Night In A Waste Land (Hell Theory #2) - Lauren Gilley Page 0,32
on the water.
She groaned in relief when the hot jets hit her body. Took longer than she ever did, the handle cranked all the way to hot. Fuck waste, fuck indulgence. She’d watched her friend get his arm lopped off today, and she felt wretched, and damn if she wasn’t going to stand under the hot water until she thawed. By the time she set about washing her hair, her fingers had loosened, and it was easy to pick the knots and tangles loose. She woke up, a little; the despair and grief pressed back by simple human comfort.
When the water threatened to cool, she shut it off, and dried off with the towel Lance had left her. There was even a pair of underwear, she noted, when she unfolded the sweats: simple black cotton. She pulled them on, and then the sweats, stepped into the flip-flops, and left her wet hair in waves down her shoulders, as she finally left the safety of the changing room and shuffled out toward the lockers.
Lance was still there, as promised, sitting on one of the long benches, head tipped back against the locker faces. He straightened when she emerged, and his face was softer, now. His pique had melted, just as hers had in the shower. Now he only looked tired, and melancholy.
His brows lifted. “Better?”
“Much better.” She plucked at the hem of the sweatshirt. “Thank you, for this.”
He shrugged with one shoulder. “They had ‘em in the stockroom.”
“But you went looking for them.”
“I did.” His gaze turned appraising, a gentle challenge.
She sighed, and went to sit on the bench opposite him. Her muscles were still deeply sore, and would grow more so over the next few hours, but she was looser from the heat of the shower, and could settle with only a little wince, and no chance of passing out. Her stomach growled, though.
Loud enough for Lance to hear, apparently. He leaned sideways and snagged something she hadn’t yet noticed: a steaming cup of instant noodles with a plastic spoon stuck in them.
She accepted them without any pride or resistance, too hungry to protest, and fell on them like a starving woman. The broth was beef-flavored, and a few sad peas and carrots bobbed along the top, and it was the best thing she’d ever tasted.
While she shoveled noodles into her face, he said, “You know Gallo better than the rest of us. The doctors say there’ve been some incredible advancements with prosthetics, and that, in a few months, they can outfit him with one that will enable him to stay in service as a Knight.” He tilted his head. “Do you think he’ll want to?”
She considered a moment, chewing, but didn’t have to think long. Gallo was, as blunt as it sounded, simpler than her; his motivations were purer. “He has no family to go back to; no money saved up. This is his end game, for better or worse. And he’s got major hero-worship for Tris. He’ll stay; he’ll say it’s what Tris would do.”
He frowned. “He really admires Tris, doesn’t he?”
“In boot camp, he had magazines. And more than one poster.”
“Shit.” He sighed again, and let his boots slide outward across the tiles, until their toes nearly touched. “Is it – more than strictly professional admiration?”
“Yes, but if you tell him I told you that–”
He offered his palms in surrender. “I won’t. That’s none of my business.”
She frowned – but mostly to herself. She was too tired, and, in the moment, too grateful to be warm and clean and fed, to glare at him. “You think I’m your business, though.” It sounded faint and petulant, and she was exhausting herself with all this anger she couldn’t let go of.
Her words didn’t seem to offend him, like they had before. “It’s not my business if one of my Knights has a crush – especially if that isn’t the thing that jeopardizes missions,” he said, evenly. “But it is my business when one of my Knights is on a suicide mission, hellbent on getting herself killed any way she can.”
She drank the last of the broth from the cup and set it aside. “Right. If I died, who would kill all the conduits?”
His smirk was edged with fatigue – and not only from today. This was soul-deep. Rose knew she was exhausting for him. “You are surprisingly ferocious. You have a knack for this. But, believe it or not, I don’t want you to die because – well, because