She snorted against his shoulder. “Well.” Miya tilted her head back to see him. “You finally have me listening, and you aren’t going to tell me?”
While her stomach flipped at his lopsided grin, it was the vulnerability in his light brown eyes that made it hard to breathe. He mattered. He mattered, and this felt nicer than she expected, his sturdy arms circling around her, face so close, warm voice calming.
His breath washed over her forehead. “Once I talk, this is all over.”
“What?”
“Me, not being shy and awkward. You, letting me in.”
Her mind was all conflicting wants—the want to run, the want to slide her hands down his neck, the want… the want... “Just say it, Lance.”
He watched her before he spoke. “You’re terrified every time you feel something real.”
“Oh? Is this the part where you convince me it’s you making me feel something real?”
Lance brushed a loose curl behind her ear. “It’s innocence. Your own innocence.”
Pain spread over her chest.
“You think it’s a weakness—”
Miya pushed out of his arms. He released her, backing up a step.
“This game is over.” She raised her finger to him. “I don’t need you to rescue me or redeem me. I can fuck you right now and turn around to betray you. Does that hurt your little feelings?”
Lance’s voice came out flat. “Don’t stop now. Have a couple more glasses of wine and really let loose.”
“This village is living on its dying breath. Those kids you act like you love so much, they’ll be the ones to pay the price for you flippantly deciding to trust people like me. The world is at war. It always has been. Toughen up, or you’re a sure casualty. I won’t let you take me down with you with your naivete and blind trust.”
Miya expected Lance to back down, but he showed no signs of surrender. “You’re right. We’re at war. Figure out whose side you’re on.”
Miya’s nostrils flared. She jabbed her thumb against her chest. “I’m on my side. That’s why I’m still standing when so many others have fallen.”
Lance stuffed his hands in his pockets. “All right.” He strayed from her. “If you want to live in a world with just you in it, then it’ll be your world to live in.”
His words hit her chest like a battering ram.
“For what it's worth, the only one who believes your lies is you. You care, and everyone sees it.”
The cold bit its way into Miya's lungs when she stepped outside in the morning. She'd hardly slept, and Lance's cot was already empty, so he must have been exhausted too. The sun hadn’t yet crested the black fields, but the sky had softened into light blue. She wandered beyond the cathedral, uncertain of where to go or what to do.
It didn’t take long for her to find Lance working in the second barn. Hay littered the floor over to a muddy pit sectioned off with a wooden fence where two cows stood. The unpleasant smell of dung hung in the air, and it all felt so normal out here. So alive.
“Morning,” Lance said, dipping the bucket into the barrel of food. “I’m glad you found me. I was hoping I could get you to come out here.”
She rested her weight against a wooden beam, her body and mind so fatigued that she could fall asleep standing up if it didn’t smell so awful. Lance dumped food into a long metal trough, and the two cows shuffled over to eat before he set the bucket on the ground. A third and fourth appeared in the distance.
“How do you do that?” Miya asked. “Act so nice to me when I snub you?”
He shrugged. “You're not very convincing when you do it. I think you just want me to go away because you think I'll get myself killed.”
Miya bit her lip, even more guilty than she'd felt last night.
Lance smoothed his hand over a cow’s thick nose. “You probably thought I was never coming back, Missy.” He smiled over his shoulder at Miya. “Don’t tell me cows don’t think about things like that. I don’t want to hear it.”
A fleeting taste of tart apples filled her mouth. She touched her lip where Lance had wiped the juice with his thumb. Flashes of images and sounds raced through her mind, nightmares she couldn’t quite see or hear of all the captain could do. She touched her throat. And if not him, what about the United? Her father? Was there a scenario where Lance made it out of this unscathed?
He dusted his hands on his pants and motioned for her. “We’ll find the horses. You have to see them before you leave. It’s right around—”
