He dropped his pack and navigated around a nearby puddle to find a suitable stone to sit on. “So?” he asked.
“So what?” she said.
“What are you doing here?”
“Nice to see you too,” she said, sarcastically.
He glowered at her.
She said, “Well, I heard from Talon and Duncan that you were here. I’m going to help with the assault tomorrow. On the south towers.”
Mehta bristled. “No, no, no. Why don’t you find a hideout, or go back to Monticello? We can handle this.”
“No way.”
Mehta sighed, then threw up his hands and shrugged. “I have long since given up trying to reason with you.”
Mehta pulled a skewered squirrel from his pack and began preparing it for the fire. He used some of the Quebecker marinade he’d taken a liking to. Meanwhile Flora walked away and came back with a pot. She stacked stones up into precarious towers on either side of the fire so they could suspend the pot over the flames. Flora added some water from her canteen to the bottom of the pot, then Mehta dropped the squirrel in next to the potatoes.
When the pot was set to boil they ate some fresh beans while they waited. Occasionally the fire would spit and wheeze when one of the wetter logs would begin to burn, coughing up white smoke. Mehta massaged his leg and tended to the fire.
Flora fidgeted on the other side. “Can I ask you something?” she said.
“If I say no, I doubt it would stop you,” Mehta replied.
“Why did you place me at Monticello, with Euclid?”
“It met the requirements of Thorpe’s contract. It was a discrete place, and we got a good price.”
“Nothing else? Did you know about Granger being there?”
He reckoned she must know the truth, or she wouldn’t have asked. He could only imagine how she would turn this against him. “Yes, I did. Or at least, I was pretty sure he was there. I know, I know. I should have told you beforehand. I should have warned you.”
“No. That’s not why I’m asking.”
“Oh.”
He thought she might elaborate, but she never did.
A few minutes later, the food was ready. Mehta shaved some squirrel meat off onto Flora’s plate while she collected a potato. He took the remainder of the carcass and a couple of potatoes for his own.
“Back on Montalto,” Flora said, “I may have misheard you, but I thought you said you signed another contract.”
“I think you misheard me. In any case, it was a long time ago. It’s none of your concern,” Mehta said, trying to avoid another rabbit hole.
She ignored his response. “But I kept wondering… who with? And then Owen pointed out how you protected me at the dish, and how you risked your life to save Talon. And now I see you even tried to connect me with Granger.”
“So what, Flora? This is a pointless discussion.”
“The only thing that made sense is you have a contract to protect me. But I asked for nothing, I signed nothing, I am paying you nothing. Why?”
“You’re seeing ghosts in the fire Flora. You need to get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day, if we can live through the whole of it.”
“Why, Mehta?”
“You’re delusional.”
“Why?’
He couldn’t stop her incessant questioning. Flora would never check her belligerence on this. Sure, Flora had her foibles, but when it came to persistence, she was a mountain goat.
“Why?” Mehta asked. “I don’t know Flora. Maybe because you got dealt a bad hand. Or maybe because it was the only thing that felt like justice to me, real justice, and not just honoring a contract, but honoring one that brought balance instead of tilting the world in favor of tyrants like your Curator or assholes like Bartz.”
He thought Flora would appear dismissive of his explanation, or even ridicule him, but she was listening in earnest.
He continued, hoping to say enough to finally be done with her inquisition. “In some way it made me feel normal again, like I did before Asheville. It gave me relief from the dead men and women that haunt me. So yeah, I signed a contract, to protect you, simply because you deserve a break from the world’s cold hand on your back, pushing you into the dirt.”
Mehta shook his head after he said it. It sounded silly when spoken aloud, despite the truth of it. “And I honestly don’t care if you didn’t ask for it. I don’t care if you don’t like it. You can go and throw your life away if you want, like you seem so intent on doing. That’s out of my control. But know this, I will try to stop you.”
Mehta stood up from his chair, not bothering to wait for a response from Flora, and went for a piss. Then he came back to finish off his dinner.
“It’s late, we need to get some rest,” he reiterated as he returned to his stone chair.
She was staring at him across the fire. Her eyes were glazed, distant.
“I’m sorry, Mehta,” Flora said. Her words were a quiet, wispy thing. “I’m sorry about what I did, and what I said. I’ve never met anyone that would protect me for… nothing in return. Never had anyone linger who didn’t take advantage of me. I presumed the worst, and I blamed you for my troubles. I was wrong.”
She grimaced. “And I’m not sure why we clash. It’s like we’re oil and water. Or maybe, I’m a spark, a lit fire, and you’re gasoline. Together, we’re a dangerous combination.”
Mehta was surprised by Flora’s show of emotion. He tried to think of some words of consolation, but this kind of conversation was foreign to him. He could think of none.
Her face contorted further. “I even told them to leave you there, in Grand Caverns. I told them to leave you there to die.”
Mehta tried to wave away her words with his hand. “Don’t worry,” he said, “you did the right thing to leave me. Besides, I wouldn’t want you to try to save me. It would be against my contract.”
This only seemed to make her break down further. Her chest began to heave, and her eyes brimmed with tears.
Mehta remained at a loss. He didn’t know what he could do to comfort her. His words weren’t helping. He worried he’d somehow made matters worse again.
Gradually, Flora got herself together. She wiped her eyes and nose with a kerchief and managed a meager smile. She said, “Are you willing to forgive a mastodon like me?”
Mehta smirked in return. He couldn’t fault her for being who she was, for lashing out against him. Many would have gone mad, having gone through what she had. “There is nothing to forgive, Flora.”
The fire sizzled, and white smoke billowed up, obscuring Flora for a moment.
When it dissipated she no longer looked sad at all. She almost looked content.
“There’s one more thing, Mehta,” she said.
“What?”
She looked conflicted for a moment, trying to find the words. Finally, she said, “We may be volatile, we may argue, but I’ve lived that way most of my life. It doesn’t bother me.”
“What are you trying to say?”
She sighed and said, “Well, like I said before… when I’m with you, I’m like a lit fire, and you’re like gasoline.” Then she looked up at him with an avidity he’d never seen in her. Her eyes glared with more brilliance than the campfire. “Why don’t you pour yourself all over me.”
Without another word, she stood up, turned around and headed for her tent.
Mehta was momentarily set back by her words.
The conversation rewound in his mind. Was there some hidden barb he was missing? He felt confused, his capacity for reason becoming unglued. All their heated arguments, even the talk of his contract, seemed to be swept away by her parting words, like a sandcastle in a sandstorm.
He was gnawing on the fleshiest part of the squirrel’s haunch at the time, but the meat held no flavor for him. He put it down.