sending tremors through his entire body.
You turn his hand over, studying his palm. A scar cuts across it. You want to say something to make it better, but all you can manage is, “Why don’t you rest. I’ll keep watch.”
It’s colder here, with the autumn wind cutting through the gaps in the buildings, ripping right through your thin sweatshirt. The night is coming on fast. You pull the thin metallic blanket from your pack and pass it to him. You step out toward the ledge of the roof. There’s no sign of the man on the street below.
“This is what you used to do,” he says eventually. When you turn back he’s looking at you. His features seem softer, the deep lines around his forehead gone.
“What do you mean?”
“You could never rest. It didn’t matter how tired we got. You were always the one who stayed up. Even when I waskeeping watch . . . you were really keeping watch.” His lips twist into a smile. He looks down, smoothing his hair with his hand. “Like, I’d pass out for an hour and you’d have made some bamboo thing that we could collect rain with. Or you decided we needed to take some path along the beach to avoid the hunters. I would sleep and you would make plans.”
It’s surprising how good it feels to hear someone tell you something intimate about yourself. “What else?” you say.
Rafe smiles. “I didn’t go anywhere without you. You really were the one who kept me alive.”
You go to him, sit down by his feet, trying to remember what he remembers. Trying to understand why he smiles now, why this is the only thing that has pulled him away from that darker place. “You didn’t have to do what you did, on the island.”
“Do what?”
“Stay with me, after I’d been shot. You could’ve run, tried to save yourself.”
Rafe leans forward, resting his hands on your knees. “I didn’t leave you then, and I wouldn’t leave you now. Like I said, you would do the same for me.”
“You don’t know. Maybe I’m different now, Rafe.”
“I don’t think people change, really. Not like that. You are who you are.”
“That’s kind of deep,” you say with a smile.
“Shut up.” Rafe laughs. Then he pushes your knees away from him, grinning. “I’m serious.”
“Maybe, I don’t know. I hope you’re right.” You cross your arms over your chest, hugging your shirt to you as the wind rushes over the roof.
Rafe holds up the blanket. “This is stupid,” he says. “You take it. I’m not going to let you freeze.”
“I’m fine.”
Then he smiles a wicked smile. “We could share . . . like we did on the island. Maybe it’ll help you remember. . . .”
You laugh. “Just looking out for my memory, huh?”
“Yeah, you know,” he says. “I’ll help however I can.”
He holds the blanket up, motioning for you to get underneath it. You move beside him. He shifts, spreading out behind you, letting the front of the blanket fall over your shoulder. “I’d put my arm underneath you,” he says, his voice softer now. “Like this . . .”
He rests one hand on the inside of your hip, in the tiny space between your waist and the ground. His fingers are outside of your clothes, but you feel the warmth of his skin.
You close your eyes.
You listen to his breaths. “On the island, I used to say ‘If we get out of here—’”
“When,” you say. “ When we get out of here.”
You hear the smile in his voice. “Yeah,” he says. “That’s what you’d say back. You’d say when .”
CHAPTER EIGHT
YOU WAKE UP alone under the blanket. The sky is the color of bruises. When you sit up, Rafe is kneeling by the ledge, a plastic bottle in his hands. He pours some water into his palms, rinsing his face. He has stripped off his sweatshirt and you stare at his bare back, at the tattooed wings that spread across his shoulder blades.
He swipes his hand over the side of his face, then rises, looking down at the street below. It’s such a simple movement but with
Carolyn McCray, Ben Hopkin
Orson Scott Card, Aaron Johnston