Slow Twitch - Реинхардт Лиз (читать книги онлайн без сокращений TXT) 📗
He catches my eye in the mirror and smiles, a glint of hard teeth with prominent canines; predators’ teeth.
When he gets to the passenger side of the truck, he looks in at the box, and turns his head to the side with calm thoughtfulness. “Your little friend chewed through the side of the box.”
Chapter Two
“Chewed?” I squeal. I’m beyond caring if I sound like a vacuous twit! This thing has teeth and chewed through a box! I’m terrified!
“Maybe it needs to go to the bathroom?” Jonas’s suggestion is made in a smooth, even voice. It helps me calm down. It helps me forget the incisors, fangs, or claws that could be waiting to bite, snap, or scratch me.
I veer to the side of the road and cut the engine, then sneak over to the passenger side and stand behind the opened door. Jonas worked a bigger hole in the box, and a little head poked through the cardboard shards.
A little red head with sleek fur and pointed ears pops up and looks at Jonas, then cranes its neck to see me. Like it’s looking for me. Its eyes melt somewhere between gold and amber, and it has a soft white expanse of fur under its jaw. It’s beautiful, and has a strangely human expression. I imagine I know what it’s thinking when it looks at me, and I think the fox is sizing me up.
Jonas moves away to give me access to the box, but I recoil. There’s nothing to indicate that this fox is anything but a gentle, intelligent animal. But it still has a mouthful of glinting ivory teeth, and I don’t need stitches. Jonas is wearing a thick, heavy coat, definitely fox-bite resistant.
“Can you lift it down? Do you mind?” I ask.
Wordlessly, Jonas lifts the fox and lowers it to the ground. It sniffs and snuffs, then trots into the dense woods a few hundred feet away and disappears as quickly as it sprang out of the box.
“Fox!” I yell, practically falling out of the truck and jogging towards the still-shivering weeds. “Fox! Shit! What am I going to do now?”
Jonas is already behind me, his big body blocking the wind.
“It’ll come back.” He moves closer until our shoulders touch. “Come and wait in the truck. It’s freezing and you don’t even have a coat on.” His voice minces the words with displeasure.
“I don’t have a coat that I like.” We trudge back to the truck and climb in with a solid bang of the doors.
“Like?” He raises an eyebrow at me. “Does it fit?” I nod. “Is it warm?” I nod again. “So, what’s not to like?”
“It’s ugly.” I shiver, jam the key in the ignition, start the engine and flick the heat on, even though I hate burning gas.
“You should wear your coat.” He shrugs his long arms out of his coat, pulls it off of his shoulders and passes it to me.
I think of something smart to say to him, but the gas gauge catches my eye. I can keep my pride, or have enough gas to get us home. I cut the engine and take his coat. “Thanks.” It’s still toasty warm from his body heat, and it stinks like motor oil and gas. The smell makes my eyes burn, but the warmth is worth it.
The sun sinks behind the trees and Jonas leans his head back on the headrest.
“Sorry for making you late getting home.” I sneak a glance over at him, all sharp features and grease-tinged skin.
“It’s okay. I like the company.” He rolls his head towards me and smiles such a slow, lazy smile, his face transforms. He looks warm instead of cool, touchable instead of infuriatingly standoffish.
My fingers itch to run over the smooth skin of his neck, right where it meets his shoulder.
“We should go in a few minutes if it doesn’t come back.” My gut clenches tight at the thought, but I can’t stay parked on the side of the highway all night.
“Let’s go and look.” He elbows his door open and I take a deep breath and follow through the scratchy weeds and into the forest so dark and silhouetted, it could be the cover of a Grimm’s collection.
Before the tall, dead grass turns into rough tree trunks, Jonas holds one hand down and out and waits. For me.
My fingers tug up on the freezing zipper of his coat, then my hand grabs his in the dark and our fingers curl together. My hands are as rough as his, chapped from washing them a hundred times a day when I’m on shift at the diner where I work. We both have short nails, the right length to keep reasonably clean no matter how dirty our jobs get. His fingers are long and knobby with jutting knuckles. Mine are smooth and stubby, barely fitting around his hand. His skin is warm and dry, mine cool and clammy. We’re different and the same, but together, there’s a warmth and safety that gives me a shot of bravery.
We crunch through a foot of carpeted dead leaves that swish past our ankles. Jonas sticks a hand out and pushes aside brambles that would rip at my skin and ducks under the sticky woven spider webs I never see until they’re netted over my face, making me feel suffocated with panic. The sun is gone, I can smell the dense gray smoke of a leaf fire somewhere nearby.
His voice breaks through the hush of the twilit forest all of a sudden. “Last term during debate, I didn’t agree with the issue, Wren. I was on the opposition side for reparations.” He lifts a tree branch over his head so I can pass under unscathed. “I hated Mrs. McKenna for assigning that debate.”
The moon is big and bright as a silver dollar through the reaching branches of the old trees. In the pale glow, his face is tense, his mouth a slash of frustration.
“I shouldn’t have overreacted.” My overloud voice echoes around us. I tone it down. “McKenna was fair. You and I were slotted to debate.”
“But reparations? It was insensitive of her. I mean, for you.” His hand tightens slightly around mine.
“She made Nevaeh debate affirmative action that year. And she gave her con, so it’s alright. She wanted us to break out of our little comfort zones. Or whatever.” Something that had a strong hold on my heart loosens, and everything feels lighter; the air swooping in and out of my lungs, my feet crunching the leaves, our hands, linked and warm. “But I appreciate it. I mean, that you apologized. You didn’t need to, but it means a lot to me to know for sure that you were just doing the assignment.”
He tugs at my hand. “I know I can be a jerk sometimes, but I don’t actually think it was fair for the government to screw an entire group of people just because of their background. If you thought otherwise, you don’t have much faith in me.”
“I don’t know you that well.”
When he flashes me a smile, the moonlight glints brightly off of his sharp teeth. “We should remedy that.”
We stop walking and huddle for warmth. His face is close to mine. I take in the dark curve of his eyebrows, the hook of his nose, the gold prickle of five o’clock shadow that covers his sharp jaw. Suddenly his features blur and my eyes close.
I expect warmth, but there’s only the cool brush of the wind, and when I let my eye slit open, he’s looking at a dark collection of trees far off. They’re black against a navy sky, bordered by a moon-silvered edge of leaves; it would be a scene devoid of any color, but a red ball bounces toward us. The fox darts straight to my feet and drops something on the toe of my heels.
I close my eyes again and swallow hard. “Jonas? Did that fox just drop a mouse on my foot?”
He kneels down and picks it up. “No.”
The word is flat and harsh. I doubt he’s holding a mouse on his palm.
When I lean closer, there’s a roll of money, secured with a rubber band. I poke it to make sure it’s real, then pick it up. The dense weight tells me it’s probably a good amount. I peel back a few bills and my mouth goes dry.
“Thousands,” I say when Jonas gives me a questioning look. The fox twitches its tail, then dashes back towards the truck. I make a move to chase it, but Jonas grabs my arm.
