Alexandra Duncan - Salvage

“I, um . . .” Rushil starts to say, but then I see what he’s been doing, why he didn’t answer the door straightaway.

The trailer is clean. Or not clean, but ordered some. The bed is made, cups washed and hung on hooks above the stove, and all the scraps of paper and metal junk stacked in bins. He’s even wiped the table of all its sticky spots. I frown. How this figures into a plot to turn me and Miyole over to the Wailers, I don’t see.

“I didn’t have people in here much before.” He looks down at the thin carpet. Crumbs and grit still dust it, but now I can make out a pattern of faded blue elephants linked nose to tail around its border.

“It’s . . . it’s nice,” I say, turning in place.

Rushil lets out a sigh of relief. “You like it?”

“Right so.” I walk into the kitchen. Grease still gums the stove, but he’s cleared off the counters enough so he can use them.

“You hungry?” Rushil holds up the bag of rice. “I was going to make dinner.”

“So.” I fold my arms across my chest.

“Excellent.” Rushil pulls down a jug, dumps water into a pot, and snaps on the stove, oblivious to the chill in my tone. “Where’s Miyole? Did you find her a burner?”

I tense, and then nod. What does it mean, this talking on Miyole? More playing nice? More feigned concern? Lulling me into feeling safe? I wish I had never shown him her metalwork.

“I wish I could make things like she can,” Rushil says, stirring rice into the pot. “I can only put things other people’ve made back together again.”

I watch Rushil’s muscles flex beneath his wash-worn plaid shirt. The tiger’s tail curves around the back of his arm, peeking out beneath his sleeve as he stirs the pot. It’s there, clear as empty. Maybe Shruti is right. Isn’t all of this—the cooking, his help with the ship, the work permit—isn’t it too good to be true? I grip the counter behind me. No one would do this for me, not for nothing.

“You think she would make one for me?” Rushil asks. “I mean, I could pay, of course. . . .”

“Why’re you being so kind?” The words burst out of me. “Why’re you doing all this for me and Miyole?”

Rushil looks up. “I . . .” He rubs a hand over the back of his neck. “What do you mean?”

“You must want something. Shruti said you did.”

“Shruti.” He clangs the top down over the pot.

“Is he right?”

“Ava . . .”

“Is he?”

He stands only a step from me in the small kitchen. “I don’t want something,” he says. “I want you.”

My heart picks up again. Run, fight, run, fight. Shruti was right. All that kindness and understanding, that was all for show.

He sees the look on my face. “But it’s not . . . I mean, only . . . Chaila . . .” He looks away and hits the counter so hard the cups rattle on their hooks.

“What about that?” I nod to his right arm. “The mark you’re trying to hide from me. Shruti told me what it means.”

Rushil’s hand flies to cover the tattoo. “This?”

“Right so.” I fold my arms. “Did you think I couldn’t figure it out? Did you think you could hide it from me forever?”

His face has gone gray. “It was a long time ago, Ava.”

“So you’re not denying it anymore?”

“I wasn’t denying it,” Rushil protests. “You never asked!”

“I asked how you knew Pankaj!” I shoot back.

Rushil doesn’t answer. He stares at the floor between us.

I shake my head. “You lied to me, Rushil.”

“Because I knew you’d hate me if you found out.” His voice rises until it breaks. He clears his throat and starts again, softer. “I thought if you had some time to get to know me first . . . I haven’t been with them for years.”

I soften, if only a slip. “If you’d told me from the start . . .”

He runs a hand over his face and looks away. “I’m sorry.” His throat works as if he wants to say more, but he doesn’t. Instead, he braces his arms against the counter and bows his head.

The pot begins to simmer.

“I understand if you want to go.” He speaks to the small bottles of cooking oil and spices lined up beside the stove. “You don’t owe me anything. You probably have enough to dock somewhere nicer now, anyway.”

I watch him, wary. If I were him, would I have tried to keep it secret? I haven’t told him about Luck, about my own shame. And if he’s canceling my debt, easy as that, then Shruti’s wrong about his plans for me. Are we always our mistakes? Does anything we do heal them? I reach out, hand trembling, and lay it over his shoulder.

“Rushil . . .”

He turns. Before I have time to draw breath, his mouth is on mine, and the counter edge digs into my back as he presses his body against me. For a moment, my mouth works without me, giving to his kiss as I would have given to Luck’s. His rough hand brushes my cheek. And then I remember where I am, who I’m with, what he is.

“Rushil,” I try to say. Our teeth scrape together.

“Rushil.” I twist my head away. “Rushil, stop.”

He backs away. We face each other, breathing hard.

“Ava, I’m sorry. I thought . . .”

But I don’t give him time to finish. I stumble out of the trailer into the hot, dark night. Stupid. Girlish and stupid. Trusting Rushil, thinking he didn’t want anything from me . . . I storm past the sloop, kicking dust, and disappear between the silent ships and piles of salvage. That’s all any of them want. A thought comes to me. What about Luck? Was that all he was after, too? Am I so simple and easy to fool? Did he ever even love me?

I run. Past yachts docked for the day and gutted ferries leaning in the shadows. The perimeter lights disappear behind me. I dodge a pallet of shield tiles and a small pyramid of barrels. Faster. I narrowly miss a jumble of rebar and jog left to jump a pile of rubber scraps. I come down uneasy. My foot catches on a stray pneumatic arm. I pitch forward and go down. The packed dirt knocks the air out of me.

I lie sprawled in the dust until my breath comes back. After a moment, I sit up. A wet, dark scrape covers my knee, but otherwise, I’m unhurt. The perimeter fence shows its stark pattern under a buzzing orange light. A steady trickle of running water gushes under its electric hum. I must be near the western end of the lot, where one of the city’s many rivers cuts through the Salt.

I limp to the fence. The river creeps by below, black water rippled with light from the streetlamps and neighboring buildings. On the far side, the city glows, turning the sky to a swath of chalky lavender, and the earth to a dense, starry field of electric lights.

An orange flicker bobs into view. I look down. A small stub of candle in a paper boat sails into view on the river below. I forget to breathe as I watch it riding lonely and sure along the slow-moving current. And then another small flame rounds the river’s gentle bend, and another, and another, until the river is aglow with a fleet of delicate boats ferrying their flames over the water.

“It’s to remember the dead.” Rushil’s voice comes from the darkness behind me.

I close my hand over the hilt of Perpétue’s knife and loosen it in my belt. I won’t let him put his hands on me again.

He steps to my side and looks down at the lights. “People go upriver and light them. One for everyone someone’s lost.”