Page 35

In Her Hands

Callum

Callum watched her walk back to the leafy dome, trying desperately to ignore the way her hips swayed with her steps.

The hut she’d made for them was better than he could have hoped for and he couldn’t help but be begrudgingly grateful for her creation.

There was no denying the comforts she’d provided them on this journey.

Comforts he could not provide.

A noise caught his attention.

Like soft shuffling over the sand.

He looked out over the lake and surrounding area, listening intently, but heard only the rustle of her movements as she settled into her bed.

It might have been his imagination.

Again, something off in the wind that didn’t sound like it belonged.

After the snapper incident, he refused to be caught unawares again.

His eyes scanned the horizon, his footfalls silent as a cat as he prowled around the area searching for the source of the disturbance with only the moon and starlight to aid him.

He whirled toward the east as a shot rang in the air, the unique ksshhkeeer! of piercer fire ringing across the dunes.

The shot sounded muffled, as if it came from the next dune over, along with shouts and the sounds of a scuffle.

Before he had a chance to react, pain lanced his side as another deafening crack filled the night air, jerking him sideways.

He clamped a hand over it as hot blood poured from the wound.

He looked down to see scarlet ribbons weeping into his shirt.

Then they were upon him.

Three men dressed in dark uniforms slid from the shadows like devils in the night.

A glint of metal caught his eye as the one nearest him drew his knife.

Cal growled as he blocked the knife with the outer part of his forearm.

He gritted his teeth as the blade ground against the bone.

Grabbing the man’s wrist, Cal yanked while driving his bleeding forearm against the edge of the knife, using leverage to knock it from his assailant’s hand and pull him off balance.

Before the blade hit the ground, Callum pivoted, catching it and grabbing the man’s hair in one motion as his attacker stumbled, his killing thrust spoiled. Callum grunted as he maintained his grip on his aggressor’s hair and slid the man’s own blade over his throat, cutting off his scream. One down. The other two advanced, the first working to reload his piercer and take a second shot at Callum, the second drawing a stocky dagger.

The one with the knife lunged and Cal dodged to the left, feeling the blood drip down his side.

The man leapt for him again, and Callum dodged to the side, smashing the knife into the second man’s face.

A gruesome crunch echoed through the desert and his attacker fell to his knees, his arms jerkily reaching for the knife before he collapsed, glassy eyes staring at the sky. Two down.

The third man raised his piercer and fired, but Callum was already within his guard, shoving the man’s arm up just as the weapon discharged.

Callum shifted his grip and slammed his elbow into the third man’s jaw, staggering him and bringing them both down to the ground.

The man’s bloody, yellowed teeth were clenched as his foul breath huffed into Callum’s face.

The soldier grunted as he fought to control the piercer they wrestled over, while the other scrabbled at his belt, trying to draw his dagger.

Callum slammed his other elbow into the man’s face again, again, three more times, feeling several teeth give under the blows.

The soldier’s gaze went hazy, and his grip slackened on the hilt of his knife.

Breathing hard, Callum pulled the dagger from the man’s belt and plunged it heavily into the soldier’s chest, leaning against it for a moment as the body stilled.

That’s three.

Click.

He froze.

Fuck.

There had been four.

The piercer held to his temple gleamed in the moonlight, the dark shape in his periphery an omen of death.

“You’re done, you traitorous bastard.

Hands where I can see ‘em.”

Callum didn’t respond, still on his knees, breath soughing in and out of his lungs as he laced his hands behind his head.

“Hold on now, Denton.”

Callum heard from the side—a voice he could not have predicted.

“Jameson?”

Callum panted, turning his head slowly.

There he was, blood staining his shirt, his clothes torn and dusty.

A piercer in his hand.

“Drop the piercer, lieutenant,”

came the hiss from Denton, his voice dripping with acid.

“Once the captain hears what happened here, I’m sure you’ll have hell to pay.

But, at least you’ll be alive.”

Jameson complied slowly, dropping his piercer to the sand as he held his hands in the air.

“As your commanding officer, I’m telling you—”

“You’re not telling me shit!”

Denton shouted, drowning out Jameson’s words.

“You think I didn’t hear what was going on over the hill? You think I don’t know you killed Marnan and Jimes?”

His voice rang across the dunes.

“You know what? On second thought, I’m putting holes in both of you.”

