Cheating Time (8 page)

"Holy hell! Are you getting winded," Jayden
asked, once again snapping me back into the here and now.

"No. I'm not."

"You're slowing down, and you're getting
winded.
Dammit!
Your Dad swore to
me he'd make sure you kept training."

"I'm not winded, and I have been training.
You're just pissed because he doesn't push me until I'm ready to
throw up or taunt me until I'm angry. I should also mention that he
doesn't make Tawney and me compete for his approval. Dad is more
comfortable leading by example," I said more defensively than I
intended.

"I've seen your Dad, and he hasn't gotten
soft. In fact, he looks like he's in the best shape of his life.
You haven't been training with him."

"I'm training all the time. Most of my time
is spent with Dad. The rest is with Mom in the lab. Training is
training," I said without the first ounce of apology in my
tone.

I didn't feel like telling him that the only
difference between what Dad and I had been doing was while I worked
in the lab, Dad worked on the farm. Dad's manual farm labor was
more of a workout than anything Jayden could ever concoct for us to
do. I didn't tell him because I was sure he'd take that information
and use it against me by making me haul hay, shovel out stalls, and
hoe gardens.

This time, it was Jayden who came up short
and slowed, asking, "Don't… don't you think President Barone has
enough Enoche researchers, Carlie? Why are you working in the
lab?"

What he said took me off guard. I expected
him to be focused on the farm work. Instead, he was worried about
me working in the lab, something I loved doing.

I scoffed. "You've never worried about me
before. There's no reason for you to start now."

His next breath was exasperated. "I've
always worried about you. I'm the one who convinced your parents
that weekends spent in survival training was the best thing they
could do to prepare you for what's to come. I think that proves I
care about your family, about you, even if you don't believe
it."

"So… you finally admit it. You
are
the one that came up with that
torturous ritual."

He shrugged.

"It was all I could think of to do."

"At least now I know who to blame for my
aborted social life, massive split ends, and calloused hands," I
teased, and he smiled timidly.

"You didn't need a social life. You had me."
He winked.

Actually, I'd known for a long time that the
Surrogate Soldier through and through had been the one to convince
Mom, who'd been afraid for me, and Dad, who'd been a traditional
soldier himself, that if they'd wanted me safe, they'd have to stop
thinking safe rooms and practically kill me by putting me through
the fine art of survival training. If I admitted what I knew, he'd
quiz me about my intelligence source, and I'd have to admit how
often I eavesdropped.

No way I'm going to let
anyone in on that secret.

As always, my thoughts of survival training
brought me back to the ice cream parlor incident because after
that, things between Jayden and I had changed.

As an olive branch and after spending hours
in my safe room, trying to figure out what I could do to make
things right between us (at least as right as they'd ever been),
I'd decided I had to apologize. Realizing the words might never
come out of my mouth, I'd written Jayden a letter asking for his
forgiveness, scrolled his name on the sealed envelope, and given it
to Dad the next morning, begging him to get it to Jayden for
me.

That same day I'd freakishly stalked Xyla
from the Cold Creamery Parlor and told her Jayden was like a big
brother to me, one I hadn't wanted to lose to anyone, not even her.
I'd told her I made up the story about him being sterile, that I'd
never seen him look at anyone the way he looked at her, and then
I'd pleaded with her to give him another shot. She'd seemed
smitten. Before I finished with her, she'd agreed to go on one date
and give him a fair shot.

I'd still been extremely jealous when I
thought about them together, but I felt like I'd righted a
wrong.

Two weeks later, Jayden had returned. He was
different… angrier and more determined than ever that we had to
learn how to survive in the wild. I was the typical narcissistic
teenage girl and assumed Jayden's demeanor had everything to do
with me and what I'd done at the ice cream parlor. I'd only known
one way of getting information and that was to slink around
listening to conversations not meant for my ears.

