Free The White Renegade (Viral Airwaves) by Claudie Arseneault Page A

the river. I might feel human once I’m clean.”
    His friend patted his shoulder briefly, then motioned toward the hard ground on the other side of the tree. Seraphin stretched one last time. He was eager to get out of his dirtied clothes, but he suspected he would need to take extra care with his spares and decided to wait until he was clean to change. He settled down near the tree, setting his back against the gray trunk. Alex grabbed their red jacket and, to his surprise, they snuck into Seraphin’s arms. He held his breath a moment.
    “Are you sure about this?”
    “Oh hush, Seraphin. You need to hug the heck out of someone, and I’m here. Don’t worry about the rest.”
    Seraphin smiled a little, and for a moment he thought he’d cry again. Instead the emotion remained stuck in his throat. He snuggled against Alex, one arm wrapped around them while the other rested under his head. Alex pulled the red jacket over them as a blanket of sorts, then wished him a good night. The sun was shining high above, but the moment Alex shielded them with the jacket, Seraphin closed his eyes and exhaustion caught up to him.

    *

    They slept together, Seraphin squeezed between the tree at his back and Alex in his arms. He was spared nightmares about his family or the previous night, and breezed through a handful of hours of sweet unconsciousness. When Alex shook his shoulder and whispered his name, Seraphin moaned against the return of throbbing pain. His head weighed twice as much as usual, and every muscle had stiffened into rigid bars. He rolled over, groaned, and swore. Alex couldn’t suppress a chuckle.
    “Rough day ahead?” they asked.
    “I guess.” Seraphin couldn’t quite bring himself to care. It could only get better, no? After all he’d endured, a few hours of painful walking wouldn’t kill him. He could stay on his feet until nightfall. That was all that mattered now: staying alive. “I can handle it.”
    “No doubts about that,” Alex said. “If you ask me, you can handle anything. What will be next?”
    The compliment made Seraphin smile. He sat up and massaged his legs. “I’m not sure. I’ll lay low for a while, find a dye that’ll hide the white hair, maybe go into Ferrys to see what the Union is like from the inside. I refuse to believe it’s all rotten.”
    “Next time you go after someone, you better let me help you.” Alex dropped the supply pack next to him, then snatched their jacket. For the first time, Seraphin heard the bitterness in their tone. “I might not walk into an army’s camp to shoot their general, but I’m not standing by and watching you do it again.”
    “You didn’t just stand by.” Seraphin poked his bag of supplies, then started rummaging through it. “Without you I would have nothing. No extra coat for winter, no food—”
    “Nothing to clean your pistol and recharge it, no solar burner to cook food, and no extra socks. I know that.”
    “There’s more. Alex if I had never met you, I would never have had the courage to do this. I might’ve been wrong about joining the Union army—heck, I’m probably wrong about a lot of things, a lot of the time. But at least I trust myself enough to act, and try , instead of letting doubts fester. And that’s because of you.”
    Stern had spoken of a little voice screaming, while Alex had stated they hadn’t felt right until they stopped trying to fit with one particular gender. In the end, both were saying the same thing: if he wanted to be happy, he’d have to trust his instincts first.
    Alex didn’t answer right away. They studied Seraphin in silence, then smiled a little. “All I’m saying is, I prepared this pack thinking it’d never be used, and that’s one of the worst feelings in the universe.”
    Seraphin almost apologized, but the words died on his lips. He wasn’t sorry, not really. He had done what he needed to, and he was thankful for Alex’s support. His hand wrapped around his pistol, and he took a