Page 13
Story: Into Elysium
CALE
TWO MONTHS LATER
My breath seeped past my lips, forming a cloud of fog as I made my way back to the tent. My hair was still wet from the shower, frost clung to the ends as snow fell in fat clumps around me. It had been another hard day of training. My muscles rebelled with every step I took, but I loved it. The ache encouraged me. I was building toward something. I’d gained weight and was stronger, more like the man I’d been before the war. Confident and able-bodied. I’d learned a lot about myself over the past couple of months. I’d discovered I enjoyed hand-to-hand combat, and the satisfaction of using my body to protect myself and others around me. According to Nadim, I was pretty good with a rifle too. I was far away from the days of apple picking and cider presses. This was a new world entirely, and I was a new man.
A soft, orange glow emanated from the rows of tents as laughter and idle chatter filled the air. It was almost like the militia had never tainted these sacred grounds. These homes where people had thought they were safe from the horrors of the war. Life moved on. The guard tower and supply shelter had been rebuilt, the holes in the perimeter fence repaired. The soldiers who had perished had been burned on a ceremonial pyre, their lives commemorated, their names etched into a granite memorial near the lake, and every day the snow fell. Endless white and frigid cold.
We fought.
We survived.
But we would never forget.
Landon and the two women Eben and I hadn’t met, Ida and Grace, were still missing. Taken, or dead. I’d never said it out loud, but I’d prayed for their death every night. Better dead than trapped and tortured inside a cell. Before I’d closed my eyes, I’d hoped they would find peace in death or freedom.
“Hey, Cale.” Megs ran past me, her sweet voice dragging me from my darker thoughts. She jumped up and down, mashing the snow under her boots.
“Hey, Meggie.” I smiled as she waved a mitten-covered hand over her shoulder.
Her cheeks were bitten pink from the frost, her gray eyes, like her father’s, light with joy, no sign of the fear I’d seen the night the militia had invaded.
“Where you going?” she asked, and I pointed to my tent. “It’s time for bed soon… maybe you should get ready too. I bet your parents are wondering where you are.”
“Sure.” She smiled and took off running down the path toward her own tent.
I watched her, making sure she found her way home.
“Megs escaped from her tent again?” Eben asked as I zipped up the door behind me.
“Looks like it.” I kicked off my boots on a small canvas pad where we kept our wet shoes.
I shrugged out of my jacket and pulled off my shirt. Eben’s warm arms wrapped around me, the heat of his bare chest a balm against the cold skin on my back.
“I missed you today.” Eben pressed his full lips to the crook of my neck, and I nuzzled deeper into his arms.
“Did you guys find a way through the pass yet?”
“No,” he sighed and squeezed me tighter.” It’s too dangerous with these back-to-back storms. Jack is losing his mind. The whole squad is.”
“It’s personal for Jack, I know he won’t admit it, but he cares about Landon,” I said, and he hummed and kissed my shoulder.
“He’s our squad leader. He cares about everyone.” I turned to face him, bringing us chest to chest, the tip of my finger tracing the scar on Eben’s shoulder. I kissed the bumpy skin as he spoke. “We’ll find a way through. We have to.”
“The Captain seems to think so.”
“The snow has to stop eventually,” he said and shivered as I trailed my fingers up his spine. “The pass will clear, and the west camp won’t know what hit them.” Eben kissed my jaw, following his usual path until his hot breath tickled the shell of my ear. “How was training?”
“Good. Not the same without you, though.” Eben trained too, but with his guard experience, he hadn’t needed as much instruction as I had. He still trained with the unit, but the Captain felt he was better suited for recon than combat since his lungs had been weakened by the virus. But I thought maybe she kept him from training as much to protect his healing shoulder and ribs.
“I’ll be there tomorrow,” he said, and I held in a gasp as he nipped at my pulse point. “I like watching you get scrappy.”
“Oh?”
“Ah-huh.” His hands skated down my back to my ass and he pulled me against him. He was hard, and I groaned as he kissed me, his tongue licking into my mouth as I opened for him.
On most nights, with the physical toll of training, or recon, or work around the settlement, we rarely had the energy, or the time, to indulge in each other. Sometimes we’d fall asleep naked, our intentions lost to our dreams. Sometimes we kissed until we couldn’t keep our eyes open, the weight of the day lifting through the healing touch of our lips, and sometimes, on a night like tonight, we’d get home early, and take the time we needed to remember, to be whole, to find each other again under the dark sky.
Eben reached into my sweats, his hot hand wrapping around my shaft. My breathy moans filled the space between us as he stroked me.
“God, I love the way you sound when I touch you.”
I reached for him, but he pulled away, dragging me down onto the makeshift mattress we’d made with our bed roll, elk furs, and old blankets. Eben’s kiss consumed me, his tongue tasting mine, the heat of his breath something I’d never get used to. I’d never get used to this, never forget how hard we’d have to fight to keep this, to be free, to feel this love, to have his body like this, to give him mine without consequence.
“Take off your pants,” he breathed, and I smiled against his needy mouth.
“You too.”
Naked and overheated, his scent filled my lungs. Lemon soap and mint and sex.
“Oh fuck,” he growled as I took both of our cocks in hand. “Cale.” My name was a plea, his forehead pressed to my brow.
The brand of Eben’s hand on my neck, his dirty words on my lips, he pumped his hips, urging my rhythm, begging me to go faster. He swore as I tightened my grip, his tongue diving into my mouth. I was fast and rough, losing control. Every erratic pulse of my heart, every sweet breath he gave me brought us closer to the edge, closer to those twin flames burning, engulfing us until we were both shaking and sticky and relieved. My chest heaving, I kissed him, lazy, and with one last stroke, he shuddered. Eben ran his palm through the mess on my stomach, his kiss possessive, and I did the same, my fingers gliding over his skin.
“Love you,” I whispered, and Eben traced his finger over the curve of my lips.
I licked it, loving the salty taste of us, the taste of home.
“Love you, too,” he said and kissed the corner of my mouth.
Shadows of the snow falling outside dotted the walls of the tent, the wind rustling the canvas as the world whispered its reminder, “I’m still here.”
“I have no clue what could happen tomorrow, or next week,” he said. “Or if we’ll ever have electricity again, or if the virus is gone…” The tip of his nose brushed along the line of my jaw. “It’s all too big, but you make it better, easier… and then I feel guilty because we get to have this. We get to be together. And Landon and Ida and—”
“I don’t think the guilt will ever go away, not while things are the way they are, but hey…” I kissed the dimple in his chin. “Tomorrow, Eben. New day… new breath. Right?”
“Right,” he whispered into the crook of my neck. “Another new day. Another breath. One step at a time.”
“With you,” I said, and his warm, brown eyes met mine.
“For you.”
I kissed his brow. “For us.”
THE END