It wasn’t until evening fell and we pitched our camp for the night that I got a chance to talk to Alex. “Jake wants us to what?” he asked, staring at me as though I was the one who’d decided we were going into the deep wastes.
“He wants us to go with him.”
“No.”
“Alex…”
“We both know what happens to people who go into the deep wastes, Kat.”
“Yes, we do, and that’s why I want to go with them. Maybe, with us there, they’ll stand a much better chance of surviving long enough to find Mare’s brother, as well as getting back to civilization.”
“Go, then.”
“Don’t. Jake already knows that it’s both of us or neither of us. I won’t go without you.” As he stared at me I realized he was worried about me and I couldn’t help being annoyed at myself for not noticing before. “There’s no reason for you to feel that way.”
“I know.” He shrugged. “That doesn’t mean I don’t feel it, Kat, the same way I felt it when you were spending all that time with Gregory.”
Nodding, I wrapped my arms around him. Being out in the wastes means we’ve seen the worst of people, the worst of men, and knowing that I’d be able to fight someone off if they did try to do something to me never really seemed to help all that much. Jake was a city dweller, so he’d had certain laws drummed into him from the time he was a child, and he hadn’t been out in the wastes long enough for that to fade, the way the some city dwellers had. Rape, in the cities, is a crime that will lead to execution, but out in the wastes it’s a different matter entirely. People make their own laws. Mercenaries are the worst for doing things like that, which is why no one cares if they end up dead in a fight.
“Gregory I can understand. He’d been out of the city for long enough to have changed, but Jake…” I looked over at Jake, trying to see him the way Alex did. “He’s new to the wastes, he couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag, and if he tried anything like that on me he’d be dead before he knew what was happening.”
“Right now he is, but what happens later on?”
City dwellers did become mercenaries. There was a group who had all been city dwellers and they were so grateful for the freedom they’d gained they’d become the people everyone wanted to kill. Getting rid of them would make the wastes a much safer place. Jake was someone Alex believed could become like that and that explained why he’d refused to say anything to him, yet it was easily one of the most stupid decisions Alex had made.
“Do you know how you stop that from happening?” I asked Alex.
“Yes, but…”
“Talk to him. Get to know him. He isn’t the person you think he is. Reacting the way he did when he met us was nothing more than bluster and right now he’s a scared little boy who needs guidance. Be the one to guide him. Stop acting like a prejudiced city dweller. We don’t assume anything of anyone, remember? Everyone has the chance to prove themselves to us.”
“Okay.” Alex sighed. “I don’t trust him, though.”
“Neither do I, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to hurt me. Eventually he will earn our trust.”
“Do you really believe that?”
I smiled. “Yes, I do.” I glanced over at Jake again, who was watching while Mare cleaned her pistol. In the wastes we didn’t dare do any target practice, but it was second nature to someone like her to make sure that all of the dust was out of her gun every night, and it made me even more certain that we’d made the right decision. “Give it some time. Get to know him. Then you can give him an answer to the question. I think they’re going to need us out there.”
Sighing again, he nodded. “I don’t want to let Mare go out there with just him for protection, but that doesn’t mean it should be us who joins them.”
“They trust us, love, and you know how valuable that is out here.”
“Jake trusts me?”
“You saved his life.” I kissed his forehead. “He owes you a life debt, technically.”
“I’m not going to tell him that and neither are you.”
“He’ll learn it eventually. Someone in Hamilton will tell him, so it’s much better if it comes from one of us.”
Alex sighed a third time, because he knew I was right. “Why do you always have to be right?”