One night after I'd supposedly gone to bed,
I heard Jayden telling Dad there'd come a day when an entire army
of Shadow Citizens would make it over Aspect Nation's borders, tear
down the walls, and invade. He'd sworn none of us would be safe if
that ever happened because Shadow Nation had turned into a country
of people who were comparable to rabid animals. He'd claimed they
hunted, killed, and ate anything…
anyone
who came near them.

The next thing I'd known, Dad had gotten up
and closed his office doors, preventing me from hearing another
word of their conversation. Even though it was late and I was
supposed to be in bed, I'd refused to let the hour, Jayden's mood,
or the information I'd just heard deter me. I owed Jayden the date
I'd snatched away from him. I paced outside of Dad's office until
the two of them came out. On a mission, I'd ignored Dad's somber
mood.

"Carlie, what are you doing up this late?
You have school in the morning," he'd said when he saw me in my
pajamas, standing in the hall.

At first, I'd cowered under Dad's glare.
Then I squared my shoulders.

"Dad, I need to talk to Jayden just for a
few minutes," I'd mumbled.

I still remember the way Jayden glanced at
Dad, silently pleading for him to refuse my request, and how I'd
almost rolled my eyes.

Dad's stare had bounced between the two of
us a few times. Finally, he nodded. I'd assumed he'd decided we'd
definitely needed to talk if there was ever to be peace in our
family again.

I'd stared after Dad until he was out of
earshot. Then, I'd turned back to Jayden, who'd been standing with
his feet spread apart, his hands gripped behind him, and his eyes
on the ground.

"I-I asked Dad to give you a letter. Did you
get it?" I'd asked quietly, biting the corner of my lip so hard
that I still have a knot of scar tissue where I'd punctured it and
it bled.

Without looking my way, he'd nodded
solemnly.

Under normal circumstances, I'd have walked
away and pretended as if that had been all I needed to do to make
amends, but I'd had two weeks of guilt eating me away from the
inside. I'd been determined not to back down. I had something I
needed to do, and I'd planned to do it no matter the humiliation I
suffered.

"Well…" I'd paused, trying to decide how to
tell him what I'd done. "Well, I also spoke to Xyla and told her
what a horrible person I am and what a wonderful person you are.
She's agreed to meet you at the Cold Creamery for a kind of
mini-date. You know, since I ruined it for you the first time you
were trying to talk to her."

The instant the words left my mouth, I'd
felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. When his
incredulous glare shot at me, it occurred to me that whoever said
no good deed goes unpunished had been right. He'd looked at me as
if I'd just turned into termites covered by maggots being eaten by
roaches.

"What did you do?"

His response… his unexpected response had
made my cheeks flame as if they'd suddenly caught fire. Rather than
back down, I'd shrugged.

"I-I talked to Xyla. You know… the very
pretty girl you were flirting with at the ice cream parlor. I told
her you'd meet her for ice cream this Thursday after school."

His laugh was sardonic. "You… you set me up
on a
date
,"—he'd used air quotes
around
date
—"with the
girl
in the ice cream parlor. Do I
look like someone who needs you to interfere with his life?"

I'd chewed on the already punctured and
bleeding lip and choked on my words. "N-no. I just thought it was
the least I could do after… you know."

"I'll tell you what. I'm going to go
because… You know, I don't really have an option now. Do I? But
let's just agree that you aren't to interfere with my life ever
again. Do we have a deal?"

I'd wanted nothing more than to run and hide
out in my safe room for the rest of my life. Instead, I'd swallowed
my pride and bobbed my head.

"Good. This Friday and every Friday from now
on, our survival training will be much more difficult. It seems to
me that you have too much time on your hands."

Without another word to me about that
subject or Xyla, he'd turned away from me, walked out the front
door, and headed toward the guesthouse he lived in.

After that encounter, there'd been nothing
teasing or playful about Jayden or his attitude toward me. The new
Jayden had been business.
All
business.
Because he made me work harder than Tawney and
he nagged me tirelessly, I'd accepted the reality that he hated me,
that my apology and my attempts at matchmaking had not led to the
forgiveness I expected.

