“You didn’t have to sleep on the floor.” Clara started walking again, and Carver folded the page, less carefully than she preferred, as he caught up to her.
“Not a big deal.” He shrugged it off, “Truthfully, without knowing what happened there, that town made me a little nervous. I’m glad we’re out of it.”
“How far can we follow the tracks before we need to divert more towards Noxvalis?”
Carver hooked his thumbs through the straps of his bag, and for a moment Clara envied how carefree he looked. His hair shone in the sun, and his skin, practically glowing from their amount of sun exposure, looked vibrant. Glancing down at her own arms, she could already see the pink forming, and freckles had begun to dot her skin from the day before.
“We should check the map when we stop for water. When are we doing that, by the way? You seemed to want to be in charge of the journey, so I will leave our stops to your discretion.” He tilted his head towards her mockingly. If it had been allowed, she would have shoved him. Hard. And hoped he’d trip over something and land on his backside.
But it wasn’t allowed so she focused her gaze straight ahead. “Soon. Are you thirsty already?” They had drained their bottles a ways back, but she was still okay. The sun beat down on her head, and she knew they needed water quickly, regardless of how they felt at the moment.
“I’m good right now.”
“Let’s keep walking for a little while then.”
“Yes ma’am.” This time it was a fake salute. Clara looked out across the other side of the tracks so Carver wouldn’t be able to see her smile. She missed his goofiness, far more than she realized. For the last three years, she had learned to hate every memory of him. She rewrote every thought of him in a haze of red, changing what he meant or his tone.
Now, he was here. And she couldn’t rewrite this moment. Not yet, anyway.
“What was training to be a spy like?” She asked after a while. Her face warmed from the sun, and she knew they should stop for water. Her stubbornness was still louder than her parched throat and she didn’t want to lead them off course yet. A distraction would help.
“Is this something I’m allowed to talk about?”
“I asked, didn’t I?” She smirked.
“I didn’t ask for your attitude.” He said flatly, the ghost of a smile gracing his lips.
“No, that came for free. You don’t have to share if you don’t want to. I was just curious.”
“You told me yours,” he sighed, “I suppose it’s my turn to tell you mine. There was a lot of physical training in the beginning. Unusual physical training. We even did a stint in ballet.”
“Ballet?”
“Yeah. Sounds weird, I know. But it worked. I learned more about footwork and how to stay quiet from those training sessions than anything else we did. I also learned balance and discipline. It was a lot harder than you would think.”
She laughed, “I’m sure it was.”
“No, really. It was.” He chuckled lightly, “I had bruises on my feet for weeks because of the shoes. By the time we moved on, I could move without a sound.”
“So you became afabulousdancer.”
Now he fully laughed. Clara couldn’t help but smile at the sound. It was another thing she had missed from him. “Not at all. I learned what I needed and forgot the rest.” He pointed at her, “So don’t you dare ask me to pirouette.”
“Oh c’mon, that was my next request.” She groaned.
His smile faded, “Those kinds of things were fun. The physical training part I enjoyed. Yeah, it sucked sometimes, but you learn to love the pain after a certain point.” Clara nodded, understanding that feeling way too well. The pain was her only escape. “But we’re spies. So while you learned to kill,” he grimaced as he glanced at her but she didn’t react, “We learned to lie.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad,” she said carefully, but could tell it was headed somewhere she wasn’t prepared for.
“That’s what I thought too. I think all of us thought that way in the beginning. It was endless lie detector tests, endless betrayals. They assigned us stories we had to keep from our friends. And then it was actions.” He inhaled deeply, “Stab your best friend in the back, not literally of course, then make sure they would still trust you to protect them. It messes with your head. After a couple months, you learn not to trust anyone. Everyone becomes insanely brilliant liars, and it’s absolutely terrifying becauseeveryone is good at it. There’s no one left to trust.”
Clara stayed quiet. Another feeling she understood. Though, she also learned how to rebuild trust, at least partially. She could always trust Reese to have her back. Same with a couple other assassins. To have no one? To wait for everyone to try and take you out? She couldn’t quite imagine that.
Carver’s eyes scanned her face, and they softened when she looked at him. “Not a fun idea, right?”
“Not at all.” She whispered back.
“Okay, I know I said I would let you decide, but I think we should go ahead and stop for water.” His tone was jovial again, but Clara wondered just how many scars he hid. She wore hers proudly, the anger, the ferocity. Every scar was displayed as a dare to mess with her.
