The Isis Knot (23 page)

Jem shuffled backward until his heels struck a rock, and sat down upon it with an
oof
. He turned to the side and pulled his long spider legs up under his chin. When he removed his hat, the moonlight struck his unfortunate profile. He gazed in the direction William had gone, his expression full of…something.

It struck her that perhaps Jem’s feelings for William were more than how a young man might look up to an older role model. More than simply friends.

She wondered if William knew.

She turned away. The gentle, insistent burble of the river felt more welcome than the way she and Jem seemed to be dancing around each other, and rather than press him or risk saying more to him than she should, she decided to clean herself up.

She worked her way down to a secluded, hidden spot at the water’s edge. At first she’d intended to just splash water on her face, but the urge to be clean was too strong and she stripped and dunked herself in the river. Quickly she scrubbed weeks’ worth of dirt, blood, and sweat from her skin, thinking she would’ve given just about anything for a shower or soap or a washing machine.

The water sloshed around her body as memories of her future world chilled her and made her yearn for the mundane details she’d taken for granted every single day of her life. Even when she and Mom had been reliant on Mom’s hooking and Sera’s pickpocketing, they’d been able to get clean and wash their clothes. Shivering, Sera made her way back to shore and put back on the man’s clothes Viv had given her.

Back in the cove, Jem was still sitting on the rock. He startled when she came into view, then settled down with a grumble when he realized it was only her.

A few minutes later, William returned. In one hand he held the hoof of a dead and bloodied lamb, the body dragging in the dirt. In the other, he clutched a bunch of purple fruit that resembled plums.

Jem scrambled to his feet, wide-eyed. “They’ll hang you!”

Sera dropped her boots and shook water from her hair. “Hang him? For what?”

William, however, was looking quite seriously at Jem. “It’s why I didn’t want you to come with me. It’s my crime. Not yours.” He raised the dangling dead animal and shook the fruit. “Now we can eat. Find some strength.”

Fear and worry made crazy lines across Jem’s face.

She sucked in a breath. “Wait. They
kill
people for stealing sheep?”

“Only if they’re caught.” William just barely met her eyes, tension keeping his shoulders stiff and tight. “Will the two of you find some wood for a fire?”

“A fire?” Jem glanced worriedly around.

William set the fruit down on a rock. “The flames will be hidden here, this low to the water and with the rocks all around. There are no settlements nearby.” When Jem hesitated, William added, “Unless you want to watch while I butcher it.”

That was enough to drive Sera away, and she and Jem took off in opposite directions, searching for suitable wood in the near blackness. When she got back, William had pulled the lamb away from their camp, downriver from her washing spot. She glimpsed the gold of his hair through the trees, his bare back to her. Thank God she couldn’t see what he was actually doing.

Jem dumped his armful of wood on top of hers with a clatter, then bent to stack neat layers of small sticks and dried leaves. “Where’s the flint and steel?” he mumbled.

She swept a hand through her pack and came out with the items. He stared pointedly from the flint to the fire and back to her. She merely shrugged, embarrassed.

“You don’t know how to use flint?” he asked.

“No. Sorry.” Viv had done that for her, and she’d been too lost in her own hazy world, of all that she hadn’t known at the time, that she hadn’t paid attention.

She offered Jem the pieces and he snatched them, striking one against the other, small sparks shooting out to hit the dead leaves. She would win no respect from him tonight and she could barely bring herself to care, the frustration over his presence continually shoving its face into hers.

Low flames had just started to dance, filling the small cove with warm light, when William reappeared. Blood painted his arms red from elbows to fingertips and it made her heart race. It reminded her too much of him convulsing on the ground, blood and life pouring out of him.

He held up squishy pink pieces of meat. How starving she must have been to have thought them the most delectable things she’d ever seen. He handed them to Jem, who started spearing them on sticks.

William sighed and rubbed his nose with the inside of an elbow, leaving a smear of red across half his face.

“There’s a good spot for washing up,” she said, pointing, “just there. Nice and private.”

Though she wasn’t so sure William actually cared about privacy. With a nod, he headed off, and she sat cross-legged across the fire from Jem. She accepted a stick from him and quickly learned how to turn the meat over the flames to cook it.

By the time William loped back into the cove, the fire was large and the gold light made his now-clean torso gleam. She tried not to stare but it was nearly impossible. The Australian sun had scorched his skin. The bullet scar was white and shiny, and the sight of it made her swallow hard. She should have returned her attention to her cooking, but instead she lifted her eyes to his face.

His wet hair tightened up into messy, sexy waves that swung against his cheeks. Water dripped off the ends of the curls and made streaks down his chest and pants. There was something in his eyes, a deep glow that had her shivering despite the fire right in front of her. Despite the pulsing warmth coming from the cuff.

Jem thrust a skewer of meat in front of William and beamed widely when the older man took it with a nod. That look of pleasure faded, however, when William plunked himself down closer to her than to Jem.

The unseasoned sheep meat was some of the most awful stuff she’d ever eaten, but the men ate with grunts and eye-rolls of pleasure. Another pang sliced through her—the thought of vegetables and warm bread, fresh juice and ice cream—and she had to force the longing for her old life—her true life—away for fear that she wouldn’t be able to eat at all.

William stuck his thumbs into the odd fruit, ripped them into halves, and passed the pieces around. Similar in shape and color to plums, but more sour. To a palate that had been deprived of anything similar for weeks now, they tasted like ambrosia.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” she said, reaching over to drag her bag closer. From inside she pulled out one of Viv’s bottles of rum.

Though William’s eyes lighted at the sight of the bottle, she offered it to Jem first as a peace offering.

