Page 23 of Darkness I Become
Another, longer silence descended.
“Who do you think I am, Leo?” Cade snapped. “Have the last couple years really changed me that much?”
“Okay, okay,” Leo replied, conciliatory. “I just wanted you to make sure you knew. He beat her worse than any of the other girls. Probably because she fought him.”
“Is that why he looks like hell, too?” Cade said, and he sounded different now—amusement mixed with his fury. “Good. She gave him a taste of what he deserves. We’ll need that.”
He left the infirmary, and Asha pretended to be asleep when Leo came to check on her. She couldn’t pretend, however, to be relieved at Cade’s return. Whatever curiosity she’d had about him was gone, and she wished nothing more than for all of them to simply go away.
Sunlight seared Asha’s eyes as she awoke the next morning. The painkiller Leo had given her had worn off overnight, and now her body was screaming at her. She shifted in bed, trying to find a comfortable position, but it didn’t exist.
“Good morning,” Leo said amiably as he pulled the curtains around her bed aside. He set down a tray with two steaming mugs of herbal tea. “How are we feeling?”
His sunny greeting grated on her in her wounded state, but she took the mug he offered her. The tea was peppermint, and its crisp, fresh flavour was surprisingly comforting.
“Like death warmed over,” she replied, still sounding like she’d swallowed gravel.
“I can imagine,” Leo said, withdrawing a small burlap package from his pocket. “Here. Something to help with the pain.”
He handed her the packet, and she unwrapped it to reveal a bundle of green, six-pronged leaves.
“Cannabis?” she asked, eyebrows raised. In the compound, unauthorized drug use was banned, and the supply was tightly controlled enough that there were few addicts. She always found it odd that they had no problem letting residents drink themselves to death, but drugs were a hard limit.
“It’s a good natural painkiller,” Leo said with a shrug. “We work with what we can get, and it’s easy for Dom to grow it in his garden. Chew a few leaves when you need pain relief, but start slow. Too much at once will make you sick to your stomach.”
“Isn’t this just going to make me stoned?”
Leo chuckled. “Maybe a small high, but Dom tries to grow CBD-rich strains, which are low in THC. Or that’s what he tells me, anyway.”
“How would he know?” Asha asked, wondering if Leo would tell the truth.
Leo broke eye contact before saying, “He’s our amateur botanist, I suppose. Learned everything from his grandmother, who raised him.”
Asha wrinkled her nose. How had she not noticed it before? No Wastelander knew a word likebotanist.Leo spoke like an educated professional…because he was one. He was a legitimate, went-to-medical-school doctor. It explained all the tools he had, his store of advanced medicine, his obvious knowledgeability—everything. She was sure of it, and there was only one way it was possible, given that he was far too young to have trained before the Fall.
“Or from the school he went to, in the compound you’re from?” Asha asked casually, sipping again from her mug.
Leo choked on his tea.
“Surprised it took you this long to get it,” Cade said conversationally, leaning against the doorframe. “I knew you were one of us from the second I saw you.”
Asha eyes darted over to him. He wasn’t in his uniform anymore, though he still wore all black, even when dressed casually in a t-shirt and long pants. Without the bulk of the tactical outfit, she could more clearly see that he wasn’t just in good shape—he was absolutelyshredded. The sleeves of his t-shirt strained against his biceps, and he crossed his muscular forearms over averywell-developed chest, which she noted, she told herself, with nothing but irritation. The April morning was probably too chilly for short sleeves, but if henoticed, he didn’t seem to care…and she was glad, because it allowed her to admire his full sleeve of black tattoos on each arm.
A black snake was coiled all the way down his left arm, with intricate designs in between, and his right arm was covered in vines, with leaves stretching upward into his shirt. In spite of everything, Asha found herself wondering where they ended, and what other tattoos he might have in hidden places. Unlike Angel’s tattoos, which were crudely drawn, these were clearly done by a professional.
Cade strolled into the room like he owned it, and Asha had to admit that it was a little embarrassing that shehadn’tgotten it sooner, watching him. His skin was perfectly smooth, free of scars or marks, and his light skin didn’t have any signs of a tan, even though he probably spent a lot of time outdoors. He looked more youthful than any of the other men, even the ones who were clearly younger than him. When they’d walked through that swampy bit of forest with the gnats, the other men had complained of being bitten, but the bugs hadn’t bothered Cade, Leo, or Dom. Their physiques, though not impossible for regular men, were surely easier to achieve with the cocktail of vitamins, hormones, and whatever else they put into the compound implants to chemically enhance their people. They had the same implant that she did, and it should’ve been obvious.
Shockingly, when you’re constantly scared that you’re about to die, survival is all you can think about, even when a perfect, unfairly beautiful man abruptly enters your life.
“That’s why you helped me,” Asha murmured in sudden understanding.
Cade nodded. “Wondered how a girl like you ended up in a place like that.”
He didn’t pose it as a question, but he clearly wanted an answer, because he paused briefly, watching her. But she wasn’t about to offer him anything when she didn’t know anything about his past either. When she stayed quiet, he cleared his throat.
“She cleared to go?” Cade asked, nodding at Leo.
“If she feels ready,” Leo replied, turning to Asha. “Do you need anything else?” When she shook her head, he gave instructions to keep her sprained wrist bandaged for the next week, and otherwise to rest as much as possible, to give her bruises and internal tears time to heal.
