Undaunted

by Kat Falls

  She nodded but said nothing as she watched the gold and amber flames dance. After a quick scan to see that no one was close by, I asked quietly, “How old is Neve?”

  Her amber gaze slid to me, gauging. “Near your age.”

  “I’m seventeen.”

  “Sounds about right.”

  “She, uh … seems younger.” That was about as diplomatic as I could put it.

  “She had gaps on her way to seventeen.”

  “Gaps?”

  “You’d be” — she pursed her lips with distaste — “different … if you lived a year on your own in the zone. A band of men, humans, raided Neve’s compound and took their supplies. Then they lined up the residents and shot them. Neve’s mother boosted her over the fence, before taking a bullet in the back. Neve was six.”

  “Oh.” Younger than any of the orphans had been when they’d lost their parents.

  “She didn’t talk for years after Chorda brought her to the castle. He treated her like a princess. He was always a power-hungry tyrant, but surprisingly, he loved her. He really did. But then he got infected. I was queen then.” She stared at the fire without blinking. “We all knew he was going feral — slowly — definitely sinking into that swamp a little more each day. But he wouldn’t even admit he was infected, and he had the men and the guns to make sure nobody pointed it out. Then he started disappearing for weeks at a time.”

  On his hunting trips looking for human hearts to devour.

  “Eventually he tired of me,” Deepnita continued, as if it had been no big deal. “And off I went, newly infected, to live in the cage with Charmaine, his first queen. That night, he forced Mahari down the aisle. Through all of it, Neve never said a word. I figured the words had been scared out of her forever. Then Chorda disappeared for a long time. Months. We thought he was dead. We hoped he was dead. But the day that Mahari planned to unlock our cage, Chorda came back. And he’d … changed. The disease had done its work. He’d become a monster with fangs and a tail. I was in the cage, but I saw it all. How the humans in the courtyard froze in horror. Mahari too. Only one person was happy to see him …”

  “Neve.”

  Deepnita nodded, her expression surprisingly vulnerable. She was the toughest lioness, which was saying a lot. The unflappable one. And yet, this memory clearly cut her to the core. “Neve threw herself into Chorda’s arms, and for the first time since he’d brought her to Chicago, she spoke.”

  I winced. “What did she say?”

  Deepnita tossed a stick into the fire. “Pretty tiger.”

  “He had her caged for that?!”

  “He had her infected and caged for that. Then he broke every mirror in the castle.”

  I touched the small lump in the sealed pocket on my thigh. Possessing one dose of the cure was beginning to feel more like a burden than a blessing. I was tempted to push the tube into Deepnita’s hands and ask her to choose who should get it. I could make a case for all of them: her, Neve, Aaron, and Rafe. But there were more tubes back in the lab. It wasn’t a matter of who got it, but when. And if Rafe was already feral …

  I clasped my hands in my lap and pushed the yellow tube and its promise to the back of my mind — at least for tonight. I didn’t have to decide anything tonight.

  The others joined us around the fire, though Everson kept one eye on Aaron. “We can take turns sleeping,” he said. “I’ll take first watch.”

  “Can you see in the dark?” Mahari asked with a scoff. “No? Then how will you see anything until it’s already attacked?”

  “Fine,” Everson said evenly. “I’ll stick close to the kid. He’s sleeping, but with the way his fever is hiking, he’ll be awake again soon.”

  The ground felt cold and wet, thanks to the dead grass and soggy leaves. The tarp and sleeping bag from the boat would have been a gift from the gods right now. But they’d been swept off downriver along with the boat. I zipped my jacket up to my chin and tugged my sleeves over my hands, but nothing kept out the cold. I envied the lionesses in their sleeping pile, even if technically Mahari wasn’t asleep. She still looked warmer than I felt with the other two using her thighs as pillows.

  I shifted onto my side, propping myself onto an elbow and then lying back. I wanted a blanket. And a pillow. Or better yet, my whole bed. No, my room. And a Skype session with Anna.

