SICK HEART by Huss, JA (nice books to read TXT) 📗

bruised and beaten. I smile at him. Because he’s smiling at me. And he’s shirtless, and dripping wet from being outside where he was tucking things into containers so they don’t blow away in the storm. His dark hair is longer now. Two months with no haircut leaves the ends curling up a little, making it messy and wild. He notices my attention and runs his fingers through it, trying to tame the waves.

I look at the book and start signing the words.

“No. I want you to read it to me, Anya.”

I scoff. Because that’s a joke.

“I’m serious. Read it.” He walks over to me. I’m sitting on a tall stool leaning my back into the corner. He stops just inches away, his wet stomach pressing against my bare knees. I stare at the skulls along his lower abdomen and notice the stars.

Tiny red stars. Drawn the way a kid might draw a star. With messy points and crooked lines. I touch one and he shivers, then grabs my hand and pushes it away. But I don’t look up at him.

“I get it,” he says, his voice a little bit frustrated and gruff. “You don’t trust me. And why should you? But if you tell me the things you know—”

I place a hand on his stomach and push him forcefully away, then drop my book on the counter and exit the kitchen, pushing my way past the wet bodies of the children who linger in the hallway, sitting on the floor, backs up against the wall. I don’t know why they’re not in the game room, but I don’t care.

Cort. Why do I even bother at this point, ya know? Of course he wants me to talk. He wants my secrets. If I would just tell him, he could… what? Make it all better?

He can’t do that. No one can do that.

I’m not saying shit. Ever. I don’t care if I’m ninety years old and living on a deserted island by myself, I am never speaking again. Ever.

“Anya.” Cort follows me out onto the training platform. But I don’t stop. I head to the stairs and have to make a decision to go up or down. I choose up, because even though the rain is coming down in sheets, the sea is angry today and I don’t want to get that close to it.

“Anya, stop.” He grabs my arm as I reach the first landing between the helipad and the training platform. But I shrug him off and keep going. “Stop. It’s fucking raining. Let’s go down and talk about this.”

Talk about what? How he wants to use me? I whirl around and flash fingers at him. You do not want to know what I know. Trust me. You don’t.

“Fine.” He throws up his hands. Rain is running down his body in rivers. “Keep your secrets then. I just want to hear your voice. And I don’t want to wait until the last day. It doesn’t make sense to wait until the last day.”

I don’t even know what that means, but even if I did, I don’t care.

“Come back down. It’s raining, and it’s windy, and it’s getting cold.”

I don’t care if it’s raining. I don’t care if I get wet. I don’t care if it’s cold. I don’t care about anything these days. We live like savages. Our whole day revolves around fighting. Killing, really. Because that’s all this leads to. Just killing.

I can take a storm.

“Anya.”

I’m at the top now, and then so is Cort. He steps out in front of me. The rain has soaked him through. “Why are you running away from me?”

I scoff.

“What? What did I miss? I asked you to read to me.”

Fuck you, I sign, spelling the letters out in quick succession with alternating hands.

“What did I do?”

You want secrets.

“So? If you tell me why they’re so interested in you—”

You’ll what? Save me? You’re not going to save me. We have one more month here and then I’m gone. Udulf shows up—

“But maybe I can stop him?”

Maybe? I don’t have time for maybes. Leave me alone.

I turn away, but there’s really nowhere to go up here except the old mechanical room, which is still home to several nests. The baby birds are massive now, almost full-grown, but they can’t fly yet. They can, however, bite. Pretty hard. So I don’t go in there. I walk over to the edge where Cort and I used to eat our dinner that first month and take a seat on the steel beam, the rain coming down so hard now, it stings my skin.

The crazy tropical wind is whipping my wet hair around my face, making it stick to my cheeks. But he was wrong about one thing. It’s not cold. The air is thick and hot and so is the rain.

This is the tropics. Cold is relative. And this is the kind of cold that feels… comfortable.

In fact, this whole storm feels comfortable. Because I’m used to the storm. I don’t mind the storm. I have been here for three months and it feels like I’ve never lived anywhere else.

One month. That’s all I have left. One month.

That’s all I can think about. Soon this will all end.

And even though I’ve been trying to convince myself that things will work out, they won’t. I will never find a life like this again. I will never have a friend like Irina again. I will never work this hard, or care so much, or have so much to lose ever again.

This makes me so sad… I suddenly want to cry.

Cort sits down next to me. He doesn’t say anything. The rain is too loud to have a conversation with words. But he takes my hand in his and starts spelling something out with my fingers.

It’s OK, he spells, over and over again. It’s OK. But it’s not, is it?

Maybe for him. He’s earned his freedom and he’s leaving. So that’s great. I hope he and Maart and Evard