Chapter 72: Damn

The living room was quiet enough to hear the building settle.

Ethan stood in front of the mirror in his underwear, turning slow, checking himself the way a man checks a door he doesn’t trust. Arms first. Nothing. Chest. Nothing. He dragged his fingers through his hair, then over the back of his neck, the slope of his shoulders, the places a hand might have missed. He even looked under his nails.

Nothing.

He frowned at his own reflection. "If that bastard marked me, where the hell is it?"

The Snake King came back to him uninvited. That faint wrongness on the skin. The way mutant snakes had found him no matter which street he took, like the city itself was leaning in his direction. If a snake could brand prey, a tiger could do worse. He just didn’t know the shape of it. A mark. A scent worked into the sweat. Something biological the mirror couldn’t show. Or the beast had simply learned him, the way a hunter learns a trail, and soap was going to be a joke.

"Could be either."

He let the breath out. One test. A long shower. If the mark washed off, good. If it didn’t, he’d know that too.

He glanced at Sasha. "Check my back."

She hesitated. Color rose in her cheeks, faint under the lamp, and she crossed the room anyway. Her hands were careful. Shoulders. The line of his spine. The spot between the shoulder blades he couldn’t see. She didn’t linger, but she didn’t rush it either.

"Nothing."

"You’re sure?"

"I’m sure."

He faced the mirror again. "Then we find out if soap is worth anything."

He stepped into the Survival Space.

Two hours. He scrubbed until his skin went red and the water ran clear and kept running. Hair, twice, then a third time. Under the nails. Neck. Arms. The small of his back. Legs. Every place a scent could hide and a few it couldn’t. When he finally shut the water off, he felt skinned. He dried, pulled on clean clothes, and came back to the living room lighter and no wiser.

Mirror again. Clean. No mark. No fresh wound. Nothing clinging.

He let the breath go. "At least I can’t smell it."

Sasha was on the couch. She’d been watching him, and the look on her face wasn’t hard to read. Envy. Not the sharp kind. The tired kind. Nearly two months without a real shower. Damp towels when she could find clean water. Wiping the day off in a corner and calling it enough. A shower had turned into a luxury, and she’d just watched him spend two hours inside one.

He opened the Temporary Storage and took out a clean set of light-gray athletic clothes, soft from never being worn, and a fresh pair of underwear. He held them out.

"Your turn."

She blinked. "Those are for me?"

"Unless you’ve got another woman hiding in the apartment."

The look she gave him almost made him smile.

"Plenty of water in there. Use it. Don’t ration it."

She took the clothes. The thanks in her voice was real, not polite. "Thanks."

He opened the entrance. She stepped through. It closed behind her.

Ethan went to the window. The city was almost black. A few fires burned far off, orange and small, and the moon sat over the broken skyline like it had nowhere better to be. He rested a hand on the frame.

Daisy first. Four women, two children, still somewhere in the center with nothing but whatever luck they’d carried in. Every night they stayed in the open was a night something could find them. And if he found Daisy, the Space had a reason to grow. The two drums of diesel would feed the oxygen generator for about five days. Five days was a delay, not a life. He needed room. Sunlight, or the imitation of it. Rows of vegetables. Fruit trees. Water that didn’t come out of a can. A place where the next meal wasn’t a negotiation. Not luxury. A door that locked from the inside.

Before that, the underground shelter. Penny and the three children needed to know he was alive. Sasha needed to meet them. And he wanted another Anchor there, a second way out if the Tiger King came down this street and the first door wasn’t enough.

His fingers tapped the sill. The plan was taking a shape he could walk.

He was about to call her when the entrance opened on its own.

Sasha stepped out.

Clean clothes. Hair still wet, darker than usual, combed back with her fingers and a towel. She stopped in front of the mirror and worked the towel through it, slow, and the gray athletic top did what worn cotton and trail dust had only hinted at. It fit. It clung where the shower had left her damp — across the full, heavy curve of her breasts, the fabric pulled tight enough that the shape of them was unmistakable, high and soft and moving when she lifted her arms. The neckline wasn’t low. It didn’t need to be. Under it, the weight of her chest rose and settled with her breath. The pants sat low on her hips and showed the narrow of her waist before the long line of her legs took over. No mud. No dried blood. No two months of fear ground into her skin. Just Sasha, twenty-seven, wet hair, and a body the apocalypse had not managed to thin.

Ethan stared.

He’d known she was beautiful. The system had put a number on it. The number hadn’t included this: clean, warm from the water, standing in his clothes in his quiet room like the world outside had agreed to wait.

He cleared his throat. "Damn."

Her eyes found his in the mirror. "What?"

"Nothing."

He kept looking. The towel dropped. She raised an eyebrow. A bead of water slid from her hair, down the side of her throat, and disappeared into the gray fabric between her breasts.