  Everson took a seat between the fire and Aaron to clean his rifle. I was determined to do the same — dig the handgun out of my backpack and clear the river water out of it. But watching his fingers slide over the polished steel as he examined each component was enough to send me off to dreamland, despite the cold, despite our surroundings.

  I jerked awake hours later with the pressing sense that one of the orphans needed me. An orphan was rustling around, struggling to kick his blanket aside. I lifted my chin from my … crossed arms? Where was my pillow?

  Several yards away, Neve sat propped against a boulder, softly snoring. Within two blinks, my brain rebooted. The dunk in the river. Charmaine! The woods. Mahari waking Neve to take her turn on watch.

  Again, someone flailed under his blanket. But no, we didn’t have blankets. I rolled onto my side. Beyond the glowing embers of the campfire, Aaron squirmed against his bindings as he slid closer to the trees. Wait, slid? I sat up.

  Aaron wasn’t sliding! He was being dragged by a hunched figure of a man who had him by the boots. A hunched figure that was now within steps of the tree line. I scrambled up, a scream trapped in my throat. The intruder glanced up. I caught only a flash of unkempt hair falling across a dirty face before he threw aside Aaron’s feet.

  It was Rafe. The nightmare version of him. The version I’d prayed I’d never see.

  Poised at the edge of the clearing, Rafe stared back at me, looking angry and wild in the faint light of the dying campfire. His once-blue shirt was muddied and rife with small tears. Dark as it was, I could still tell that he’d put on muscle, and I could’ve sworn his canines were longer.

  My heart exploded in a thunderous pounding, and blood rushed to my ears. I opened my mouth to say something. Anything that would bring him back to himself. Turn him rational. But then his nose twitched, and he inhaled deeply. His glare turned ferocious, and his eyes … It had to be a reflection of the firelight. Had to be. But whatever the cause, his eyes were now lit with a golden sheen. Just like … Chorda’s eyes.

  I flinched, and my fingertips started tingling. I braced myself for the numbness that always followed. Always at the worst time! On the ground, Aaron echoed my flinch with a full-body buck, which caught Rafe’s attention. His expression turned stark as he stepped over Aaron’s thrashing legs and straddled him. The world slowed as I watched him drop onto the boy, and then everything stopped like a frozen slice of nightmare when Rafe raised a clawed hand high …

  My scream tore free of my throat just as his claws slashed downward — across Aaron’s face.

  Mahari appeared next to me as if out of nowhere.

  “Now do you believe us?” she hissed.

  I nodded, unable to speak. And then Everson was there too, sliding his rifle into my hands.

  Both of them existed only in my peripheral vision, because I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Rafe, who was still crouched over Aaron’s body and looking through his tangled hair at me.

  You promised.

  I raised the rifle and aimed it at him, felt for the trigger with my numb finger, gasping with the effort not to start sobbing. How could I forget what I’d promised with him reminding me every night in my dreams?

  And then I did exactly what Deepnita had warned against — I hesitated. I couldn’t make my finger squeeze the trigger. Something wasn’t right. And it wasn’t just the idea of killing a person — Rafe — in cold blood. The seconds stretched out until they felt like minutes, hours. And still he stood there looking at me as if he wanted me to shoot him. What feral would do that?

  Then his expression turned savage, and he let loose a low snarl before pivoting and tearing
off through the trees.

  “Go!” Everson shouted at the lionesses. His voice startled me, pulling me from my trance.

  “Find him and pin him down,” Everson told them. “I’ll take his blood.”

  On Mahari’s signal, she and Deepnita and Neve fanned out and slipped into the woods with only the faintest snapping and crunching of underbrush.

  Everson turned to me. “Lane —”

  “Sorry,” I said, holding the rifle out to him. I was grateful that he and the lionesses had given me a chance to keep my promise. “I couldn’t do it.”

  “It’s okay.” He took the rifle and slung it across his back.

  I unzipped my pocket and pulled out the metal cylinder — the blood-collecting device. I tossed it to Everson, who snagged it out of the air. He lit out after the lionesses while I dug in my backpack until I found the gun I’d taken off the guard on the riverbank. I didn’t know how to clean it without Everson’s help. Would it work if I needed it? Just holding it sent my heart into a gallop. If Rafe — Wraith — came back now … I didn’t know what I’d do.

