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After we left Little Delhi and returned to his subway car, Erik concocted an early supper out of rice, beans, and a jar of hot peppers. We ate picnic style on top of his bed, me sitting with my legs tucked under myself, him half reclined beside me. The situation was more intimate than I was used to, but I wasn’t complaining.
It was nice to be close to someone other than Bloom for a change, and though he was intense, Erik was proving to be a useful acquaintance. Maybe something even more, but it was way too soon to start putting labels on things. I liked him, but it would take a lot more than donating a couple of vials of blood to earn my trust.
The brazier’s dim light reflected off his black hair in fiery streaks. How would he react if I touched those sparks in his hair? Probably call me foolish again...
“How did you learn to cook?” I dragged my fork across my plate, raking my dinner into a pile. Tiny flecks of indiscernible meat were scattered through the rice. The flavor and texture resembled chicken, but I didn’t want my delusions ruined, so I ate without questioning its origins.
Erik drew a pepper from the jar between two long, graceful fingers. “I’ve been on my own a long time. Either learn how to cook or starve, right?”
An image of those same fingers trailing over my skin bloomed in my imagination. The unexpected vision startled me, and I choked on a mouthful of rice. Erik pounded on my back until I coughed it out. “All right?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I croaked and gulped the remainder of my tea. I’d been reading too many sensational novels. Next time I went out foraging, I’d stick to dry philosophy books or historical texts. No more romances for me.
He peered at me, eyes narrowed, lips pressed into a thin line. “You should slow down.”
“It’s been a long time since Bloom and I had any rice. Guess I got carried away.”
“You have a garden. That must be nice.”
I paused, a forkful of navy beans halfway to my mouth. “How do you know so much about me?”
Erik shrugged but wouldn’t meet my gaze. “I watched you sometimes.”
“Why?” My heart fluttered, caught on a current of uncertainty. His confession both concerned and comforted me.
“I’ve never really had a family, and most people who did don’t anymore. I wondered what it would be like.”
I tilted my head to one side and studied him closely, watching for tells in his expression and posture. Mostly he looked uncomfortable, shoulders tense as he refused to look at me. “You’ve saved me a few times.”
“Yeah.”
I piled my remaining rice into a tall mountain and swung my fork into it like a wrecking ball, scattering grains across my plate. “Why?”
“Don’t want to see another family split up, maybe. I’m not sure. I know it makes me weird.”
“No, not really. There’s nothing much left in the world I would call weird anymore.” I dropped my fork onto the plate and rubbed my hands on my knees. “You didn’t know your parents?”
Erik stared at the pepper still pinched between his fingers—it even smelled hot—and he seemed to be still making up his mind about whether or not to eat it. “My mom died giving birth to my little sister, and my sister only managed to live for a day.”
My heart cringed painfully in my chest. Bloom was my whole world. I couldn’t imagine never knowing her or vice versa. We’d only managed to survive this long because we’d done it together. Sure, I liked thinking of myself as an independent person, but that wasn’t being completely honest. Erik, however, knew all about solitary self-reliance. How utterly lonely must he have been? “How old were you?”
“Five,” he said.
He and his sister would have been the same number of years apart as Bloom and I were. My mother had survived my birth, but I’d lost her to consumption before I was old enough to really know her. Erik and I had a lot in common, it seemed.
“My dad was a Sandhog. Built a lot of the subway with my uncles and my grandfather.”
That explained the engraving on the box of matches Erik gave me, and also, possibly, his knowledge of the underground. I was afraid to ask what happened to the rest of his family, and while I wondered if he would tell me if I sat quietly and waited, he tossed his head back, dropped the pepper into his mouth, and bit down. He turned to me and grinned.
“You shouldn’t have done that.” I bit my lip as I tried to gauge the severity of the pepper’s burn. Erik’s grin stretched into a grimace, and his face crumpled into a silent snarl as he battled the heat. “You want me to get you some more water?”
He waved me away and swallowed. I waited and watched, certain steam would soon be leaking from his ears. Or maybe his head would explode. After a moment, he opened his eyes and stuck out his tongue to prove he’d swallowed the whole thing. “Your turn,” he said, grinning.
“Nuh-uh.” I shook my head. “No way.”
He pulled another pepper from the jar and dangled it before me the way one might dangle a dead rat by its tail. Covering my eyes and mouth, I rolled away from him, still objecting. Barking an enthusiastic laugh, he pounced, wrestling my arms to my sides and trapping them under his knees. In between bouts of laughter and curses, I screamed like a banshee. He ignored my pleas for mercy.
“If you eat it,” he said in a softer tone, “I’ll answer one question. Anything you want to know.”
I stopped fighting. It was a pretty good offer, and there were things I wanted to know that he might never tell me otherwise. “Anything?”
His expression going grave, he nodded. “Anything.”
I closed my eyes and opened my mouth, ready to accept a pepper.
“Ready?” he asked, completely serious.
Reluctantly, I nodded. Instead of the pepper, though, his thumb swept over my bottom lip. My eyes popped open, and I gasped.
He shook his head, and bright color flushed his dusky cheeks. “I won’t make you eat it. Just ask your question, and I’ll answer it.”
