The drill yard behind the smokehouse was full before the sun cleared the ridge. Sixty fighters stood in the mud, and I stood at the back of them.
Sabine: Baby, you're with me. Like always.
Ansel did not answer her. He walked the line with his hands behind his back, and the whole yard went quiet to hear him.
Ansel: This drill is about who you trust at your back. So I pick first, and I'm picking her.
He stopped right in front of me.
Ansel: Liora. You're my partner.
Nash: Fuck me. She smells like salt fish.
Sabine smiled at me over his shoulder. That smile was worse than a scream.
Sabine: Of course. She's the steadiest with the frames. Everybody said so.
She said it sweet, and her eyes stayed on my face like a hand.
We put three pairs in the mud before the bell. When the last one fell, his hand came onto my shoulder and stayed, and the bond pulled warm under my ribs.
Ansel: Best partner I've had in years.
Liora: Don't say that out loud.
Sabine was on me before the yard cleared. She hooked her arm through mine like we were close sisters.
Sabine: Walk with me. You're out late, Liora. Every night.
Her nails found the soft part of my elbow.
Liora: I run at night. You know I run.
Sabine: I know you come back off the north road with your boots wet. Nobody runs that road in the dark.
The nail went in deeper.
Liora: I like the quiet.
Sabine: The logging trucks use that road. You're counting something, aren't you.
Two hundred and seven days. I made my face flat and my voice flatter.
Liora: I'm counting how many nights until you find a new question.
Sabine: Careful. I'm the one who lets you keep your tongue.
She let go of my arm and patted the marks her nails had left.
Sabine: Enjoy your drill, sister. He picked you in front of everyone. The pack will talk about that for weeks.
She walked off smiling with her hands loose at her sides, and I stood in the mud with my heart going like a bird in a box.
From Ansel's side.
I sent the last of them home and stood in my room with my jacket over the chair. It still smelled of her. Smoke and cold iron.
I should have picked Sabine. I picked Liora in front of sixty people and I would do it again.
Sabine: Baby. You didn't eat again.
She came in without knocking. She was smiling, and I told myself that smile was love.
Sabine: I don't mind sharing a drill. I mind you saying her name like that.
She pushed my jacket off my shoulders. Her hands went under my shirt and her mouth found my throat.
Sabine: Let me take care of you. I'm the one who gets to.
I should have told her no. I kissed her instead and pulled her sweater up over her head.
Her skin was warm under my hands, and my cock was already hard, and my head was full of gray eyes.
I laid her back and pushed her legs apart with my knee.
Two fingers through her pussy and she was wet. She rolled her hips up into my hand.
Sabine: Don't tease me. Put it in.
I pushed my cock into her, and she locked her heels behind my back and pulled me in to the base.
Sabine: Harder. I'm not glass.
So I fucked her hard, the way she likes it, and turned my face into the pillow.
I hid my face there and thought about Liora. Liora in the quarry with glass in her jacket, her scarred hand closed into a fist.
It was a coward's trick. I did it anyway.
She came with her nails in my back, and I came a few strokes after and said nothing at all.
She lay on my chest after and traced the marks she had left.
Sabine: You're quiet tonight, baby.
Sabine: So. Your new partner.
Ansel: She's the best fighter in this pack. Now everyone knows it.
Sabine: Everyone saw you look at her, too. I'm going to ask around about those night runs.
Ansel: Leave her alone.
Sabine: I never touched her. Ask anyone.
She kissed my jaw and put her head down on my chest.
I lay there with my heart slamming against her ear.
After a while I felt her smile against my skin in the dark. She was already digging.
One wrong look, and I would be the reason Liora died.