Leyla sat on the staircase and began to scoot herself down each step.
She bit her tongue as her triceps ached and trembled each time she lifted herself off the step and lowered onto the next.
At the bottom of the stairs Ezekiel was moving from one end of the kitchen to the other. Incongruent sounds followed in his wake; the opening of a drawer, scraping of a pot against the counter as he placed it on a stove.
There were a few clicks and the hissing of gas that she caught a whiff of in the air as he lit it.
By the time Leyla sat on the third step from the bottom her arms were achy but the pain quickly faded into the background as her eyes landed on the room. It was wooden from the walls to the ceiling and floor, a few mismatched rugs had been placed on the otherwise bare food.
The living room had a sofa and single chair and a low table whose foot was propped with a set of tattered books. Leyla leaned forward and peered from around the wall at Ezekiel who was busy washing a few withered looking vegetables in the sink.
His sleeves were rolled up, a stained kitchen towel slung over one shoulder.
She studied the back of his head where hair curled from the hot shower, trailing down the grey shirt clinging to his shoulder blades and the faint line of his spine and finally his jeans and bare feet.
Ezekiel turned, and she began to lean back out of sight when his dark eyes cut in her direction.
Leyla tensed, bracing as if for impact. But his brief stare was only acknowledgment, skimming over her as lightly as a feather before he reached for the knife.
She scooted to the final step with her broken leg extended onto the floor like a log.
"What are you cooking?"
Ezekiel tested the edge of it against his thumb and with a slight nod of approval began to cut the carrots in a linear manner.
"Something other than oats."
Leyla, whose eyes had been fixated on the blur of his hands wielding the knife, blinked up at his back. A small puddle of heat spread over her chest.
"I don't mind your oats." She muttered.
Ezekiel tossed the vegetables into the steel pot and a sizzle resounded across the room. She watched as he opened a drawer and removed a few tins of spices, tossing some into the pot and giving it a stir. Eventually a warm smell began to pervade the room and Leyla didn't realize that she was hungry until her stomach growled.
He opened the fridge, bending low as white light washed over his countenance. When he straightened again he was holding a block of meat wrapped in brown paper.
It looked fresh, the blood having pooled at the bottom and dripping down his inner wrist as he walked back to the skin.
Its flesh had a rough texture that resisted the knife's blade briefly and a thin layer of fat, nearly translucent.
"Chicken?" She offered in timid curiosity.
The knife paused over the slab of beef.
A moment of silence passed over their heads. Leyla wondered if she had done something wrong. She tried to search his profile but it was still hidden by his partial turn.
"Beef." He countered slicing the meat in half.
He cut them into cubes and tossed them into the pot, stirring on occasion. He still wasn't looking at her, if anything she may have been invisible from the way he circumvented the room.
Leyla was fine with it.
She remained sitting on the step as he pulled out two bowls from the top cabinet, the brief movement of him reaching lifted his grey shirt revealing his abdominal wall. Lean and littered with scars, a line running down the flow of his hip and disappearing beneath his waistband.
Suddenly she remembered something.
The heat of water and his palm splayed over her naked chest. His other hand cradling her jaw to keep her from slipping into the water.
Leyla shook her head.
He set the table with two bowls and a basket of bread at the center which she looked at for a drawn moment. Ezekiel sat and began to eat without preamble.
"Do you need help?" He asked with his eyes on the bread.
Leyla blinked, "What?"
Ezekiel looked at the empty chair then her.
Oh.
"I'm fine." Using the wall as a prop she hobbled across the kitchen and carefully sat on the chair, staring at the glistening bowl of beef stew with a few stray carrots bobbing up and down.
It was thick and smelled decadent.
And she stared after him, watching those deft fingers tear the bread apart and dip into the stew.
"Do you have a spoon?"
Ezekiel sucked his thumb, thoughtful eyes on her.
Leyla tried to smile but fell short of something sheepish.
Wordlessly he rose and opened a drawer removing a spoon. He paused and picked a fork as well before handing them to her and sitting back down.
After a moment Leyla reached for the bread and mimicked his behavior of tearing it in half. It was dry and brittle but held a softness which sunk when she pinched it. Spooning a mouthful of the soup into her mouth, she paused as the taste sunk in and nodded involuntarily.
Her mind narrowed down to the one task of completing the meal not realizing that Ezekiel had leaned back and was watching as she took the first mouthful of beef, chewing long and hard.
"Where are you heading?"
Leyla's spoon paused. She began to look up at him but settled for his hands and, with a mouthful, hummed out an inaudible hngh?
"You were going somewhere before the accident, were you not?"
The food in her mouth turned to mush.
