Page 25 of Empowereds

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T hat afternoon, Charity made two cheese sandwiches for a late lunch. Maybe Enzo was right and she was too nurturing. Perhaps he’d simply played on her sympathy with the story of Kitra’s and his father’s death. He might have only pretended to have a change of heart about her father. But she didn’t want to keep being his enemy. This was her olive branch.

She handed Enzo the plate. He looked up from the novel he was reading in confusion. “I’m not eating until dinner. We need to conserve food.”

“Actually, my parents keep freeze-dried food under their bed. We’ll be fine.”

He took the plate. “Ah. So you’ve decided not to let me starve in retribution. Does this mean you don’t want to hurt me anymore?”

She sat beside him on the couch. “I don’t know. Maybe Stockholm Syndrome has taken effect.”

“That can’t be it. I would be the one who got that, not you. Also, does this mean you’re willing to play board games now? I’m already tired of reading.”

She took a bite of her sandwich, considering the idea.

He nudged her knee with his. “While we play, you can study my strategy and try to analyze my weak spots.”

“Do you have any of those?”

“Not really, but you can still vicariously take out your aggression on my game piece.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’m in.”

He laughed, and she liked the sound of it, deep and rich.

He was already handsome; did he have to sound so good too? She was going to defeat him in every game, just to prove she wasn’t the pushover he supposed her to be. She could strategize with the best of them and would show him no mercy.

They spent the rest of the day that way.

Although she set out to trounce Enzo, he did a fair job of staying untrounced. He picked up the rules quickly and was a natural at strategy.

She found herself talking and laughing with him like the two of them weren’t enemies. They seemed to have agreed, without coming out and saying it, that they would pretend they were ordinary people spending time together.

If things had been different, Charity mused during an especially entertaining game of Yahtzee, if either of them had had a different background, maybe they could’ve been right for each other. Maybe the vision had shown her father who she would’ve married in a kinder timeline.

When the evening came, the lights grew dimmer, and the heater stopped working. The two took blankets from their beds and curled up on the couch in front of the computer monitor to watch shows. She let him pick the titles, and even though the menu had thrillers, he chose a romcom series instead. He was either trying to please her, or he’d had enough violence for a while.

They finished a few, then he went to bed in Zia and Milo’s room, and she slept in her parents’. Falling asleep proved difficult the first night. She couldn’t relax knowing that Enzo was only one room away.

Her nerves were caused by fear, by lingering mistrust. There was no other reason for her to be lying awake thinking about him.

During the following days, they fell into an easy, casual routine. They worked out, showered, ate, read, and played games. He grudgingly admitted that reading wasn’t so bad as long as he could point out what the characters should’ve done. And often his commentary was as entertaining as the books.

He flirted with her, and she found herself flirting back, but she wasn’t sure what it meant to him. Just a pastime? Something more? Did he worry he had to make her happy or her parents would enact some sort of retribution when they came back?

He told her she wasn’t lifting weights the right way and kept adjusting her posture. He’d stand close and glide his hands over her shoulders, her arms, her hips, moving them. Every time he did, she worried she’d drop the weights.

He smiled like he knew what he was doing to her and enjoyed her reaction.

Sometimes when he teased her or they laughed about something, she forgot Enzo was here against his will. When she remembered again, in painful thuds of realization, she had to remind herself that falling for him was a bad idea.

Easy to do, but a very bad idea. And perhaps happening again despite her better judgment.

She couldn’t decipher his feelings. He seemed to want to be with her and looked for excuses to touch her.

Every night when they watched shows, sharing a bowl of popcorn, he sat closer and closer to her. Perhaps that was because of the small computer screen size, and he wanted to get a better view.

Eventually they sat shoulder to shoulder, and he had the habit of resting his hand next to hers so that the backs of their hands touched.

That casual contact didn’t seem to affect him, but it made concentrating on the shows hard for her. She kept thinking that it wouldn’t take much to shift her hand so it covered his, so that they were holding hands.

But she didn’t.

Once in a while, he ran his finger over the top of hers. The motion, that soft caress, always made her catch her breath.

What was it supposed to mean? She would have asked him, but she was pretty sure if she did, he would pull his hand away and not touch her again.

Every few days, the security system alerted them of people in the area, men tromping by on the road. That wasn’t the norm. Usually when the family stayed at the cabin, they didn’t see a vehicle going by, let alone people on foot.

On the tenth morning, a rush of soldiers passed by on the road. From the look of their uniforms, Breakaway soldiers.

Enzo peered at the security screen. “Where are we?”

“Apparently in the middle of a conflict.”

“How far are we from the Arkansas-Oklahoma border?”

She didn’t answer. They weren’t that far away.

He sighed in frustration but didn’t press her.

An hour later, several Union tanks rumbled by on the road, followed by a dozen armored trucks. Enzo began pacing back and forth across the room. “We should leave.”

