Page 17 of Bait
I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at the ceiling of the rig. Torch was the first one to turn around and whatever he saw on my face made him do a double take. “You okay?” No, I was not freaking okay. Why was that girl’s hand still on Candela’s forearm?
“Fine,” I snapped, making Candela turn in my direction too. “Just wondering if we’re going to stay here all day. I’m tired.”
Torch and Candela exchanged a look, I glared. Bianca seemed to get the hint, and the gate was opened a moment later and we entered the settlement. It was in the shape of a circle. In the middle there was a long wood lodge. There were stores, or at least I thought they were stores, lined up along the main road and behind them were houses. Most looked like wooden cabins, but there were a few other designs.
“That’s the main hall. It’s where everyone eats and where they meet to talk over town affairs,” Candela told me as we drove through. There were people going in and out. Some carrying platters of food or jugs. There were a lot of kids too. We hadn’t had many children in the bunker in the past year, barely any births at all. But I saw multiple families holding babies or carrying them swaddled on their chests. Toddlers running around. It was something I had never seen. Births were so rare in the bunker they kept the children in protected areas so they wouldn’t get sick or hurt. But these were playing freely with each other like they didn’t have a care in the world.
“Kids.” Both Torch and Candela nodded at that as if they instantly understood the meaning in my one word.
“There weren’t many births for a long time after The Burst. But in the beginning people were just surviving and there were worries the effects of the air and rains, but in the past five or six years, people just started getting pregnant.”
“It helps that there isn’t anything to do at night other than play cards.” Torch making jokes, who knew? “School,” he announced as we passed a two-floor concrete building—the only one I could see—before I even asked. The bunker was bigger than this. There couldn’t be more than a few hundred people living here. We’d had almost two thousand in the early days.
“Is this the size of all the towns?” I kept looking around and everything was so lively. So much movement. The bunker had been somber in the past few years, especially since my brother died, that I hardly remembered being in a place where people laughed and or had a good time. When we were kids and things weren’t so regimented, we’d have movie nights. We’d have art fairs, but that hadn’t been the case in a very long time. I also noticed there were more women than men—many of the couples I saw were two women.
“This is more like a small cooperative of women,” Candela explained, probably guessing what I was noticing. “There are a few matriarchal settlements in the area that live a much more communal lifestyle. They eat together; decisions are made jointly by the community.” That was a completely different world from our bunker where the same few families had made the decisions for most of us for the thirty years we’d been down there.
“Are they from the bunker?” I knew I wouldn’t recognize everyone. Especially the lower-levelers were not as familiar to me. But I hadn’t seen anyone even slightly familiar.
“Not here in Esperanza, most are in our township.” It gave me a measure of comfort to know that those who had been pushed out had found each other.
“How did they all end up in the same place?”
“This is our spot,” Candela announced without answering my question. Then I got distracted with the possibility of exploring the township, but almost the moment Torch powered down the rig, there was a knock on the door.
It was Bianca, but this time she had a basket in her hands. “You all missed dinner, but Virtudes sent you some leftovers. It’s her famous chuck stew.” She was cuter up close. She had a lovely deep brown complexion and high cheekbones. She was short, shorter than me, and was also blessed by the breast gods. She was also perky. Yeah, that was definitely the word for dimples and bouncy braids. I did not care for any of it. “There’s stuff for you all to make yourself a salad and bread too.” My stomach growled when Candela lifted the lid of the ceramic bowl, and a delicious aroma of meat and fresh baked bread filled the room. I could not help moaning. “Hey, I’m Bianca!” She lifted a hand to me, that bright smile wide and open.
I lifted my own and muttered, “Alma, I’m from the bunker.” I wanted to slap myself for that, but she seemed to take it in stride.
“I’m so happy you’re finally here. Welcome to our settlement.” Did she have to be nice too? And what was that about me finally being here? Did Alma and Torch talk about me to her? I felt like an ass for about a second and then the flirting started again.
“You guys always spoil us,” Candela exclaimed as she riffled through the basket. It took everything I had not to scratch Bianca’s eyes out. And I needed to calm down. I had no idea what was happening to me. I wasn’t possessive. I’d barely even been attracted to anyone, much less had thoughts about scratching out the eyes of potential rivals. Hell, the only two people I had ever really been drawn to in the sweaty sex way were Candela and Torch. And maybe that was it, maybe I felt possessive because they’d been mine—at least in my head—first.
Bianca left while I mulled over my complicated feelings and Candela recruited me to help with dinner while Torch inspected the grid after the hours-long drive. When Torch finished, I had to make myself stop staring at his sculpted chest as he walked in sweaty and shirtless and went straight to the shower. I didn’t know what was going on with me. I was like one big hormone around these two.
“Are those cucumbers giving you trouble?” I looked down at my hands and laughed when I noticed I’d been holding the knife and phallic veggie as I stared at the door.
“I’m okay.”
She was still looking at me dubiously, and it was likely because she thought I had no idea what to do in a kitchen. It was true that was the case when she lived in the bunker. Upper-levelers barely did any manual labor. We were supposed to be the ones who worked only with our minds. What bullshit when it was all of us that seemed to suspend our thinking to go along with Becker’s schemes.
“I can use a knife.” I tried to sound reassuring, but Cande was still clearly intending to supervise. “In the past few years, we had so many losses that many of us in the upper levels had to take shifts in the lowers. Well, the women had to, anyway. I did a couple shifts a week in the food prep area for a few years.” I deftly peeled a long strip of skin from the cucumber to prove my point. “Although our veggies were never this big or nice.” I looked at the misshapen bright red tomato with stripes of orange running through it and pressed it to my nose. It smelled like the sun and its skin was silky and cool against my nose. My mouth watered at the thought of biting into it, so I made quick work of cutting it up and took a bite. “Oh my god.” I moaned as a little bit of juice ran down my chin. It was sweet and fleshy and better than anything I’d ever tasted.
“Good, right?” Candela asked, reaching over to swipe the bit of juice off my face. I nodded, gulping down the rush of need that swirled inside me. Then I remembered all her flirting with Bianca, and me, and decided I needed more information before I licked her finger like I wanted to.
“Doesn’t Torch get jealous when you kiss other people?” I was laser-focused on cutting up the cucumber into perfectly uniform pieces and did not look up to see her reaction to my question.
“What are you really asking, Brains?” I had no clue. I’d been out of the bunker for less than a day and was in a small space with the two people outside of my family I’d cared about the most and thought were lost to me forever. And my body’s response to them was a mess of horny feelings and yearning that I barely understood. I could not say that.
“It’s just, I thought you were a couple, but he didn’t say anything when he walked in on us or about you flirting with that girl, Bianca.” Cande had her arms over her chest and her eyes were bright with something that I could not quite pinpoint. She had a smirk on her lips, but she wasn’t amused, not exactly. It was more like fascination.
“Why would he be upset?”
I growled at her evasiveness and set a chunk of cucumber flying, which she caught and popped into her mouth. God, she was so damn sexy. “Torch and I are what we are, and you and I can be whatever we want to be.” The casualness of her statement made me feel slighted, like this wasn’t important to her. But then I thought of the bunker and all the rules that were forced on us. I could understand her desire to have no ties or constraints. I still wanted to know what that kiss was about.
“Are you and Bianca lovers?”
She shrugged before she poured the stew into a small pot and put it on the range.
