Pox by P X Duke Read Free Book Online

back and forth and slowly began to
catch her breath. The panicked look on her face changed to one of
relief. She pushed the plate away and replaced it with her shotgun.
The breach was closed. I didn’t ask if it was loaded. I figured,
given the circumstances, that a measure of trust might be in
order.
    —Go wash up and then you can eat.
    She didn’t move. She continued to sit and stare at
me.
    —I’ll still be here when you get back. Go.
    She disappeared down the hall, moving like an
automaton. She left or maybe forgot her shotgun on the table.
Perhaps after our day spent together she had developed some trust.
When she returned, her hand covered the handle of the knife on her
belt.
    —It’s your shotgun. I have no use for it,
Caitrin.
    Something had definitely spooked her since I dropped
her off near her place.
    —I’m sorry. When I opened my door I got quite a
shock.
    —Sit down and eat. You can tell me as you fill up,
all right?
    She took two bites and couldn’t stop talking. The
words came out in a rush. I listened, mouth agape, and put down my
own fork.
    She had approached her place like she always did.
Cautious. On the lookout for anything and everything. All of her
watch-out signs and warnings were in place. None had been
disturbed. No one had violated her privacy. Or so it seemed, until
she unlocked her door and walked into the mess that up to now had
been her fortress.
    She didn’t take the time to grab anything. Instead,
she turned right around without taking even one more step inside.
She locked the door and hot-footed it, zig-zagging, careful to
check to see if anyone followed.
    She stopped, waited, listened, peered around corners,
backtracked and carried on, never moving in a straight line. Always
she watched her back. Always she expected to be surprised at any
moment.
    It took hours to get anywhere close to my place.
    Nothing and no one appeared to follow her. As she got
closer, she began to relax just a bit. When it came time to pound
on my door in the dark, she went on heightened alert. Caitrin knew
I’d be on high alert, too. When I opened the door without so much
as a word, it shocked her into a panic attack.
    She knew she’d be safe once inside. She still had an
inkling in the back of her mind that she was taking a chance that I
would even go to the door without knowing who was there.
    Her story had come out in a mad spatter of words,
hurried, as if she stopped to take a breath she’d forget what came
next. I had a solution for that. I opened a bottle of brandy and
poured her a shot. Caitrin gulped it down and asked for another. I
obliged, and she downed that in an instant, too.
    —That’s enough. Go on over to the sofa and try to
relax. I’m going to clean up.
    She collapsed on the sofa. When I came back she was
asleep, quietly snoring. I covered her with a blanket and sat
beside her. Whether on purpose or not, she fell over and her head
ended up resting against my shoulder.
    I arranged the blanket to cover both of us and
watched the fire die.
     
    It was the sound of water running in the bathroom
that woke me. I was unaccustomed to waking up so late in the day. I
also wasn’t accustomed to having company two days in a row.
    Caitrin must have fired up the generator on her own.
The only sounds I’d grown used to hearing were my own, and they
didn’t include a hairdryer doing its job on Caitrin’s long, dark
hair.
    For some reason, that simple act on her part, that
starting up the generator, pleased me. I began to think that there
might be some hope for us to work together more often.
    She must have rummaged around my room, because she
came out wearing an old t-shirt. A pair of great-looking, long legs
hung out from the bottom of the thigh-length shirt. She caught me
looking for longer than I probably should have.
    —Don’t you be getting any ideas. It’s been too long
since I last relaxed in safety. That’s all I want to do today.
    —That’s all right with me. Whatever the look you