Callum felt the cold stone of the weapon brush his ear.

“You first.”

“NO!”

A crack broke the tense silence and the man jerked.

A fresh wave of crimson poured from the new hole in the center of his forehead.

His eyes went wide with surprise and he dropped his piercer before falling over sideways onto the sand.

When he collapsed, there was Rumi, rising from a half crouch from where she hid in the fronds.

Her pale shirt was now speckled with dark spots, her eyes wide.

In her hands was Callum’s piercer.

Her face was ghostly white and her whole body trembled as she stared at the man still twitching on the ground.

Her dark eyes darted to Cal and then to Jameson as she lifted the piercer to aim at Callum’s friend, her lips tight.

“You,”

she whispered in a broken, angry voice.

Her hands shook as she held the piercer pointed at his chest.

Jameson lifted his hands higher, his face resigned.

“Hey, I– I get it.

I don’t blame you.”

He closed his eyes, remorse carving lines in his cheeks.

“You…You do what you have to.”

Before she had a chance to pull the trigger, Callum stepped in front of him.

Time slowed, images of Fyn and then Barlow flashing behind his eyes.

He couldn’t lose another friend.

“Hey now, Miss Rumi, Jameson is a friend.

So, how about you let me take that,”

Cal said, holding his hand out, palm up, the other held up cautiously.

Her face crumpled and she clenched her teeth, fighting some internal battle that he was not privy to.

A deathly quiet sucked the air from the desert floor.

No birds called.

Nothing.

The whole desert paid witness to the carnage.

Her eyes drifted once more to Jameson, before meeting Cal’s, widening further with horror and guilt, as if what she had done was fully sinking in.

She swallowed and looked back down at the man she had killed, staring at his unseeing eyes as if he were blazing a brand on her soul.

He recognized the revulsion and dismay etched into her features, remembering the first life he had taken.

Rumi had clearly never killed anyone.

She had tried to tell him just before—her people didn’t do violence.

The aggression he had seen from her was just that of a wounded animal protecting itself.

She hadn’t budged, her fingers wrapped around the piercer in a white-knuckled grip.

“Rumi?”

Callum stepped forward, his voice low and his hand outstretched, as one might approach a wild animal, a skittish dog.

“Give it to me, please.”

She moved woodenly, stiffly removing her finger from the trigger and swallowing hard as she placed the weapon into his open palm.

Her whole body quaked and trembled and she just kept swallowing, her breath a shallow wheeze from her throat.

“Rumi?”

Cal’s cracked voice seemed to break through her thoughts.

The stilted shock that held her body up also broke with the silence and her knees buckled.

Cal tossed the piercer to Jameson and lunged forward, catching her in his arms.

He lifted her above the wreckage, away from the horror, cradling her against his chest as his quick strides took them to the water’s edge.

He didn’t care that Jameson watched them.

He waded into the lake, dropping to his knees so the water surrounded them.

He let the water lift her hair, lapping at her back with a comforting caress.

This was what she liked, wasn’t it? She’d spent the whole damned day soaking.

“It’s over,”

he assured her.

“Are you injured?”

Numbly, she shook her head, her arms snaking around his neck where she buried her face against his chest, burrowing for safety.

She smelled of the soapy plant she had used, the scent of her hair reminding him of when he first spirited her away from Sullivan.

He risked a glance at Jameson, who watched them both with an unreadable expression.

He knew there were no words to change what she had done.

No way to absolve the guilt.

A soft, bleated sob shook her shoulders, and he cupped the water and poured it over her, hoping it might help chase away the feeling of guilt.

Then she tensed and looked up at him, her eyes narrowing before falling to the wound on his side, the gash on his arm, her nose twitching at the sharp scent of blood.

Rumi pulled away, scouring his face with questing eyes.

The vulnerability lingering on her features solidified the thought in his mind: This was no hardened criminal.

She couldn’t have done what she was accused of.

She was innocent.

“Are you…”

she didn’t finish the sentence.

“You ain’t gonna get rid of me that easy, Twiggy,”

he said with a smirk.

Her returning wisp of a smile could barely be called that.

It trembled and her dark eyes swam with tears.

And a not-so-small part of Cal found something touching in the fact that she was willing to cry in his arms.