“Really?” My throat had gone dry, and my voice was a whisper.
“Go for it.” He tossed the pepper back into the jar. Then he flopped over and stretched out beside me, propping his head up in his hand so he could peer down at me. Deep shadows hid most of his face. Unconsciously, my hand moved, reaching for his scars.
He pulled away.
“Don’t.” I reached for him again.
He paused and let my fingers sketch the tattered skin over his cheek and the jagged lines that scored his brow.
“It doesn’t bother you?” he asked, his voice deep and husky.
“Not at all, and not nearly as much as it seems to bother you. Without the scar, I think you might be too perfect.”
“Too perfect?” He grunted as if dismissing the possibility.
“You ever see any paintings done by the Renaissance masters? Da Vinci and those guys?”
“Actually, I have. The undead don’t seem to like museums for some reason.”
“You remind me of some of those paintings. Beautiful, but a little distant and a little cold. But the scars make you human. All the dashing heroes in my favorite adventure novels have scars, don’t you know?”
Erik shook his head and harrumphed under his breath. “Ask your question, Sera, before I change my mind.”
I didn’t have to think about it. I had carried this question from the day Erik had first helped me escape the undead horde. “Why are you doing all of this for me? You barely know me, but you’ve risked your life, and you’ve given your blood.”
Exhaling, he dropped onto his back and stared up at the train car’s ceiling. “I can’t think of any way to say it that doesn’t sound ridiculous.”
“I promise not to laugh.”
He sucked in a huge breath as if preparing to tell a big story. “I saw you one day, a long time before the Dead Wars, you and your sister and your father, walking down the street together. I had moved into Saint Theresa’s a few weeks before, and I was so angry and mad at the world for taking my family away, but then there you came, skipping along, oblivious to pain or loss. Your father held you by one hand, and Bloom had you by the other.
“One of the sisters was outside with us, letting us play in an open lot. She recognized your father and called out to him. Turns out he was a benefactor to the orphanage, made a lot of donations. You were standing there in this pristine white dress, not a speck of dirt on you anywhere, and I thought you looked like an angel. You didn’t notice anyone at all. Your eyes were only for your father.”
“I remember the orphanage,” I said fondly. “And the nuns in their habits. I thought they looked like penguins. I used to play with a toy one made out of tin that would waddle across the floor when you wound a key in its back. I named it Sister Sophie after my favorite nun.” Sitting up, I leaned over to peer into Erik’s face. “I’m sorry I don’t remember you, though.”
“Like I said, you were so intent on your father. You’d think I would’ve been jealous, but I wasn’t. I thought you were lucky, and very sweet and beautiful, and I swore if I could, I would let nothing hurt you the way I had been hurt. Of course, you were probably five or six then, and I wasn’t a whole lot older, so it was a silly vow at the time.”
My heart pinged, and I laid my hand on his arm. “Not silly. You kept your vow.”
“I didn’t. I couldn’t save your father.”
“He wasn’t yours to save.”
“I’ve tried to do my best for you and help you out whenever you’ve needed it.”
“It’s a pretty amazing story. I mean, I’ve done nothing to earn your regard. I could have turned out to be a royal brat or something.”
Erik snorted. “Who says you didn’t?”
I dug an elbow into his ribs until he grunted. Dropping his gaze, he toyed with a loose string on the quilt. “I’ve watched you long enough to know better,” he said. “You work hard. You love your sister. You can shoot like hell, and you’re not afraid of anything.”
I cracked out a sharp laugh. “I’m afraid every God-given moment of the day. I’m even afraid in my sleep.”
He brushed a tentative finger across my knuckles. His touch left behind a warm streak. “But you don’t let it stop you.”
“No.” I watched him stroke my hand. “If you stop, you die.”
“A lot of people gave up.”
“And a lot of people died.”
Erik pulled my knuckles to his lips, and my own lips tingled as he pressed a kiss to my fingers. At first, I thought my reaction had something to do with the way he was staring at me with dark, hooded eyes, but then the room spun, and my stomach lurched.
“You are fearless, Sera. You’re smart too.”
I tried to smile at the compliment, but my face had gone numb.
“You’re smart not to trust me, even though you should. I promised myself to protect you, even if you didn’t want me to.”
What’s he talking about? And why are weird little spots swirling around his head? And why is my body so heavy?
Erik helped me slide down in the bed then pulled a blanket over me.
This isn’t right at all... I opened my mouth to tell him something had gone wrong, but my voice had disappeared.
“I’m sure you don’t want me to leave you here while I go out and finish Dr. Dwivedi’s experiments, but I can’t bear to see you do anything that dangerous. You’re probably going to hate me in the morning. I’m willing to risk it. What I’m not willing to risk is you, and as far as I know, only one of us is immune to the Dead Disease.”
“Blabbidy blahgetiss,” I said. I had really meant to say I’ll make you regret this, but my tongue was refusing to cooperate. So were most of my other motor functions. My bones were turning to iron and my muscles to water. I sank into blackness.
I’ll make him pay, tomorrow, after I sleep for a bit. I have to remember to ask him how he did it, where did he get the—
Zzzzzzzzz...