Chapter 286: She Could Play Nice for Three Minutes

Dove found out the new shirt was a mistake when Rusk tried to grab the hem.

She slapped his hand away before thinking, then immediately wished she had thought first. He caught her wrist. The former guard stood behind her in the hall, close enough that she couldn’t simply step back.

"Where’d you get that?" Rusk demanded.

"From the shirt fairy. She felt bad about your breath."

His grip tightened. Dove went quiet, furious with herself for giving him something to enjoy.

Alden appeared in the breakroom doorway. "Let her go."

"She has things hidden."

"She’s washed and dressed. Give it a rest."

"You don’t understand what she does."

Dove looked at Alden rather than Rusk. "I washed my knees. Would you like to inspect those too, or can I sit down?"

The soft edge in her voice helped again. Alden’s expression hardened toward the man holding her. Rusk released her with a shove that barely moved her, thanks to the steady placement of her feet. Her balance had improved. That didn’t make the whole encounter feel less awful.

She sat at the breakroom table and put her hands beneath it, where nobody could watch them shake.

Alden stayed standing, holding his cigar between two fingers as though somebody might ask to photograph him. "A little grace in a friendly place. You can’t keep insulting people who are trying to help."

"He grabbed my clothes."

"He worries."

"So do I. Mine usually comes out as a question instead of a hand up someone’s shirt."

Alden looked at Rusk, who had the sense to leave before the conversation became inconvenient for both of them. The guard went back to the front door. Dove let herself breathe properly once their footsteps separated.

I need to stop doing that, she told Sprout.

Insulting Rusk?

Getting angry before I know what I can get away with.

You noticed that yourself.

Don’t sound proud. It’s irritating.

She rubbed the mark on her wrist and looked around the room again. A cooler stood beneath the counter. A portable stove sat on a metal tray beside the microwave. The fan overhead clicked each time it turned. Its breeze barely reached the chairs.

"It’s hot in here," she said.

"Everywhere’s hot."

"Does the window open?"

"The one in the shed room does. You’ll get more air there."

A room, a window, a place to rest. He was selling it hard, which made her want to see what he had left out.

"Is that where your men sleep?"

"Most sleep in the shed. Your room’s separate."

"Separate how?"

Alden’s patience thinned. Dove could see it in the way he put both hands flat on the table. She changed the question before he decided questions were the problem.

"I don’t sleep well when people keep walking past the door."

That one was true too, though she had slept beautifully with two men close enough to steal the blanket. She missed their stupid arguments about who had done it.

"There’s an old storage office at the back," Alden said. "Concrete floor, proper walls. A washroom next door. No one needs to bother you."

Except you, she thought.

"That sounds better."

"Let the trouble end. You need a friend."

Dove looked down at her wrist. I need an exit and a very large shovel.

I recommend the exit first, Sprout said.

She coughed into her hand again. Alden reached for the peaches, found the tin empty, and seemed briefly offended that she had finished the gift without becoming easier to manage.

"Can I have another napkin?" she asked.

He turned to the counter. Beside her knee, the chair’s padded seat had split along one side. A short length of stiff wire poked through the torn fabric, part of an old repair that had failed. Dove hooked two fingers around it and worked it loose while Alden searched the cabinet.

It scratched her skin. She didn’t react. When he turned back, both hands were on the table.

The bent wire pressed into her palm. She could hook something with that, or pull a catch her fingers couldn’t reach. She covered it before Alden could decide a chair repair counted as a dangerous weapon.

She folded the napkin over it and slid both into her skirt pocket.

Alden sat down again. "You don’t have to keep looking frightened."

"Then help me not be."

"What would do that?"

She looked up. "Let me hear my beast husband’s voice."

His face changed. He had expected something he could hand across the table. Food. A blanket. A little proof that she depended on his kindness.

"Perhaps later."

"You said your men were handling it. If they’re with him, they can put him on the radio."

"I didn’t say they were with him."

Dove’s stomach tightened so hard she had to press her tongue against the back of her teeth. She had known. She had suspected. Hearing it made the room smaller.

"Then where are they?"

"Coming back. We don’t leave men scattered on the road."

"You left mine."

Alden sighed, as though she had made a tedious point during a nice meal. "A man who cares for you should have done better."

For one bright second she imagined driving the chair wire through his polished smile. It frightened her how much she wanted it. Then she pictured the guard at the door and Edrik alone on the floor, and she forced her hand to stay still.

"Can you send someone now?" she asked.

"When things settle."

She knew what he wanted from her now: a grateful look, a little reach across the table, a suggestion that he might matter more than the man he had left behind. She would not give him that. She could flatter a building and accept a meal. Edrik was not something she would put down to make this stranger feel taller.

"Someone who will actually help him. Please."

Alden studied her. She let him see the fear, because it was too large to hide anyway. He reached across the table, and she moved her hand beneath it before he could touch her.

His mouth tightened.

"You make this harder than it needs to be."

Dove looked at the doorway. Nobody had gone back. Nobody here was going to save Edrik because she asked nicely enough.

She would have to get a message out herself.