“Definitely not. The area will be clear at the end of two weeks. Otherwise, my parents wouldn’t be planning to come back.”

Enzo flung his hand in the direction of the door. “We’re in a warzone. If the tanks start lobbing penetrators, we’ll die. If they burn down the forest, the smoke will kill us. Right now, we’re sitting in a very fancy coffin.”

“We’ll be okay,” she insisted. “My father wouldn’t have told us to come here if we weren’t safe. I always wondered why the timeframe wasn’t one week, but now that makes sense. Leaving after one week wouldn’t have been safe. And this location makes sense too. If the special ops department is trying to track you, they won’t send anyone out here to search for you.”

Enzo didn’t seem cheered by her logic. For the rest of the day, he checked the cameras relentlessly, even though the security system hadn’t sent out alerts that anyone else was around.

Stragglers went by on day eleven. No one showed up on day twelve.

On day thirteen, things still seemed clear. Charity should’ve started to pack up her belongings but didn’t. It was her last full day with Enzo at the cabin, might be her last day with him altogether, and she wanted it to seem as normal as possible. The thought of leaving made her feel bleak.

Enzo was more silent than usual. He hardly paid attention to the movie they watched that night. He had to be worried about what would happen tomorrow.

She put her hand on his knee to get his attention. “My parents will probably just release you somewhere safe.”

“You think that?” It was clear he didn’t.

“You don’t have to worry about me telling anyone that you handcuffed me and ran off. I won’t. If for no other reason than I’d never live it down with my brothers.”

Usually, that sort of statement would’ve earned her a smile. This time it didn’t. “Good,” Enzo said. “I also don’t want your brothers to know about that incident.”

She tapped her foot nervously. “It wouldn’t be so terrible, would it, if you had to spend more time with my family?”

Enzo didn’t comment about that, but he gave her hand a squeeze and left his resting on top of hers.

That was holding her hand, wasn’t it?

So did that mean he agreed that no, spending more time with her wouldn’t be bad?

She stared at the screen and didn’t move. Maybe his hand on hers was only a gesture of comfort or solidarity or a way to keep her from nervously tapping her foot again. Should she snuggle in closer to him? Did she want to do that?

Well, the answer to that was an aching yes, but she had to think logically. What would it lead to? She might not see him again after tomorrow. Unless he wanted to stay with her family.

Charity sat still, feeling his skin on hers with every cell in her body. It would be so easy to lean against him and rest her head on his shoulder.

But Enzo had already rejected her. Twice. She wasn’t about to go through that again. If he wanted to kiss her, he could make the next move, and she would be the one to decide whether to reject him or not.

Enzo didn’t lean toward her or bring her hand to his lips like he’d done before. He just sat with his hand on top of hers in a gesture of perhaps comfort or solidarity or affection.

She watched the movie without seeing it at all.

That night when Charity went to bed, she didn’t sleep well. She kept waking up to check the time. At three in the morning, she heard noises coming from Enzo’s room. Something thudding and shuffling.

Was he planning to leave in the middle of the night despite his promise? She couldn’t stop him, but she’d at least confront him.

She grabbed her phone, turned on the flashlight, and marched to his room. His door was cracked open. The light was off, and yet she still heard movement inside.

She opened the door and pointed her flashlight toward the dresser and the closet, expecting to find him standing there.

No one was there. She glanced at his bed. He lay there, fitfully turning one way and then another, gripped by some nightmare.

She dimmed her light and padded over to him, softly calling his name. He didn’t wake. He spoke in his sleep, desperate words she couldn’t quite make out.

She put her hand on his shoulder. “Enzo.”

In one quick motion, he grabbed her wrist and yanked her toward him. She yelped in alarm.

His eyes flew open. Even then he seemed to be in the throes of his dream. He jolted toward her and lifted a hand over his head.

For a second, she thought he would hit her, but he kept his hand raised as though protecting her from something above.

“Enzo!” she squeaked.

He let go of her wrist and scanned the ceiling, then the room. His eyes went to her phone, lying on the bed. She’d dropped it when he’d grabbed her. “What are you doing in here?”

“You had a nightmare and were making noises. I came in to see what was wrong.”

“Oh. Sorry.” He rubbed a hand across the stubble on his jaw. He wore a T-shirt with his pajama bottoms—obviously one of those people who were impervious to low temperatures when they slept. She was cold in a sweatshirt and exercise pants.

“You don’t have to apologize,” she said. “What was your nightmare about?”

He glanced at the ceiling. “Cave-in. I have those dreams sometimes.”

Of course he would. And Charity hadn’t ever considered how hard staying in an underground cabin would be for him. He’d been downright cheerful the last two weeks, joking around with her as though nothing bothered him.

She sat down on the edge of his bed. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He shook his head. “You don’t really want to hear about it.”

