Dylan smith's Arc

Chapter 6 of 12

The next day Belinda came back up the path before the sun was high. She carried a stacked tray of food balanced on her belly and walked under a tall stone arch that had not been there the night before. Vines wrapped the arch and gave off a soft blue light. Dylan stood near the stage and watched her pass beneath it. Voracia stood beside him with a glass bottle of soda in one hand. "I built the gate," Voracia said. "Anyone who walks under it knows what they are walking into." Belinda set her tray down and looked around the grounds. A small canvas tent stood off to one side, ropes tied tight, flap pulled open. "Mine?" she asked. Voracia nodded once. Belinda walked over, ducked inside, and came back out a second later wearing a gold chain. A polished number one hung from it, resting on the top of her belly. She tapped the pendant with her thumb. "So they see it," she said. Outside the tent, a small wooden post had been driven into the dirt with the same number burned into the wood. Dylan understood. Anyone coming up the path would read it before they reached him. Voracia gestured at a long table that had not been there a moment before. "Sit," she said to Dylan. He sat. Voracia pointed at the bench beside him. "You. With your food. Next to him." Belinda picked up her tray and dropped onto the bench, hip against his. She pulled the lid off and started in on a roasted bird with both hands. Voracia walked around and sat on Dylan's other side. She set the soda bottle down hard enough to rattle the boards. Voracia took Dylan's left hand and pressed it flat against her own belly. She took his right hand and laid it on Belinda's. "Sit back," Voracia said. "Enjoy yourself. This is what the year looks like." Dylan's palms felt the heat through both of them. Belinda kept eating. Voracia tipped the soda bottle up and drank in long pulls, throat working, until half of it was gone. Belinda set down a bone and turned her head toward him. She let out a burp that came up slow and loud and went on longer than he expected. His hand moved with it. She leaned in without wiping her mouth and kissed him on the lips. She tasted like grease and soda. She pulled back, picked up the bone, and kept eating like nothing had happened. Voracia lowered the bottle. She burped too, deeper, shorter, and the hand under hers jumped. She turned his chin with two fingers and kissed him harder than Belinda had. Dylan sat between them with both hands still where they had been placed. He had wanted this for years and never said it out loud once. Now two women were feeding themselves against his palms and the year had a shape he could see. One chosen. A tent with her number on it. Room on the path for more. He kept his hands where they were and did not move them.