Allie's War Episodes 1-4(61)

“I can talk to you about that,” Revik spoke up.
Startled, I glanced back at him.
He continued to train his eyes out the window, and mine fell involuntarily to his bare upper body, taking in the leanness of his long frame and the banded muscle of his arms, a pale lattice of scars that crept up over one shoulder. He had an armband tattoo just above one bicep, I noticed, something I’d glimpsed in the park without really seeing it. It looked like some kind of writing in blue and black lettering.
I saw the edge of what might have been another tattoo on the shoulder of the same side. He also had the standard barcode tat on his right arm, along with the “H” mark he’d shown me in the park, designating his race-cat.
His body without clothes looked somehow older than the rest of him.
I saw his fingers tighten on his upper arm, and looked away.
“Stay, if you want.” His voice remained flat, formally polite. “Shower, then come back.”
“No,” I said. “You should rest. I can bug someone else.” Seeing him about to answer, I said, “It’s fine, Revik. And I know your friends will want to see you.” I glanced down again. “...Especially when you’re not wearing a shirt.”
His eyes seemed to flinch.
Staring at his long countenance, I found myself briefly lost there.
His eyes were still angry on the surface, but I could see the openness beneath, a vulnerability so much the opposite of his usual expression that I couldn’t help but stare. Remembering him pulling on me moments before, the softness of his face as he held me in sleep, I blinked at the two images superimposed over one another, tried to reconcile them, couldn’t.
My eyes shifted first, meeting Ullysa’s in my attempt to escape his.
Her returning smile held amusement. She folded her thin arms, quirking a pencil-darkened eyebrow at Revik.#p#分页标题#e#
Turning, I walked wordlessly out the door. I saw Ullysa’s eyes widen in surprise, just before she moved out of my way.
I didn’t stop walking, didn’t slow down enough to realize I didn’t know where I was going until I’d passed another three doors. I stopped dead then, standing in the darkened corridor.
I was having trouble breathing.
Anxiety clenched my chest.
I held the wall, tried to turn it into anger, like he had.
The pull to go back to him was nearly physical in its intensity. My mind tried to sift through details of the night before. We definitely hadn’t had sex. Anyway, most of these people were prostitutes; sex wouldn’t faze them. I remembered what Kat said about Revik in that regard, and a hot flood of...God, something...tried to blow out my doors, irrational enough to scare me.
It reminded me of seeing Jaden in that bar, of finding myself suddenly holding a bottle decorated with a strange woman’s blood...
Christ. Was it jealousy?
I remembered the seers the night before, what they’d said about Revik...and the stories came back, about seers seducing humans, hooking into human fantasies and delusions until the victims lost themselves entirely inside the seer’s mind. Those stories always made it sound deliberate though, and whatever this was, it didn’t feel like Revik had done it intentionally.
In fact, he seemed to blame me for whatever had occurred.
It didn’t feel like we’d had sex, either...and no matter how battered my body was, or the amount of pyrotechnics in the Barrier, I was still like 98% sure I would have noticed. Besides, it felt like the lack of sex—maybe even the lack of sex with him—was at least part of the problem.
The admission made me feel a little queasy.
Images rose from the night before, confusing me more.
Whatever that had been, it hadn’t felt like a dream, either, and my attempts to convince myself it had been a dream rang hollow. He’d been a Nazi...a married Nazi with a death sentence for murdering another Nazi for screwing his wife.
That guy Terian had been there. I was pretty sure I’d seen them meet for the first time.
The pain in my stomach worsened briefly...the other thing, along with the stress of not knowing how to process any of it.
My eyes drifted up, looking for someplace else to focus my attention.
I stared at a nearby ajar door breaking the dark walls of the corridor, unable to make sense of it for the first few seconds.
Then my eyes refocused on the pink tile floor and walls of a bathroom.
Pushing off the wall, I made my way to that same door, limping as my body’s battered state grew more noticeable. I closed the door behind me, only to stand there indecisively, my back pressed to the heavy wooden door.
Finally, I turned around and sat on the toilet. It wasn’t until I’d relieved myself that it occurred to me that through that whole exchange with Ullysa and Revik, I hadn’t been wearing pants.