We Leave Together, стр. 15
She felt like crying, but she knew she’d destroy his bed with her tears. She held them inside. She told herself to be strong.
The more she said it to herself, the more it sounded like a lie.
When he showed up, she knew that she couldn’t touch him because if she touched him she’d burst, and her body’s water burned things. If she kept the water inside her, the water only burned her heart. He grabbed her, and smelled the ore all over her. He didn’t care. They stripped each other of clothes with a need neither cared to discuss.
***
Jona stared down at her nude body in his bed. She was curled into him. Her foot moved up and down Jona’s leg and he didn’t say anything to her but the scales scraped his skin and hurt a bit and might have drawn a line of blood and the blood might burn the sheets. He figured she’d fall asleep soon, and he wouldn’t have to worry about any little cuts burning out.
“Thanks for that, Jona. I needed it.”
“I wish you were here all the time and we could do this when I came home all the time,” he said, “I wish you didn’t leave.”
“Please, Jona.”
“Please, what?”
Her leg stops moving. She’s staring at her own hands running across Jona’s chest.
“I need money, Jona.”
“So do I. You find some, you let me know.”
“Djoss lost the rent.”
“Pinkers do that. Gets worse. He’ll fence anything he can carry. Then, he’ll go too far one day, and he’ll be cheese-for-brains. You’ll have to dump him at a temple or something.”
“Don’t say that. He’s my brother, Jona. He’s more than that. That’s awful. He’ll quit. I’d never dump him at a temple. I’d never do that.”
“Better for you if you did. He won’t quit, Rachel. They never quit for long when they’re sucking on the hookahs.”
“He’s not like those people.”
“I hope not, for your sake. Lots of strong men go cheese-for-brains and don’t get better.”
“Did you ever try it?”
“Yeah, but I was just an eater now and then when I was a dumb kid no different than red roots or hardmint leaves, and only now and then since I couldn’t really afford it too often. Eating’s different from smoking the hookahs. It passes through you like a strong drink, and I guess I’m demon child so demon weed doesn’t do much to me. Eating doesn’t hang in your head in a cloud, though, or eat away all your skin. Anyway, that was before I knew what it really was. I went out to the woods for guard training, and I cleared my head. I never touched it again. It wasn’t really a big thing to me, before, anyhow, and mostly I cleared my head. Anyhow, when I was scrivening, I kept reading about all the stuff about the demon weed—the real stuff, what it does to everyone, and all the crimes hurting people. Anyway, if you need money, I don’t have any. Maybe you turn birdy on a big something and you can get some money. If you got any dirt about a street gang name of Three Kings, maybe Sergeant Calipari’ll pay for that. Can’t you just go read fortunes somewhere?”
“I can. I don’t like to.”
“Why not?”
“Because people want you to tell them something happy. People cling to it. And nothing’s happy. Nothing is ever happy. Everyone is going to lose someone they love, and then they’re going to die and face their goddess alone.”
“About your brother. You told me once that you can see the patterns in people’s lives, right?”
“Don’t start playing Senta. You’re wrong about him.”
“You’d say it to me.”
“No I wouldn’t, Jona. Not even if you paid me for a fortune and I hated you. I love Djoss. He’ll get right.”
“I guess you know him better then I do. But, if you need money, I don’t got enough to split it three ways when I’m already here with Ma. The only things Calipari wants right now are some real scary stuff that I wouldn’t even touch myself with ten hard boys behind me and a street gang full of kids running around with crowns. They’re into the pinks a bit. Sergeant wants to find the top men. You find out who they are, and where they are, and he might pay you for it.”
“Do you have any money right now?”
“I do.”
“Can I have that, too, and I’ll pay you back later, when I find out about the kids?”
“Yes.” Jona reached into the pants at the foot of the bed and pulled his purse from his belt. He had a little extra money under his pillow and he pulled that out, too. While he did this, he thought about how loud skin sounded moving across blankets, and how much he hated how long it took him to dig up all the money. He thought about this pit in his throat from doing this and he didn’t know why. He held the money out to her and he listened to the sound of her naked body moving against the sheets and against his skin and everything in the world was wrong when she held out her hands.
She had this look on her face like she was about to cry.
“Do you love me, Rachel Nolander?”
“What?”
“Do you love me?”
“I wish we had a different life, Jona. I wish we were two peasants in the woods, tending sheep and sleeping beneath the stars, and all human, and all in love.”
“Do you love me, Rachel?”
“I don’t want to say it when your money’s in my hand!” She said it again, in a whisper, “I don’t want to say it. Do you?”
“I do,” he said, “You’re the woman I love.”
“Even monsters can love, then. I hope it’s not the demon in me that you love. I don’t know who I am,