“Yes, I do.” She shivered from the cold and folded her arms around herself. Without a word, he took the edge of his blanket and wrapped it around her. The blanket stretched oddly between them leaving gaps that let chilly air in.

She couldn’t let him get cold. He only had a T-shirt on. She lay down on her side at the edge of the bed to flatten the blanket and keep him warm.

He stared up at the ceiling, hardly seeming to notice her change in position. “Ever since Kitra and my father died, I dream about cave-ins. The medical examiners didn’t do autopsies on the bodies they dug from the wreckage. I don’t know whether they died immediately or whether they were awake and conscious, calling for help for minutes or hours.

“Realistically, their deaths were probably instantaneous, but in my dreams, they never are. Sometimes I’m in the building as it collapses. Sometimes I’m sorting through the rubble afterward. I hear them, but I can’t get to them.”

“That must be horrible.” Charity reached for his hand and wrapped her fingers around his.

He looked over at her, his eyes distant. “This time, the cave-in wasn’t at the governor’s house. It was here, in the bunker. While we ate, the roof started falling in.”

His gaze returned to the ceiling. “I doubt your father had any building inspectors come out here to ensure the bunker was built to code. How safe is this place?”

Her father had bought it from an architect who built it as a bug-out shelter. Since he built it for his family, he would’ve made sure everything was up to code. Charity couldn’t tell Enzo those sorts of details. Someone could search for records of architects who’d gotten permits to build bug-out shelters. “My father wouldn’t have sent us here for two weeks if it wasn’t safe.”

“Safe for you. Not for me.” Frustration rimmed his voice. “What do you think will happen to me tomorrow?”

Charity shrugged. “I don’t know. Nothing bad, I’m sure. My father didn’t even know why we were supposed to be here. Perhaps he has a better idea now.”

Enzo turned on his side and sent her a look that said she wasn’t grasping the obvious. “If your father’s visions tell him what to do to keep his family safe, they’ll inform him that I’m a serious liability. I know too much about your family, and now I know what his visions center on.

“Even if I don’t want to tell my supervisors that information—and I don’t—they could use truth serum on me. The next vision your father has is probably about him slitting my throat and leaving me in a shallow grave.”

“No.” Charity propped herself up on her elbow. “My father would never kill an innocent man.”

“Maybe he doesn’t consider me all that innocent since I came to arrest him and nearly shot Milo.”

“I won’t let him kill you.” She leaned closer to him. “You have to know that about me, don’t you?”

He blew out a disgruntled breath. “You do everything the visions tell you to do. Even if it’s to stay alone in a cabin with an enemy combatant or give your body to him.”

Her cheeks heated in discomfort. “I actually didn’t do that second part.”

“Yes, but you’re in bed with me now, holding my hand, and getting closer to me the longer we talk.”

He was right. Somehow, hardly any space stretched between them. “That isn’t the same thing.” She dropped his hand and scooted farther away.

He sighed and pulled her back over to him.

Did he want to kiss her? Did he think she wanted to kiss him? The idea was tempting, but she wasn’t going to. She wouldn’t prove his point so easily.

Besides, she’d already given Enzo too much of her heart. She wouldn’t give him anything else if he planned to leave her the first chance he got. And he most likely would do just that. Over the two weeks, he hadn’t given her any indication that he had second thoughts about his loyalty to the government.

He didn’t move nearer to her, just watched her like she was a puzzle he was trying to figure out.

She rested her hand on his shoulder. “Even if the visions say you should die, I’ll protect you. I’ll tell my father he’ll have to kill me along with you.”

Enzo ran his fingers across her cheek, then kissed her forehead. “You’re so adorable and incredibly foolish.” His lips found hers, kissed them softly, gently.

She was beginning to have second thoughts about her resolve. She wanted to convince Enzo that staying married to her had its benefits.

She ran her hand across his T-shirt, feeling the soft material underneath her fingertips. It had ridden up at his stomach, and her fingers touched the skin there.

He broke the embrace, let out a low breath, and edged away from her. “I still can only think of one reason why your father would put us together for two weeks. He also believes in your chosen one theory. That means the only insurance I have that he won’t kill me is if I don’t consummate our marriage. Then he’ll have a reason to keep me around after tomorrow.”

That idea hadn’t occurred to her, but apparently, Enzo had given it a lot of consideration. Which meant it didn’t matter how nice or friendly her parents treated Enzo tomorrow. He would never trust them. He would never want to stay with her.

“I don’t think…” she started, but she couldn’t say what she thought her father’s plans were. “They’ll probably just let you go.” She tried not to sound like the possibility made her miserable.

Enzo rolled over on his back. “We should try to get some sleep. We have no idea what tomorrow will bring.”

She was about to go when he took hold of her hand again. “You can stay if you want.”

He seemed to want her close by, a security blanket, nothing else. Perhaps she needed some security too. She stayed there holding his hand and listening as his breaths became steady and deep.

It took her much longer to fall asleep.