Displaced

Timber - Forty-Four

"Hey, Chevelle, is there some kind of permanent marker laying around?" I called out to her a couple of mornings later.

There was no verbal reply. A few seconds later, she emerged in the bathroom doorway and threw a marker at me. "What do you need it for?"

I waved her inside the bathroom. "Close the door."

"Um...okay? You're getting a little creepy on me."

Rolling my eyes, I knelt down behind the toilet and took the cap off of the marker. "I've done my fair share of looking around. There aren't any cameras in here, no hidden microphones, nothing. The bathrooms are untouched by the Achlivans as far as I can tell. I'm not sure how long that's going to stick around, but for the time being, I want to take advantage of it."

"Coming from anyone but you, I'd be a lot more worried."

I ignored the comment, another of those moments where I wasn't sure how to respond. She was lucky I had so much going on in my head and all around me, because my hormones would have driven me bonkers otherwise. Cheating on Talia was never something that crossed my mind when I looked at Chevelle. At the same time, I yearned for physical connection.

Counting out on my fingers, I drew a few lines behind the toilet and then surrounded them by a small square. "I'm trying to figure out what the date is. Rough estimate, obviously. Time passes differently on the ship, but it can't be that different, right? About eight or nine days have gone by."

"Eight," she said softly.

"Eight," I echoed and added a few more tallies to make it equal to that amount. "The attack of the mall happened October fifteenth, so that means it's the twenty-fourth because we're just starting our ninth day."

Chevelle walked in and hugged me around my neck. "Thank you."

"No problem. I'm trying to remember what day of the week it is, but I think I'm blanking there. I was thinking..."

She raised her eyebrows.

"How do you feel about going to that barbeque thing? We missed the one last week, but maybe we can go this time?" I didn't want to give her a pouty face and work the full puppy eyes if I didn't have to. But I wanted to go, more than I wanted to admit.

Pulling away from me, she shook her head. "Just go without me and bring something back."

"I'm not going without you." If I ran into Rumor again, without Chevelle, I don't know what she would do. I couldn't say that, because I didn't want Chevelle to think I was guilt tripping her into going either. Meeting some other guys besides Paul would be nice. I wanted to see how the other men handled the situation.

Chevelle averted her gaze, rubbing her arms slowly. "Okay, we can check it out for a little while. If it sucks, we don't have to stay though, right?"

"Ten minutes, we'll see how it is for ten minutes, and if it's the pits, we'll go."

"I'm sure Lara wants to go so she can see all of her friends. Not like she doesn't go out to play with them often, but I feel like we should be more active in watching what she's doing."

I scrunched up my nose. "Yeah, probably. It's hard. We're all used to being independent. She's probably safer on her own here than she was back home, but I don't want to be like her parents either. Maybe we should make a family date night? We used to do those a lot when I was younger. Not only would we get to connect more, but we could also show everyone we are a unit."

"It's an idea," she said.

Good enough for me. She was considering it, and that was all I asked. Besides, if we didn't get out, there was no way I could reunite her with Wicken. After our spat, she never brought him up again. Kind of surprising since she kept talking about how much she wanted to rescue him from being an Undesirable. I also wasn't sure how to bring it up again. Blurting out that he worked at a restaurant on the Roof didn't seem like a good idea. It wouldn't surprise me if she got all gung-ho and went up there in a blaze to demand his release. I wish I could read her mind to understand what she was thinking.

"Anything else, that you want to do, or know?" I asked quietly, trying to show her we could talk about things.

Sucking in a deep breath, she nodded. "There are a lot of things I want to know about. I'm just not sure if I'm ready to learn them yet. You were right when you said I liked being in the dark. Like, I know you know where Wicken is, but can anything be done about it? Outside of my abandoning you, I mean."

I shrugged. "Are you saying you don't want to help him anymore?"

"I do, I just don't want to do it the way you're proposing. You shouldn't have to betray our species to save his life."

Not sure I saw it the same way she did, but I didn't want to get into that argument again. "Don't worry so much about me. Remember how we're in this together? That includes him. We entered this together, we're getting out together."

"We are. What I'm worried about with your plan is...you'll sign up for something where they're going to own you for the rest of your life. We'll be free and you'll be stuck. Don't make that sacrifice, please."

"Paul flat-out said I didn't have to agree with anything going on to do the things he does on this ship. He just thinks I'll be good at talking people down and keeping them from freaking out," I explained, hoping I could ease her mind. She raised a lot of questions I hadn't bothered to ask, though.

She gazed at me with large, sad, dark eyes. "I'm trying to trust you here. Like I said earlier, you're my responsibility now. The idea of you being brainwashed or trapped here because of some kind of effort to be valiant kind of pisses me off. No one sacrifices so much for a stranger."

"We're not strangers."

"We're not friends," she snapped.

As much as I tried to not wince, I'm pretty sure I failed. I quickly faced away from her, hoping she didn't see it. Her words stung. Not friends? No, we didn't know each other's deep dark secrets, but did that really mean we weren't friends? Was I really nothing more than an acquaintance she felt obligated to stick around with? I didn't need her pity.

Masking my emotions, I shook it all off. "Fine, we're not friends. But for the record, I'm not doing anything I don't already want to do. I don't need rescuing or for you to be my knight in shining armor."

"Timber..."

"I need a shower," I mumbled.

"When you get out, we can talk more. You can tell me where Wicken is and we can figure something out that will be good for us all."

I sighed. "I'll tell you where he is. He's working up on the Roof, okay? You need to stop and realize that what's good for us all might not be what you want."

"It might not be what you want either."

"At least I listen to what you want." I shrugged. "But we're not friends, so...I guess I get now why you don't."

Groaning, she stomped out of the room. "You're a passive-aggressive dick."

Chevelle was right, but I didn't particularly care as much as I probably should have.