I chuckle and accept the bowl of nut porridge before walking to the truck. I do my best to smooth my hair, which I’m sure is a mess after sleeping for almost ten hours straight. Jess is right. I need a good wash.
Alastair isn’t in his truck, so I walk around the camper and come to an abrupt halt when I see him standing in the river, stark naked. He’s facing the other way—small mercies—but I get a perfect view of his muscular back, his ass, and his powerful legs. Before I realize what I’m doing, I’m staring like a creep. The water dripping from his hair is making his dark skin shine. There’s something big hanging between his legs and—
I close my eyes.The fuck are you doing, Stellan? This is not okay.
“Care to join me for a dip?” Alastair says.
My heart skips a beat.Shit. “No. I’ll use the shower in the RV. The water must be freezing.”
“It is,” he admits, throwing me a glance over his shoulder. “But I like it cold. Must be the Kraken in me.” He chuckles. His white locs cascade over his shoulders, heavy with moisture.
Mercifully, he doesn’t turn around. I must admit, I’ve been curious about what Alastair is packing since the day Perri told me he was different down there. But I’ve been killing my curiosity with fire. Wondering about people’s genitals is weird and rude.
“I’m leaving your breakfast here,” I say, putting the bowl on the camping table in front of his camper. Then I turn and walk away.
“What’s gotten into you?” Jess asks as I stomp back to the RV, face warm.
“Nothin’. I’m going to take a shower.”
I spend some time trying to scrub away my impure thoughts.
11
Cold heart.
“The first months after the Rise were a blur. We were all functioning on very little sleep and fear-induced energy. We were all soft and weak back then, barely born into survivors. Every loss broke us into a million pieces, and the ones who didn’t pick themselves up fast enough from the ground didn’t make it to see another day. Hope was a poison. We still expected life to go back to normal, for humanity to find a solution and fight back. It all became easier when I understood that this was our new normal, and I just had to roll with it. Turns out I’m really good at this surviving gig.”
Extract from a handwritten journal by Thomas McCoy, 2056.
ALASTAIR
Stellan walks away, a hand rubbing the back of his neck, and my eyes linger on him until he disappears inside the RV. I smile to myself and dive into the deeper part of the river, where the water is dark and cold as death. It’s not the abyss, but it’s as close as it gets inland, and it calls to me.
I sit at the bottom of the river for a while, gripping the rocks as the icy current pulls at my hair and body. I can hold my breath for quite some time, courtesy of my mutations.
I let my mind wander. Perri’s fine, and we’ll be reunited soon. I didn’t realize how worried I’d been until the news of his safety unraveled something in me, like a knot suddenly giving way and freeing my heart and internal organs from the pressure.
I’ve come to care for him, more than as a subject. Perri is a good fuck, undeniably, but he also wormed his way like sunlight through the dark waters of my cold heart. The last time I let that happen, I was betrayed. I swore not to fall for it again, and yet here I am, letting it happen once more.
I push to the surface, reaching for the warmth of the morning sun on my face.
Jude is sitting on a rock by the river, alone.
“You stayed a long time down there. Anything interesting?” he says.
“Peace and quiet. Come check it out. I’ll hold you down.”
Jude smiles, undeterred by my veiled threat. “I’m good. Thank you.”
He’s as handsome as ever, his red hair catching the light and his green eyes twinkling with mischief. But his charm doesn’t work on me anymore—that ship has sailed and sunk.
“What do you want?” I ask.
If he thinks catching me naked in a river will stop me from attacking him if I really wanted to, he’s sorely mistaken. Lucky for him, something gave in the past days, and my resentment is fading like blood in water.
“I’m here to apologize,” he says, surprising me.
I frown, standing up on a rock. He manages to keep his eyes off my cock, and that’s quite a feat considering I’m facing him and doing it on purpose, hands on my hips. He’s the one who’s interrupting my washing time in the river, he can bear the consequences.