Leyla chewed it slowly, biding time as her mind scrambled for the right words to say. What was he getting at?
"There's… there's a few towns with people— humans." The spoon went around and around her bowl.
Ezekiel tore a piece of bread, his dark eyes heavy on her. "Who told you that?"
"I saw it on maps."
Bacardi has simply shown her the maps of their nations during his jovial moments— ones that were rare in occurrence. He had removed the maps and allowed her to stand from her kneeling position, beckoning her towards the old pieces spread out on his study desk.
See, he was pointing specifically at the highways that cut through the nation. I designed those.
An engineer, he called himself that.
Leyla didn't know how he had made them and quickly drowned out his voice when her eyes found the little markings on the pages. They had names as well. Some in red, others in white, and most in black.
When she had asked him what the markings were, he shrugged offhandedly and tossed a comment that imprinted itself into her mind.
Free-range fortresses. A program allowed by the government where a certain amount of humans were allowed to survive, and perhaps thrive.
Free range. Leyla rolled that word around her mind while looking at Ezekiel's plate. A fortress for humans.
"Did your owner show you the maps?"
She nodded.
With his eyes still on the bread, he spoke. "And how do you plan on getting there?"
"My car–" Leyla began then hesitated as a memory of the car wrecked against the tree surfaced. "I can walk."
"Do you have a map?"
"No."
"Do you know where it is?"
"No."
The chair creaked as he leaned back and lifted the glass to his lips taking a slow, pointed sip.
Leyla watched his throat bob with each swallow. "I was hoping to find a map."
"A map"
"Of the nation, maybe I would be able to pinpoint the exact location."
"I see."
"Do you have one?" she asked, hope in her eyes.
Ezekiel gave her a flat look. "Do I have a map?"
"Yes."
"No. I don't."
"Would you know anyone who does?"
An incredulous look dawned on him, silence dragging long enough that Leyla wondered if she had asked the wrong thing.
"You want a map that shows exactly where humans live."
"Yes."
"And this map," he rested his cheek against his fist, gesturing lazily, "is accessible to any animal."
"Yes."
"…animals that prey on humans."
Leyla's brows knit, her smile thinning into uncertainty. "...yes."
She expected more from him but his attention returned to the plate at hand and he ate, the rhythm of it normal, as though he had not had a conversation with her. She followed suit, scooping the food into her mouth and eating the bread occasionally glancing in his direction.
When dinner was over Ezekiel gathered the dishes and dumped them into the sink. The roaring water filled the room as he washed and rinsed, stacking them neatly on the rack.
Leyla remained sitting with her hands flat on the table, relishing the fullness of her belly. It had been a while since she ate in such a way, much less sat on a dining table eating.
He pivoted for the door, brushing past her with a simple command; "Come."
"Where are you going?" Leyla had to turn about the waist to watch him head for the door, stopping only to pull on a jacket and his boots.
A gust of wind blew through the home raising goosebumps on her forearms. She cringed back, squinting at his form which disappeared into the swirls of snow.
Leyla stood unsteadily, using the wall and furniture as support as she moved towards the gaping door that slammed against the wall intermittently. It was cold, freezing. The frigid air made her throat feel like knives cutting down.
Grasping the door knob she pushed it close enough for only her head to peer through and searched the land. A light bulb went on, flickering and swaying against the wind and she realized it was the shed.
His silhouette moved inside and disappeared as he ducked low.
Leyla shut the door and hobbled towards the window where she cupped her hands against it like a visor and watched.
Ezekiel appeared moments later balancing two boards of wood over his shoulder.
She held the door open for him as he walked through and set them down in a corner. Divesting the clothes, he crouched low and immediately opened a drawer removing a knife, file and other items.
"What are you doing?"
"I'd prefer you walking and not crawling in my home." Was his reply while measuring out the length of one board and beginning to whittle away.
Leyla stared as the world seemed to narrow down on the man shaving away coils of wood and shaping it. His attention was solely on the structure in his hand, and hers darted between him and the wood in wonder.
Time passed on silent feet.
Leyla had grown tired and settled for the edge of a couch with her foot resting before her. She was still staring at the material molding under his fingers when his voice pulled her out.
"Stand for me."
He was already rising and stepping in her direction with one of the pieces cut down to a certain length. She tried to rise but wobbled slightly – perhaps it was the nervousness of his sudden encroachment— when his hand caught her by the elbow.
"I need to measure your height." His hand dropped once she was steady and placed the wood under her arm, marking the appropriate height with his eyes and internally logging it.
"What are you making?"
Ezekiel was back on the floor cutting and filing down the edges to a smooth blunt shape. "Crutches."
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