  You promised.

  So what?! He’d forced me into that promise. Hadn’t given me a choice. But how could I leave him like this? Living like the monsters he used to hunt? I didn’t want to think about it right now. I didn’t have to decide anything if Rafe didn’t come back. For now, I would stay here with Aaron —

  Aaron!

  I scanned the area, but he wasn’t in sight. I rushed to the spot where Rafe had dumped him but found only a torn strip of bandage — a remnant of the ties that had bound him. Fevered out of his mind and smelling of blood, Aaron was now wandering around in the woods at night. No way would that end well. I sank onto the nearest rock to let my heart slow … or break. Whatever.

  Everson stepped from between the trees minutes later or maybe hours, who knew? Time wasn’t working right in my head. I kept getting caught in a golden gaze, unable to move, unable to scream. Frozen like a bug in amber — all while you promised, you promised, you promised pounded in my head like a dialed-up bass beat.

  “They lost him,” Everson announced. “They’re going to — what’s wrong?”

  “Aaron’s gone,” I said, suddenly feeling cold to the bone. The frigid air prickled the damp skin along my forehead and down the back of my neck.

  Everson did the same sweep of our campsite I’d done, looking just as upset as I felt.

  “We’ll never find him in the dark,” he said after checking behind every boulder. “We’ll stay here and wait for the others.” He scanned the tree line, cylinder in one fist, rifle at the ready. “If we’re lucky, Rafe’ll come back.”

  I nodded while fervently hoping that we wouldn’t be that lucky.

  As agreed, Everson kept watch for two hours while I slept, and then we traded places. I got the better deal. Thirty minutes later, dawn lit up the horizon and the sky faded to a deep blue-lavender. But I let him sleep on. Why not? The lionesses hadn’t returned. Were they still searching for Rafe? No doubt. They wanted the cure. They’d scour the entire Feral Zone for him if they had to. And if they never came back? Everson and I would be okay. We’d make it back to the base somehow … but without a sample of Rafe’s blood. And without keeping my promise to him.

  As the sun rose, I munched on half a protein bar while staring in awe at the trees lining the clearing. Against the dull brown of rock outcroppings, the frost-encrusted trees shimmered like ghosts. It was then I realized that I was shivering. I rubbed down my limbs to wake up my nerve endings and then rose to twist out the kinks in my spine, only to gasp at the black spiral of smoke rising just beyond the distant cliff edge.

  “Wake up,” I whispered, hand outstretched, but Everson was on his feet without another word from me, let alone a shake. I pointed to the smoke, and he frowned. We quickly picked up what little gear we had. I handed him the other half of the protein bar as we made our way through the upheavals of rock to the edge of a sandstone cliff.

  Kneeling, I peered into the densely wooded canyon below. At the base of the cliff, a crowd of people stood huddled in a semicircle around a dying bonfire. They were all wearing long-sleeved thermal shirts and cargo pants in various earth tones, even the children.

  Everson crouched beside me. “It’s a pyre,” he whispered. “They’re burning a body.”

  The fire collapsed in on itself, shooting sparks skyward. I jerked back, though I was high enough that they wouldn’t reach me. As I leaned over the edge again, the people began to sing. It sounded like a church hymn but not one that I knew. The lyrics expressed grief over the “lost one” and wished him a safe journey on his way to a better place. The chorus repeatedly urged the lost one not to mourn or worry about his family and friends but to move on without looking back, knowing that his memory would be cherished.

  Everson kept his voice low as he said, “They’re wearing woodland camo. Pre-exodus. Same as Aaron’s.”

  They’d blend in with the environment even better come summer. Now the trees were just starting to bud, and green spikes poked through the dead prairie grass. It was a good setup for a compound. Much better than Moline’s with the surrounding cliffs, which were close to vertical in places. Here and there, cascades of water spilled over the cliffs’ edges, creating tiered waterfalls. They fed into a seething ribbon of water that bisected the valley.

