by Keri Lake
“They were murdered.” The words slip out of me as I study their corpses.
“Yes.”
“Who would do such a thing?”
“In the beginning, Legion only took the males. That was before they realized how useful the females would be.”
“Legion?” I rear back and frown at him, the audacity of his response rendering me momentarily confused. “What are you talking about? Legion defended the hives. They fought the marauders that killed and raped.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know quite a bit, actually. My father was Legion. He told me stories of hunting down the marauders and Alphas.”
Holding a stuffed animal he picked up from the rubble, he glances back at me, before tossing it away. “Is that so? Then, perhaps he forgot to tell you the stories of how he’d rip children from their mothers. How the women were raped. The men and boys were forced into experiments at Calico.”
“The hospital?”
Still rifling through the piles of destruction, he produces a pair of boots, which he knocks on the ground, emptying the sand inside, and slides them over his bare feet. “Is that what they called it in Szolen?” He tosses me a daintier pair of shoes, I’m guessing, ones that belonged to the now-dead woman.
I don’t answer him while my mind zips through all of the stories my father told me of his travels to the different hives. “My father …. He said they picked up families from hives. They tried to help them.” The shoes are a bit snug when I slip them on, but worn enough that I suspect they’ll stretch.
“Is that right? You should go back and ask your father what really happened.”
Mouth twisting, I swallow back the flare of anger that rises to my eyes and burns with the threat of tears. “My father is dead. Killed by an Alpha.”
“Then, someone was probably saved in return.”
I barrel into his stomach, shoving as hard as I can against his unmovable body in an effort to stave off the tears. “I don’t give a damn what you say! My father was a good man!”
“So were the fathers he killed. The mothers. The daughters.”
“And how many good people have you killed, huh, Titus?”
Brows flickering with a frown, he looks away.
“Will was good, too.” At the sound of my voice cracking, I inwardly chide myself for nearly coming to tears in front of him, and turn to walk away.
“I didn’t want to kill him,” he says after me. “I tried to make it quick and painless.”
I can’t stop the tears, anymore. Probably due to exhaustion. Weakness from hunger and thirst, as well. If I don’t change the subject, I’ll surely crack soon, and neither of us can afford that. “Where would we find water?”
Instead of answering, Titus strides past me, out of the building, and after another glance back to where the bodies lay, I follow after him.
Chapter 25
It doesn’t take long before the ground turns soft and the quiet trickle of running water brings us to the edge of a creek. Crouching beside it, Titus rinses out the canteen he found back at the abandoned hive and fills it up, offering it to me before he’s even taken a sip himself.
I guzzle back the cool fluids, finishing off what he’s filled, and as he dips it again, I kneel down alongside him to scoop up a handful, which I splash over my face and rub across the back of my neck.
“God, this feels so good.” Another splash of water to my face, and I open my eyes to find Titus staring at me, mid-sip.
As if catching himself, he goes back to drinking the water, before filling the canteen again and capping it.
“I’ll just put this out there now. That, if you get any ideas, I happen to be well-versed in the plants that leave the nastiest rashes.”
“Ideas about what?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know. What all men out here seem to be obsessed with.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, girl. I was just making sure the snake behind you kept moving along.”
“What?” Snapping my head round, I just catch the thin black form gliding toward the grass. “Oh, my … Christ!” I shoot upright, shaking off the shiver that winds down my spine, and reflexively scratch at my back.
“Just a garter snake.”
“A snake is a snake. No matter how harmless they might seem.”
With a snort, he shakes his head and splashes his face one more time. “You’d never survive out here on your own.”
“You’re probably right. But you wouldn’t have survived that jump, either, so I’d zip it.”
“Face of an angel and the bite of a viper.” He pushes to his feet, strapping the canteen across his body. “I never thanked you.”
Seconds pass while I wait for the point of his comment,. I cross my arms, brows winged up. “And?”
“And what?”
“Did you intend to thank me for saving your life?”
“I will when you do.” As he passes me, he knocks my shoulder, and I glare after him.
“When I thank you for what? Carrying me into a two-hundred-foot drop that could’ve easily left me spattered on the rocks below?”
“You’d have preferred I leave you behind for Remus?”
“Of course not. I’m mature enough to be grateful.”
Keeping his back to me, he picks up the path we were on a second ago. “So am I.”
“That didn’t sound grateful, or anywhere in the same realm as a thank you.”
“That’s the best you’re going to get.” He follows along the creek toward tall stalks of cattails and breaks a few off. As he continues on, he grabs sticks and sprigs of dry grass up off the ground, piling them into his arm.
Taking his lead, I do the same, gathering up sticks I’m assuming he plans to use for a fire. “So, are we setting up camp here, or something?”
“Yes. It’s late, but I should be able to hunt something for dinner.”
“What do you hunt out here?” I kneel down to grab some particularly dry-looking stuff, pausing when I catch sight of a spider crawling over it. Shivering, I back myself up and move on to a scattering of thin twigs, instead.
“Squirrels, jackrabbits, birds.”
“You have no weapons.”
