Derelict

My Heart Was Secretly Enticed

Chapter Twenty-Five

She was furious.

Rison's secret, the one she had presumed to be a secret anyway, was now out in the open. She had been manipulated by Caddo, drawn against her will to declare herself a Speck then forced to acknowledge and admit it before Wyatt and the others. For the first time, she confronted the reality of the red blotch on her hip and what it meant. Even worse, she could tell the reality and consequences of her condition were not lost on the others.

She felt diminished.

And that was a problem. Because it meant if she felt this way about herself, she thereby felt that way about Wyatt. He too, was the lesser because of the mark. And she didn't even realize she had felt this way until her condition had been revealed.

She was a hypocrite.

Yet it spite of it all, in spite of being a Speck and treated like an animal for most of his life, she realized Wyatt somehow managed to rise above his station and allow his inner strength to shine through in even the direst of circumstances. He brought out feelings in her that she found confusing, feelings of serenity, of comfort, of resolution. He had steel and resolve yet to be discovered, of that she was certain. She wasn't naïve enough to believe he wasn't wrestling with his own demons, for he was. The fear and pain was evident on his face. But she knew—she somehow knew—he would conquer and come through in the end. He was the kind of man who drew others to him.

A man? When did she start thinking of him as a man and not a boy? But then, he was almost exactly her own age and she certainly hadn't thought of herself as a girl in years. So why not?

She was in love.

There. She admitted it. And it shamed her. Love would only make her weak and vulnerable, neither were things she could afford to allow into her life. This was a hard land and enemies prowled about, both human and non-human. Love—or anything remotely approximating it—were luxuries that could do nothing other than distract her and thereby endanger her.

But... Wyatt is different. He was unlike any other she had met and she found herself wanting to be near him and know more about him. On the surface, that was proving to be problematic because there really wasn't much that had happened in his life other than a daily quest for survival under inhumane conditions. Rison had observed as Wyatt recovered from the trail of mistreatment he had endured. At first, so soon after the encounter with the zelinx, she kept her distance and brooded. His control and manipulation of the creatures had been disconcerting and even frightening. But as she thought through the whole mess, she remembered and realized she was like him. According to Caddo, she too would be able to control them, all because of what the blotch of reddish skin on her hip represented. The thought made her sick and she wanted to vomit. She was a Speck!

During the weeks it took for Bono's leg to heal, they remained hunkered down in the abandoned building, taking shelter in the cellar at night then during the day watching the dead zelinx mummify into leather on the blistering hot road. From somewhere, Caddo had continued to produce water and food. When asked of its origin, he casually replied that water could almost always be found if you knew where to look. And the food? Well, it just somehow turned up and he refused to discuss it. The horses, those that had run off during the confrontation with the zelinx, came skulking back the following morning. They avoided the carcasses of the zelinx, rolling their eyes and acting skittish, but they soon learned to ignore them as the smell dissipated and dried in the arid atmosphere.