Somehow, at some point in their journey, they’d crossed an invisible threshold.

Those tears welled again as she noticed the dark stains marring her shirt. Her frantic movement startled him as she began to scrub at the cloth, the surface churning with her efforts.

“Hey, hey, it’s all right,”

he said, placing a soothing hand over her working ones.

“I have his…it is on me.

It is on me!”

She wasted no time in scrambling from his arms and dunking under the water.

A few moments later, the ruined shirt drifted to the surface and she popped up further down the lake, still scrubbing at her skin.

“Cal,”

Jameson spoke as he approached.

Cal noted the way Rumi’s eyes darted to his friend, watching him with a narrowed gaze, and yet she was far more relaxed in his presence than previously.

Callum stood, water dripping from his pants as he sloshed to the sand, and turned to his friend.

“What are you doing here, Jameson? Did Sullivan put you up to this?”

“Yeah, Sullivan sent me. Sent us,”

Jameson said, though his tone lacked conviction.

“He’s after her, wants her back.”

He gestured toward Rumi before looking at Callum.

“He’s out for your blood, Cal.

Tellin’ everyone you’re a deserter and a traitor—he’s told anyone who would listen.

You gotta get back and clear your name before he can tarnish it even more than he already has.”

He chuckled darkly as he surveyed the scene of dead soldiers.

“So do I, it looks like.”

Cal nodded, his face turned toward the girl in the water still frantically scrubbing at her skin.

This whole thing had seemed fishy from the start, but it had never been his place to question orders.

Watching her, though, he found himself wondering just how badly he’d screwed up.

He looked up at Jameson, whose face flickered from remorse to feigned nonchalance—a mask Cal was quite familiar with.

It was obvious that something was really troubling him, something related to Rumi, but now wasn’t the time.

“You came on sandstriders?”

it wasn’t really a question.

“They’re about a hundred yards that way.”

Jameson gestured to the east.

Callum nodded, thinking before he spoke.

“How the fuck did you catch up to us, Jameson? The rains should have grounded you for another day at least.”

Jameson shrugged, nodding.

“Normally I’d agree with you, but Sullivan had some sort of tonic that he said reduced the effects of the rain.

Didn’t have much of a choice but to drink it if I wanted to catch up with you.”

Callum didn’t respond, his brows drawn together as he digested this new information.

A tonic that negated the effects of the rain wasn’t unheard of.

One that actually worked and wasn’t snake oil? That was something else entirely.

Callum shook his head, clearing his thoughts.

“What are you doing here, Jameson? Really.

Both of us know your orders weren’t to come out here and give me a hand.”

Jameson looked off in the distance as Rumi continued to splash in the oasis, seeking to clean much more than her shirt.

“It was…bad under Sullivan’s command, Cal.

Real bad.”

He nodded in Rumi’s direction without looking at her.

“I came to help you, sure, but I owe her.

I- I owe her.”

he finished lamely, solemnity an unusual look on his usually cheerful face.

Callum didn’t push the issue.

He trusted Jameson and knew he would tell him eventually.

Instead, he looked to the southwest, toward Chirston.

“Now that we have sandstriders, we’ll make it to the city in the next day or so.

We can clear both our names then.”

“So, you think she’s innocent?”

Jameson asked, his eyes shifting to Cal and back.

There was something he wasn’t saying—Cal could tell by the way he chewed his lip.

Callum almost answered “Yes”

without thinking, but pulled himself back.

“I think there’s more going on here than we were told.

You know somethin’.”

Jameson hesitated, running his hand through his hair before shrugging.

“I’ve gotten the same feeling.

I’ve done a little digging—as much as I could manage.

This goes higher up, that’s all I can say.

Sullivan is a part of something shady, but he’s working for someone inside.

I just don’t know who. Anyway, something to worry about later. Do you have the paperwork to get her into the city?”

Jameson asked.

Fuck.

No, he hadn’t thought that far ahead when he started this mad dash into the desert.

“I don’t.”

“She’s an outsider.

The guards at the gate will want immigration paperwork or a voucher from an official.”

He sighed and scratched his head.

“I could scavenge some cosmetics.

Bella—you remember Bella from Stonebridge—she showed me how she covered my love marks before she went to dinner with her pa.

I could probably hide her tattoos.

We could cut her hair, too.

