As the priest started running through his observations anew, Walker took Kim by the elbow and escorted her away. They passed the wrapped cadaver of the horned thing. Walker barely looked at the zippered canvas transport bag, but he could feel its presence behind him as he waited for Kim to climb the ladder to level two, then made the ascension himself. Like the gaze of a spurned lover burning into the space between his shoulder blades, it seared him, until at last he was off the ladder. His thoughts were a jumble of questions, most of which had no satisfying answers.
“Walker,” Kim said quietly, as they walked together. “Do you feel all right?”
“No,” he said immediately, and then laughed at his dire tone. “But how should I feel?”
Kim bumped against him, keeping stride but somehow huddling into him with every step. “Cold, I suppose. But you know that’s not what I mean.”
Did he?
“Watched,” he said, hating to admit to such a nebulous fear. “I feel watched.”
Kim nodded, glancing around as if whoever might be observing them lurked in the shadows they passed, the dark places between the lights that were strung every ten feet or so along the passage. The stairs to level three were ahead, but Kim stopped and faced him. They were in the gloom between bulbs, but still he could see her breath plume in front of her. Winter had not just intruded, it had invaded.
“I feel that, too,” she said. “But even more, I feel marked.”
“As a target?”
Kim shook her head. “Not like that. I mean the way a dog marks its territory, puts its stink everywhere so the other dogs will know to stay away. I feel… claimed. And I know it’s foolish, but I want to leave. I know I agreed to be a part of this mission. But now I… I’ve got to get out of here.”
“The blizzard—”
“I know,” she said, striking him on the arm, her brows furrowed. “I can’t go anywhere until the weather clears. And I am ashamed of myself for how anxious that makes me.”
Kim left her hand on his arm, stared at the timbers underfoot as she took a deep breath, unwilling to explain more. Or perhaps unable.
The day they’d arrived he would have admitted to at least a general dislike for her, but that had been a different woman. Beautiful, yes, but not his ally. Not his friend. Now, both of them stripped of their professional identities, he looked at Kim and saw someone smart and raw and full of curiosity, so much like himself.
“You’re not the only one who’s afraid,” he said quietly. “I promise you, Seong, you’re not alone.”
His hand rose, almost of its own volition, and he cupped the side of her face. She leaned into his palm, and then forward into his embrace. And here it was, another thing he would have thought impossible.
They held each other, taking warmth and strength.
And for a time, neither of them was alone.
The cave ledge was like the mouth of a badly carved jack-o’-lantern. On its western half, much more of the ark’s wall had given way in the landslide, leaving more of the interior open to the elements. The Ark Project had started work on this more exposed side in order to complete examination and collection of artifacts and samples as quickly as possible, so that their later work could be done behind whatever shelter they could take when they moved into the eastern side of the ark.
They were running behind. This storm had come too soon.
On the western side of that pumpkin/cave ledge, Adam huddled behind an outcropping of rock that blocked much of the wind. Still, the temperature had dropped precipitously low and he knew it had been foolish to come out here, especially in the dark. But it was the farthest he could get from the rest of the staff—and from Meryam—without trying to scale down the mountain in the storm.
“Idiot,” he whispered to himself, with lips that were chapped and dry behind the cloth of the balaclava he wore. His goggles pressed at the flesh around his eyes as the wind shifted direction for a moment, then eased again.
He told himself he was out here on the ledge because he had agreed to take the first shift on sentry duty tonight, but he couldn’t make himself believe the lie. Not for a second. His hands still ached with the warmth and the softness of Calliope’s curves, the memory of the hard, unyielding muscles in her arms and back as she moved against him, and he against her. She wore some kind of body spray with traces of vanilla and cinnamon, and the aromas floated in his head, the taste of her still on his lips.
Guilt burned in him, but guilt was not enough. When he closed his eyes, pressed them shut against reality, images flashed through his mind of Meryam holding Feyiz, of their intimacy and the contentment in his expression. But they were shuffled together like cards from different decks, mixed with images of the brief time he’d spent with Calliope only an hour ago, the way her mouth had formed a little O when she had rolled on top of him, both of them trying so hard to be quiet.
He hated himself a little. Maybe more than a little. But if he was being honest, he hated himself for betraying what he believed in more than he did for betraying Meryam. Right now she didn’t deserve his guilt and self-recrimination.
“Fuck!” he rasped, out there alone in the storm.
He had to get off this mountain.
The emotions warring inside him were burning everything in their wake, scorched earth, and Adam had never been good at hiding his feelings. How the hell was he supposed to keep going even another hour past the moment he came face-to-face with Meryam again? His partner. His bride-to-be. Bad enough she was cheating on him with Feyiz. If it had been only that, he could have taken the high road. Stood tall. Broken-hearted, but at least able to tell himself that he’d been wronged. Now he didn’t even have that.
All for what? Calliope didn’t love him. They were friends and coworkers and they’d flirted occasionally but never with any real intent. In that moment when she had taken his hand and he’d seen the tenderness in her eyes, it had been as if someone else had taken over, as if his body had moved of its own volition. He could never say that aloud. All his life he’d hated people who fell back on the idea that they’d somehow lost control. So although her scent remained in his head and the feel of her body on the tips of his fingers, Adam would take the consequences.
Resigned, he pushed away from the wall and started back along the ledge. The snow coated his clothing and he had to wipe off his goggles as he marched toward the cave entrance, tempted to go back to the shelter he shared with Meryam and try to fall asleep before she came to bed, put the confrontation off until morning. He told himself it wouldn’t be cowardice but practicality. They needed sleep.
But, no. The stew of guilt and anger boiled inside him and he knew he had to face her. His thoughts flickered back through the past few months and he wondered why he had never seen it. She had been in constant touch with Feyiz since their first trip here. Even as they planned their marriage, Meryam must have been carrying on with him at a distance. No wonder she had been so withdrawn, so disinterested in helping him make wedding plans. The day she had been so late to view a wedding venue and she had shown up with word from Feyiz of the landslide, of the cave, of the ark… no wonder she had been so determined to get back here as fast as they could travel, to push off plans for the wedding.
It had never been about the ark at all.
Snow crunched underfoot. The wind pushed at his back as if the storm itself wanted him to hurry toward the ugliness that awaited. He felt worst of all for Calliope. Their friendship shouldn’t have to suffer from this but it would, and so would their professional relationship. He supposed there was a chance that somewhere down the line they would dig their friendship out of the wreckage that was about to occur, but Adam wouldn’t have bet on it.