Free Finch by Jeff VanderMeer by Jeff VanderMeer Page A

over on
his back. Sintra turned with him so she was nestled under his left
arm. A surge of happiness startled him. Through the window: dim
light creating shadows out of the darkness. Her brown skin somehow
luminous against it. She'd told him she was half nimblytod, half
dogghe. Tribes that had lived in Ambergris since before settlement.
Before the gray caps.
    Even in the darkness, Finch knew her face. Thick, expressive
eyebrows. Green eyes. Full lips. A thin scar across the left cheek he'd
never gotten her to talk about. A nose a little too long for her face,
which gave her a questioning look.
    An exotic lilt to the ends of her sentences as she whispered in his
ear: "I let myself in. I wasn't trying to startle you."
    He started to get up, to lock the door. She pushed him back down.
    "I locked the door behind me. No one else can get in."
    Finch stopped resisting her. The key was the greatest act of trust
between them. Was that good or bad?
    "Sintra," he said sleepily, bringing his right arm around to cup
one warm breast. "I could get used to you. I really could." Not really
listening to what he was saying. Still waking up. Reduced to the kind of meaningless words he'd mouthed at fifteen. Having sex in his room
with the neighbor's daughter while his father was out.

    "You could get used to me?" she said.
    When mock-angry with him, she raised her eyebrows in a way
he loved.
    "A bad joke," he said. Hugged her closer. "I'm already used to you."
Kissed the top of her head. Relaxed against her, the shudder that had
been building up overtaking him. Then gone.
    Then, more awake: "Let's escape. Tonight."
    He'd worked it out in his head hundreds of times. Along the shore
of the HFZ at dusk. A rowboat. Not a motorboat. To the end of the
bay. Then either west to the Kalif's empire or south to Stockton. West
because it was easier to get through the security zones in the desert.
He knew places there. Places his father had shown him on maps.
    Escape. Now.
    Imagined she was grimacing, there, in the dark. The way she always
did when he mentioned it.
    "Bad night?" she asked.
    "Just don't betray me," the man said, and took Finch's hand.
    "Confusing night."
    "Tell me later."
    Then she was kissing him and he was kissing her. Tongue curled
against tongue. The salt of her in his mouth. A hunger. A need. His
hand between her muscular thighs. His cock in her hand. A pulse.
A current that made him want to touch, to kiss, every part of her.
Warmth and softness at his fingertips. Burning in her hand. An intake
of breath. A little sighing cry. He turned and turned until he was
above her, his forearms brushing her shoulders. Moaned as he slid
into her and kept kissing her. Dissolving his poisoned thoughts. Not
thinking at all. Becoming someone else.
    She felt so good that he had to stop for a moment. Locked his
elbows to hold himself up over her, looked into her eyes, her hands
on his chest.
    "I love your neck," he said, and kissed it. "And your eyes." Kissed
her eyelids. He could see her better now, light colonizing shadows.
    She wasn't smiling back. Wasn't responding.

    "John," she said, looking worried. "John, you're crying blood."
    She wiped a too-dark tear away with her finger.
    "Am I?" he said, trying to smile, and came with a long shuddering
groan before the thought could hit him.
    Occupational hazard.
    Later. Lying in bed together. Feral pushing his head against a bedpost,
already wanting breakfast. The blood tears had stopped almost as
soon as they'd started. Remembered Wyte had told him it could be
an after-effect of eating memory bulbs. It hadn't hurt. It had just
surprised him. He'd daubed his eyes clean with a bathroom towel.
Had stared for a moment at the worn face of the stranger trapped in
the cracked mirror.
    A desert fortress. An army of silent gray caps. And Ethan Bliss,
Frankwrithe & Lewden's top man for so many years.
    Pushed the thoughts aside. Sintra would have to leave soon. The place
on the