Page 53 of The Fall

Kerr looked up at her. Lusa’s deep brown eyes held on to her with an intense sincerity. Kerr was too awestruck to answer.

Lusa asked anyway. “I know why I’m doing this – I need Pinga. Why are you doing this? You could let Chalice drown in her own mistakes, go back to the rest of the Chargers and be their new leader.”

Kerr stared at the wall. She wasn’t doing this for Chalice. If she was being honest, she hated Chalice. Working together out of necessity hadn’t smoothed over her faults nor Kerr’s feelings.

And lead? No. Kerr was no leader. They might listen to her for a few weeks, but she had no doubt Cinder or someone else would rally a group to take charge. Kerr didn’t have the political drive for that.

Yeah, she made it to the Junkpile in record time, but she’d never been so addicted to ChemTec that she’d lost everything. Figured out how to repair tech out of necessity. Lived in the tunnels because she couldn’t afford electricity.

Someone else had made sure she had work that didn’t require ChemTec abuse. Someone else had taught her how to fix things. She didn’t even live in the tunnels. She was a hanger-on. She walked paths someone else had blazed. She wasn’t ashamed, but she knew her strengths.

“I’m no leader,” Kerr finally managed to say after her thoughts had run their course. “Our rules say that Chalice has a week to show up before they declare her post abandoned.”

“And then?”

Kerr’s shoulders shrugged against the vault. “Someone else will stand. If they have enough supporters.”

“What happens if they don’t have enough supporters?” Lusa leaned against the generator.

Bracing a foot on the vault, Kerr sighed. “A few people die. If we’re lucky, the rest fall in line before there’s too many of them. If we’re really lucky, they decide to keep everyone else out of it and fight one-on-one, but I’ve never seen that happen.”

“And if you’re unlucky?” Lusa asked.

“You get factions. They undermine you. Kill a few key people. It drags on for years. The Harpies went through that a while back. They lost a lot of turf to the Styx because of it.”

“And Chalice?”

“She had a lot of good ideas that most people liked. It wasn’t until recently that the Styx started making threats again and she came up with this absurd plan. Honestly?” Kerr stood up and rolled her shoulders. “Things have been shite lately. I expect someone will make a move soon. With or without Chalice.”

“Okay, but,” Lusa’s eyes darted around the room, avoiding Kerr. “Even if you don’t want to lead, why are you running around with me trying to find Chalice?” The real question was left unsaid, but it was clear.

And Kerr knew it was a legitimate question. Why run around in unclaimed territory with few escape routes and fewer friends? Why not let Chalice reap her own folly? The years of cheating? The years of gaslighting? And after they’d broken up, the low simmering of resentment. Kerr had wanted to move on. Perform some low-level job where she could disappear and forget about her, but Chalice couldn’t let anything go. She insisted Kerr stay in her orbit, under her thumb. Why, she couldn’t understand. Kerr had done nothing to her except finally end the relationship.

Maybe that’s why she wasn’t leadership material. She didn’t have that drive to possess more than she had. To make other people suffer.

But Kerr knew this wasn’t about leadership. It wasn’t even about Chalice. The unspoken truth that both of them refused to voice was that Kerr was doing this because Lusa wanted Pinga back. And Kerr wanted Lusa to get what she wanted. And buried under that, Kerr wanted Lusa to want her.

Admitting her attraction wasn’t a problem, that was undeniable at this point. She was capable of turning off her brain and having sex with her enemy.

The problem was that she wasn’t turning off her brain. She didn’t hate Lusa. At least, not as much as Lusa hated her, even if she was nice to her.

Flexing ceramic composite fingers, the loss of her arm should have stoked her anger, but it only felt like the price of entry. She needed something else to hang on to because if she allowed herself to pretend they weren’t enemies, she would have to face the implication – Lusa would be gone in a few days and she’d be taking a piece of Kerr with her, whether she realised it or not.

Kerr blew out her cheeks. “You wouldn’t understand,” she said, finally. Dealing with unrequited feelings wasn’t what she needed right now. Kerr walked past Lusa and headed back up the stairs, pushing those inconvenient thoughts back down. “Come on. They must be in the tunnels, right?”

“And if they’re not?” Lusa called after her.

Kerr didn’t turn around. “We’d better hope we can convince Model 2 to unlock this door.”

Poverty Wants Few Things

Kerr’s Thermabulle provided some measure of warmth, but Lusa couldn’t help feeling that something icy had formed between them. Truly, that was for the best. Lusa was the one who had said they couldn’t act on their attraction anymore, but she still found herself missing it. It’s just craving validation, she thought. It’ll pass.

Lusa was an expert in managing her feelings – catastrophe happened if she didn’t. The incident with Danica proved it. And Alana had gone straight to Talia.

She remembered being marched across the silty stretch of meadow to an old MobilePod she’d believed to be long abandoned. Sesi sat at a warped table, orange sunlight filtering through dirt encrusted windows, giving half of her face an ominous glow. Talia sat her down across from her and left.

Sesi drew a curved blade across a whetstone, but never took her eyes from Lusa. “Your mom prefers bullet knives. And Cat says you’ve been a little too enthusiastic with those garden kukris, but me?” Sesi dragged the round knife slowly, exaggerating the scrape. “This one’s mine.”