Wiped by Nicola Claire Page A

and then Alan murmured, out of the side of his mouth in a overloud mock whisper, “Try harder. She’s not falling for it.”
    Trent offered his best friend a hard glare and then turned back to look at me. His eyes briefly took in the audience we had. And there it was, real emotion. Embarrassment mixed with anxiety. He was covering the truth with a lie.
    I knew Trent. I knew what he’d had to be to keep the rebels alive. To keep them going. At times, there’d only been a handful of them. At others, there’d been more than fifty. He’d adjusted his management techniques to accommodate the numbers, or lack thereof. He’d been what was needed when it was needed. No questions asked.
    He could be hard and unforgiving. Motivational and inspiring. A friend or a teacher. He’d played the roles that were necessary in order to keep them fighting.
    But what was he fighting here? Me?
    No. He was fighting his part, the character he’d been forced to play. He was fighting the role of rebel leader.
    “Baby,” he said, but I held my hand up for him to stop. The more he said, the worse it got. Alone we could be honest with each other. But we couldn’t be alone right now. The fact that he’d come at all should have meant something. Either he was trying to protect me again, which would make me infinitely mad. Or he was really trying to reach out to me. To meet me halfway. To back me up. To be what I needed him to be.
    It was hard to trust my head when my heart was hurting. But the bottom line was without Trent this meant nothing. Life. Liberty. Chasing our past, changing our future. Without Trent it would be a hollow victory.
    I turned my attention to the children, effectively shutting down the conversation for now. We’d talk later. I’d reassure my heart later… that, in fact, he’d meant everything.
    Trent was not an easy person to get inside of, to get behind the façade he kept between him and the world at large. But despite the cover he wore, despite the role he insisted he play in public, if I let myself, if I trusted in what I felt, I could see. Him. The man beneath the label.
    Just like he usually saw the woman beneath The Zebra.
    “Do you know who we are?” I said in D’maru. A dozen large eyes blinked slowly. “Do you know where we’ve come from?” Nothing.
    I felt Trent walk up to my side; a show of solidarity. It meant more than the confession. And maybe that was the answer; trust in his actions and not the words he was forced to utter.
    I glanced at him, but his attention was on the children. He studied them with a calculated look. Took in their appearance, their location, the entire situation, in one sweep of his laser-sharp eyes.
    “Do you speak Anglisc?” he asked. Nothing.
    “Wáitaměi?” I tried. “Mahiah,” I added out of desperation when we got blank looks unanimously.
    No one said anything for several seconds, and then Trent turned to face me. Arms back across his chest, the move not defensive but more contemplative. He stared at me for a suspended moment, and then he whispered quietly, “Care to test a theory?”
    I arched a brow, but nodded my head; just once. I was still a little angry.
    He reached forward and tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. My traitorous body betrayed me; swaying into his touch willingly. I tried to straighten, to pull back, but Trent shook his head. Minutely. But I saw it. I also saw the hunger in his eyes. A hunger that hadn’t diminished in all the time I’d known him. Just intensified, like a fire burning out of control. Banked on occasion, but an inferno when let free.
    There was no denying Trent desired me, but what with his behaviour lately, I sometimes wondered if he did in fact love me.
    “Baby,” he murmured. “You are everything.”
    I searched his face for a clue, for a hint that he wasn’t acting. He looked sincere. But he was putting on a show, of that I was certain.
    “This is hardly the place or time,” Cardinal Beck interrupted. “We are