Free Swarm by Lauren Carter

smoke, he left the room. I watched his body move away, the long, hard muscles in his legs, and felt suddenly ravenous, like I could never get enough to eat.
    The books were swollen from being soaked and dried, dropped in a bath or left out in the elements. I pulled out one called Pirate Nights , an old library code still stuck to the spine. The pages smelled musty as I crumpled them and lay them in the hearth. When I had enough paper I put a couple pieces of kindling on top but I couldn’t keep it burning. The pages blackened and went out, over and over again, their edges curling into ineffective ash. Frustrated, I looked toward the door that Marvin had gone through and then at the wall where the map was posted, the one I’d noticed before Marvin had kissed me the night before. The stars had stopped glittering. I gave up on the fire and went to look at it, arms wrapped tightly around me to try to keep warm. One star was stuck to the place we’d been the night before, where Marvin had broken the window of the travel agency. When he came back in the room, carrying two mugs, I pointed at the map and asked, “What is this?”
    â€œWhat happened with the fire?”
    â€œI couldn’t get it going.”
    From the way he looked, I could tell he was judging me, that I hadn’t lived up to his expectations. He set the coffee down on the mantle and pulled his jeans, the knees torn and patched, over his long underwear. “Let me show you,” he said, and I walked over. I reached for the coffee. “Not yet,” Marvin said, from his crouch on the ground. “Watch.”
    He built a thick tepee of sticks around the balls of paper. The fire caught quickly and we sat watching the flames. Gradually, as he added wood, my body began to grow warm and the strong, black coffee tasted like a long-ago treat from childhood: chocolate or sugary soda pop. Marvin lit a cigarette and I reached for a drag.
    â€œDon’t blame me when you get hooked.”
    I smiled, sucking in the velvety smoke. I thought of asking him about the map again, but I didn’t. Probably I didn’t really want to know. “Where’s Chiapas?” I asked instead.
    Marvin reached for the side of a picture frame and snapped it over his knee. He fed it to the fire, one part at a time. When I handed him back his cigarette, he laid it on a mortared groove between the bricks of the hearth and broke up more kindling. “Why?”
    â€œI’m curious.”
    But he didn’t tell me. He nodded toward the map. “Jump Ship. That’s where they’ve hit.” My back was turned to the wall where it was posted. I cupped my hands around the warm mug. He shoved a sharp piece of wood into the flames. I didn’t know what to say. I felt uneasy, a burn in my throat forming from the acidic drink. “You follow them?” I finally asked. My mind scrambled around the details I knew, their few targets: a gas station, a bank machine, a car dealership. They were small bombs, minimal damage, no victims, the reasons never given. At least not through the media.
    Marvin’s hand flicked toward my coffee. “More?”
    â€œNo, thank you.”
    He scowled slightly and I again noticed the lines around his mouth. “There isn’t much left,” he muttered. When he spoke again, his voice came out flat, without inflection. “Chiapas is a state in Mexico,” he said, his eyes following the motions of his hand: twirling the end of his cigarette against the brick, carving off the brittle edge of the ember. “Phoenix’s mother was part of a non-violent revolutionary group called Las Abejas. Thomson went there as a human rights observer. He met Phoenix’s mom. They got married.”
    â€œHow old was Phoenix?”
    â€œSix, I think. Seven. I was also just a kid.”
    â€œWere you there?”
    Marvin shook his head.
    â€œWhat about her dad?”
    â€œHe was a casualty,”