A Cog In The Machine | ONC 2021

Chapter Nine

"We never do anything, anyway." Luz looks outside, too. "You guys send Cogs to come and fix this place, but we just make it worse."

I blink, listening to her.

"So, it's raining, big deal." She looks at me. "Rain ain't never hurt anyone."

I used to say the same thing, but I remembered... it can hurt. Not because of what we've gone through in the past few hours, not because of the drama outside. I want to tell her the story about a Cog who traveled back thousands of years to save Earth. It rained for forty days and forty nights, and only one man with his family and farm animals survived. I know she knew of the story; I'd seen it on human television. But it was told in dramatic form.

There wasn't one of every animal. And the man just got lucky because he had a boat. A big boat. The clockwork system had crashed entirely that time and the Cog summoned spent a year of his life repairing it. Humans recovered after the damage. But Earth? And that man?

I single-handedly ruined the greatest repair.

"Rain is always a warning." I close my hand around the watch and hiss. "Rain is—"

"Would you stop doing that?" Luz puts the coffee down to take the watch out of my hand. Parts of it have my blood on it. There are small cuts on my hand. With the deep, long sigh, Luz walks me over towards the kitchen sink. "Holding on to that watch won't make this better," she says.

She runs warm water over my palm. I watch it clean my wounds as pink drops land in the sink. "I'm at a loss, Luz."

She reaches for a clean towel hanging on the cabinet. With one pass over my hand, she dries my wounds. "I can see that."

I'm unsure of what to say. I can only watch her nurse my slight cuts, clean them, and place another clean towel in the palm of my hand. She closes my fingers around it. Then she closes her hand over mine. "So, you made a mistake, big deal," she says, looking up into my eyes. "People fuck up all the time."

I bite my lip.

She cocks a brow. "And I know you didn't become a Cog for nothing, right? This you." She glances outside before focusing on me again. "All this, all this time and rain and clock shit, is you? Right?"

Without finding the right words, I nod. I can only agree. She's right. I'm a Cog and my one job revolves around the occurrences outside.

Luz pulls my hand against her chest, cradling it there. She never breaks our gaze. I feel my cheeks burn as I see a new determination in her eyes. "All right then, you know what you got to do, right?"

"I..." A lot of possibilities pass through my head. Many revolve around my own safety. Her wellbeing.

As if she knew the answer I would give, and deemed it the wrong one, Luz shakes her head before inching closer. The tips of her shoes are right on top of mine, chest to mine, simply separated by our hands. Yet, even with that between us, I can feel her heartbeat. "You're going to fix the clock," she says, sternly, proudly. "Do your job and even if they still punish you, you did what was right."

My brows lift. The weight of my mistakes slides off me because what Luz says is true. I can deal with my crimes, the repercussions, as long as I fix this before it gets worse.

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"Just put these on."

Luz's bedroom is smaller than the motel room I rented on Earth. The bed is close to the window. There is barely any room for the television in the corner. Her closet takes up most of the wall space and inside of it is too many clothes, many that can't possibly be hers.

The shirt and pants she lay on the bed are men's clothes. The hoodie she places beside them is even bigger. I glance at them, curiously dipping my head, before I look at her with my brows raised. "Who do these belong to?" I ask.

Luz is crouched inside her closet, pulling out boxes with shoes. She takes out three before seeing one she can possibly pass to me. A set of sneakers are in her hands as she stands. "My brother."

"Brother?" I reach for the shirt and hold it against my chest. It looks like it can fit. "I didn't know you have a brother."

"Had," she says with a weak smile. "He did some things he shouldn't have and well," she shrugs, "I couldn't just toss his clothes because I lost him."

I frown, dropping the shirt slightly.

Luz shakes her head and places the sneakers on the bed. "But you're soaking wet and if we're going to go back out there, you need different clothes. Even if they'll get wet again, those alien things can't just detect you on sight. You'll look different at least."

She has a point. Without my Cog watch, the only way to find me is by spotting me in public. The rain will not obscure their vision enough, but different clothes might help. At this point, I'll take call the help I can get.

"So, change into those these clothes and then we'll go back outside," Luz says as she walks past me.

Yet, what she says makes me reach out and grab her arm. When she looks at me, I shake my head. "You've done enough for me, Luz. You're not going out there with me this time."

Batting her lashes at me, she laughs. "I'm coming with, and you can't stop me."

I drop the shirt and hold her with two hands. My grip isn't hard, but I know she can tell I'm worried. I keep her close to me as I look into her eyes. "You can't, Luz. I can't risk it."

Despite me holding her, Luz slides her arms out of my hands. Rather than move away, she comes closer. Her arms wrap around my back, hands sliding up my neck. I feel her fingertips on my skin as she tilts my head down to look into my eyes better. Deeper. I gulp as I hold her gaze. "Luz..." I breathe.

"You can't risk it," she says, biting her lip. "And I can't either."

"What..." I shake my head again. "Luz..."

"The last time I let someone leave this house after they told me to stay behind, they died." Luz closes her eyes and takes in a deep breath. "I wasn't there to save my brother." Her eyes open. I feel so much love and care in her gaze. "But let me be there to save you."

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A/N: Luz won't let Frank save the world by himself... <3