Page 9 of Trade (After the End #7)

I see at least a hundred shades of green and brown, and above it all, a cornflower blue so vivid and wide it makes me have to squint to look at it.

And then—past the rocky edge of the clearing—the greens and browns go on and on.

A river winds its way through a valley, disappearing into clusters of trees and then reappearing, narrowing until it vanishes in the tall grasses and then widening as it reaches something I first assume is the horizon, except the longer I stare, and the better my eyes focus, the more it seems to sparkle.

It's water, stretching across the entire plane of my vision. My heart rate quickens.

“Is that the ocean?” I ask, rising to my knees.

The man glances past me to see what I’m looking at. “It’s a lake.”

“A Great Lake?”

Again, he takes a beat to answer. “It’s fine.”

I snort—once—and then slam a hand over my mouth. It’s not funny. Nothing about this is funny. This man might be the same age as an intern, but that didn’t stop him from shoving his cock into me, and we’re alone out here.

Bennett pouts for hours if he feels mocked. He’d glower at me so that I know he’d like to do something—smack my face, maybe—and he’d do it, too, if he weren’t such a good person, above that kind of thing, and wasn’t I lucky that he’d never do something like that? And shouldn’t I be grateful?

Why did I never question the premise? Why did I co-sign it in my head?

I believed I was home safe. I had a good husband who’d never hurt me.

Even though he’d look at me like that. Even though I knew when I made a joke that cut a little too close or a remark flew thoughtlessly out of my mouth—he made sure I knew what I could have had coming if he wasn’t such a good man.

That crease appears between the man’s eyebrows again. “It’s got good fishing,” he says like he’s offering evidence in support of his thesis. Not like his ego’s been pricked.

My stomach muscles relax at the same time that my jaw drops. “Fish?” I’m instantly distracted from thoughts of Bennett. How is that possible? All aquatic life, except for maybe some of the hardier microorganisms, were all lost at the End, weren’t they?

“Sure. Salmon, bass, trout. Sauger and crappie, too, but they taste like shit.”

“You eat from the lake?”

He nods like it’s a weird question.

If it’s safe enough to eat from, it must be safe to swim in. I pop to my feet and stalk to the edge of the rocky cliff. The man follows.

I’ve always wanted to swim. When I was a kid, almost every year, the teachers would have us write essays about what we would do if we could go back to the Before.

We were supposed to write about what we would do to change things, but the first time I was given the prompt, I didn’t understand what they expected, so I wrote “climb a tree and go swimming.”

Every time after that, I wrote what I was supposed to write, but I’d always think before I started—climb a tree and go swimming. That’s my real answer.

I did everything I was supposed to do. I got married. I tried to have a baby, month after month, year after year. I did my job, loved my husband, longed for a family. I believed my work mattered. I kept twenty-seven trees alive.

I can see tens of thousands of them from where I’m standing now.

I’m supposed to let this man finish whatever it is he wants to do and then go back to the bunker and wave at the camera. Naked. All garments must be left outside. I’m supposed to be grateful they let me back in and never speak of what happened. I’m not supposed to speak.

“How far away is the lake?” I ask.

He glances away from my face to consider the lake. “Three days’ walk.” He looks over and scans my body. “Maybe four.”

My cheeks heat. I don’t care what he saw that made him up the estimate. He’s just some man who bought my body for a little while. He’s a customer.

He is standing right next to me, shoulder to shoulder, like he’s afraid I’m going to jump, staring at me—my face, my tits, my ass—as if there isn’t a whole vista of fucking miracles spread in front of us like the Garden of Eden. This is all supposed to be dust and ash. Right?

When did they tell us that? I search my memory, but I can’t pinpoint the lesson.

It’s just known. The Outside is a ruin. We know it like we know the moon has phases and the sky is blue even though we’ve never seen them clearly through the smoked glass atrium roof.

The world ended in a cataclysm, and we’re all that’s left to carry on. The legacy of humanity is in our hands.

Except we’re not the only ones, are we? There are Outsiders. There’s this man.

“Do you have a name?”

His gaze jerks from my tits to my face, but he doesn’t blush at all. “Dalton.”

There aren’t any Daltons in the bunker. We’ve got several Mikes, Brians, and Johns. There’s a second Bennett who works in Machine Repair. I’m one of four Glorias.

“Dalton,” I repeat quietly.

“Gloria,” he says softly back.

My gaze flies from the valley to his face. He’s not smiling, but his perfect lips have softened. His eyes hold mine for a second before letting go.

His handsomeness is crushing. Breathtaking. Disorienting.

He bought me. Fucked me without my consent. I didn’t want it. He had to know. I’m a product to him. I’m a thing. A body. A hole.

“What did you trade for me?” I ask. There’s an angry edge to my voice, and I don’t care. If he takes offense, good. We should be fighting. We’re enemies.

“A hundred barrels of oil.”

My eyes fly wide. AP’s allotment is eight barrels a quarter. A hundred is enough to fuel the bunker for almost half a year. And he traded that for me?

