“Here, let me try,” Trey says, holding out his hand for the comb.
Moving nearer to him, I place the comb in his hand and then turn around. Gently, he lifts my hair and begins combing it from the bottom up, carefully working out the snarls without pulling too hard on it.
“How did you learn to do that?” I ask him suspiciously.
“We own spixes. They sometimes wander into briar patches and get burrs entangled in their manes.”
“You took care of the spixes.”
“Every day for most of my childhood. I could train a spix from wild to tame faster than anyone we knew—even Charisma.”
“Really?” I murmur, trying to envision his life as a teenager. It was completely different from mine. “And Victus? Could he train spixes as well?”
Trey snorts. “He could, but he wasn’t very interested in them. He’s more of a thinker than a doer. He would come with me and talk to me for hours while I took care of things. He’s a philosopher—a dreamer. He dreams things up and I make them.”
“You sound like the perfect team—in some ways—opposites. I believe you’re a thinker too, though. If you weren’t such an extremely good planner, we’d be dead inside the city now. And your skills as a hacker are ridic, you know? Reprogramming drones can’t be as easy as you made it look.”
He pauses in combing out my hair. I glance at him over my shoulder; he leans forward and kisses me hard on the mouth.
“You make me happy,” he says in a low tone.
I have to blink a couple of times and look away. “Well, Trey, I think you’re the first person who has ever said that to me.”
“That’s impossible,” he says honestly.
“It’s the truth.” Not wanting to explore my past, I instead nose into his. “And what is Charisma? A thinker or a doer?” I ask.
“She’s a doer.”
“And me?”
“You are the rare person who is good at everything.”
“I can’t swim.”
“Yet.”
In no time at all, Trey manages to unknot my hair. I weave it in a fishtail plait.
“Are you hungry?” Trey asks.
“As a matter of fact, I was just about to talk to you regarding your penchant for starving me.” I smile at him, wrapping the blanket around me. “It’s really getting out of hand.”
“There are still some treats left from our commitment announcement.” Trey reaches for his gear, finding the sack full of goodies. He places them between us; the blanket he has wrapped around him is riding low on his hips. He also adds a few items that I’d rather ignore: namely, the kind of protein bar that I was forced to eat in the Forest of Omnicron.
“Umm . . . blak,” I say, holding up the meal from hell.
“Jax thought it’d be a good idea if we had these—just in case it becomes necessary to leave Rafe.”
“Do you think that could happen?”
He doesn’t want to answer me, but he does anyway. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because at the moment, we’re outlaws.”
“We’re Bonnie and Clyde?”
“We’re who?”
“Never mind.”
I eat a few of the treats. Trey nudges the protein bar toward me. I ignore him. He sighs. “You know you have to eat it.”
I give him a puzzled look. “Do I know that?” I look upward, searching my mind. “Hmm . . . no, I don’t think that I do know that.” I tap my chin with my index finger, and then shake my head. “Nope. That’s not something I know.”
He grins and leans forward, reaching out and grabbing me. He starts to tickle me mercilessly. “Trey!” I giggle before laughing hysterically. When he doesn’t let up, I have to gasp in deep breaths between peals of laughter. “Trey!” I laugh. “Trey!” I say as sternly as I can. “You . . . have . . . to . . . stop!”
“Do I?” he asks while he continues to tickle me before looking upward, searching his mind. “Do I really have to stop tickling you?” His evil grin is turned on me when he looks down again. “Nope. That’s not something I have to do.”
“Okay!” I acquiesce.
He smiles, leans forward, and kisses my temple. “Thank you.”
I wipe tears from my eyes, before I narrow them at him. “You shouldn’t do that! I have to pee as it is.” I take the gross protein bar from him and lie down, looking up at the blanket covering the trench.
Trey’s expression is immediately contrite. “I can take you up. It’ll be all right.”
“No. I can wait,” I assure him.
I take a bite of the protein bar and just about gag. Ugh, cat poop, I think.
As I chew, Trey studies me. He frowns, resting with his forearm on the ground propping him up. “You said some things,” he says cryptically, in a very un-Trey-like way.
I finish chewing and swallow. “I say lots of things. Anything in particular you’re referring to?” I smile at him.
“Who’s Astrid?” he asks.
“What? How do you—” I feel the blood drain from my cheeks.
Trey hurriedly explains, “It’s something you kept saying over and over—when you were being interrogated. You kept asking, “Where’s Astrid? Where did Astrid go? I have to find Astrid.”
My chest is in agony. I sit up and pull on my blouse over my head and see him frown at me, as if I’m taking away his toys. “You don’t have to get dressed, yet,” he says.
“I have to—to—I have to—”
Hurriedly, I dress beneath the blanket, pulling on the black legging pants from yesterday. I get to my feet and go to a shell-coated wall. Jumping up, I try to grasp the lip of the trench so that I can pull myself out and escape.
“Who’s Astrid, Kricket?” Trey probes, disturbed by my behavior.
I turn around and face him, covering his mouth with my hand. “Shh—don’t ever say that name to me again,” I hiss with a sick kind of desperation.
He pulls my hand from his lips. “Why?” he counters, not letting it go.
I turn away from him, jumping up again so I can get away. “Help me get out—please,” I beg him, still facing the wall, unable to look at him.
Without saying another word, he pulls the cord attached to the camouflage blanket. It slides away, revealing the faint twilight. Trey hoists himself out of the trench, but he doesn’t pull me out right away. Instead, he moves away quietly to scout the area. I pace the trench, walking in circles on the mats.