  There were also plenty of signs of human habitation. First, the clearing, scored with long, dark furrows — ready for planting — and then the sprawling building beyond that had once been a large rustic-chic hotel with a wraparound porch and stone chimneys. Bathed in the golden light of dawn, the lodge retained its pre-exodus charm. But that didn’t go for the fence that encircled the whole property. I’d never seen such an ugly fence, though it was probably effective. A hodgepodge of corrugated metal sheets had been lashed onto the chain-link, two layers worth at least. And even from the top of the bluff, there was no missing the message spray painted over and over along the fence: “Heartland Lodge. No Infected!” Over the open gate hung a modified American flag — missing about half its fifty stars. Not because the flag was tattered. There wasn’t a crease in it or a frayed hem. Those rows of stars had been removed on purpose. Maybe to commemorate the twenty-six states lost to the Ferae plague?

  Everson touched my arm, and I followed his nod. If I hadn’t known to look for them, I wouldn’t have noticed the wooden perches in the tall pines within the fence. The lionesses hadn’t been lying. The snipers could shoot a person before he even got anywhere near the gate.

  A few of the remaining people raked the dry grass away from the fire, widening the circle of bare earth. A woman stood among them, dry-eyed and talking to no one, just standing as straight and hard as a marble column. The widow? The mother … Oh. Oh no.

  I caught Everson’s sleeve. “Could that be Aaron?”

  “I was thinking that too,” he said grimly.

  The woman never took her eyes off the smoldering pyre. Never acknowledged the others in any way. Her steely grief was almost more than I could bear. I tore my gaze from her to the open gate and then to the hunters who solemnly stood by, guns slung across their chests. The hunters peeled off from the mourners and headed down a trail that led away from the compound.

  “They could be going after Rafe — Wraith,” I whispered.

  “Maybe. Or maybe they’re hunting for dinner.”

  “We should follow them. We can’t just sit here and hope Mahari and the others come back. The hunters know these woods better than we do, and if they’re looking for Rafe, maybe they’ll find him.”

  He glanced back to our campsite from the night before. Still no sign of the lionesses. “Okay,” he relented. “We’ll follow them. But if they find Rafe, we hang back.”

  I frowned. “Hang back?”

  “If they’re going after Rafe, it’s to kill him — so let them do the job for you. I can take blood from a corpse if it’s still warm.”

  “It? You’re talking about Rafe,” I hiss
ed. “And he might not even be feral.”

  “You believe that? Even after seeing him last night?”

  “He looked at me. He looked at me like he knew me. And he wasn’t drooling. And he wasn’t trying to bite anyone. Maybe he’s feral … But maybe he’s not. I want to be sure.”

  If you hear about a grupped-up tiger gone feral, promise you’ll hire a hunter to put me down. Those were Rafe’s words. But had he gone feral, or was he just a manimal with a death wish? He’d always held them in contempt … manimals. So now that he was one, did he hate himself? Until I knew for sure, there was no promise to keep.

  “If you really think there’s a chance he’ll talk to you,” he said, sounding skeptical, “then you should hang on to this.” He handed the metal collection vial back to me, and I put it in the Velcro pocket in my cargo pants with the cure. “He’s more likely to let you take the sample.”

  He looked toward the compound again. “There’s a trail down to the valley — cut into the cliff. Problem is, we’ll be exposed on the way down.”

  My brows lifted. “How do you know there’s a trail?”

  He kept his eyes on the pyre below. “Mahari showed me last night.”

  “You snuck off with Mahari while I was asleep?” I got to my feet.

  “I wouldn’t put it like that.” He motioned me back from the cliff edge. “You’re in their sight line.”

  “Yeah,” a voice said from behind us, accompanied by the sound of a shotgun being pumped. “You sure are.”

  Everson and I whirled as three men stepped from behind a rocky outcropping, guns pointed at us.

  “Keep your hands out,” one of the hunters ordered — a big redheaded man with a thick neck and beefy fingers, one of which he used to point at me. “I’m talking to you, girl.”

  They weren’t particularly scary once I looked past their woodsy camo and weapons, but I still felt like I couldn’t catch my breath.