Page 3 of Code Bound
She leans back on her hands and stares at me. “Are you scared because we might die or because?—”
“Enough,” I grunt. “The Harrow is for runners and dreamers. That ain’t us.”
She tilts her head. “I don’t know,” she murmurs. “I think I’m a bit of a dreamer.”
My gaze softens. “Dox?—”
“It’s fine,” she interrupts. “One of these days though, we won’t have a choice. We’ll get into trouble and it’s either stay and be killed, or take the only option out.” She pops another orange segment in her mouth. “We’ve already lived longer than most. What’s a few more years?”
I look down at the orange in my lap and slowly pull away the moldy peel. “You calling me old, Paradox?” I tease instead of pointing out the flaw in her plans. That if we have no choice, we might already be dead.
She grins. “At the ripe age of thirty-one, you’re practically a spinster, Vesper.”
“Says the old woman across from me,” I fire back, sinking into the familiar jabs.
She scoffs dramatically. “I’m only a few months older.”
“So, you admit you’re old then?”
She snorts and then smiles, her eyes softening in a way I know means she’s about to get sentimental.
“Nope,” I tell her, pointing at the orange. “Just eat your orange, Doxxie. We ain’t crying today. There’s no crying when we have the sweet victory of an orange in our hands.”
We don’t have to say it. I don’t tell her I love her or that I’m glad I’m in this hellhole with her of all people. She doesn’t remind me that she’d kill for me. We don’t discuss it, but the feeling is there between us, hanging heavy in the air.
Dox’s eyes crinkle and she holds up her orange. “You think I can get Trig to suck my toes in exchange for a segment?”
I roll my eyes. “That idiot would do it for free,” I remind her. “But I’m sure he’ll suck it out if you stick it up your?—”
Her giggles make my chest warm as she carefully pulls a segment off and sets it aside.
Apparently, Trig is going to have a very good night.
CHAPTER2
VESPER
I’m woken up after what feels like only a few hours of sleep. Dox is standing in my doorway, her expression hard as she kicks at the cracked doorjamb with her worn boot.
“Get up,” she orders. “We’ve got new work.”
“Is it waking hour already?” I ask groggily, rubbing at my eyes. I look toward the window, but it does little good. The same light that filled the sky when I went to sleep still fills it now.
“No. It’s been three hours,” she replies before backing out of the room and thumping around in the apartment.
“Three hours?” I groan. “Why the fuck are you waking me up then?”
“I told you,” she shouts from the main area, “we got a job.”
Normally, I’d tell Dox to shove it and go back to sleep, but her tone has me shaking the sleep from my limbs and standing up to pull on my itchy pants again. I’m yawning as I finally come from the room and try to wake up a little more. She hands me a cup of caffeine water we’d traded a hell of a lot for, and ushers me to drink it. That’s how I know it’s serious. We ration the caffeine water heavily.
“What the fuck is this job?” I ask, narrowing my eyes on her as I take a sip. The rich flavor of the crystallized plant fills my mouth, but it’s stale. As everything in this place is.
She hands me a piece of paper. “Black Spur Union. Courier Service. Pays very well.” She hums. “It mentions they’ll pay us with more fruit.”
Nowthatis a reason to wake up fully. More fruit? I’ll do some sketchy things for fruit.
“Did you get any sleep at all?” I ask her.
