Page 48 of Trade
He hums, content to let me get to my point in my own time.
“I could have gone at any time—Safety and Compliance know kids do it, and if they don’t break anything, they ignore it—but I hit a certain age, and I just stopped.”
I was safely married then, and I’d officially applied to AP, as if I’d ever seriously considered another department. I was determined to make it to supervisor within two years, and I had so many ideas, so many battles I thought were worth fighting.
“It was like at a certain point, I killed the part of myself that believed there could be more. You make compromises with yourself, right? You’ll never have what you really want, but what you have is good enough. You tell yourself that. This is good enough.”
“And it wasn’t?”
“It wasn’t this.” I lay my cheek on his chest, and he wraps his arms around me. I’m pretty sure he can only understand a fraction of what I’m saying—like my imagination can only paint the outline of what he says—but I know from how he listens that hewantsto.
He sees me, and I see him, and magic is the only possible word for it.
“I don’t want to go back. I want to stay with you.”
“Okay,” he says, and a few seconds later, like it’s a forced confession, he says, “Good thing because I wasn’t going to let you go anyway.”
We fall asleep in a tangle of limbs, rolled up in our blanket, almost strangers, almost in love, alone in the world under the stars in a world that shouldn’t exist, but does anyway, despite it all.
* * *
I wake up with cold, hard metal prodding my shoulder. “Rise and shine, Mrs. Walker.”
Eugene Reedy sneers down at me with a rifle in his hand.
I gasp and sit straight up, dragging the blanket to cover myself. We slept naked.
Where is Dalton? I blink my blurry eyes, scanning the shore, but all I see are three guards from the bunker arrayed in a line, all with rifles.
“Looking for your boy toy?” Eugene’s lips twist. “He’ll be here any minute.” He bends over, grabs Dalton’s shirt from where he left it draped over his backpack, and tosses it at me. “Cover yourself up, for Chrissake.”
I tug the shirt on as a ruckus sounds from the nearby woods and several more guards emerge, shoving Dalton ahead of them. Gary Krause has a rifle pressed to his back. He’s got his hands clasped behind his head, and his pants are unzipped, his belt hanging open, like they caught him taking a piss. His face is hard as stone, but when his gaze flickers to me, his eyes blaze.
“Aim that fucking thing away from her,” Dalton snarls at Eugene.
Gary slams the butt of his rifle into Dalton’s back, driving him to his knees. “You’re not giving orders here, Outsider.”
I scream, “Gary! What are you doing?”
Gary turns to me, contempt filling his eyes. “Figure you’d have yourself a little vacation, Gloria?”
I straighten my spine, painfully aware that I’m half-naked and my knife is in my coverall pocket over by the fire. Dalton’s machete is on the ground two feet away, but Eugene has his eyes on it, and the muzzle of his gun is inches from my face.
“I’m not going back,” I say to Gary. “You didn’t need to come for me.”
Gary snorts. “Every single married woman in that bunker is losing her mind. They held a vigil. There’s a petition. Elizabeth won’t let it rest for a second.” Elizabeth is his wife. She’s a supervisor in Food Services. I’ve made deals with her for excess potato or pasta water. “You’re coming back.”
“No.”
Gary laughs. “Bitch, you don’t have a choice.”
I glance at Dalton. He’s eyeing the guards, planning something. He’s going to get hurt. I rise on shaking legs with my hands up.
“Let’s discuss this, Gary.”
“Put your shoes on, Gloria. This isn’t up for discussion.”
I slowly move toward my boots. Dalton’s jaw has tightened, and his nostrils flare. He’s going to do something. We’re outnumbered eight to two, and that’s without the rifles. I try to catch his eye, but his gaze is flicking from man to man.
