Medusa maneuvered herself firmly on top of him and stuffed a fistful of icy snow down the back of his tunic. Tom shook her off and tried to recapture her before she flitted away from him, but she was too swift and darted out of his reach.
He heaved himself to his feet and shook out his tunic, laughing. She grinned at him savagely from across the leaping flames.
“My ploy worked,” Tom told her. “You like that fire now.”
She cocked her head. “Your fire’s at my mercy. I could put it out and ditch the sim.”
Tom sobered up. “I don’t care about the fire. Don’t go.”
Medusa said nothing. The flames glittered in her black eyes. Their skirmish had tousled her hair, and he could see the scarring she tended to hide under locks of dark hair from the side of her head where she had most of it. His gaze traced over it, and Medusa seemed to realize what he was looking at. She turned her head away.
“No, wait,” Tom said, circling to her side of the fire. “You don’t have to . . . I mean, I thought you don’t care if . . .”
“I don’t.”
He stood there a moment, dismayed, uncertain what to do. Then he reached out for her, and she flinched back.
“What, you said you don’t care,” Tom pointed out. “Either you care or you don’t care what I’m seeing.”
“I’ve had this since I was very young, Tom.” Her voice was acidic. “I am used to it. So, no, I don’t care anymore.”
“So why are you upset when I—”
“It’s different with you.”
The implication slammed him: he’d done this. He had to fix it.
This time, he took her gently by the shoulder before she could pull back. When he lifted his palm to brush the dark strands of her hair aside, her hand flew to the sword in his scabbard. Tom let her draw it if she wanted to. Soon, he could see her face, that mass of burn scar tissue twisting its way from her scalp, down her features.
She stood there, utterly rigid, and he was vaguely aware of the sword wavering indecisively between them, like she couldn’t decide whether to sink it into him or toss it aside. Tom’s hand hovered over her cheek. He wasn’t sure whether this was okay, so he stayed that way, feeling the warmth radiating from her skin.
“Does it hurt?” he asked her.
Her black eyes flashed up to his. The point of the sword bit into his abdomen. “The nerves are dead. What do you think?”
Tom opened and closed his mouth a few times before getting the words out. “I lost all my fingers. They froze.” He felt embarrassed admitting this, but he held his hands up, the only offering he had. “And I know the nerves are dead and they’re not even there anymore, so I’m imagining it, but sometimes they hurt. It’s weird. It’s stupid.”
Medusa considered him, and he was aware of the sword sliding back down. She planted it in the ground by her feet. “I shouldn’t have tried to kick out your fire.”
“You were right. It would’ve gotten me killed.”
She lowered herself next to the crackling flames and tugged on his trouser leg, so he sank down next to her. They faced each other in the wavering golden light, and Medusa took his hand, then raised it so it hovered near her jaw again.
“I don’t feel anything,” she told him.
This time, Tom brushed his palm over the scar tissue. Strange. He’d expected something hard or rough. But it was cool, even soft in places. There was something about seeing the burn so close, feeling it, that diminished it in his mind. It shrank away as that shocking thing seen only in fleeting, stolen glimpses, and soon all he could see was the girl across from him, with this one more aspect rendering her . . . well, far from ordinary.
“You haven’t tried to guess my name today,” Medusa pointed out.
“Oh, yeah. Forgot.” Then he threw one out. “Wu Tang.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s your most pitiful guess yet.”
Tom leaned in and whispered, “Tell me your real name and I’ll stop coming up with bad guesses.”
She shoved him lightly. “You can’t coerce me with bad guesses.”
“I can try, Murgatroid.”
“Murgatroid?” She started laughing. “Is that even a name? It’s not Cantonese.”
Tom watched her and his brain seemed to short out. He wasn’t sure what to blame for it later. Maybe he temporarily lost his mind because Medusa was so close to him. Maybe his mind blurred at the sight of fire dancing in her black irises.
Maybe there simply was nothing sensible in his head in that moment, nothing to stop him. He reached over and drew her into his arms, feeling her fragile shoulders tense against his palms, then he dipped his head to hers and claimed her lips in his own.
The last time they had kissed, Tom had been in VR; he hadn’t felt a thing. His mind had buzzed with the realization he was kissing her, and maybe that’s why some part of him hadn’t been fully present.
Not this time.
Her body softened against his, and to the tips of his toes Tom experienced this liquid elation, this utter rightness like he’d never felt before. His palm stroked up her back, cupped the hot skin of her neck, fingers twining into her silken black hair. The world seemed to go still and there was nothing under the crisp, starry sky of Siberia but Medusa, the feel of her, the taste of her, and need roared up within him as he tightened his grip and deepened the kiss.
Trainee voices rang through the air. “It looks like the fire’s coming from over there!”
Tom’s eyes snapped open.
For a moment, he gazed right into her black eyes, inches from his, and he felt the moment he lost her, when every muscle in her body tensed and drew rigid. Then she planted her palms against his chest and shoved him back. He didn’t move as she bounded to her feet.
Tom still couldn’t move, couldn’t budge, perched there by the fire like someone had paralyzed him. He felt like someone had sliced down his torso and exposed his guts to the air, his skeleton. Medusa stared at him like she couldn’t wrap her head around what he’d done, then she waved her hand and vanished from his sight.
The Russians swarmed over the ridge and the arrows began thunking into the ground around Tom, but he still sat there, a great hollow in his chest.
THE DAY CAME when Tom grew certain he could distinguish between the very basic sensory perceptions of his new fingers. Because his brain could associate different types of prickling with softness, sharpness, and that sort of thing, he was now ready for a program to fool his brain into perceiving at least an approximation of the old sensations.
Unfortunately, this involved going to Blackburn.
Tom knocked on his door one evening and stepped into his quarters on the officers’ floor with trepidation. It wasn’t that he felt hostile or distrustful toward Blackburn right now. That would’ve been okay. Easy. The problem was, he knew Blackburn had saved his life, and he remembered Blackburn getting him warm and . . . well, making him feel safe. Less afraid.
It was too messed up, what with the census device still vivid in his brain, far too recent. Tom preferred not to feel profoundly indebted to him. It was easier to avoid him altogether.
Now he stood there awkwardly as Blackburn plopped a case of supplies out on his table and beckoned Tom over. Tom had never seen inside Blackburn’s quarters before and it wasn’t what he would’ve expected at all. The man had been at the Pentagonal Spire almost four years now, but the walls and shelves were bare, the only real furniture a table, some chairs, and a TV. There was a scraggly, undecorated Christmas tree Blackburn obviously hadn’t gotten around to taking down yet.