Page 14 of Hero

I can feel the rush of cool air from where I’m standing, and I stumble toward it, sticking my head out through the opening so I can breathe in the outside air.

For a long time after Impact, there was dust and debris in the air. So much that my grandmother and great-grandfather both died from lung disease caused by the bad air. But for the past couple of years, it’s been clearing, and the brisk night air almost feels fresh right now.

It helps. I breathe several times and then manage to slow down my inhales and exhales until I’m no longer on the verge of passing out.

Zed stands beside me the whole time, peering over my head out into the darkness, as if he might be able to see a threat looming.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the bear?” I ask when I’m basically recovered. My heart rate is still too high, and the anxiety is coiled tight in my gut. But the panic attack is over.

“No reason.”

“There is too reason. If there’s danger, I need to know about it.”

“You already know it’s dangerous out there. Giving the danger a specific face accomplishes nothing.” He sounds annoyed more than anything else.

I’m annoyed too. I turn around and glare at him. He’s about six inches taller than me. His forehead is broad, and his jaw is square with a deep cleft in the chin. For the first time, I notice that his forehead and cheekbones are glistening slightly with perspiration.

He’s tense. Pulsing with some sort of intensity. Annoyance. Impatience. Exasperation. Edginess.

Both of us should be in bed sleeping right now, and it’s my fault we’re not.

But I didn’t ask him to get up and pester me. I would have been fine sitting in the dark on my own. He’s the one who insisted on coming over here and bossing me around.

“Fuck you, Zed.” I’m still keeping my voice down, conscious of not waking up Rina.

He sneers at me, looming over me, way too close, way too big and strong andman. “Any time you want.”

“What?” The question comes out before I can stop it, diverted by his unexpected retort.

“What, what?”

“You said…”

He said he would fuck me any time I want.

What the hell?

It’s an absurd, ridiculous thought. I’ve never once thought about Zed that way. He’s not a friend or real family or a genuine companion. He’s more like an unfortunate college roommate—someone you’re stuck with and are forced by circumstances to get along with.

I’ve never once considered fucking him, and I’m quite sure he feels the same about me.

He was probably just trying to distract me. Throw me off my game and out of my anxiety spiral. But now that I’m thinking about fucking him, I can’t think about anything else.

Literally nothing else has a chance to exist in my mind. It’s entirely filled with vivid, intense images of me and Zed fucking.

My body reacts to it. My heart rate picks up again but for a different reason now. All the energy from my earlier panic has transformed into something entirely different.

It’s too much. I can’t control it. It’s like a foreign entity has taken possession of my body.

And it’s that power—not me, it can’t be me—that’s reaching up to grab the sides of Zed’s head and pulling him down into a hard kiss.

It’s a ludicrous thing to do. Kissing Zed.

I have no idea why I’m doing it right now.

The touch of his lips fills me with a rush of excitement. Power. And it grows when he starts to respond.

He makes a low sound in his throat and grabs for the back of my head, holding me in place as he pushes into the kiss, using his tongue to part my lips.

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