Page 92 of Red Rooster

20

Farley, Wyoming

She woke up slowly, like she always did after an energy transference. Rooster called it “healing,” what she did, but that wasn’t how it felt. For her, it had always been like taking a deep breath, gathering her power, feeling it move through her veins like blood, like something brighter and stronger than blood, and pushing it through her skin and into someone else’s. She didn’t know the medical mechanics of it, how Rooster’s body was able to absorb and metabolize her energy like that. She could only be grateful for the process.

She opened her eyes to a room striped with dawn shadows, Rooster’s arm heavy around her waist, his breath regular and reassuring against the top of her head.

She craved this: the closeness. The touch of skin, the warmth of shared body heat. Knowing that he was whole, and safe, and near enough for her to ease, to heal, to soothe if she needed to. She’d never had this – intimacy – before she fled the Institute and found Rooster. There had been the other LCs, the redheaded children who looked so like her, testing their budding powers on mannequins in gun ranges, but they’d each been assigned a bunk and told to stay there. They’d never touched; the only hands that had ever touched her body belonged to the doctors and nurses and techs. Touches used to manipulate her limbs, and draw samples, and administer drugs that made her see double, and throw up, and lie shivering in her bunk for hours.

But Rooster touched her like he thought she might break, always so careful, mindful of the size of his hands and the strength in his big, warrior’s body. Touched her like she mattered, and always had, since that first night in his friend’s house when he’d pulled her with his arms and comforted her.

Sometimes she wanted more, a low, humming sort of craving in the pit of her stomach. She understood what it was, mechanically, but practically, it overwhelmed her. Almost frightened her, the things she wanted.

The things she wanted from Rooster.

She tipped her head back and looked up at him, her vision hazy with sleep.

His eyes were open, she could tell, trained on her. He had such pretty eyes: a gold-flecked green that he called “muddy,” but which was really hazel. No one noticed their color, she figured, because his scowl was usually enough to put people off from a distance. But in the quiet, stolen moments like these, she got to admire them up close. And think…

Things.

Things maybe she shouldn’t.

Things he most certainly didn’t reciprocate.

“You alright?” he asked, his voice steady, like he’d been awake for a while, watching her.

“Yeah, I’m alright.”

He reached out – careful, always careful – and cupped the back of her head in one big hand; it felt supportive, steady, even though the pulse in his wrist flickered against her scalp, betraying nervousness.

“You were having a nightmare,” she said, remembering. She’d been awakened by his moaning, the shushing of his legs kicking around in the sheets. When she’d turned on the light and said his name aloud, he hadn’t awakened, though he’d turned toward her, grimacing in his sleep.

“No,” he’d whimpered. “No, no, no.”

He’d thrashed, and then stiffened, hissing in pain, his left side catching in that way that had become so familiar to her. She’d known that he was hurting, that he’d needed her touch; but she hadn’t known what had snuck up on him in his dreams and tormented him. Drawn him up tight as a bowstring until he’d twisted and turned himself into a full-body crick.

He swallowed now, throat bobbing. Wet his lips. “Yeah. I was.”

He wore a deep groove between his eyebrows, and she reached to smooth it with her thumb. It relaxed beneath her touch, though the rest of his body stiffened, arms and legs going taut against her own. “What was it about?” she asked.

His gaze slid away, moving over her shoulder. His breath stuttered a step. “Nothing.”

“I don’t believe that,” she said, cajoling.

“Red, just…” His hand flexed against the back of her head, and then fell away, moving to her shoulder, and then off completely as he drew it back to hold awkwardly at his side. “Leave it,” he said, heavy, sad.

She frowned, wishing he would cradle her head again, leaning into him. “Rooster.”

His eyes snapped back to her face, gaze harsh now, breathing quick, like he was in pain. “Red…”

“Do you ever,” she started, and the words welled up on her tongue, fully formed, betraying her carefully-controlled subconscious. She looked at him – the suntanned lines of his face, the pale wheat of his mussed hair on the pillow, the bulk of his shoulders throwing shadows over her, blocking the sun, blocking the world, and anyone in it who would dare hurt her – and something tightly held inside her loosened, suddenly. She took a deep, quick breath. “Do you ever wish you weren’t alone?”

He blinked, face wiped clean by surprise. “What? I’m not alone. I haveyou.” He said it like it was obvious.

She smiled, but she knew it was sad. “But,” she said, “don’t you need someone…someone who’s just yours? Someone who…loves you?”

His eyes widened. He looked like he’d been punched. “You don’t love me?” Like a wounded child.