Coming Saturdayish... Out of Darkness Chapter 6
You’d just finished breakfast, watching Timmy play with Harvey’s daughter Eva. Curtis and his men had brought back a number of things from the train cars they’d located over the last several days. Since Curtis planned on the group migrating from the mountains before long, they only scavenged what they’d need to survive. Medicines, coats, shoes, clothes to replace the ones some of the tail section passengers had been wearing for years.
He’d give you the task of sorting through the items and distributing them to those who needed them. You weren’t complaining. You had Yona to help you and it gave you an excuse to talk to the other people in the cave.
Not one of them was unkind to you. They didn’t treat you any differently at all. The one older couple, David and his wife Rachel, were favorites of yours. They’d been all too happy to tell you more about what had gone on in the tail section of the train during those eighteen years.
At the front, you’d all been led to believe the people in the tail were practically criminals, happy with their situation and place. In truth, they were ordinary people, good people, who’d been brutalized and murdered. The beatings, the starvation when they withheld what he called “protein blocks.” They’d frozen people’s limbs off as punishment.
David told you of a man named Gilliam who’d been a leader, a mentor to Curtis. Apparently, he’d been shot in the head and it had been televised for the entire train to see. You had missed that broadcast and you were grateful, They did it just to try and demoralize Curtis and his band of rebels.
The couple, along with everyone else, thought the sun rose and set on Curtis.
“Those of us left?” David said meaningfully. “We owe our lives to him.”
“Honestly, I do too,” you told him and his wife. “Even though I’m…”
Rachel smiled at you, fondly laying a hand over yours. “You’re one of us now. Doesn’t matter where on the train you came from really. Curtis trusts you.”
You smiled, nodded. You knew you should be grateful to be accepted by almost everyone. You should be grateful that Curtis snatched you away from Nick and his friends and kept you for himself. Otherwise, you weren’t sure you’d still be alive.
But did they miss the part where you weren’t exactly given a choice in the matter? To hear them tell it, Curtis had swept in and rescued you heroically even though you were from the front end. You’d been too upset at the time to notice a lot, but most of them had to have seen him carry you over his shoulder into the cave that night, right? If Yona knew the truth of your “relationship” with him surely, they did too.
That was perception only. Curtis didn’t trust you. Hell, he believed you were running away from him when you went back after your bag. They thought he trusted you.
But didn’t that all go away when he didn’t want you anymore?
It had been a couple of weeks since your adventure to go and fetch your bag. Since the morning after when you’d talked to him about the seeds and their potential – and your willingness to help with them – he hadn’t said anything else about it. You’d agreed not to say anything to anyone else about the seeds and to keep them hidden for now.
His demeanor with you had changed after you’d talked about your family, your time on the train. He talked to you more, about his day, about his thoughts on the future of the group. Always speaking in terms of “us” and “we”, making sure you were included. You could’ve taken that and ran with it. Made assumptions.
But people weren’t always as they seemed. You’d always thought Wilford was a great man who loved your father. Then he’d killed your father and banished you and your mother to the worker cars like so much rubbish he was done with.
Curtis could do the same thing to you one day.
That possibility haunted you.
“What’s wrong?” Yona drew your attention away from the pile of nice clothing you were sorting through.
You shook your head, smiled. “Nothing... A little bit of a headache.”
Yona eyed you skeptically but shook her head. “Best take something for it. We’ll be going soon.”
But she’d already wandered off, taking a pile of shirts she’d put to the side for Jacob and joining him at a fire several feet away.
Yona said the strangest things sometimes.
Curtis was gone with his men each day before you woke and back before dark with the day’s haul. If nothing else, it was game or fish so most everyone could eat. At night, you followed him up to his bed and Curtis worked you until you couldn’t keep your eyes open. Where he got the stamina after trekking around the mountainside all day long you had no idea.
The hours with him in his bed every night were the biggest source of your conflict.
You were supposed to be his captive, being in his bed was what you offered for his protection. You offered your body and he took it.Â
It just wasn’t as simple as that.
Curtis spent a lot of time kissing you first, sinking his fingers into your hair and holding you in place. He spent even more time learning you. At first, you thought he was just making up for lost time in doing everything sexual he could think of with you. It didn’t take you long to realize he was finding all the places that drove you wild, had you writhing beneath him, desperate and wanting.
Even those first few nights, he’d never hurt you. He’d been careful. Looking back, it hadn’t taken long for you stop dreading the nights ahead to watching him at dinner with your core clenching in want, wondering how long you had to wait for him to touch you, to bring your body to life as only he could.
You were on dangerous ground.
It didn’t mean he felt anything for you.Â
Last night, when you’d followed him up to his bed, he’d been all over you, greedy and impatient about it. He’d nearly torn your clothes in an effort to get them off you, pressing you onto your back beneath him while he hadn’t even removed his coat or his hat. His lips had burned a path down your body, down to the apex of your thighs. His hands roughly pulled your thighs apart and he dove for you with his mouth, working you up quick and dirty. Your hands pawed at his cap, his coat, his hands. You gasped as he ate you out, biting back moans until he used his fingers to push you over the edge.
As you lay there recovering, he’d loomed over you like a dark angel. His hands struggling to open his pants. Impatiently, he pushed them down just over his slim hips and took himself in hand.
