Page 31 of Vice
“Whoa, why the hell are you so worried? I can take care of myself.”
“I told you,” she snaps. “Laura was my friend. What do you think she would say if she knew I was letting you gamble so dangerously with your own life? She would want me to make you leave this place.”
“Funnily enough, Laura was always trying to get me to do what she wanted me to do instead of what I wanted to do. And she never succeeded. Why should this be any different?”
Natalia huffs out a frustrated breath. “This game you’re playing has run its course, Mr. America. It’s time for you to go back home.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
She’s clearly losing patience with me. Pacing back and forth along an invisible three-meter long line in front of me, she buries her hands in her hair and growls like the little wolf that she is. “I already told you I’m not like my father, Cade. I don’t like watching people die. I especially don’t like watching people die when they don’t need to. You could easily tie me to a tree and run. Your motorcycle is still where you left it. When my father finds me, I could tell him you didn’t hurt me in any way, and he will probably give you a head start before he sends people after you.”
“I told you. I’m not going anywhere.” Her worry is quite endearing. Her hair is tied into a messy bun on top of her head, and the strands that have escaped her hair tie are plastered to her neck. It’s hot and humid, and the damp air has left a high sheen on her skin that makes her look like she’s covered in massage oil or something. For all that, she’s not dirty, and she doesn’t smell bad, though. She’s only a few feet from me, and I’m practically dizzy from the clean, fresh floral smell that’s coming off her. No wonder she hasn’t caught anything yet—every animal in a five-mile radius can smell her soap on her, and they’ve undoubtedly fled in the opposite direction.
I can’t get over how fucking perfect she is. She’s like no other woman I’ve laid eyes on before. I’m sure as hell not going to come across another woman like her in the future, that’s for sure. Her freckles are insane. She’s wearing another one of those strappy tank tops, and I can’t stop staring at the countless galaxies and constellation of dots that mark her skin.
“You’re being stubborn. And stupid,” she snaps. “You American men always think you know best. No one can ever tell you otherwise.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s just men in general,” I retort, smiling. “At least that’s what Laura would have said.” It’s so weird talking about her in the past tense. In other ways, it isn’t though. For so long I’ve been worrying about Laura, desperately searching for her, leaving no stone unturned in my wake, but there has always been this ugly, terrible seed of doubt buried deep within my subconscious. I’ve suspected that she was dead for a long time. Now, using the past tense sticks on my tongue, but it doesn’t hurt as much as it might if her death had come to me as a complete surprise. I’m still crippled by the knowledge that I failed her, but my heart has been prepared for this moment for what feels like an eternity.
Natalia laughs softly. “You’re right there. I suppose I ought to know better than to try and tell you what to do. Laura told me you were…what was the word she used? Ah, yes. Pig-headed.”
“Pig-headed?” That’s definitely a name Laura would have used for me. I can almost hear her calling me the exact same thing right now. I shake my head, sadness washing over me. “What else did she tell you about me?”
Natalia’s cheeks turn a delicate shade of red. She glances away, fiddling with the strap of her rifle. “Well. She said you were always a bully when you were little. You’d never let her play with you and your friend from next door. You were fiercely protective of her, though. You would never let anyone else pick on her. She told me you were strong and protective. She said you had a dog called Arry that you loved more than anything when you were in school, and that you cried when it got loose and ran away.” She pauses, watching me slyly out of the corner of her eye. “She said you never knew, but your father hit the dog with his car and it died. No one ever told you, because they knew how upset you would be.”
“God damn it. I fucking knew that dog hadn’t run away.”
She laughs, her voice all silvery and gentle. “And…Laura said that I would like you. She said you were handsome, and that women were always throwing themselves at you, and you never noticed.” Her cheeks have turned an even darker shade of crimson now, and she can’t seem to focus on anything apart from the rifle strap in her hands. “I can see now why she would say that,” she whispers.
“You think I’m handsome?” I’m teasing her, using a playful tone, but it embarrasses her, I think. She throws her head back, tilting her chin at me defiantly.
“And so what? You’d be a liar if you told me you didn’t think I was beautiful. I know you do. I’ve seen the way you look at me.”
“How do I look at you, Natalia?”
She huffs and puffs, getting herself all flustered, and it’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen. “Like you already think you own me. Like I’m already yours, and you’re planning how you want to enjoy me.”
“I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t pictured us fucking, Natalia, but I’d never think I owned you. One person can’t own another. You can only own someone’s heart, and that has to be given freely in the first place.”
She shuts up. I don’t think she was prepared for me to admit I’ve been fantasizing about her. She must have thought I’d deny it point-blank, but fuck. What’s the point in that? I’m a cards face-up kind of guy. I don’t like guessing or teasing, and I don’t like wasting time. In the past, being so forthright has gotten me into trouble, lots of trouble, but it’s better to be honest than to hide behind lies all damn day long. I won’t do it. I’d rather be shot down in flames than never know where I stand.
“If my father heard you say you daydream about me like that, he would kill you on the spot,” she says.
“Good thing he’s not around, then.”
“He could be.”
“We’d better lose him, then. Care to lead the way?”
She gives me a rueful smirk, an “okay, wise guy” kind of smirk, but she sets of walking in a northerly direction, shifting her rifle from one shoulder to the other. Walking four feet behind her, I get a stellar view of her ass as her hips swing from side to side, and I have to remind myself that I can’t actually pursue this woman. I fucking can’t. I’ll lose my dick before I get to exact my revenge for Laura, and then what will I have to live for? No more meaningless sex, and no more jerking off. I might as well be dead, too.
“You can’t go any faster?” Natalia calls over her shoulder. “My grandmother used to move through the forest faster than you.”
“I live in New Mexico. Do you have any idea how rare it is to see a tree there, let alone this many of them, all pressing together trunk to trunk like this?”
“Stop complaining. I know you’re not from New Mexico. You’re from Alabama. They have plenty of trees there. Laura told me. Bayous, too.”
I’m beginning to resent the fact that this woman knows so much about me, when I don’t really know anything about her. Nothing at all, really. Asking questions of her seems unkind, though. Any answers she might be able to give me will inevitably lead back to her father, and I don’t want to upset her unnecessarily. A part of me doesn’t want to hear it, either. She never said the words, but they were there, hanging between us like a motherfucking noose all the same: her father won’t let another man near her normally. No man…except him. I feel sick to my stomach.