It didn't take long for us to evolve into
the team we were today, one that offered snide comments quicker
than compliments. Without question, the only time Jayden ever
really spoke to me since the parlor incident was to ridicule the
fact that I couldn't run far enough, fast enough, or quiet enough.
There was no doubt in my mind that our banter was dysfunctional,
but it was all we'd known for so long that it was impossible to
change.

Not long after we'd begun the more intense
survival training the crush I'd harbored for Jayden fizzled out and
flaked away. Instead of looking at Jayden through the eyes of a
lovelorn teenage girl, I'd come to equate him with the brackish
mildew covering the forest floor that I'd accidentally eaten each
and every time I'd face-planted during our intense sparing matches,
with the sweat covering us after hours of vomit-inducing hikes, and
with the blood and gore that came from the wild game Jayden had
forced me to hunt, kill, gut, skin and cook so we'd have one hearty
meal every day.

Making me hate him more, Jayden had refused
to let me eat if I'd not killed something that day. That particular
mandate was harder on my family than it was on me. It was all Mom,
Dad, and Gran could do to stand by while I'd been forced to sit on
a log, chewing on the few pine nuts I'd gathered while my family
dined on the game Jayden had captured.

Once Mom tried to silently support me by
refusing to eat, but I'd quickly intervened and said, "Mom, you
need to eat. I'll be fine. Jayden hates me, and I refuse to let him
know he bothers me. I wouldn't eat a bite of his food anyway. If I
don't kill it, clean it, and cook it, I won't eat it. It's that
simple."

Mom had angrily glared at Dad, who'd avoided
her irritation by looking anywhere but her way. It had seemed the
only person comfortable with the fact that I wasn't allowed to eat
on those days was Jayden. Taking his charades as far as I could
tolerate, he would wait until Mom, Dad, Gran, and Tawney had their
fill. Then he would pack up the leftovers and dump them someplace
I'd never find them.

Worse than making me go
hungry—
periodically
—was the way
he'd insisted I be able to run. His mantra to me was,
Run for your life
. He'd claimed
that if I could run, I could get myself to safety, so he'd forced
me to run in the heat, rain, sleet, ice, and snow.

This was the reason he was upset. As we ran
through the field toward the barn, he worried that I'd wasted years
of his training, which of course I hadn't.

"You preached
run for
your life
, Jayden. That's what I've been doing. We've
been here at this seemingly safe farm, but there's danger
everywhere. I haven't had you to rely on or to help me if something
happened. I stayed in shape because I knew it would be up to me to
save my family if anything happened. I've been here, training."

I quit sharing for a few minutes, noticing
he wasn't saying anything. Then I finished. "Don't get me wrong. I
haven't had anyone coming up from behind me and trying to take me
down. Dad would never do that to me. But I still remember that if I
can't take someone down, I'm to take off running. I'm not to stop
until I'm sure I'm out of danger. I remember that loud and clear
because you drilled it into my head," I reminded him.

And he had. I couldn't count on all my
fingers and toes the number of times he'd come from behind and
pulled me to the ground. When he'd done it the first couple of
times, I'd been too dazed to do anything but lie helplessly on the
floor of the forest. Then I'd come to expect it, and I fought back.
When fighting didn't work, I'd take off running. When I'd run, he
followed every single time.

Believe you me, he'd never held back
anything. He'd tackled me, tripped me, and grabbed loose clothing.
In Jayden's mind, nothing had been off limits because, according to
him,
Everything is fair in
combat
.

As if he were reading my mind, Jayden said,
"Everything is fair in combat,
Carles."

Carles.

I'd not been called that in such a long
time. He was the only person who called me by my real name, if you
didn't count my parents when they were frustrated with me.

It wasn't that long ago when I hated hearing
Jayden use my real name as much as I hated him. Right now, I closed
my eyes and basked in it, in the way he'd said it so
reverently.