Species Traitor: A Science Fiction Dystopian Novel by Kate Mary (universal ebook reader .TXT) 📗

can I say? She has bad taste in men.” I snorted. “You’re lucky you had a dad who was so dedicated to you and your sister.”

Dean looked at me out of the corner of his eye but didn’t turn his head, and he didn’t respond. His body had gone rigid, as if he’d put on a suit of armor that would protect him from my prying words, and I almost slapped myself. He’d made it perfectly clear on our first date that he had no desire to discuss his sister, and yet I’d brought her up anyway. That was a shitty thing to do.

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I don’t expect you to tell me about her if you don’t want to. I shouldn’t have even brought it up.”

He swallowed the way he had in the restaurant. “No, it’s okay. It just isn’t an easy thing to talk about.”

“You don’t have to,” I assured him.

He nodded, his body still stiff, but let out a deep breath and started talking. “Her name was Kiara, and she was five years younger than me. Our mom died giving birth to her. Dad worked as a guard in the District, but once we got old enough to be left alone more often, he got a second job, working trash detail. After that, it fell on my shoulders to take care of Kiara, but I didn’t care. She was a happy kid. Funny and smart and spunky.” His lips pulled up into a small smile. “She was a great kid.”

I gave his hand a squeeze when he lapsed into silence, not sure if I was trying to comfort him or urge him to keep talking. I was dying to know what had happened to his sister, but it wasn’t just some sick, voyeuristic desire. I wanted to understand him better.

After a couple seconds of us walking in silence, Dean ventured a look my way, and I saw the pain in his eyes. “When she was eighteen, she went into the District with a few friends and met a Veilorian boy. They fell in love, or that was what she told us, anyway. She snuck around with him for a year before finally dropping the bomb, and when our father found out, he was furious. Kiara begged him to understand, to accept the relationship, but he refused. He said he’d never speak to her again if she married him. She beat herself up about it for months, trying to decide who to choose. Her dad or the man she loved.”

I thought about Ione and how she’d had to make the same choice. I’d never been in love, but thinking about the cold woman my mother had become, I knew for me the decision would have been a no-brainer. Dean’s sister, however, had been blessed with a loving father, and I couldn’t imagine the turmoil she’d gone through.

“Who did she choose?” I asked when Dean didn’t say anything else.

Once again, he avoided looking at me. “She didn’t. I guess giving up either of them was too much for her, because in the end, she decided death was the only alternative.” Dean sucked in a deep breath like he was trying to push away his emotions. “A few months later, our father was killed while he was in the wastelands, and I was left alone.”

The news made me stop walking, and I turned to face him, clinging to his hand in a foolish attempt to comfort him. “Oh, my God, Dean, I’m so sorry.”

He let out a grunt that didn’t mask his pain, blinking, but said nothing.

“Is that why you feel the way you do about the Veilorians?”

Dean cleared his throat before finally saying, “I don’t know how I feel about them most of the time, to be honest. Part of me can’t help thinking if I’d tried to support her a little more, she wouldn’t have felt so alone, but another part can understand where our dad was coming from. They’re a different species, and it was unfair of her to think he could overlook that. Especially after working in the District for years.”

“What does working in the District have to do with anything?” I asked, trying to hold back my annoyance but failing.

Dean’s pain didn’t justify prejudice. Not to me.

“It just does.” He exhaled but said nothing else, and started walking again, telling me the subject was closed for the time being.

We were both silent for a few minutes as I thought over everything he’d told me. The night was chilly, as usual, the heat from the day not able to hold on now that the sun had set, and the air was dusty from the piles of sand getting kicked into the air, but I barely noticed it. While I still couldn’t see Veilorian and human relations in the same light, at least I now understood where some of Dean’s hesitation came from and why he was so standoffish. But the other night at the bar he’d proven he could look past the pain and see the real person in front of him, and that was promising.

Dean cleared his throat when we turned a corner and his motobike came into view, and I knew what he was working up to. “I know you have tomorrow off, and I switched shifts with one of the other guys, so I’m off as well.”

It wasn’t really a surprise—he’d been trying to get me alone since that night at the bar—but it still caught me off guard, considering how emotional he’d been only moments ago. Then again, he’d told me about his sister. That had to mean something, and I knew it.

What, though? Had he told me about his past to soften me up, hoping it would make him more sympathetic in my eyes? Or was it possible he felt that comfortable with me? Since I wasn’t sure, I had to give it some thought before I could respond.

I was attracted to Dean and the story had given me