He shrank away as if she clutched a snake. “The devil’s drink.”

William chuckled. “I’ll gladly have your share then.”

He reached out to take the bottle from her hands. Their fingers brushed and his expression softened. The moment lasted only a second, maybe less.

Across the fire, Jem’s narrowed, hurt eyes were trained on her. It became quite apparent to her then, how the boy felt. And that William didn’t have a clue.

William popped the cork and took a deep swig. His eyes fluttered closed in a dramatic, satisfied way. “Glorious. Tastes as good as water.” Another big gulp. “Ah, it’s been too long.”

He passed the bottle back to her. She didn’t know what was worse, the sheep or the rum. The alcohol sizzled her taste buds and seared her throat, but William was oddly right. Something about it was glorious. Instantly her mind went buzzing, her muscles relaxed, and warmth pressed kisses on her cheeks.

They finished eating, with William and Sera trading sips from the bottle and Jem drowning further in his sulking. At last the younger man scooted back from the fire, flopped onto his side, and curled his legs up to his chest. William watched Jem with a look like that of a worried parent watching over a troubled, sleeping child. Not that she’d ever been the recipient of such concern or would know firsthand.

Jem dropped into a fast, deep sleep, and William looked back at her. His whole body seemed to smile. She couldn’t describe it better than that. He took a breath, opened his mouth to say something, then pressed his lips together and shook his head.

“What?” she whispered, leaning in.

His eyes flipped up to hers, and there was something else entirely inside them. A hot, deep craving she recognized instantly. He bent closer, too.

“You drink like a sailor,” he whispered back.

How was her heart still able to beat, the way it skipped around in her chest?

“Coming from you,” she said, “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It was.”

The alcohol was racing through her now, making her brave. Fearless. Which was good, because she needed it to be able to tell him what she was about to. And he would need the drink to be able to hear it.

She slowly stood, rising above him. His pupils grew wide and dark as he stared up at her. She nodded to the far side of the cove, where the rocks stepped back and they could climb far enough away from the fire and Jem so as not to be heard.

A wicked look passed across his face but she had to force herself to ignore it, because there were a great many things to be said and addressed now, and desire was not one of them.

The bottle dangled loosely from his fingers as he followed.

She chose a spot and settled her back against a rock, legs stretched out in front of her. He lowered himself next to her, with just enough space between their thighs for him to twirl the bottle. The low metal-on-stone scrape was the only sound between them for what felt like hours. That, and the thundering of her heart. It should’ve been her to break the silence, but he beat her to the punch.

“That was clever, what you did last night. That story.”

She sighed, surprised at how shaky it came out. “There’s a lot to say. A lot left to tell you. But Jem—”

“I know.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I know. And I’m sorry.”

She was hoping for more of an explanation. That was the old Sera, she had to remind herself. That selfish person who believed the whole world revolved around her. William was not hers…except that a large part of the new Sera believed just that. Why else had she been sent here, if not for him? And there was a needy man-child with an unrequited crush standing between them.

She rolled her head on the rock to look over at William, only to find he had already done the same.

“You wanted to hear my story?” she murmured.

He held his breath and nodded, and looking at him made it all the more hard. So she lifted her face to the sky and watched the huge, furry black bats with the foxlike faces circling against the stars. She pretended she wasn’t half a world and two hundred years away from all she’d ever known, and began.

“My mom raised me alone. I can’t even say she was a prostitute because that makes it sound like she had some kind of class. She didn’t. She was a hooker of the worst kind, picking up the worst kind of men for the worst kind of pay. She’d bring them back to our apartment to do it, too. She’d try to get them to take their clothes off where I could get to them, and then she taught me how to go into their pockets and get cash or credit card numbers and things. They’d already paid her, so they never rechecked when they left.”

He was incredibly silent beside her. So quiet all she heard was the snap of the fire some distance away, and the intermittent snort of one of Jem’s snores.

“And later, when I got older, she taught me how to pickpocket on the Strip. This was in Las Vegas, in America. It’s an awful city, full of people like her. It was the shittiest life, and the worst part was that I knew it was shitty. In my heart, I knew that everything I was doing was absolutely wrong. It made me sick, but I had literally no other life to live. I had to drop out of school because I did so poorly and then my mom got sick and I had to take care of her. Had to bring in money somehow to pay the bills since she couldn’t, well, you know.”

“Is she dead?” he croaked.

She still couldn’t look at him. “Killed herself by taking too many drugs. As soon as she was gone I got the hell out of there. I found a map, randomly pointed my finger to a place, and went there. Seattle. I held two jobs at once, and studied for my GED whenever I could. I put my head down and worked, worked, worked. I’d always known that the person my mom had raised me to be wasn’t who I truly was, and I vowed I wouldn’t become that person ever again. I’d live an honest, quiet, normal life. I’d never steal again. I got to a place where I was actually satisfied. I was starting to let people in, starting to learn how to make friends, which is kind of depressing to admit.”

“No. No, it isn’t. You were growing.” He rubbed his forehead in a way that told her he was still confused, and it was probably over the details of her modern life, words and concepts he’d likely never fully comprehend. But she couldn’t explain all those now. The meat of the story was more important.

“One of the women I work with seems to like me well enough to talk to me, and it’s taken me a while to not look at her with suspicion…” She realized she was using the present tense. It didn’t feel right. “I mean, I had to learn that not all people are vindictive. I had to learn a lot of things. But above everything I was true to myself, and my life wasn’t miserable anymore
.
I don’t know if I could call it happiness, but it wasn’t sadness, and that was something to me. And then I got a letter from my father’s lawyer.”