That All Men Are

Chapter 3: Pursuit

Liliana slips her head inside the door.  "Cam?  Are... Are you awake?"

He lies on his side, facing away from the door.  The blankets are pulled up only to his waist, showing hideous scars lacing his back from his time in the basement.  She cringes.  Since telling Mr. Hartford that she would have the operation, Cam hasn't said a word to her.  That was two weeks ago.

She takes a short step into the room before hesitating.  "Calum?"

The single-sized bed creaks as he rolls over to look at her through sleepy eyes.  His mouth is a thin line.  He yanks the sheet up to his shoulder as he flips back to the other side, ignoring her.

"Cam, please.  I don't want to fight with you."

"Let me sleep," he says, his voice rough to make it sound like a growl.

Sighing a little, she walks further in to the room and shuts the door.  "I'm sorry," she whispers.  "But you understand why I'm doing this, right?  It's not to hurt you.  This will be huge for the rebellion if I can manage to retain my own thoughts, which I will.  It'll give us someone very on the inside, not just people like that guy who got us here in the first place."  Liliana twists her fingers, looking at the floor.  She had never made him mad at her in the past, not after the first attack on Los Angeles and not before.  "I'm sorry.  I'll leave."  She turns lightly, opening the door.

Her room is hot, just like the rest of the compound.  Just like the rest of the Other-infested cities.  She walks to the window, which has iron bars on the outside and a view of a new city beyond that.  The lights are all dimmed.  When she was nine, her family had taken a trip to the same city to visit her grandparents.  At that time, the lights had been magnificent.  Her mother had said they were fairies in the distance.  She smiles a little to herself.  Rotating her body again, she looks at her personal room.  A single bed, neatly fixed, and cream-colored walls.  The floor is dark wood, and the fan in the middle of the ceiling is spinning on the lowest speed.  Liliana sits on the bed, her feet on the floor.

As children, Cam had always been nice to Liliana.  She was allowed to tag along on all of their short trips around the neighborhood because of his words to Helena.  Liliana would see the way she looked at him and knew there were more than just friendly feelings sitting below the surface, but Cam hadn't acknowledged those thoughts.  He treated her the same as he treated Liliana until the attack, when his stolen words were whispered to her ears alone and they shared more time together than Helena cared to observe.

I should've told him, Liliana thinks.  He needs to know.  It'll stop him from being mad at me.  Cam, Chloe and the others are meant to leave tomorrow night, and he doesn't even know-

The door slides open with barely a sound, but enough to catch her attention.  Cam is standing just outside her door, a gray shirt pulled over his formerly bare torso and lightweight black pants hanging low on his hips.  In the few weeks of his release from torture in the basement, he has regained a bit of the muscle he lost, and his eyes no longer look like hollow blue holes in his face.  For once in a long time, he looks his nineteen years of age, shadows under his cheekbones and an odd sort of wisdom in his eyes.  She sees his Adam's apple bob.  "Lilly..."

She gulps, grinning to herself.  Lilly had been her nickname from him as a child when Helena wasn't around.  On days where her older sister was sick or had homework and couldn't play with them.  It was a name only he had used.  Memories of whispers to her in group movies during junior high and finding him in hide-and-seek flood her head.  She stands up, going around the bed, and slips her arms around his middle.

"I'm going with y'all tomorrow," she says in to his chest.  His arms slip behind her back, holding her tight.  "I'll leave with-"

Her words stop as heavy steps tread up the stairs at the end of the hall.  Cam pushes her farther in to the room, peeking down the short corridor.  Mr. Hartford had ordered that she and Cam not be disturbed.  From another part of the compound she hears the start of shouts, muffled heavily through the thick wood walls and floors.  There is a gasp as someone breaks through to the top of the stairwell.