He slides the blade he used on me out of his pocket and holds it up in silence. Kneeling to the ground alongside the wall of a mountain, he digs a shallow hole, and piles in the sticks we’ve gathered. Splitting open the cattail, he dumps the fluff onto his pile, then reaches for two stones set on the ground beside his bonfire pit. Smacking them together creates a spark, and after a few tries, he manages to get the fire lit.
“I want you to stay here. Should only take about an hour to hunt something smaller.”
“Um. You want me to stay here? Alone?”
“You’ll be fine for an hour. I won’t have to go far, with the trees just up the path and the water nearby.”
“You mentioned … mountain lions.”
“They’re more afraid of you than you are of them.”
“The attacks on humans would suggest otherwise.”
“There’s plenty of food here. They don’t need an underfed human.”
Wearing a serious frown, I cross my arms to avoid looking down at myself. “Underfed? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Stay put,” he says, ignoring my question. “If lions show up, scream.”
“To scare them away?”
“To alert me that there’s a mountain lion for dinner.”
“Right. So, you’ll be running back here to, what … hunt it with your bare hands?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“I’ll be back.”
Huffing, I pull my knees up and watch him climb up over the rocks of the mountain, toward the woods he pointed out a minute ago. The sweat shines across his bare back, emphasizing the massive muscles that flex with his climb. Jesus in a jumpsuit, does everything he does have to be so distracting?
Frowning, I shake my head of those thoughts,
diverting my attention toward the fire. Stupid. He killed my friend. Snapped his neck like it was nothing for him. So fast, Will probably didn’t even see it coming. I tell myself he did it to be malicious and cruel, but there’s a small niggling voice inside of me that knows it isn’t true. If it was, he’d have made Will suffer. Could’ve easily broken every bone in his body, slowly, just as Agatha commanded of him.
And who knows what both Remus and Agatha combined would’ve done to Will, instead.
I grab a twig from the ground, drawing a series of nested circles, while my head toys with all the cruelties he would’ve been subjected to, including whatever boiling liquid Jarvis suffered. No, a quick death was far less painful. It’s a shame that Agatha forced him to tell her about the two of us, as I had planned to use my fake virginity as a bargaining chip for Will’s freedom, if it came to that.
It’s not as if Will and I were lovers. We were friends. Our love for each other was practical, and rooted in a long-standing history that went back to early elementary school. Sharing myself with him was both awkward and easy, and not the least bit romantic.
I stare off at the flames for a moment, and when I direct my attention down to where I’ve been mindlessly drawing for the last couple minutes, a shock of panic shoots through me when I see I’ve written Titus in the dirt.
After quickly scratching it away, I toss my twig into the growing fire and rest my chin against my folded knees, but spotting movement at the corner of my eye breaks my thoughts, and I whip my head in that direction.
A shadow crawls over the rock, the size of which could possibly be a lion, though I’ve never met one in person. Swallowing a gulp, I back myself to the wall of rock behind me, doing my best to stay out of sight. The shadow lurks again, and as it seems to get closer, it’s definitely an all-fours animal. Every muscle in my body begs me to scream, while it prowls around the corner on a slight hobble.
“No, no, no, no,” I whisper, setting my hands at either side of me.
My heart hammers inside my chest, while the shadow takes shape. Gray fur. Sharp teeth. A pointed muzzle and upright ears. Too big. Way too big to be a dog.
Wolf, maybe?
Oh, my God.
“T … T … Titus.” My voice arrives as a raspy whisper instead of a yell, my eyes glued to the animal that sits across from me, its tongue sweeping over its chops. I try not to imagine those enormous incisors pushing through my skin, tearing away chunks of meat that it’ll probably take back to its little den of wolves, where I’ll be shared like a Thanksgiving feast.
I swallow hard, and something dangling from its neck catches my eye. Squinting, I focus on the word carved into a small square of wood strapped around its throat.
“Yuma?”
The second I speak the word, the wolf dog sits back on its haunches, tongue lobbed off to the side in a sort of strange smile. The wag of its tail suggests the animal is happy?
“Is your name Yuma?”
The dog tips its head back and makes a strange noise in its throat. The sound makes me chuckle, easing my muscles.
“Are you friendly, or here because you’re starving?”
Another unusual sound in its throat, and the dog lurches forward a step, then barks, sending another jolt that flinches my muscles.
Pushing onto my knees, I reach out a cautious hand, imagining this thing tearing one of my fingers off. Its muzzle lifts to a snarl, and I hesitate, but it doesn’t actually growl, just makes a rumbly sort of sound.
I reach again. It snarls, but doesn’t growl, and my hand is shaking like a leaf, the closer I get to it. When my finger finally makes contact with its fur, it jerks slightly and snarls again, but doesn’t move. I brush my hand over its coarse fur, watching its lip descend back over those intimidating teeth.
It slides down onto its belly beside the fire, while I continue to stroke its fur.
“You’re awfully big to be someone’s pet.”
The dog’s eyes grow heavy like I’ve hit the right spot behind its ears.
“Where’s your master? Is he near here?”
