Gods Under The Dome

7.1

《Dark Places》

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Nol and I lay beside each other in the cramped trunk of a car that smells as though in a previous life, it'd ferried hockey gear to and from frosty ice rinks. My outburst back at Izzer's must have gotten to Nol because he hasn't bothered to reach for my hand, even though our knuckles have grazed against each other a few times.

Some part of me wishes I could have slammed my eyeballs back into my skull when I learned of Nol's role in Elysium production, or maybe I could have bitten down on my cheek, made myself spit blood instead of those words for Nol and Della to overhear.

Trouble in Liar paradise, she'd said. Wrong on both accounts. We weren't Liars anymore, and we'd never, ever had a taste of paradise. I wouldn't even know what I'd consider paradise. An old-fashioned coffee, one with the crushed beans and hot water, maybe a hardback book, an unabridged world history absent of all the Council mandated rewrites. A boy beside me, who'd been given a name and not a number, who would never grow up to be like Izzer. But then-

The car takes a pothole too fast and the back end dips before jumping in the air. My body goes with it, the tip of my nose banking off the trunk lid. When I reach up to feel the damage through the cloth bag, I freeze because there's another finger probing my nostril.

"Ow," I say, though it's doubtful Nol's overheard. Every breath that slips out of me is muffled by the bag and I imagine my pain is no different.

Nol's finger, though, relaxes and moves away. I'm about to exhale a sigh of relief, when his finger's back, gently stroking my cheek through the bag. His heat seems to burn away the fabric and it's like there's nothing between him and me, just that familiar warmth that could sustain me in a blizzard. I'm glad neither of us can see because I'd hate to have him witness the smile he can so easily coax to my face. It's in moments like this that I can forget his indifference, his cool veneer, his words. It happens - had he meant that? Had the boy who blazed hotter than the sun meant such a frigid sentiment?

"You okay?" he says, his finger continuing to run from my cheek to my chin. There's a light pressure from where his skin presses into mine, which is a huge contrast from the immense pressure I feel ballooning in my chest. How can Nol be so hard one moment and so tender the next?

I nod, and silly me, I think he can see the gesture. "I'm fine." I crane my neck, just the slightest, so I can feel more of him against me. He doesn't seem to notice, or if he does, thankfully, I can't tell. "What about you?"

I think he chuckles, either that or he inhaled a little too much of the bag. "I'm not the one who smacked their face of the trunk lid."

"But I'm not the one who was blamed for two peoples' deaths." His finger stops dead in its tracks, before receding. Nol's warmth goes with it, and the chill it leaves in its wake, settles in my core.

At the sound of rustling fabric, nausea explodes in my stomach. He's shifting, turning away from me. Maybe I've gone and caught Tujo's brash directness.

"We should get some sleep," he says, his voice more distant than a few seconds ago. "We'll have things to do onc--"

I grab on to a handful of fabric nearest my arm. If I've been infected by some of Tujo's less-than-stellar tendencies, I might as well embrace them. I twist the fabric, ball it around my fist until I can feel Nol's body weight.

"I don't--" There's more shifting, though not much what with my talons' dug into Nol's shirt. He can't move without ripping free, and hopefully, he doesn't want to escape from me that badly. I gulp and take a deep breath, pulling the fabric of the bag toward my nostrils, then exhale. "I don't know you that well," I begin. "And I thought I did because I was around you, but really, maybe what I know amounts to a whole anthill of jack shit."