“Can we light a fire?” Liz asked, wrapping her arms around her slender body as she crouched on the ground.
“Not worth the risk.” He flung her a blanket from his pack. “Here, this should help. Eat up, and then get some sleep. I’ll take first watch.”
She wrapped it around her shoulders, and they ate their field rations in silence, with his torch nestled between them to provide a little light.
“I know you don’t believe it was that bad, but I didn’t run out on my houder just because he forced me to have sex with him,” she said suddenly.
“It’s none of my business,” he replied stiffly.
“He liked hurting me.” Unzipping her jacket, she pulled open her shirt a little way to reveal several scars across her breasts. “He’d tie me down and draw the blade of his knife across my skin. I wasn’t allowed to flinch or cry, or he’d burn me with his cigar.”
Josiah felt a surge of anger. There was a sweet, child-like quality to Liz, and he couldn’t understand why anyone would want to hurt her. “I’m not judging you,” he said, looking away.
“I know that. I just wanted you to know that I tried to behonourable and keep my side of the contract, but he was so cruel that I knew if I stayed, I’d die.”
“He paid good money for you – why would he kill you?”
“I meant die inside, piece by piece, until I was all gone.”
Zipping up her jacket, she pulled the blanket tighter around her body. Even after weeks in the back of a truck, wearing shapeless combat fatigues, she still had a luminous beauty.
“I wasn’t born in the Quarterlands like you, Joe. My family wasn’t rich, but we had our own house, and everything was fine until Mum fell ill and lost her job. Then we ended up in a government work camp.” She shuddered.
“The government wanted everyone to become ISs, so that we weren’t a burden on the state. They set up all these meetings with prospective houders, and I honestly didn’t think I had a choice. The state only paid for the most basic medical care for Mum, and she needed more.” The flickering torchlight caught the sadness in her eyes, giving her a haunted, ethereal appearance.
He ached for her. “It’s been decades since the Rising, but it seems like things are worse now than straight after it happened,” he murmured. “The systems they put in place to deal with it… I suppose it must have all seemed logical at the time, but the outcome is shit.”
“So many sad stories. Even you, I think.” She gazed at him searchingly.
“Not that bad. Not as bad as you.”
“I didn’t know what my houder was like before I signed the contract. He was kind to me at first. I thought he liked me. I thought if I did my job well, I could make him fall in love with me, maybe even marry me.” She was silent for a moment. “I was so naïve, back then. I loved my mother, Joe. I loved her more than anyone else in the world. I would have done anything to save her.”
“I understand that.” Josiah remembered his father, coughing up his lungs as he died. “I would have done the same for my dad, but I knew if I became an IS it’d kill him faster than the pneumonia.”
“We both did what we thought was right at the time,” she said, nestling down under her blanket. She closed her eyes and was quiet for a long time. He thought she was asleep, but then she spoke.
“Peter loves you, you know.”
He rolled his eyes. “No, he doesn’t. Peter’s an idealist, full of noble ideas. He doesn’t have time for anything as ordinary as love.”
“He used to come and chat to me at night, when everyone was asleep. He talked about you all the time; I could tell how much he likes you.”
“Liking isn’t love, and even if he does love me, so what?”
“So what?” She sat up. “I saw the way you looked when he left yesterday.”
“You know how you said you used to be naïve?” he growled. “Well, you still bloody well are.”
She laughed and lay down again. “I know when two people are in love. Why do you keep pushing him away?”
“Because it wouldn’t work. We’re different ranks, and the army wouldn’t allow it.”
“Pah! The army! Who cares about their stupid rules?” she snorted. Then she buried her head under the blanket, much to Josiah’s relief.
That conversation broke the ice between them, and Liz chatted to him non-stop as they walked the following day.
“I love Hattie. I would like a dog. Or a cat… maybe when I get to my uncle’s house in Hanover. He owns a little pottery. I want to learn how to make things… I like using my hands, making things – I think I’ll enjoy working there…”