Once again, the wolf dog’s tongue sweeps across those chops, and I wonder how hungry it would have to be to consider eating me. My thoughts drift back to Titus’s words, about there being enough food here to keep a lion from eating me. Within minutes, the dog collapses to its side, and it’s then I see what I suspect might’ve brought it to me. A rusted nail, perhaps from the rubble of the abandoned hive, sticks out of the pad of its foot.
Blood trickles from the wound, and when I take hold of the end of it, the dog whimpers, drawing its paw inward.
“I can remove it, if you’ll let me. But you have to promise me you won’t bite me in the process.”
The dog pants and whimpers again, lying still, as if offering permission.
Nervous, I rub my fingers together, keeping my eyes on the dog. At home, we had one, or two, stray dogs that I became familiar with. Got to know their personalities enough to recognize my boundaries. I know nothing of this dog. And the fact that it’s clearly not the average domestic variety makes it even more dangerous.
Setting one hand on its leg, I take hold of the nail’s head and swallow a gulp.
One, two …
One hard yank, and the dog yelps, the sound of it bouncing off the rock walls. The dog shoots upright, and I hold up the dislodged nail for him to see.
“No, no! Look! I got it! It’s out, okay? The nail is out!”
The dog licks its wounded paw, and I toss the nail into the flame.
A warm wet tongue against my hand startles me, and I jump back. With a smile, I pet the top of his head and scratch in that spot behind its ear again. “All better?”
The dog growls in response, and I kick away on a wave of fear.
It turns its attention away from me, toward the massive shadow coming over the rock.
Once in view, Titus skids to a halt and reaches for the knife at his side, slowly tugging it from his pants.
“No. Wait.” My voice hardly carries over the snarling, as Yuma jumps to his feet and backs himself alongside me, hackles sticking up. “This is Yuma. Someone’s pet.”
“And he’ll make a fine dinner.”
At that, I jump to my feet, taking the same defensive stance as the dog. “The hell he will!”
“That’s a wolf. Gets hungry enough, it’ll gladly take you as its dinner.”
“He was hurt. I helped him. Surely, there’s some wolfy code of honor.”
“There is no code of honor out here. In case you missed the bodies back at the abandoned camp.” Titus’s eyes dip to a frown, the knife still propped in his hand, ready to attack. It’s then I notice two rabbits dangling from his other hand.
The dog seems to take notice, too, as it sits back on its haunches and its tongue sweeps across its lips again
Sheathing his knife, Titus crosses the camp to the other side of the fire, where he gathers up two longer sticks of wood, which he rubs with a small bit of water from his canteen, and then lays the hunted animals on the ground in front of him. Knife in hand, he carves the tips of the sticks to sharp points and sets them aside. When he swipes up a rabbit, he holds it out in front of him and squeezes the animal’s ribcage down to its belly. A popping sound has me frowning, right before something drops from its butt onto the ground. Mouth gaping, I study the pile of bloody gore that appears to be its innards, and slapping the back of my hand to my lips is all I can do to keep from throwing up at the sight of it.
Titus tosses the pile away, offering some relief, and Yuma practically leaps in the same direction after the raw meat. Two quick twists snap away the head and tail. The tearing sounds that follow skate down the back of my neck, horror sweeping over me, as I watch Titus rip the skin away from the rabbit’s body, leaving glistening red flesh. He nabs a nearby fallen branch, bending it as if to test its strength, and stabs the end up through the animal before propping it over the fire.
What the unholy hell ...
Within sec
onds, he skins the second rabbit, following the same routine, and sets the hairless animal beside the first spit.
“Dear God,” I whisper, swallowing back the bile that climbs my throat.
“You’ve never eaten rabbit before?”
“I have. I just … never paid attention to how it’s prepared, is all. It looks very … wet.”
“Well, pay attention, and you might actually survive out here.”
Asshole. “Didn’t take you long to hunt those.” I pet Yuma who’s returned to my side, licking his chops, his eyes never wavering from the food.
“The land always provides.” After he’s turned the meat over on the stick a few times, the color shifts from a wet pink to a blackened char that’s a little less identifiable and more palatable. Titus passes me the rabbit first, and I tear away a large chunk, then break off a piece for Yuma, as well. “No. Hell no. I’m not giving up my dinner to some mongrel.”
“You don’t have to. It’s from my share.”
“You’d take less, to feed a begging mutt?”
“Yes. I would. You said it yourself, the land always provides.”
Yuma gobbles up the meat that I toss to him, while I nibble on the chunk I took. I have to admit, the food feels good in my stomach, settling the edge of hunger. Across from me, Titus tears away the meat from the spit with his teeth, and I realize, I’ve never watched someone eat so savagely in my life. He reminds me of an animal, himself, in some ways.
After finishing off both rabbits, we settle down by the fire, across from one another, while darkness falls around us. I rest my head on Yuma’s soft fur, and he turns to lick my face, undoubtedly grateful for the meal.
There’s nothing but the moon, the stars, and the crackle of the burning firewood. It’s the most peaceful I’ve felt in a long time.
“It’s not exactly the terrifying world we’re made to believe, is it?”
At the opposite side of the fire, Titus lies on his back, one arm propped beneath his head. “Some parts aren’t so bad. Some aren’t so good.”
“I feel very safe.”
“You should never get too comfortable in that feeling.”