Author's Note: Hello and welcome to part eight of "Cross". As always, I would like to thank my fantastic readers and all those who took the time to review, saichick, FireChildSlytherin5, Faith-Catherine, ShipsThatFly, cassie89, Genius-626, Melaina Epona, Beautiful Liar Please Save Me, and Ana Lilly. Also, I'd like to thank everyone who added this story to their favorites/author alerts list. You guys are the best! I really can't thank you all enough. I do hope you enjoy this installment.
Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of Priest.
Part VIII Reproach
Priestess was awakened by a rough hand, a stirring shake of the shoulder. Before she could open her eyes she heard his accusation. It came to her on the waves of heat, on the fetid air of the Wastelands that smelled of sulfur and carrion and all things ungodly.
"You fell asleep," Priest said. He towered over her, his shoulders stooped like a vulture's as the roof of the shack pressed down on him.
Priestess blinked and her awareness returned. Her cheek was pressed to the sandy floor of the hovel, the gritty beads sticking to her skin and eyelashes so that her face burned. She blinked again and felt water gather underneath her lids. It was morning. Late morning. The sunlight coming through the spidery cracks in the walls was strong.
"You fell asleep," Priest echoed. The left corner of his mouth pinched when he spoke and he chewed on his lips. There was a strong sense of compulsive energy about him, a jerky, jitteriness that showed itself in the way he moved and paced and sighed.
And yet, Priest was looking much better than he had the night before, when his voice was that of a child's and delirium took him and he could only cling to Priestess when she plunged the edge of her scalding knife against his bleeding wound. But there remained a hint of his frailty. It was easy to disregard, but Priestess recognized it in the way his eyebrows jumped together and in the way the muscles in his face bunched convulsively. It was the small sign, an allusion to the physical pain and degrading weakness that had left him so helpless. That had made him rant and rave and tempt her with the promise of secrets.
But Priestess did not want to know his secrets, if he even had any. She did not want to know because it made her frightened.
Looking at Priest, she tried to accept his abused and grudging dignity, although she didn't much care for the sudden reproach in his voice and the way he stared at her, as though she had somehow sinned. As though she was wicked.
"You were supposed to be keeping watch," he said, the insinuation of her failure accompanied by a jerk of his sharp chin.
Priestess was trapped, confined in one corner of the crumbling shack, where she had sat for hours throughout the night until sleep, that treacherous demon, took her.
And it was obvious now that Priest found something unforgivable in her lapse of vigilance.
He doubted her. How could he possibly doubt her?
She said nothing for a moment. She let him spend his quiet rage in clenched fists and twitching muscles. Priestess stretched out her own legs, her bones screaming with agony, her tendons cramped. She rubbed her knees vigorously, tasting stale ash on her lips.
"How is your shoulder?" she asked, looking at the frayed patch on his robe that was still splattered with gore. The blood had dried into an inky hue of black and when Priest moved his arms, she could just about see the ugly scab that encrusted his cauterized wound.
"Where is my motorcycle?" he asked, answering her fairly mild question with a jagged inquiry of his own.
"Not here," Priestess replied, trying to take his anger in stride. Priest was, she knew, still floundering in his own weakness, which had struck him like a snake, lacing his veins with venom. And he had been vulnerable, so very vulnerable the night before.
And Priestess had held him in her arms.
Weakness, she decided, was infectious.
The thought did not sit easily with her and she pushed herself to her feet, aware of just how small the shack was and how close she had to stand by him.
His breathing was heavy.
Frightened, she thought. He is still frightened.
Priestess almost wanted to touch him, to soothe his unfounded, naked fear with a soft caress of her fingers. But that was forbidden. That was not allowed.
"My motorcycle," Priest repeated, working his jaw tensely.
Priestess avoided his gaze. "I had to leave it behind. You could not sit upright. I had to find us shelter."
"We are stranded, then," Priest muttered with cold neutrality.
He turned away from Priestess, his elbow brushing against her stomach. And despite it all, despite every fierce admonition that rang through her mind, she felt a faint fluttering in her chest. Her heart was in her mouth.
"We have one motorcycle," she told him. Sand was leaking through the roof in little rivulets and the streams dusted the top her head, making her scalp itchy. "Is that not enough?"
Priest threw her a blank look over his hunched shoulder. "It is only sufficient. And what about water? How much water do we have left? How much did you use?"
The reproof stung her. All the while, she had tried to excuse his upset, to pin the blame on his pain and fear and what might remain of his weakness. But she couldn't help but feel hurt, couldn't help but feel slighted by his all too callous disregard for her care, for her love…
"I cleaned your wounds," she said, leveling an accusation of her own. "I did what they trained us to do. I took care of you, Priest."
He rounded on her, teeth flashing, his face suddenly rabid and bold. "And now we are lost."
His reaction was not rational. It was an animal instinct, his long repressed fury and uncertainty surging to the surface in a rush of untamed rage. And even though Priestess knew he didn't mean it, her pain was still very real.
He was angry at her and he had never been angry before.
"You are being cruel," she said, in a voice that was soft and aching. "You are being cruel like her-"
"Don't-"
"You are being cruel like the other Priestess." She hated the words as soon as they left her mouth, for they brought silence with them. A wild, miserable silence that filled the tiny shack until the walls seemed to groan with the weight of it.
They stood far apart from each other now. As far apart as the small space would allow, which gave them only a foot between them.
Priest's chest was heaving, the breath in his lungs echoing with a hollow, rattling ring. He coughed and choked, the noise wet and thin like a death rattle.
Priestess saw that he was shaking. Why was he shaking?
"Please," he said, a sickly sheen of pallor draining his face of what little color it had, "please do not speak of her."
Her. Her. Not Shannon. Her.
And Priestess wanted to ask him why, but she didn't have the time.
Outside the shack, a sound rose and fell, coming over the high sand dunes with a whine and a whir and the grind of a laboring engine.
Priest looked at her and she looked at him and they didn't have to speak, because they already knew.
Someone was coming.
Author's Note: Thanks so much for reading! If you have a free moment, please leave a review. I appreciate any and all feedback.
The next chapter is in the works and should be posted soon. Until then, take care and be well!