Kilroy
wasn’t speaking to anyone. And the others had become as good as
feral.”

“
The others really are
alive?” Bode caught a glimpse out the window. In the distance,
Horse Leg was outside the guard hut, gesturing angrily. Calamity
Zane and his appaloosa stood before him.

“
Yes,” Dee said
shortly.

Bode pulled his attention
back to the room. “Where’s your agent?”

“
I’ve let
him go. It’s time for me to focus on my
life
. Not my career.” She watched
the bartender mix a Baboon’s Ass.

Bode took a seat beside
her. “Tourists aren’t allowed here after six.”

“
Too bad. The hotel bar is
a disgrace.”

He snorted in spite of
himself.

She swirled her wine. “You
know, I really ought to be the one giving you the stink eye. You
could have killed me, that night.”

Bode flushed. “I didn’t
know how else to—”

“
I know.” Through the
window, Bode saw two figures exit the guard hut and approach Horse
Leg. One of them looked strangely familiar. He pulled his gaze back
to Dee and watched her drain her wine. “How long are you
staying?”

“
A few days.” She paused.
“I just wanted to see something exciting. I’ve been to so many
towns, but all Thom ever wanted me to do when I wasn’t performing
was lie in hotels and rest.” She smiled softly. “I like to gamble,
and I like artisan crafts. When I was younger I wanted to live here
and be a woodworker. I sent Harkville pictures of my work, but they
never responded.”

A memory came back to
Bode. Dee’s name in Kilroy’s notebook.
Dee
Patterson—H-ville reject.

He studied her. “Kilroy was
never as cruel to you as he was to the rest of us.”

“
I had Thom negotiate my
contract to exclude cruelty.” She pushed her glass gently across
the bar. Glanced at the wall of liquor bottles. “It’s all about
negotiation, Bode.”

***

Dee returned to the hotel,
and Bode rejoined Valen’s table. Skullprute was there now too, and
Bode could feel the other man’s gaze on him as he took a
seat.

Finley was in mid story,
sloshing beer as he gestured. “Then this cop came in to ask if we
had anything to do with Belvedere Farm. And this whole line of
women dressed as bears starts doing the can-can, and Marla walks
Jake by on a leash. I’m like, ‘Officers, we have enough animals
here. Why would we care about the ones at Belvedere Farm?’ They
were so eager to get out of here, they didn’t push it.” He
laughed.

Horse Leg reentered the
saloon and stalked over to their table. Plopped down, looking
weary.

“
Well,” Hedda said to
Finley. “That’s the marvelous thing about Harkville. Nobody bothers
us.”

Bode watched Horse Leg, who
refused to make eye contact with him. “Yes, yes. That’s right.”
Horse Leg gave a slight wave at Valen and Bode. “You two’ll be safe
here until your dying day.”

Valen laughed. He seemed
considerably drunker than he had been before Dee arrived. “Good to
know.”

“
We won’t be here until we
die.” Bode spoke sharply. Out of the corner of his eye he caught
Valen’s look of warning. Horse Leg glanced up too. “In fact, we
might be leaving fairly soon.”

An uncomfortable
silence.

“
But we…we do appreciate
all you’ve done for us,” he mumbled.

“
Yes,” Valen said slowly.
“I guess we probably will try to head out soon. We just wanna give
Kilroy time to lose interest in us.”

“
Ohhh.” Skullprute leaned
back. Looked from Valen to Bode, his dark eyes inscrutable. Bode’s
sense of disquiet increased. “We hate to lose anyone from
Harkville.”

“
You can’t hold people
prisoner here, Skully,” Finley said cheerfully. He gulped his beer
and didn’t seem to notice any of the tension at the
table.

Hedda ran her finger along
the table’s edge. “That’s right. Some people leave. Kilroy Ballast
left.”

Bode started at the mention
of Kilroy’s past. But Valen didn’t seem to notice.

“
Yes, we have harbored some
evil here.” Finley belched. “Good riddance.”

“
And Darkenage gets closer
to flying the coop each day.” Hedda sounded a little wistful.
“Though last I heard he was too broke to leave.” She glanced slyly
at Valen. “Someone’s snagged all his cash.”

“
What more could a person
need than Harkville?” Horse Leg mused, taking another gulp of his
drink. Liquid dripped from his mustache. “That’s what I don’t
understand. Darkenage…he can make music here.”

Finley shrugged. “He wants
fame in the wider world.”

“
Fame?” Hedda snorted.
“There is no fame, unless you’re an X-show performer. The drones
out there, they hear songs, they watch films, they look at
paintings, and they don’t care who made what. They only care who
they get to see die and who they get to see fuck.”

“
Ain’t that the truth?”
Finley snapped his suspender.

“
Not to mention, the kid’s
music isn’t exactly transcendent.” Valen reached for his beer,
grinning.

Hedda snickered. “Ohhh, I
shouldn’t laugh, but…” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “It’s
true. I adore him though.”

Skullprute gave Valen a
brief nod. “Have a refined taste in music, do you?”

“
Hardly.” Valen took a long
swallow of beer. “But when I was…when I was with the No Returns,
they had the most trouble figuring out how to neutralize
music.”

Hedda raised a brow. “How
do you mean?”

Valen set his glass down.
“They’d find out what our favorites songs were and then play them
while we watched—I don’t know, war footage, children dying,
something horrible. The idea being that the song would cease to be
a source of absolute pleasure, but also, the footage would cease to
be so traumatic. Two birds with one stone. But it never
worked.”