Page 45 of The Fall

Her hand returned to her aching clit, the brief absence only making it worse. Lusa’s heartbeat set the tempo. She was close. They both were.

Kerr stuffed her forearm in her mouth, biting down hard. Her aural processors making Lusa’s near-silent whimper sound like roar as she came. Kerr unravelled.

The two of them lay still and silent, one hundred and two centimetres apart, mouths agape, so the other wouldn’t hear their laboured breaths.

Except Kerr could. Kerr knew what had happened. And Kerr couldn’t tell a soul.

Kerr didn’t even know if she had been on her mind. Perhaps she’d stolen those moments while Lusa thought of another girl. Would she be angry that Kerr had been with Lusa, while she was not? The green monster growled low in her chest. Kerr was jealous of her already.

But Lusa hadn’t mentioned anyone. She could have said she had a partner after Kerr had kissed her. But she hadn’t. It was tenuous, but enough that Kerr could tell the monster to calm down.

In the dark, now that her mind had cleared, she set her aural processors to night-mode. The hush of noise-cancelling soundwaves flooded her ears. She allowed herself a few moments to admire the rapid rise and fall of Lusa’s chest as she descended.

Kerr turned off her Opti and went to sleep.

Steam curled around her in the shower as she replayed the footage from last night. The monster kept prodding her to scour it for any sign that Lusa had said her name. Or someone else’s. Kerr found none.

It was pointless anyway. They were going to meet with Chalice, tell her the plan failed and then Lusa would take her sister and leave. That’s if everything went well. If it didn’t, Lusa would murder them both. Pinga may or may not survive.

Kerr wrapped herself in a towel, only to find Lusa awake and in her underwear. Unable to stop herself from running her eyes across her body, drinking in the way her flawless sienna skin flowed so smoothly across her muscles, Kerr managed to keep her mouth closed. Barely.

“What happened to your lip?” Lusa did not seem at all concerned about Kerr catching her in this state.

Kerr touched her face. “I banged it in the shower,” she lied. “Is that what woke you?”

“How do you bang your lip in the shower?” Lusa shimmied into her TacPants.

Kerr shrugged. “I slipped.” It was a terrible excuse, but thankfully Lusa didn’t press further.

“Thanks for putting me up overnight. It was cool of you.” Lusa seemed flustered, but sincere.

Kerr met her eyes, but tried not to look too long. She wanted answers. Wanted to know if she was thinking of her last night, but you can’t just say that. Instead, she stood awkwardly, trying not to let her gaze wander too far down the line of her throat. Tried not to comment that Lusa hadn’t put on a shirt yet. Tried not to curse the thin sports bra hiding everything she wanted to see right now. “It was kinda nice having company, yeah?” That was a weird thing to say. Why had she said that? Flashing a grin, she hoped that would smooth it over.

Lusa’s eyebrow twitched, but she moved on. “It was still cool.” Inhaling sharply, Lusa held her breath for a beat. “I’m sorry I took your arm. I don’t think I apologised for that.”

“I did shoot your sister.” Kerr swept an errant strand of hair behind her ear. She wasn’t sure where this was going, but she liked the direction.

“You still have her.” Lusa’s tone took Kerr by surprise. She wasn’t wrong and Kerr reminded herself not to let her hopes run away with her. She needed to lighten the mood.

“You were supposed to say, I’m glad you shot my sister.” Kerr smiled weakly.

Lusa’s blank stare provided no confidence that she appreciated the joke.

Kerr did the only thing she knew how to do once she’d dug herself a hole, which was to keep digging. “Come on, you’re saying you’ve never thought about shooting Pinga?”

Lusa sat warily and rummaged around her rucksack. Kerr thought she saw a hint of a smile. “I hate guns. I’m a terrible shot.”

Kerr smiled, relieved she’d broken the tension. “Is that why you use knives?”

Lusa pulled out a tank top to Kerr’s dismay. She stared at it for a moment, like she was considering how much to say. “No.”

“Okay, but it brought you here, and now we’re hanging out.” Kerr pulled her towel tighter. “Which is cool.”

“Do you really not have any friends?” Lusa changed the subject, pulling the shirt over her head. Straightening it, Lusa stood impatiently, ready to go.

Looking down at her towel, Kerr was the opposite of ready to go. “Most of my friends live at MB12, they’re not always at hand, right?” It wasn’t a lie. But not the whole truth either. Her friends had pulled away because they didn’t want to upset Chalice. Being the ex of the boss had cast an unexpected shadow over all of her relationships and Chalice hadn’t exactly let her move on either. Kerr had been in a sort of uneasy purgatory for the last decade.

Lusa looked like she was thinking it over, parsing and picking apart her words for their hidden meaning. “Okay,” she said finally. What conclusion she had reached, Kerr couldn’t guess, but she wasn’t judging her, so she would take it.