“What did you get for that?” I ask. This time I try to mask my fear. I don’t know the market at all—Administration runs the lottery—but a hundred barrels is a fortune.

Dalton’s expression grows guarded again. Because he’s ashamed? Or because he’s going to lie?

He jerks his chin toward me sharply. “You.”

“For how long?”

“As long as I want.”

I ball my hands. His gaze drops. He seems to take note of my fists before his eyes return to my face.

“But you’re going to let me go back,” I say.

He nods slowly.

I turn my head away. The valley sprawls, unrolled in front of us like a red carpet. We’re perfectly centered, as if the bunker and its mountain were placed here on purpose. The lake glitters. Now that I know it’s water, my brain doesn’t try to convince me it’s not glinting in the light.

They say your body is weightless in water.

I want to touch it. I want to feel it for myself.

I’m supposed to comply with instructions. If I do, they’ll let me back inside. I’ll be safe again. Like I was before they pushed me out here. Traded me.

How long before the Outside poisons me?

“How old are you?” I ask Dalton.

“Twenty-three, I think.”

“You don’t know?”

“I never had a mother. Dad didn’t care much about dates.”

Twenty-three. Older than I thought. When I was twenty-three, I still thought I was going to be Head of AP. I had so many ideas of what I’d do. Dad would tell me, “Slow down. There’s time.” When did he decide that the time was going to be never?

Dalton looks healthy. More than healthy.

Four days there. Four days back.

An idea takes shape in my head, a whim, an urge.

The worst has already happened. And what do I have to look forward to?

Pleading naked for Gary Krause to let me back inside the bunker so I can go lie in bed and stare at the slats of Amy’s bunk while everyone feels sorry for me and happy that it wasn’t them?

I look over to Dalton. Of course, he’s watching me.

It didn’t hurt too bad. And he was quick.

I’ve already been sold. Why shouldn’t I sell myself?

I look Dalton straight in the eye and hold his gaze as hard as I can. “I want you to take me there.” I nod toward the lake. “I’ll trade you for it.”

If there were clockwork in his brain, it’d be turning. He glances from me to the lake and back again. “You want to go there?” He’s calculating.

“Yeah. And then back here.” I expect him to ask why I want to go, but he doesn’t. The clockwork turns. He frowns at me. He scans the valley. He squints at the distant lake.

Finally, he says, “What are you offering?”

“What do you want?” I know what he wants, and I don’t really think he’ll be too ashamed to say it, but there’s a part of my brain still operating on the program where I’m the Assistant Head of Agricultural Preservation who lives on Level C with her loving husband and people are fundamentally decent and nothing truly bad can happen if you follow the rules.

It’s like that part of my brain wants to be broken once and for all.

“You let me fuck you,” he says. “And I’ll take you there.”

“And back.”

“And back,” he agrees.

I shouldn’t be surprised that he didn’t hesitate—that there’s no sign of shame on his face—but I am, a little, and that makes me feel stupid.

“But you can’t do anything that I don’t want.

If I tell you that you can’t do something, then you can’t.

” I’m pushing it, I know, and what leg do I have to stand on if he says no?

He’s already traded for me. He’s bigger and stronger, and he unstrapped the machete at some point, but it’s back now, the handle right at his fingertips.

“Okay,” he says. “But I get to touch you.”

“What do you mean?” He says that like he’s not allowed. Like he hasn’t already.

“I want to touch your hair. And your skin.” He pauses a second. “And your belly.”

I don’t understand. “You can’t touch me now?”

The crease on the bridge of his nose appears. “No.”

“But you did.” I gesture to where his jacket is still lying in the dirt.

“I followed the rules.”

“What are the rules?”

The crease deepens. “I can fuck your pussy, your ass, your mouth, or your tits. No touching. No leaving marks. No talking.” He stops like he’s done, and then he tacks on, “No giving you things.”

“You gave me something to eat.”

He shrugs. “I held it out.” His lips quirk, ever so slightly. “You took it.”

“Is that it? Are those all the rules?”

“I leave you at the doors when I’m done.”

“There’s no time limit?”

He takes his time answering, surveying the valley, that calculating look back in his eyes. “No,” he finally says. “Just leave you at the doors.”

“So you’ll do it?” The idea isn’t a whim anymore, not an urge either. I want this.

When was the last time I wanted something? The head job, a baby—I can remember wanting things in the past, but it’s been so long, I’d forgotten how wanting feels until it hits me again. Suddenly, I’m wide awake. Unafraid. My little aches and pains fade.

The lake glitters in the distance. I’m going to swim in that son of a bitch. I’m going to float on my back and stare at the wide blue sky. And no one will be able to take that from me.

I turn to Dalton. His face is grim like he’s lost a fight or knows he’s about to.

“Okay,” he says and grabs his backpack, hiking it over his shoulders like he’s suiting up for war. “Let’s go to your great lake.”