Disguise her as much as possible. Claim she’s my sister—”

“No.”

Cal’s objection brooked no argument.

Rumi was attached to her hair.

She spent so much time brushing and braiding to keep it nice.

And that time in the cave when he spilled his heart to her over Barlow, and she mentioned the loss of her mother, she’d continuously twisted her hair around her fingers.

He’d bet his piercer that she viewed her hair as a sort of connection to her mother or a security blanket of some kind.

Plus, he loved it long. “She can wear a bonnet.”

Jameson snapped his fingers.

“Just as well.

She’d still need paperwork, even if she was my sister.”

This time, silence settled over both of them while they considered the problem.

Jameson clicked his tongue.

“Not sure how you’ll feel about this one, but…Think she’ll be willing to act as your wife?”

“My wife?”

Cal nearly snorted at the thought, but Jameson didn’t waver.

“It’s the best way to get her in.

They’ll accept her without paperwork if she’s ‘wed’ and escorted, especially if you say you’re planning on getting her paperwork in town now that you’re freshly married.

It’s you or me, and you’ve been with her in the desert for the last week.

Neither of you has killed the other yet, so what’s another couple days?”

Cal rubbed at his chin as he considered.

He didn’t hate the idea.

“I’ll talk to her.”

“Great.

I’ll deal with…this,”

Jameson said, gesturing at the bodies on the sand.

“I have some extra clothing in the saddlebags, too.”

“They weren’t friends, were they?”

Cal asked softly, leaning toward him.

“Nah.

To be honest, I think we did the world a favor here.

I’m just glad your little tree girl didn’t choose to shoot me, too.”

“She recognized you,”

Cal guessed.

“Yeah…she did,”

Jameson replied with a faint grimace.

Then he doffed his hat and walked across the sands toward where the solariths were tied.

Callum looked down at the bodies, grimacing himself.

While it didn’t sit right with him, he knew that they would need their gear, especially their scarves and hats.

He glanced over at Rumi, whose agitated movements had slowed.

With a sigh, he turned back and began the distasteful task of stripping the bodies of useful items.

A few minutes later, Jameson returned with a soft cotton shirt and trousers.

Callum eyed the bloodstain on Jameson’s shirt.

“That wound going to be a problem?”

Jameson looked down at the blotch of red, shaking his head.

“Barely scratched me.

Fucker was quicker with his knife than I thought he would be, but not quick enough, I’m afraid.”

He shook the clothes in his arms, nodding toward Rumi, who stood still in the water, unmoving.

“She’ll swim in them, but I imagine it’s preferable to the current state of things.”

He handed the bundle to Cal and then turned to deal with the bodies.

The desert was still unfathomably quiet as Callum walked along the shore to where Rumi sat shoulder-deep in the water, staring at the horizon with unseeing eyes.

“Rumi?”

he said quietly so he wouldn’t startle her.

“He is dead.”

Her voice came as a hollow breath.

She turned to him, her face twisted in horror.

Cal nodded.

“I-I killed him.”

She wavered like she was asking him a question.

He remained still, knowing she needed to say it.

“You saved me,”

he quietly insisted as the silence stretched.

Rumi raised her hands out of the water, staring at them, still shaking.

“I killed him,”

she repeated.

A whimper fell from her mouth, her hands slipped beneath the black depths and her head fell forward helplessly.

“I felt him die.”

“Rumi.”

Cal discarded Jameson’s clothes on the beach and slowly strode into the water, afraid that if he moved too forcefully, the wake would tip her over.

When she was just within arms reach he stopped breathing, listening as the water settled and her hushed crying pricked his ears.

Delicately he took hold of her elbow and pulled her closer.

She complied without a fight, surrendering to him.

When he tenderly folded his arms around her body, she went limp against him and she released a shuddered sigh.

Her forehead pressed to his chest and she sobbed.

He opened his mouth to tell her that she had done the right thing, that she was just protecting him.

He shook his head at himself.

Instead, he smoothed back her hair with one hand while the other tipped her chin up to look at him.

“I’m here.”

When her dark eyes flashed to his, deep as the night and glimmering with stars, he was unprepared for that look to burn deep in his soul and etch itself into his bones.

Within the span of a single moment, he was certain he would give anything to right every wrong that had ever brought tears to her eyes.

He wanted to be her hero.