Page 20 of Night in a Waste Land

Lance shuffled beside her, keeping pace. “That wasn’t an insult, you know. It’s a good thing you’re not made of stone. You don’t have to be cold to be a good soldier.”

She darted him a questioning look, one she retracted when she saw the way he was looking at her: with a patience and gentleness she didn’t have the capacity to handle right now.

“We do some dark shit, don’t get me wrong,” he went on. “It’ll give you nightmares, no doubt. I figure you’re used to those.”

She found herself nodding.

“But we’re also a team. And the only way to be an effective part of a team is to give a damn about the guys – and girls – walking into the fire beside you. It hurts like hell if something happens.” His voice grew soft. “But you have to care. That’s the only thing that makes this job worth it.”

They moved up again, and when she glanced toward him, he was staring off across the chatting, milling crowd. “I thought you said you forgot the name of the last Knight you lost.”

A low blow. Vicious, really.

She didn’t use to be cruel, before Beck died.

“It was Craw- Cromwell.” She didn’t think he sounded sure about that. “And he was much less memorable than you.” The little smirk that followed confirmed what she’d been suspecting for weeks, now: that he liked her.

A misplaced sense of guilt, most likely. He felt responsible for her, because he’d been there the night she lost Beck. Because his boss – even if it had been an op rather than a true loyalty – was the reason she was here in the first place.

She didn’t want him to like her.

The couple in front of them moved off, food in-hand, and they were at the counter, then. Rose’s stomach gave another growl of interest as she caught sight of cooks turning kebabs on a flaming grill; the up-close scent of cooked meat and vegetables hit her like a slap.

Lance ordered for both of them, and he pressed a paper boat loaded with kebabs and rice into her hands. There were picnic tables, but Lance headed off at an ambling walk, two bottles of soda tucked under his arm, and Rose was content to eat and walk; sitting down and eating together, just the two of them, would have felt far too intimate. Would have reminded her of dinners with Beck, and all the ways Lance was certainly not him.

He uncapped one of the sodas and passed it to her.

“Thanks.” The sharp, sweet taste chased the warm spice of the meat, and she had to actively work not to smile; it was the best thing she’d eaten in months, but smiling around Lance du Lac felt risky.

“See anything you like?” he asked around a mouthful, nodding toward the stalls. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think you’ve spent any of your wages on anything. You should have some pocket change to burn.”

She gave him a flat look as answer.

He shrugged. “Guess there’s not lots of places to shop at base.”

“Decidedly not.”

Her tone had been downright frosty – but he grinned in response. “Let’s have a look around, then.”

Let’simplied together. Rose didn’t like the familiarity, on instinct, but she took another bite of her kebab and didn’t protest. Walked along beside him down the bustling alley between shop stalls, while snow and ash sifted down around them.

The thing she kept noticing, again and again, was the way the people they passed – shopping, talking, eating, bundled up against the cold, many carrying umbrellas to keep the snow and ash off their heads – seemed…happy. That was too generous a word, she thought. More likecontent.Unworried. Back home, in the city where she’d gone to school, and gone to work, and lived beneath Miss Tabitha’s cruel thumb – where Beck had found her, and given her a new sort of home; where she’d hunted with him, and known the warmth and roughness and gentleness of his hands in the tall, canopied bed of his personal suite. There, people had walked with ducked heads, or driven in cars with bullet-proof glass. The poor slept in the gutters, and the rich never stepped a toe out onto their balconies. Misery had lived in the patter of water on flagstones; in the mist that curled her hair and settled deep in her lungs.

But for all that this city was as derelict as every other, there was an ephemeral sort of warmth and good cheer on the air tonight, nearly contagious when coupled with her yellow, turmeric-tasting rice, and the fizz of cola on her tongue, and the way Lance kept pointing things out to her.

“I have eyes,” she snapped, once, dropping her now-empty paper boat into a trash can. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve like a heathen, and imagined Beck giving her a sternly disapproving look.

Beck wasn’t here, though.

Not yet.

Lance remained unphased. “You don’t strike me as the jewelry type,” he mused, scanning the booths they passed. “What about – there, that one’s got knives.”

She sent him a withering look – tried to. He was striding off, and she found herself following.

The booth did indeed offer knives, alongside an array of other small, personal weapons. Her eyes went first to the blades, on instinct: not the expertly-crafted, gleaming new steel ones of her own, but still serviceable. Smoked, dark metal with sharp edges, jagged with serrated teeth. The longest was half the length of her forearm, and the shortest half the length of her pinky finger. Perfect weapons for someone looking for a bit of cheap protection – or for muggers and petty thieves, she thought, sourly.

All of them were arrayed in overhead racks, and along the back wall of the booth, but up close, beneath a thick plastic counter to prevent theft, she noted brass knuckles, some blunt, and some sharp. Spiked rings. A blade inside a walking stick, the head an ugly approximation of a snarling bear’s head. Round weights with hollow centers on leather thongs: flails, she realized. Studded gloves and spiked chokers to prevent an enemy from strangling someone.

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